Art: Power and Escape

I don’t like the white lines on my large office window. They are particularly ugly when the sun hits them, but the Audubon website says this is the thing to do, and I do not want to be responsible for any more bird deaths at Pinecone Park. Each one breaks my heart. They are such beautiful, innocent little wonders.

I had considered using wood moulding to break the large window into smaller ones, but it was going to be massively expensive because I’d have to commission it. I have hung curtains of plastic strips over the studio windows, because I don’t do anything in there.

Doing that window was my big accomplishment of the day. Her Highness and I have a routine now, a short morning walk in the 707, and Elder Cedar in the afternoon. Her presence, her behavioural habits, everything means more to me now. Longevity is not going to be the story with my soul mate.

I’m not going to water today as it’s supposed to rain tomorrow. I’m reading more as my watering duties wane, and sometimes H.H. and I walk three times to fill our days. I’m reading John of John. Douglas Stuart is a favourite. His protagonists are gay, and I think that’s part of why I like Mr. Stuart’s writing.

But what I love, what makes me want to re-read again after a few years pass, are the characters and their world. The novel is set on Harris Island, off the coast of Scotland. All his novels involve people who are struggling. I recently told someone that I was reading John of John and added that it was by the guy who wrote Shuggie Bain. She said she hated Shuggie Bain because it was too crude and bleak. 

Yea, it is bleak. But it’s just a story. I hate war, but art about war can be illuminating. It’s the art that holds your soul while your brain absorbs the message. When I was in Chicago, I saw a room with several old oil drums clustered in an otherwise empty room, and the room was dark.

I went in and saw that all the tins were full of water with a thin skin of oil on top, and when I got right up close, I could see words, backwards, on the surface. It made me look up, and that’s where I read about a foreign vessel that dumped waste oil drums full of toxic chemicals that leached into the water supple of local people and animals. This happened in Africa. It was one of the most moving art pieces I’ve ever seen. The story sickened me; no one was taking responsibility. But the form of expression thrilled me. Catching my eye in oil on water to teach me a story, in so seductive a manner, that needed to be known, has stayed with me as a favourite art piece.

Back to Douglas Stuart. When I open a book, I am giving the author access to my imagination, heart, and soul. I’m wide open for anything, if the story is well told. 

This is NOT bullshit: I picked up a novel by a Scottish writer, but I can’t remember his name, who wrote in a brogue so thick, I could hardly read it. I really struggled. But something held me, regardless of my difficulty with the language, so I ploughed on. I read the entire novel. Not long after I finished the novel, I ran into someone and we got to talking. And after I told her something, she asked me if I’d been to Scotland.

I didn’t do it intentionally, and that’s my point. I got deeply drawn into that book. That’s what I love about books and good writers. I’m drawn in from the get-go, and then I never want it to end. It’s a place to go every day, when I read. And I think that’s why I can’t read two books at once.

I want to have one world to escape to at a time. And although, yes, Shuggie Bain was hardcore reading, it’s an incredible group of people 

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It was cold in the house this morning. I rushed to light the fire and make the house comfortable for the day. My daily chore has changed from watering the garden beds to lighting a fire. It may rain tonight and tomorrow. I shall continue putting white lines on the suicide windows, and I’ll read and we’ll walk. Nothing changes.