DORMANT FACTORY

My studio has become like a dormant factory - once in full use but now lying fallow with this sole worker incapacitated. The only planned work to be done is sorting 50 years of accumulations. So many tools and materials piled up waiting to be used and processed into works of art, but no longer is there an impulse to make things.

I need a lot of extra help these days and rarely go out. There is always something needing doing I can no longer do for myself - vacuuming and cleaning the apartment, dishes washed, trash to take down, bed to make, clothes to launder and put away, food to buy or prepare, mail and packages to attend to, besides getting clean and dressed.

Anxiety about getting from day to day has supplanted all other aspects of being. There is a constant reminder in my face of what I can no longer easily do for myself and a tragic loss of purpose in what little I can still create.

I am prevented from participation in saving the nation because I seem no longer able to save myself. Self-empowerment is a long distance jump shot. I manage to escape at night when all is quiet and I can dive into crossword puzzles or movies, covering up my reality with fiction and creative language engagement. But then another day welcomes me to the shit-show and I resist, exhibiting a plethora of limiting symptoms. 

A vague memory of the recent past reminds me I have managed to face grim reality with effort and focus and a belief in my own resources, found coping skills to ameliorate debilitating failure.

But this present time belies all that and I lash out, scream, cry and generally spew out a plethora of neutered resistance, ranting and raving against the impossibilities of living, fight with landlords, phone bots and customer relations agents to get basic broken services restored. In the past month the front door system to let people in was out for 2 weeks, there was no mail delivery for 3 weeks, the gas was off for a week, the hot water off for another week, and last summer there was a failed attempt to replace my broken winter heater. A new one was finally installed. One by one things get taken care of, but I have been whirling in a constant eddy of turmoil for way too long.

Patience and resilience have been eroded. Just making it through another winter seems a daunting prospect.

Like the disgusting political situation, change will come, but there is no way of knowing what that change may bring. Sad to say, having spent most of my life in an attempt to understand and reveal the human condition, which is, after all, what an artist does, I have lost interest in the subject. This human experiment has largely failed the planet and as dark forces seem to be gaining ascendency, there is little enough happening in this world (within the limits of my function) compelling me to act, so I simply endure, semi-buried in a dormant factory.

I still find great pleasure in arranging flowers. An aide goes to Trader Joe’s, calls me on What’s App and remotely shows me what flowers are on offer. Then they bring them home and I arrange them. Below are the latest results.

In ways like this I cope, moment to moment, as well as possible, and wish all of you an easier time of it.