Brick Shelf
In my basement
there is a shelf against the north wall. It is constructed of cinder blocks and
wood planks. This shelf has been in my last four residences. It has moved with
me every time I have moved, and was at one point much larger. I store my art
supplies on this shelf and even a good amount of books, before it was paired
down. There are various paints, usually primary colors, charcoal pencils, paint
brushes, pastels, both oil and chalk, paper, pens, pencils and one unintentional
artist book. (I will get to that later) Lately when I go down to the basement I
don't even think about this shelf. I should.
This shelf is
filled with reminders, and almost all of them lead back to my divorce with
painting. Maybe it's just a trial separation, but we have not been
talking lately. So I have been avoiding this shelf for some time. It's as
though we are awkward friends who have had a falling out, but we
still run into each other every once in a while. You have to try and think of
something to say, but it never feels right, so you find yourself avoiding that
place. Then you feel guilty about avoiding. Today I do not feel this way.
Basements love covering your memories with dust and dirt. The wood
of my favorite brushes is warm when I hold them, even though it is always cold
down here. When I finger the charcoal pencils I am reminded of my favorite
medium: Black, white and all the wonderful shades of grey, always so beautiful
to me.
Painting
stairs
I.
These stairs are dangerous. They lead into the
basement of our home, and I never quite get used to how dangerous they really
are. Our house is so old. On the real estate listing it just said 120 + years
for the age of the house. Somehow, this made it more appealing to me. Whoever
had bought the house before us had tried, with mild success, to remodel. I
gather they had wanted to flip the house, but had to give in and sell it for a
loss. I say this because the basement looks like they had started but never finished
reworking it. Walls are unfinished and the stairs are one heavy foot fall short of collapse.
When we first moved in, my father in law
had put in a railing so the stairs were slightly less dangerous. We still do
not let Olive or Ronin go down there, well, never Olive anyway. The basement is
what we keep hidden in the basement. We rarely bring anyone down there. If
someone ends up in our little pit of despair then they are usually drunk or in
the process. This is ironic as no person, let alone one intoxicated, should
traverse those rickety bones. And somehow they are my bones.
Whenever I go into the basement I am going
into my psyche. Flashes of my life events become basement lights. They are
turned on so I can change the laundry. The floor is unfinished; covered with
dust and dirt.
It
floods every time it rains and we keep our distance till the memory subsides.
Here it is always cold.
II.
I feel some shame for keeping my paintings all
wrapped up in this dungeon. They are bound together and set aside. Huddled like
the masses, waiting to be wanted. There was a time I felt an intense love for
them. Now they are the prisoner of my basement. Erin only loves some of them.
The paintings know it, so they understand why they are in the basement. It is
not fair to Erin that I speak this way.
Ego was hung up on every wall of every one of my
previous homes. I was sure my work was breaking the mold, changing the game and
unflinching in mastery. How could I have not known how foolish I was? I still
love these painting. From time to time I will go to the dungeon and feed them
with attention. My little hunchback babies, chained to this dank remembrance.
Hidden away.
Erin doesn't actually dislike my work. I think I am
the one who really does. Maybe I just wanted more people to think they were
wonderful. Some people did, but they were usually high. Erin keeps me grounded.
I still have a painting hung up in my dining room. It is not my favorite.
Drivers
License
I.
On my basement
shelf as I am rummaging through my art supplies, I come across an old
id and two drivers licenses. At first I am not sure why I have these. Then
I am reminded that at one point I had the intention to catalog my aging. What
an odd thing to do.
The most striking of the three is the first drivers license. This is not
due to the image of a clearly handsome man, but do to the date of issue. I did
not get my drivers license until I was twenty two. While in high school I liked
to drink, a lot. This was among several of my other extracurricular activities.
Being young and enjoying the drink often leads to the law telling you that you are
not allowed to enjoy the drink. I got several underage drinking fines. The
total was somewhere around $1200.
It is interesting, how you cannot truly notice the passage of time until
after it has passed. Had I understood how much these fines would affect my
later life, I might have been more cautious in my drinking. And yet I can also
be quite certain I still would have not given a shit. It was hard for me to
care about anything but my own immediate gratification then.
When Serena
first had Ronin we moved into a nice duplex and tried the whole family thing.
It was such a nice place. I got a new job, and things began to
look up as they often do. Soon after, the calls began. Money was owed from my
transgressions. Willfully I had chosen to ignore these calls from collectors,
so they did what they do. My wages were garnished. I remember Serena showing up
to my work crying about how much money was being taken from us. We wanted to
hate everyone but we knew it was my fault.
Things became very
hard for us for a long time. Eventually we were broken just before the debt was
paid. I can now say that this was when I knew I had a divorce in my future. Is
this why I kept these drivers licenses, to be reminded? I still have them.
Hindsight is a cruel thing. Money is worse.
Oz Cup
When you work in
a call center for a cable company you are often inundated with useless
trinkets. They hand you shiny bobbles and posters, and little puzzles with
famous people on them. All of it is essentially garbage. I have
however kept a few mementos. One of them is a tin cup with a logo for the
former HBO show Oz. It is approximately four inches tall and has a
diameter of about three inches. I use it to store all of my useless pens
and highlighters, as well as my charcoal and regular pencils.
I separated from Serena and later on met Erin while working in this call
center. It is interesting how much change can be linked to one location. My
life changed for the better in getting the job, for the worse when Serena left
me and then when I met Erin, well what can I say? We are still
married. This was all over the course of three years which feels like
both a short, and long time.
When
I first met Erin she was outside smoking as I walked into the call center.
She was chatting it up with one of my local female ambivalent acquaintances. As
I came upon them I mentioned to her that I liked her scarf, Erin that
is, and she thanked me as I beeped myself into the security door.
Intermission
I am struck by
the number of highlighters I have. I laugh at the fact that most do not even
work, due to use, and I have not thrown them away. It must be because I once
turned a college notebook into an artist book, with the highlighter as my main
tool, and several blue/black office pens as my secondary tools. Working in a
call center in my mid twenties lead to more than one of these little books. I
only kept one. Sometimes I will flip through it, but it usually makes me feel
old.
The last time I paid any real attention to my art supplies was almost a
year ago. I was commissioned by a friend to paint a picture for
auction at the opening of a play at The Alchemist Theater. It had gotten
one bid that turned out to be false. It was apparently submitted by a man who
later had a nervous breakdown and was removed from the theater.
I never picked
up the painting from the theater and they actually have several of my pieces.
One hangs in the main lobby/bar. It is of my ex. It used to hang in my
apartment until I realized how much I loved Erin, and it needed to go. It has
been some time since I have been to the Alchemist, so it may not be displayed
anymore. If you see it you will know it by the woman floating out to sea on a
red couch. Just like my ex she is always out of reach. I knew then, when I
painted it.
Oz Cup (more)
Now looking at this simple tin cup I am inundated with so much memory about
Erin and our courtship. We had both come out tumultuous relationships, and were
not ready for the love we both felt so immediately. Even up to the point after
we had moved in together, we refused to admit we were a couple. Then I asked her
to marry me, this was almost a year and a half before I actually proposed to
her.
Now I look at
this tin cup and it is a bit dusty, but still very functional. I wipe off the
dust and it looks new. It shines. I should bring it upstairs and use
it again.
