April 29, 2003
Abstract
When your mother leaves town I always do abstract paintings -- you don’t have to think with them, you can just move.
It’s like there’s a part of your brain that turns off, and you can’t focus well enough to speak plainly.
It’s not even really a matter of speaking plainly. You are tired without needing to sleep. It is like a waking dream. Or being awake when you are dreaming – you can’t touch your ear when you dream, you know? Try it.
They call that lucid dreaming.
Nonsense. Lucid. You can’t do it. If you can do it then you are dreaming it, the dream is letting you do it.
It’s like this conversation between you and I. It is based on a conversation we had two nights ago when I called to say hello and you said you had sold an abstract painting.
It’s not funny and it’s not clear, which means it is pretentious.
But you sold one.
It was a surprise. I always feel like we are cheating someone when I sell one. Might as well just give them the canvas and the oil and the brushes for all the work that went into it.
And on the phone we were laughing because you always do an abstract painting when she leaves town because you are depressed.
Yes, we said that. Not this, but that.
What is it then?
Are you asking me?
Whoever.
It’s that old-timey inchoate feeling. It’s pure but also lonely. Which is why it is impossible to get work done in such a state – you get stuck in the belly of it. It is the reason that chess is fun but go is terrifying. There are wierd things there. Old things. Crawling things.
Some people do good work there, but not me. Best to let it pass.
What do you do?
There are ways. For example: when you are painting, three birds is a good sign. One bird is lonesome, two is exclusive, four is too many to notice. Three, for some reason, is the proper number of birds.
That’s like a spell. You’re supposed to repeat things three times, or turn in three circles.
I don’t know if it is repetition or the discernment of patterns or patience, but you always outlast it. That’s why it is manageable. Just fight your way through the crap. And sometimes you manage to sell the painting to boot.
Then you can take the old lady out to dinner when she comes home.
When she comes home, when she comes home, when she comes home.
