La Alameda / Alfredo Arreguin

Looking forward to an upcoming exhibition at the Whatcom Museum. Included in the exhibition will be the above painting by one of my favorite artists, Alfredo Arreguin.

Gratitude on a foggy morning after a day when things didn't go as planned

With gratitude to Barbara Earl Thomas and Marita Dingus for their powerful healing work.

Yesterday, my old friend, Linda, and I got up early.  I picked her up at 6:30 a.m. and we set out to drive 1-1/2 hours south of Bellingham to catch a 1/2-hour ferry that would take us to Port Townsend.  From Port Townsend, we would be driving mostly on backroads and through farmland, crossing two bridges and then arriving on Bainbridge Island at around 10:30 in the morning.  We planned to visit our respective friends (my 95-year-old friend and Linda's friend and her friend's husband who was recovering from a serious stroke) and then meet up again to go to the Bainbridge Museum of Art to see the works of Barbara Earl Thomas and Marita Dingus.

What happened, though, was that while engaged in lively conversation with Linda, I missed the turn to the ferry.  About 20 minutes later, I realized what had happened.  We still had time to get to the ferry, but I became inexplicably disoriented and missed the turn again, backtracking about 20 minutes and effectively missing the ferry. At this point, I noticed that my car was nearly out of gas.  We arrived back in the town of Oak Harbor just in time to avoid completely running out of gas and pulled into a gas station.  Things continued to go awry.  I was baffled to find that I couldn't make the gas pump work and went to ask the clerk what was wrong.  She assured me that she would do whatever it took to make the pump work and pushed a few buttons.  When I went back to  my car, the pump still didn't work.  A man appeared, and I asked him for help, thinking I was still doing something wrong and that he would know what to do. He couldn't make it work either and went to talk with the clerk.  Two other kind people came forward to help. Although I had been feeling bewildered and confused, I began to calm down and feel grateful for human kindness.

Because of my earlier inattention, the day wasn't going to go as planned, other people who were waiting for use to arrive on Bainbridge Island would be affected, and I felt dismayed and remorseful.  Linda's cell phone was not working.  I had not brought mine and had neglected to bring my friend's phone number.  My friend, Linda, said kindly, "Maybe there is some reason for this not going as planned.  Maybe you need to forgive yourself."

Of course, she was right.

With the revised plan, Linda made the decision to forego her visit to the art museum and instead spend time with her friends.  We arrived at my 95-year-old friend's place just as she was leaving to go with her daughter to a farewell gathering for a friend, just in time for Linda to call from Rae's phone to let her friends, Louise and Walter, know where to pick her up.  So many things didn't go as planned, and everything worked out just fine.  I walked from Rae's place to the Bainbridge Island Museum of Art and reveled in the art work of Barbara Earl Thomas, Marita Dingus, and Alfredo Arreguin (I was delighted to find three of his paintings on display).

As I finish writing this, the fog has lifted and it's another beautiful sunny day in the Pacific Northwest.  I was able to take a short walk into Whatcom Falls Park and saw a Virginia Rail in the cattails at Scudder Pond after being alerted to its presence by its distinctive squeaky voice. Time to begin my day's work as a medical transcription editor.

So happy just to be alive.

The Lost Horse Story and the Clock With No Hands

Yesterday, after waking up with a bad cold that just won't go away and is preventing me from volunteering with the babies at the daycare, I called and was surprised to be able to make an immediate appointment to see a nurse practitioner at the low-income clinic where I receive my medical care. After twenty minutes of driving through slow morning traffic, I arrived at the clinic. Some remodeling is being done there, and the large painting of Caesar Chavez by Alfredo Arreguin that is like a healing icon for me was no longer in its usual place in the busy waiting room.  I asked about the painting and was assured by one of the bilingual receptionists that it would be returned to the office after the remodel.

Soon, one of the many kind and compassionate medical assistants who work in this clinic called my name and accompanied me to an examination room where she asked questions, listened to the story of my lingering cold, weighed me and then took my temperature and blood pressure.  While she was entering information into a laptop on the counter, I suddenly became aware of the words "the lost horse" on the narrow spine of a book that was mixed in with a stack of magazines next to where I was sitting.  Reaching up, I fished for the book and found it to be what I had guessed it might be -- a children's book:

What I hadn't counted on was that it was by Ed Young, a children's book writer I am familiar with for his book titled Voices of the Heart:

The medical assistant, having completed her duties, let me know that the nurse practitioner would be by shortly.  She left the room, closing the door.

Already familiar with the Chinese folk tale which begins with the loss of a horse, I quickly read the story (take a look inside the book for a glimpse of the story, if you'd like) which does not contain the traditional Chinese moral that a loss may turn out to be a gain and a gain may turn out to be a loss.  Instead, it shows a young man and his father continuing to be open and conscious of the changing nature of life.

A few minutes later, the nurse practitioner knocked on the door and came in to ask more questions and examine me. To my great relief, she didn't automatically prescribe antibiotics, and she said that chances were pretty good that my cold would go away on its own.

On my way home I stopped at the Community Food Co-op to buy some food and continued on home to take a look at Vania Heymann's video "Like a Rolling Stone" which I hadn't been able to access earlier that morning because of internet slowness.  As with some of my many experiences with Bob Dylan's creative offerings over the years, my first impression was bewilderment.  I felt annoyed and couldn't roll along with it at all, but then there was that decisive moment of shifting consciousness where I suddenly remembered "TV Talkin' Song," followed up on that thought, and then returned to play with the interactive video with its many "channels." My favorite channel so far is the one with rapper Danny Brown.  I'd never heard of him before.  Because I don't watch TV, I don't have a clue as to the identities of most of the people who lip-sync "Like A Rolling Stone." It turns out that channels will continue to be added, and it appears that a channel was added not long before the video was released.  It contained recent devastating world news items in a surreal and unsettling way.

On the other hand, although I don't watch TV, I'm sitting in front of a computer screen for much longer periods of time than I ever sat in front of a television and for years I was paid to sit in front of a computer screen for a good part of my day.  Can I really say that I am not attached to something even more compelling than TV ever was?  Who am I fooling?

While playing with the channels on the video, a memory came to me from the early 1970s. I can recall walking from the outdoors into someone's living room and hearing Bob Dylan's voice coming from a record player and completely filling the smoke-filled air.  There was a TV turned on for all to see, but the sound was turned off. Bob Dylan's music was the soundtrack for whatever was on TV, some of it inane, some of it devastating.

This morning I came across these anonymous words:

"You never let me forget that this is a life-or-death situation, but paradoxically, you showed me how to laugh and have fun."

Just now I remembered another lost horse story.  Odd how creativity and illness are intertwined for me.

Time heals, after all -- although the clock that marks that kind of time has no hands.
(Suze Rotolo, from A Freewheelin' Time:  A Memoir of Greenwich Village in the Sixties)

"... that moment of illumination ..."

Imagine if all the tumult of the body were to quiet down, along with our busy thoughts. Imagine if all things that are perishable grew still. And imagine if that moment were to go on and on, leaving behind all other sights and sounds but this one vision which ravishes and absorbs and fixes the beholder in joy, so that the rest of eternal life were like that moment of illumination which leaves us breathless.
 -- Saint Augustine

The original of the colorful painting below ("Sal Si Puedes") from 1993 by Alfredo Arreguin of Seattle, Washington, with its rendering of Cesar Chavez, the United Farmworker's Eagle, and the Virgin of Guadalupe among other images associated with Cesar Chavez, hangs on the wall of the waiting area of the place where I receive my medical care because I am do not qualify for affordable medical insurance.  I am moved to the core every time I see it.  I think of it often:

A few weeks ago I asked the young man working at the reception desk how he would translate "Sal Si Puedes."  He paused and then said, "Come out if you like."  Interesting that another translation is "Escape if you can." The image above only gives a very rough approximation of the power of this painting.  The painting is about 3 x 3-1/4 feet in size, and the colors are deep and rich and evocative and healing.

"I dreamed I saw St. Augustine"

Cesar Chavez, Coretta Scott King, Dorothy Day: