Steven Bridenbaugh's Open Salon Blog

Maya

Fri, 10 May 2013 17:05:07 -0400

Mexican tile, artwork in author's possession

I. The Wall.

A boy played in the woods. Intently he kicked a homemade ball with his heels, keeping it aloft. It was a good ball, carefully woven from vines that he had peeled, and dried into a tight, light sphere. He used other parts of his body: his knees, his head. He kicked the ball high, and a gust of wind caught it, taking it into a mass of ferns and vines, where it disappeared. He searched for the ball, reaching into the dense vegetation. There was a hard wall inside. Feeling a smooth object, he grasped it, and dislodged it from beneath the layers of branches.

He was amazed at the beauty of the thing he had found. It was deep blue, with carvings on the handle, and once sharp at the other end: a knife. Forgetting his ball, he wrapped it up in a large leaf, and tied it shut with fibers from a vine. He went home right away, not far away. He wanted to share his discovery with his brothers and sisters, and he wanted his parents to help him understand what it was.

When his father saw the object, his father's face grew very grave. "This is a sacred thing, it belongs to the gods. You must take it back to its hiding place", he told his son. "Why can't we keep it?" the boy asked. "We could keep it in the house, where no one would see it but our family."

"If we do that, the gods will come to take it back. Then we will all be destroyed," the man said, without emotion.

The boy received his father's words without question, and left the house with the object: no longer his prize, but now something dreadful and dangerous that he must unfortunately transport. He walked across the road that led to a nearby town, and hurried towards the wall where he had found the knife.

A soldier walking down the road at the same time saw the boy walking very quickly and crossing the road apart from any path, carrying a bundle in his hand. Becoming curious, he asked, "Where are you going so quickly, boy? What is that, in the leaf? Show me," he demanded. He held the boy by the arm, and took the bundle.

He opened it, and saw the knife. "This can't be your knife -- it belongs to the governor. You'd better give it to me, or they might shoot you." The boy was crying, and the soldier gave him some chewing gum. He stopped crying, and seemed calm. "Where did you find it?" the soldier asked. "Somebody dropped it on the road. I found it yesterday." The soldier didn't ask any more questions, and he walked away with his heist.

When the soldier was out of sight, he spat out the gum, and ran home. He wasn't afraid of his father's anger. Unlike another child's parents, his father and mother never lost their tempers and hit their children. His father was even more concerned than before. He said that he would have to go into town to get the knife back. Then the family all had their evening meal, and then went to bed, without any conversation.

The man arose very early in the morning. He left the house quietly, not wanting to wake anyone. The sky was still very dark, and the morning stars glowed hotly. He made his way across the road, and headed towards the forest where the boy had played the day before. When he reached the wall of vines, he stopped and sat down. He reached into his bag, and found a bundle carefully wrapped in cloth. Inside was a knife, similar to the one the boy had discovered. It was knife that he had made himself, with an edge as sharp as a razor. Taking out the knife, he stroked the palms of his hands slowly with the blade, and watched the beads of blood appearing. He slowly rubbed the blood over his face, his arms, his legs. Then he sat, cross-legged on the ground, and waited.

The light grew in the forest. A sudden chill temporarily arose, and he heard a snap in a tree nearby. From a large branch close to the ground, the amber eyes of a jaguar glared. He reached into his bag, and tied up in another bundle was a rabbit. He released the animal, which shivered and stumbled away, disoriented from its confinement. The jaguar came down from the tree, picked up the rabbit in its jaws, and returned to the branch where it had waited. Then the man stood up and went home. He washed himself outside the house, and climbed up on the roof.

The boy woke up to see a very strange sight. His father had removed a lot of the palms from the roof of the house, and was looking at his children through a large hole in the ceiling. "What are you doing, father?" the boy asked. "We have a lot of work to do, get up here and help me," was his father's reply.

For the rest of the day, and for several days afterward, the family completely dismantled their house, starting with the thatch on the roof, then the stout branches which supported the ceiling, then the mud-encrusted walls. When they had finished, there was little that they left that would suggest that there had been a house and a family living there. A few neighbors came by, and the man sold his chickens and rabbits, and his growing crops. Then they left, carrying their clothes and cooking utensils on their backs. Nobody asked them where they were going. The neighbors were sad to see them go. The man was a healer. He would be missed.

II. A Gift.

The mayor sat at his desk, wiping off the edges of his mouth with a tissue, and then spoke with a ceremonial air. Assembled before him were members of an American group, who had been doing construction work in the area during the summer. "I want to thank you, one and all, for what you have done for this town. We have had hard times in this town. We have a volcano, that erupts! When it rains, mud flows destroy our walls. For the past five years, you have returned to build more buildings. You have brought new things, from the world outside, that have improved life for all of us. For this, we shall be always thankful. I have very little to repay you." He opened a small box on his desk. "Several years ago, this artifact from ancient times was found. It was said that the son of a local magician, called Fernando, was the person who found it. Soldiers looked for the man, to find where the ruins were located, but Fernando and his family disappeared without a trace. No one could be sure where his house was. It also had vanished. Fernando had knowledge of herbs, and could heal. He also had many stories to tell. We know that you are good people. Perhaps this will bring to you some of the spirit of this place."

The leader of the group rose and accepted the gift. The man, preacher, said that he would bring it back to his congregation, and use it to describe the beauty of this place to other Americans. The irony of the gift was not lost to him. On the flight back, he said that now people had much more to be afraid of than his sermons. He said he thought the knife may have been used for human sacrifices.

III. Rabbit

As before, he returns to the forest in his dream. He finds himself in a tent, exiting it as if awakening in the morning. The sky is blue and bright, and the moon has not set. In the meadow is a rabbit. Not just any rabbit -- very large hare, with a very expressive face. He has the rather threadbare look about him of an old man, impoverished, but wise and dignified. The rabbit stops and seems to beckon. He follows the creature, deeper and deeper into the woods. The jungle becomes more dense, and he has difficulty walking. He reaches a pool, small but deep. The rabbit nimbly skips across the water, and jumps to the side of a woman sitting on an chair carved into a wall, which is black, all obsidian. The rabbit takes a small chair next to her, like a child sitting next to his mother, and opens a book.

He gazes at the woman, and is stricken with fear. She is whiter than snow, covered with silver, nothing else. She is more beautiful than anyone else in the world. He cannot look. Everything grows dark, except her eyes. Waking up in his real bed, for a moment he can still see the eyes across the room. To his mind he is back in Belgium, in divinity school. He wept, softly. His wife asked him if he has had another bad dream. He assented, but did not relate any of the events in the dream. He is used to sharing his spiritual life with his wife and with his congregation, but this doesn't seem to convey any message. He struggles with it, knowing that he cannot understand what the dream means, and cannot interpret or explain it. This morning his mind is full of such things, of which he cannot speak, yet must live with. That is why he wept.

IV. Fernando

Several families sat around the fire, the campfire shining in their faces. The moon, high in the sky, revealed carpets of mist over the fields. Insects dance wildly around the light and smoke of the fire.

A man begins to speak. There is nothing about his appearance that would make him seem different from the others, but his voice sets him apart. A story about the old gods, he begins to relate. In the story, all the animals in the forest are arguing about whose fur is the most beautiful. The rabbit sneaks away and borrows the shimmering clothing of his companion, the moon goddess, and comes back resplendent in this costume. The animals pretend to be fooled, and are unanimous in their praise of his beauty. The rabbit, happy to win this competition, starts boasting and becomes quite drunk, and eventually passes out and falls into a deep sleep. Night comes, and the Moon finds her clothing stolen. But she comes out anyway, and her skin glows red with a beauty much greater than her silver clothing. The rabbit wakes and is ashamed, seeing that he cannot steal the beauty of the Moon. It comes from within her.

As the story unfolded, the moon began its eclipse. Finally, the naked moon shone with a scarlet hue. The group watched and enjoyed this experience, and soon after the families began to leave. A few of the men remained, eyes intent on the fire, until they were alone with the shining coals. They spoke quickly and with a sense of urgency. There had been men in the forest, there was danger. Fernando listened to them, and said that this would be a problem that they might have for a long time. He told them that he would pray, and that he would give them the right advice, as soon as he has learned what it will be. He asked the men if they could keep their families close to them, and close to their houses. The men that had been seen were not of the land, but from cities where the gods were dead to the people there. They would be more savage and unpredictable than the jaguar.

Letter to my father

Tue, 7 May 2013 11:05:20 -0400

Dear Dad

I've had a little time lately to work on my house, and it becomes rather complicated. I just put in a new tile floor in the bathroom, and the family stayed in a hotel because there was no toilet. I had to rip out the plywood covering the rough floor, and it was extremely exhausting, removing hundreds of nails. I bought a grinder to cut the curves in the tile to fit around the bathtub and toilet, and that was pretty challenging, too. I used to really enjoy all the carpentry work that I did, but now all the jerking and pounding makes my muscles sore. I needed acetominaphen and ibuprofin before I could go asleep. The family came back and stayed at the house that night, because it was so boring at the hotel. They decided they could just go to the supermarket to use the bathroom, which is open 24 hours, which is what I was doing. It's finished now. Now, I have to rip off the sink, to put in the new vanity and lighting, which won't inconvenience everyone so much.

Both the boys are at home now, and it is a little trying. They are in a quandary as to what they should be doing with themselves, and I think about the ways that you helped me in similar situations. I want to start going to the health club every day. I know that would get them started. I bought Mark a new bicycle. As soon as it is a little warmer, maybe we can go on a few good rides. There isn't a lack of scenic roads around here. I have a friend who was formerly a fireman, and his wife just retired from her job as a postal carrier. They saved all their money and built a huge mansion in the island of Bali. He stays healthy by riding his bike every day there. This place isn't Bali, but many places are just as beautiful.

I think I sent you this photograph before, but I'm sending it again. I went down to the beach, to look for radioactive junk from Japan. I didn't find any, but there were huge pieces of burl that the winter storms had left on the beach. These gigantic pieces of wood, the remnants of old growth redwoods floating in the ocean for a century or more, always seem to disappear very quickly. I think the beaches would be littered with such stuff, if men with chainsaws didn't come and haul away the valuable burl.

I read in the newspaper that a large boat from the Japanese tsunami was found off the coast near Crescent City. It is the first official instance of tsunami debris. Since the ship was still operable, though covered with barnacles, they did some research and found the owners of the boat. It was used by a school near Fukushima. They used it to take school children on excursions. They are trying to find a way they can return the boat to the Japanese. It's probably a money problem, on both sides of the ocean. There will soon be all kinds of things from Japan landing on California's coast. I doubt that any of it will be radioactive, but they are warning beachgoers, just in case. I find it amazing that they would use plutonium, which they acquired from decommissioned nuclear weapons, and then build a reactor in such an unsafe place. Even though the world has been spared from the radioactive fallout that such bombs would produce, the plutonium will still be around for a million years. The plutonium was extremely expensive to produce-- apparently it is gathered atom by atom, literally, in centifruge concentrators, and it is worth ten times the value it has as fuel. Unfortunately, the only other use is to build more bombs. Just leave it to the folks that know marketing, to make all the decisions, and you can be sure that something bad will happen.

I have been trying to improve my writing skills lately, by writing in a blog. A blog, if you don't know what it is, is a self publishing medium on the internet. It's very satisfying to know that many people will read what you have to say, and just because you have an audience, you tend to write better. I think I need this, because college was a long time ago, and I feel that these skills are still important to me. When I taught, I told my students that it would help them to flesh out their ideas about life. I think I need that, myself now. Sometimes, I just don't know what to think.

I'm also learning a few things about myself, that is, by writing. I'm starting to realize that I'm rather hardhearted, in a lot of ways. I spend some of my time as a volunteer with mentally ill people, and I sympathize with them, but it's still hard for me to really understand people. I am reading a book called “The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat”-- which really happened by the way-- written by a psychiatrist who studied people who had brain injuries. You wouldn't think that studying such abnormalities would teach you much, but according to the author, it is one of the foundations of the science of Psychology. His stories are interesting because they communicate his process of observation. Maybe people would relate to each other better, if they learned to observe each other more carefully. Some of the social workers that I know are the most humane people I have ever met. This kind of training must have a good effect on the soul.

At home, we are trying to eat better food. Molly has stopped trying to murder me with eggs and hot dogs, both of which I really like, and is giving me a more healthy diet. She is very creative with salads. I don't think that a salad is really a salad, unless you get creative with it. I also like to cook sometimes. I like to cook soup, especially borscht. You can put all kinds of healthy roots, like parsnips and turnips, in the borscht. I buy pizza dough at the supermarket, and make breadsticks to eat with the soup. When I go to the grocery store, I watch what the really old people are buying. That's a good way to find out what is truly healthy to eat.

I still miss Mother a whole lot, and I don't think it's going to go away. I also miss you very much, and I hope that I can see you soon. Maybe we can afford a trip sometime this summer. We would like to go to Orlando, and see Harry Potter World, and stop in Colorado on the way going and back. It would be just as good a trip, if we only went half the distance, to see New Orleans.

Hope everything is fine with you. Have you been able to go to a swimming pool? Molly just started going to a special pool for seniors, because her knees are locked up, and it gives her a way to exercise. She really enjoys this. She played a lot of tennis in her lifetime, and used to beat everybody, but according to the doctor, this took a toll on her knees. I am thinking of taking a Tai Chi class.

Love,

Steven

Flying into the Sun

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 02:04:29 -0400

We were driving through the Mohave, swaying gently to the curves and gentle humps and swells of the highway. The light was starting to fall, and the shadows began playing on the hills, forming elegant gradations of hue and shade, like the fan of a magician's card deck. I started reminiscing about a trip I made to Borrego Springs, back in '85 with my folks. I told her about the desolate mall there, where the shops were used as warehouses for clothes that would be sold up North, as soon as it was Spring weather there. I have told that same story before, more than once. She hates that, when I repeat the same story over and over.

"I want a divorce," Sarah said, staring blankly, and in a monotone. She said things like this fairly often, just to be a pain, almost as if she was trying to tease me, even though there really wasn't much humor in it at all.

"You shouldn't say things like that," I said, "when you really don't want to go through with it." There were a lot of cruel things I felt like saying, but that always makes it worse. I just kept driving, trying to admire the natural beauty of the desert, and Sarah dozed, for the most part.

Sarah and I, we aren't really that dysfunctional. But when our son Nathan died, just a year out of college, she never was the same. She stopped doing housework. She wouldn't even read. She was on meds, now, but I decided that we needed to go on a vacation, maybe all the way to New Orleans. Listening to jazz, eating good food, that might wake her up, I reasoned. I didn't plan my trip very well. I could see that we couldn't drive very much longer, and I had no idea where we would stay. I saw a sign, something about a motel trailer park. That would be great, I thought. Anything would be better than driving all night.

We drove into a semicircle of gleaming Airstream trailers. They looked as if they were new, but from the vintage of the trailers, obviously carefully restored. I was astounded at this. We got out of the car, and stumbled around. It was a beautiful place. There huge succulents growing all around. There must have been a well somewhere, because it was dry as a bone there, and at the same time, green. The fragrance of the mesquite, the cooling air of the approaching evening, the flowering of the desert -- it was overwhelming to the senses, and to the eyes.

We were approached by two women. The first, an affable redheaded woman, welcomed us, and offered to show us around. She told us that you had to have a trailer like one of these, if you wanted to discover any aliens. They showed us the interior of one of the trailers, which was decorated with furniture and art from the 1950s. The other woman, a overly tall girl, with glasses, made an occasional witty comment. She seemed to be the more intellectual, and introverted, of the two. I agreed to the terms, which were rather expensive, but I could see that this place was like no other. It seemed a bit odd that there were no other guests that night. They told us that they had just opened the place up again, for a new season. We just happened to get there before everything was booked.

We settled down and felt comfortable right away. I spent some time poring through a pile of old LIFE magazines on the kidney-shaped coffee table. Finally, I felt like smoking a cigarette, so I stepped out. The sun was beginning to set, and the sky formed a landscape of its own, a crimson and golden wonderland that you wish you could fly into, if you only had an airplane.

I limped along a narrow trail, carefully avoiding the various hooks and claws of the mesquite, savoring the abundance of flowers. I was going to pick one, but thought better of it. I remembered something I did with a prickly pear once. I started whistling an old jazz tune. I don't play any musical instruments, but I like to learn the melodies. I was whistling Bix Beiderbeck's solo from "I'm Coming, Virginia" when I encountered our redheaded hostess, walking along the same trail. She was staring at me intently.

"This place is so beautiful -- its much better than I could have possibly wished for," I told her. She smiled, with a grin that seemed a bit silly. The light of the evening seemed to be coming from her face, like a curtain opening up into a darkened room. For no apparent reason, she held out her hand. I grasped it, not understanding myself at all, and kissed it, very quickly falling to my knees.

"What do you want?" she asked.

"Well, I'll have to take a pill first," I muttered. We agreed to meet at her trailer, in half an hours time.

I went back to our trailer, and Sarah was watching a show on the video feed. The Honeymooners, I think it was. I found the bottle in the medicine bag, and fished out a dose of Viagra.

"I know what you're doing," Sarah said, with a matter of fact tone.

"Do you care?" I asked.

"Not really," she said, and kept her eyes on the retro black and white television.

I left quickly, feeling lousy, but at the same time, increasingly excited. I was getting so excited that I was afraid I might hallucinate. I remember once, I was considering a similar misdeed, when I turned on the radio, and it sounded like music composed in Hell. I just turned the radio off, and the hallucinations didn't persist. It wasn't really on the radio, what I heard, that's all I can be sure about.

All my life, I've been plagued with my Puritanical upbringing. My parents were devout Christians. Though they would never beat my brothers and sister and me, every youthful sin was punished with an icy shunning from the entire family. My mother, though she was kind and gentle, never allowed us to mention anything pertaining to sex. We couldn't mention what dogs and cats did, even to each other. Nowadays, my siblings and I can never admit anything to each other. For example, if my sister ever admitted to any transgression to me, I wouldn't hesitate to tell the entire family. Just because she told me could only mean she wanted me to tell. But they're both gone now, my parents, that is, and every day I find myself doing something to step outside my boundaries- especially since the last decade of my life has been one protracted male menopause. Not that I ever get anything. It's something that is satisfying in itself, just to try. Maybe I can't help it, because I'm afraid that I will lose her, too.

I knocked at the door, and then stepped in. She was wearing a night gown, and I would say that she had a very appealing figure, though somewhat plump. Heavenly breasts. She offered me a glass of Scotch, and I accepted.

"This is very, very good-- What is it?" I inquired.

"It's a Brookie," she said. I looked at the bottle, and I couldn't figure out how to pronounce the word, either.

"I think I saw you once, I think in New York-- you sing, don't you?" I asked.

"Here" she said, and drew me closer.

What was good about it, if you could call it good, is that she really embraced me. It seemed as if I had discovered something entirely new, in this. Maybe that's the real lack I felt, living with Sarah. We were never very affectionate. That just about sums up what I liked about the entire experience. Maybe there wouldn't be so much crime, dishonesty, wars and all that, if people just learned to hug. That's not all we did. But that's what was best about it. She also liked to talk, and could chatter away happily until you started making love to her again. She must have been the most beautiful woman on the planet, back in her prime, I thought. She didn't want anything else out of it. She hadn't had very good luck with relationships. It was fortunate, for me, that she still wanted a guy, now and then. It was like being Louis Quatorze, for one evening.

I don't remember falling asleep, but I did, and when I woke up, the morning sun was bright, and the air from the high desert was a warm caress.

"You'd better go back now, I guess" she said and yawned. Her beautifully limber arms stretched gracefully over her head. I obeyed, thanking Kwan Yin for her infinite kindness, and stepped out quietly and headed back to my doom.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. I opened the door, and was not terribly surprised to find Sarah in bed with the tall lady.

"This is Linda," said Sarah, as if to explain. I just sat down, saying nothing, and watched them with a kind of fascination. They got dressed, rather self consciously. Linda said "Enjoy!" and left, with not anything else to say.

"Let's get back in the car," Sarah said, after a few minutes. We were soon back on the road towards Arizona.

"I want to thank you, for doing that, Robbie," Sarah said.

"For doing what?" I asked. She hadn't called me Robbie for a very long time.

"Oh, you know..."

I didn't ask any more questions. The rest of our vacation went as planned. Nothing out of the ordinary.

Pictures from the Rainbow Room

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 13:04:37 -0400

The art of the mentally ill is more sophisticated than you might think...

“I might say that the very first painting in the hall, of a man who hears laughter in his head, is not a naïve painting. It is, in a rather hip way, acknowledging a stereotype. But, the suffering is real enough. Most people who have been diagnosed with mental illness will experience a lot of inner torment.”

I was attending a monthly meeting of the Humboldt County Behavioral Health Board. Lately, I've taken an interest in the activities of the Public Health Department here. Several years ago, I learned that they had organized a program, called Crisis Intervention Training, to teach policemen how to be more sensitive to mentally ill people, when they come into contact with them, on a call. The program was a response to a tragic situation which arose when a mentally ill woman* threatened a SWAT team with a flare gun. The CIT program has been extremely successful, and has made the world safer for people who are frequently victimized by false assumptions made by the police. It has become a model for training first responders throughout the State of California.

*http://www.northcoastjournal.com/news/2007/06/14/bummer/

The meeting was held in “the Rainbow Room”- I'm not sure why it is called that, but besides its use as a conference room, it is used to conduct art classes for clients of the mental health system. This program, called “Art for Life,” has existed for many years, and is another one of the outstanding successes of the Eureka Public Health Department. More than a few of the men and women who have enrolled in these classes have become well known artists. I went to an art sale last Christmas, and met the teacher, Jan Ramsey.

I watched a PowerPoint presentation at the meeting about the rural outreach services which bring mental health counseling, and many other social services, to the rural areas in Humboldt County. I started to look at the current crop of paintings on the wall, all done in tempera. More and more, I started finding a depth of meaning in these paintings, most of which were, for all intents and purposes, artistic exercises.

There were several paintings of cats. I already was familiar with the work of this artist-- at the Christmas sale I bought a few postcards, some of them of kitties climbing in the branches of a Christmas tree. Just what is it, that is psychologically interesting, about cats? I remember an illustration from my psychology textbook, back in college, of a cat drawn by a schizophrenic man. Perhaps you too, have seen it: the cat is outlined with sharp lines of many colors, like a rainbow, creating an electric effect. Seeing this illustration, one immediately senses an extreme of tension, of fear, or stress. However, the artist on display in the Rainbow Room draws much more ordinary cats. Please excuse my photography-- the lighting in the building is all fluorescent tubes, and each painting was protected by a shiny styrene sheet, which tends to make reflections in a photograph. But to illustrate my appreciation of the art there, they will have to do. The building, by the way, was once a Victorian building which was run by nuns, who cared for loggers when they were injured. Since then all the architectural features have been stripped from the building, and now it is a plain box, with modern rooms. There is still an antiquated porte cochere on the corner of the building, which they never could obscure completely. I have met several people who were born here. It now houses the offices of the public mental health services, and upstairs is an asylum for people suffering mental health emergencies.

Starry Night

Under the tree

At the surface, these are not a very psychological cats. Just cats. The first, sitting under a Christmas tree, the cat is emblematic of both a playful nature, and a destructive one, at the same time. It is both adorable, and amoral. In the second, the cat sitting under the stars-- something is eerie and etherial about it. It seems to be more than a cat -- it is a spiritual entity. These cats, to me, evoke what many of us long for: to be completely free, and irresponsible. Sometimes I feel that I am becoming more and more like my cat. Call me crazy, I don't care.

Another artist has a specialty in animals, only she draws mice. The mice she draws have their own alphabet, and are rather studious in nature. In one, a rat pores over a message, as if trying to determine a course of action, the path to take, the future consequences. In another, the rat peers at a cat who is kept in a cage, safely. Or perhaps, the rat pretends that the cat is in a cage, when actually he is looking at the cat from his own cage. In a third drawing, the rat looks at his own portrait, which is on an easel.

The rat examines his own portrait

This drawing at first seems simply humorous, but I would say that it is more profound than that. The mentally ill sometimes refer to themselves as lab rats, in that they are asked to undergo treatments which are, in a way, experimental. But however arbitrary the labels and the treatments which are offered by today's psychologists, eventually the patient tries to understand what the diagnosis he has been given means. Eventually, he becomes familiar with the terms which are used to describe his symptoms. He may view these words with derision, or hate them as the symbol of stigma. But, there is also a fascination with this: it represents an unique identity, and perhaps, also a clue to healing.

Trading places

I felt that this picture also was more profound than the wry humor of the subject matter. Before we can look at fear objectively, we have to feel that we are in control. To be in the cage, is to be controlled, and conversely, to observe another in the cage is to control him. The boxes contain and isolate. We learn to compartmentalize everything. Words, concepts, and theories-- we use these to define problems, and they give us the beginning of control over these things.

We have seen the signs

Here is an example of the "mouse alphabet" which these mice use. In a way, the mentally ill have a unique kind of knowledge. A person that has lived with mental illness for a number of years acquires what is commonly called insight – he learns to understand his own symptoms, and more importantly, he learns appropriate ways to deal with these symptoms. This is considered to be an essential quality, for a person that has good prospects for leading a normal life. Whatever that underlies the illness, some hidden injury perhaps, may take years for the body to heal, but what he can do is learn a way to life with it, and suffer as little as possible. I might also say that the very first painting in the hall, of a man who hears laughter in his head, is not a naïve painting. It is, in a rather hip way, acknowledging a stereotype. But, the suffering is real enough. Most people who have been diagnosed with mental illness will experience a lot of inner torment. It is a process of learning how to survive, and to live despite the circumstances.

Storm coming

Eyeliner running with tears

Many of the clients of the mental health system are homeless, and quite a few of these are also gay. I recently read an article in the New Yorker magazine ("Netherland," by Rachel Aviv, Dec. 10, 2012) in which the writer described the lives of several gay teenagers who had run away from home, and were forced into homelessness in order to preserve their freedom. This can be very challenging to any sort of governance. It takes a great deal of creativity, just to try to help these young men and women. The mental health problems of a person who becomes dependent on drugs can be especially difficult to treat. It is called dual diagnosis, and older people with this condition frequently never recover.

These portraits, to me, are about the presentation of self. The artists are trying to depict the image that they would like to make on other people. For me, this represents are more profound act: they are, in a sense, creating a sense of self, and with it, a way to interact with the world, and deal with its problems. It is frequently said that a person who has problems may be living with an internal story which needs to be revised. Supposedly, through self examination, you can understand how your internal story may be setting you up for failure. But I would emphasize that the use of the imagination is very important to this self examination. You have to reinvent the self.

Mental illnesses cause, in my opinion, the most suffering to women. The inability to find a suitable partner in marriage, the loss of a child, and other personal traumas can result in suicide attempts, a vulnerability to sexual exploitation, and substance abuse. Surely they take a lot of unjust criticism from society. A mental illness has always been viewed as stemming from an inability to live in the real world. But just as much, the world needs to change, and put an end to the injustices that often cause this kind of suffering.

April

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 10:04:23 -0400

Our merry coffee shop crowd, inside on a cold day

It's April. The showers here aren't very sweet.
But they're better than our winter, which was frosty
The trees make quite a show. Hope it doesn't snow.
I should get a lot of cherries, though.

This is the time that the rich pay their taxes
And the poor get their refunds.
Or so they say. I have a mechanic to pay.
I get a lot of bills this time of year, and each has a story.

I'd better plant my garden soon.
No more blotter paper lettuce for me.
I want to have a few chickens, too.
They won't be cheap. But happy they will be.

Some friends of mine are from the South.
We talk about art, philosophy, and food.
Because their lives were so different
From my chilly, cloistered school up No'.

I have a cold. I'm healing it with Hoppin' John.
Gaugin shows us the way to live.
I'll buy a boat, as soon as I can afford it
Before Wall Street takes it all.

I definitely am looking for changes.
I don't want just the Spring. I want renewal.
I want to grow up. I need to flower.
I could talk revolution, but it wouldn't be cool.

Jesus is on my mind. So is Bonifatius.
And where is the Wife of Bath? All of us are still freezing.
Confucius set out to rid the world of crooks, but
This Spring, our rotten apples still cling to the trees.