Luxury of memory & a moveable feast

feb 17th


the luxury of memory—the proustian theater of one’s history. subjective, subjugated, dismembered and often obscured or lost or discarded, the collected images of a life are the tools & resources of a writer’s labor. . . . . impressions, the Moments captured in suspended impact, discovered and pondered in quiet reflection or movement or against a mahler symphony or a haydn string quartet, whatever the vehicle of remembrance may be. . . . . memory is associative, is giant, is omnipresent, is banal and grandiloquent. and it stirs always against the mire of Now.



while running, the childhood imagery often flails around—likewise upon drifting into sleep at night. . . . . when painting, I rarely glimpse this cavernous womb of my being, the nascent years lost and undisturbed as the colours and contents unconsciously already contain these images. I vaguely remember high school and even less so the years before. I have flashes of recall—an image or a smell or a slight association, like peering through a mostly shuttered window, and then it evaporates as quickly as it appeared—never surfacing on consciousness. never really known or studied. stuck in a hot attic. mark. the many homes mom and I lived in.



Ash Wednesday. a day of reflection and a season of repentance. of promise and aspiration. a day to begin a new foundation. ash wednesday. let love and health prosper, especially while nothing else prospers. . . . .

I have given up daytime television for lent—a nasty habit which as seized upon my imagination and creative energies. a monopoly of mindlessness ended. run & paint y’all. paint & run.



thursday brought a fast eight mile run across wilmington’s downtown, on the cape fear and around Greenfield park and was quiet and isolated but for one couple I passed twice and one female runner who smiled when we passed the second time. otherwise it was my road and my footfalls for company and drive. that and the blighted neighborhoods surrounding the park and up third street where I once bought bags or attempted to. . . . .



February 19 2010. a good run followed by Sumatran coffee (a valentine’s day gift from kas) a hot shower and bach’s art of the fugue (the emerson string quartet doing a re-orchestration thereof). some rice-a-roni and cheese quesadilla for lunch. today’s run was around 6 miles, fast miles, in a moderately warm day, bringing my total this year up to 162 miles. between y’day and today, a marked improvement in my running times. my endurance, breath, my gait. . .. . all seems stronger and longer, focused. bach helps. it also helps that the wind has diminished, the sun is bright, and the air is warming. soon I will hear reggae and sand-crunches on the beach as I run.



moving the studio back home next week. after some twenty months of operating the studio, I must now admit a certain level of defeat. . . . . just too difficult to get downtown, get setup and into the creative space, and maintain a schedule of it. creativity & painting will be more accessible if here, at home, and more convenient to view and work on. I look forward to it.