Run & Paint

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

tiger balm, RICE, restlessness and anxiety. . . .

may 26th. a second anniversary in a private hut-table at indochine restaurant. superb. a dusked drizzle tapped a tranquil rhythm throughout our meal. the appetizer was a steaming crock of mussels, served with a delicious coconut milk curry, a wonderfully deep flavor alternating with sweet & spicy notes. from there we had a dragon tail of shrimp and orange wasabi. the entrees—i had aubergines and tofu curry, kas had the “happy asian melody.” concluding the meal was an apt plate of fried bananas and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream on top.

y’day was my trip to the orthopedic.  the lobby was a busy bustle of wheelchairs, neck braces, shoulder apparatuses, hip cuffs, casts and crutches. . . . the percussive shake of pill bottles and nurse shuffles. once seen, I was my usual flustered self as the doctor asked me to explain what was going on. after rambling while facing my three x-rays showing a perfectly good knee (the patella “may have a slight tilt” he says), then getting a few motion tests and pokes and prods on my left knee, the benevolent doctor announces the verdict. I have patellafemoral pain, aka runner’s knee. neither surgery nor shot will relieve it. there is no serious damage, no torn meniscus, just enflamed tendon and ligament and possible muscle scooped up by ridged bone with every step. burning my knee out with overuse he said. hhmmph. alternating ice and heat, tiger balm rub and alleve or Tylenol should do the trick.

so a mixed bag of news—but since surgery was not an option on any level, an overall positive prognosis. . . . moving on.

may 28  blank canvases.

running long distances is a meditation. the psyche's narrative throughout a run parallels the various emotive stages of life. the endurance necessary to heal various life-struggles and damages is represented on a macrocosmic level in a run-- a sort of physicaly poem or metaphor. . . . . to remind myself of my strength and courage, to reawaken my elan vital, i continue to run. i run to reclaim my Self. the moment i worry about what another person thinks of my running, i desecrate the beauty of the act. i lose the act as a meditation, as an expansion, as a pure thing.  i clone consumer concerns of name-tag emblems and icons, i clone my body to magazine covers, i abstract the act of the run into a flailing eruption, an unnatural grotesque.

the canvases sit untouched but for charcoal spills, lazy lines, and the marks of their journey through false starts and abandoned/ recycled imagery. . . . they evolve like ruins in a garden.


june 1. coffee on the porch as rain drenches the freshly mowed lawn. tomato leaves blink against the falling rain.

memorial day weekend passed with full home of in-laws and then friends from Fairfax, VA. a social weekend full with straight shifts running late, getting home at 1 am two nights in a row. Carolina beach one morning and Wrightsville beach the next. swimming and playing in sun and sand. my knee is now ten days out of running and into healing.

canvases on back deck as images emerge, lotuses from the mire of mind. . . .