Psychology of Fear

The image to the right is called the Plough by the Egyptians and in the original movie, Stargate, and was called Ursa Major by the Greeks and Romans. It is known to every child in every nation as the Big Dipper. This grouping of stars features prominently in a book by Bram Stokes (yes, that Bram Stoker) called The Jewel of Seven Stars. The story revolves around this particular constellation, the Plough/Ursa Major/Big Dipper as seen from Egypt a few thousand years ago and at the dawn of the 20th century in London, England. Many stories, plays, and movies have based their plots on Bram Stoker's book -- and not always to good effect.

The jewel central to Stoker's story, in fact to every story, features these 7 stars. Te-ra, the Egyptian queen who features in the tale was an evil queen -- at least according to the priests of her time and to what little is written about her. She was married to her father in order to keep the pharaonic blood lines pure, although a brother was the usual choice for the pharaoh, and when he died and was entombed after the ritual 70 days, Te-ra killed everyone who had even known or spoken to her father in retribution. I can see where that would likely earn Te-ra the evil title. Remember though that the world 3000 or 4000 years ago was very different that the world in which we live, especially for someone living at that time. Her views and beliefs and practices would have been molded by her time, not the times we live in, and certainly not the 19th century when the story was penned.

Bram Stoker had a vivid and active imagination. He created the ageless vampire, Dracula, and the White Worm, as well as many protagonists from ages past. Te-ra was merely one more of his paper villains. I've read The Jewel of Seven Stars several times and the rest of Stoker's ouevre. While Stoker had a morbid fascination with creatures of the night, Te-ra was not one of his darkly evil villains out to maim, destroy, and suck the marrow (and blood) of life. Te-ra, henceforth Tera, wanted to live again, to live a life free of the rituals, religion, and control of the priests that condemned her (so they thought) to eternal obliteration, which is why they scraped all mentioned of her name from the records and her tomb and destroyed every image depicting her. In ancient Egypt, to be forgotten was to be unmade, to be destroyed utterly. If people did not remember Tera then the gods would forget her as well. Damned in this world and the next.

Stoker's tale of immortality is one of the wish of an ancient Egyptian queen's desire to live again, to be reborn in the corporeal world to live in physical form far in the future. Her mummy was prepared in such a way as to give him power over the elements (earth, fire, water, and, most importantly, air) so she would be powerful, not as a queen or pharaoh is powerful, but as a magician, an adept is powerful in magic, something modern people dabble in and write about but only believe privately and denounce publicly to avoid the risk of being called mentally ill or worse.

Of course, nowadays, believing in magic is fan boy and girl territory and isn't everyone a fan of magic in their heart of hearts?

Margaret's father, the archaeologist who discovered the tomb of Tera, believed that something was amiss when he catalogued the contents of Tera's tomb and read her wishes. Margaret was born at the same moment Tera's tomb was opened, died, and was discovered to be alive as the lid of the sarcophagus was removed. Though he was not present at Margaret's birth, Margaret's father was so thoroughly focused on finding the tomb of the nameless queen, not even his wife's pregnancy and his child's imminent birth would keep him from following the nameless queen's trail to the bitter end. He grieved his wife's death and could not bring himself to live daily in the presence of a child that was touched by the nameless queen's magic -- or her evil. I imagined that the professor believed in magic as he believed in opening forgotten tombs and cataloguing their belongings and the contents of their tombs, even to the point of believing what those ancient pharaohs and queens wrote (or had their scribes write) about themselves.

During the course of the novel, Margaret arrives on her father's doorstep in time to follow Tera's written instructions, in order that her father will wake up. Everything was laid out and Margaret was fascinated by it all. She wanted to be a part of it, not only because of her likeness to Tera but because she believed that if she followed the instructions as laid out, her father would be restored to her and she could at last live with him and get to know him and the world as he saw and knew it. Her father was in a trance (we would call it a coma) and had been attacked and yet Scotland yard was at a loss to discover the culprit or the motive.

The instructions are followed, Margaret's father wakes up, more tools and artifacts are brought back to London from Tera's tomb, and the team that was present when Tera's tomb was opened gathered around as the ritual was enacted. At the end of the ritual, the lights stutter and Tera (her mummy) is gone, the wrappings empty. Stoker leaves the reader with the feeling that Tera has left to explore the world she waited so long to live in and that Margaret is safe and will be allowed to live the life she has dreamed of since she was a child separated from her father and from a world of adventure and knowledge.

Like every one of Stoker's novels, The Jewel of Seven Stars has been rewritten for the horror hungry world anxious for the past to come alive and carry off the unworthy -- and the unwary. Five movies have been based on the plot of the novel (nameless queen, ancient evil, modern man finds and opens tomb, daughter born at the right time, and queen's ritual followed to bring about her rebirth . . . usually awash in the blood of the queen's victims. In a way, it seems adaptations include a bit of the blood lust and blood sacrifice of victims to the ancient dead in order to live on, not unlike Dracula in that way. Only the White Worm has escaped the vampire's curse . . . barely. Blood follows Stoker as surely as it follows Dracula and all vampires. Just as Lucy.

The Awakening, starring Charlton Heston and Stephanie Zimbalist, debuting in 1980 is by far the most star-studded cast and was preceded by Blood from the Mummy's Tomb in 1971 at the height of Hammer films heyday, notable for Valerie Leon, the curvaceous brunette starring as Margaret and Tera and scantily clad through much of the film. Both movies were set in London, though extra points for Heston for sending his daughter all the way to America to keep her safe and for allowing Margaret's mother to live, though she was catatonic early on when Professor Corbeck opened Tera's tomb. Professor Fuchs in the earlier movie died at the end as his home fell down on him when he and his Margaret stabbed Tera, leaving a lot of rubble and one nearly naked female wrapped up in bandages in the hospital at the end of the movie. Could it be Tera? Could it be Margaret? Does it matter? Probably not as it was done for suspense and the element of lingering horror instead of a sequel. Stoker didn't write one.

In 1986, The Tomb followed with the usual bloody mayhem, but with a change of names and plot. Nefratis is the nameless queen whose tomb is plundered and the contents sent to America where the queen follows and exacts revenge on everyone involved. A far cry from a queen condemned in this life and the next who arranges things from beyond to live again, but no less bloody than its previous adaptations and with the addition of statuesque blondes and a very youthful brunette Michelle Bauer as the vengeful Nefratis. John Carradine, a horror movie legend, and Cameron Mitchell of High Chapparral fame do their best to breath a little life into this hodgepodge of mummy curses and fail to do more than maintain the B movie status, and Jade, the buxom, blonde Amazon from Australia did that all by herself when she walked onto the set.

On to the more politically correct 1998 when Bram Stoker's Legend of the Mummy does its best to cash in on Bram Stoker and Bram Stoker's Dracula fame. Not even Louis Gossett, Jr. could save this movie from B movie status, not even with Mark Lindsay Chapman, one time foe of Swamp Thing.  In this incarnation, Margaret and Queen Tera are played by different actresses, Margaret a blonde and Tera a sultry, although substantially watered down version of Tera. At best, this version is barely a B- movie, though this time Tera has all seven of the fingers on her right hand, the same hand that was left unwrapped in The Awakening  and seen at the beginning of the movie when the sarcophagus lid was opened.

The point to all this Egyptian magic and movie adaptations is to point out what modern, or relatively modern, movie goers get and get used to: blood, curses, mummies, and turning an interesting story into a blood-soaked fright fest for the purposes of scaring (or dumbing) the public into a state of fear. Such psychology does not work, but when has Hollywood or any movie studio in the western world cared whether or not scare tactics work? Okay, well, maybe when subliminal messages on the wide screen failed to boost popcorn sales. At least Hammer studios were willing to go the extra mile in their horror films by installing joy buzzers in the seats and adding special effects in the theater to make the horror more real for the patrons, and such gimmicks are far beyond the usual adolescent pranks of the 1960s and 1970s or the focus groups and PR tricks played before the 60s and since, especially since Freddy Kruger turned our world -- and our dreams -- upside down and inside out.

The point is that scaring the public (to death or as close to it as possible) has become a powerful and lucrative industry since Bram Stoker's day of managing theatres of the more prosaic variety. Stoker hints at the awful consequences of digging up the past instead of shoving it in your face as though front seat at the Grand Guignol, which was revived in 1947 after World War II to entertain the war weary soldiers. The more recent Penny Dreadful is yet another example of the horror craze (and frenzy) that creates and maintains fear among the public by dramatizing and adapting the classic, and much tamer, tales of horror through the ages: Dorian Grey, Frankenstein, Dracula, werewolves, witches, wax museums, Bedlam, Satan, vampires, and such, stealing from every closet and tomb to feed the fears. Once upon a time, religion held people's minds and souls in bondage and served to make man fear GOD in order to live a good and productive life. Those old-fashioned terrors keep the fires of fear stoked for fewer and fewer people as Karl Marx taught that religion is the opium of the masses at a time when real opium enslaves more people with a much stronger hold and yet leave the drugged fit for their daily round on the hamster wheel of keeping up with the Joneses and voting the same greedy and soulless puppets into office to govern us with our consent and approval. Old-fashioned fear has not been enough for a long time and it took movies to ramp up the fear and leave the public shaking in its collective boots -- until the public becomes more sophisticated and unable to be rendered unconscious until the hour of the wolf comes and the night terrors catapult us awake gibbering in fear.

Blood has become porn with the latest in computer generated imaging (CGI) as gouts of arterial blood flood our minds, numbing us even more and requiring the horror industry to step up its game. Horror today is a far cry from the 1930s when my mother gaped open-mouthed at Boris Karloff's portray of Frankenstein's monster on the big screen at their local theater. The horror that sent her scrambling to hide in her mother's arms or crawl under the seat left me smiling and laughing at the hidden jokes and the artful (for the time period) makeup and wooden acting. Boris Karloff did more with his voice to scare several generations out of their skins, like Mae West did to sexualize a reading of the names in the telephone book, but we are now the generation of blood porn and over the top horror that keeps escalating quickly past our endurance for such fears.

The establishment is quickly losing ground, but that is only to be expected when repeated doses of fear tend to numb the senses rather than increase the baseline fear that keeps the average Jane and Joe Doe in line and fearing everything around them. Fear is only part of the equation and not everyone takes drugs, although the 80s and 90s did a stellar job of hooking a healthy percentage of the population on Valium and Adderall.

The biggest problem is that the establishment learns a lot slower than the average citizen/slave. I think that is why the leaders of Islam remain mired in the glorious past where whipping up a jihad was as easy as quoting the Quran for believers. Islam remains in the past and keeps its devout followers mired in the 7th century in order to keep the rest of the world captives of fear and control. The alternative is a good very old-fashioned beheading or bombing, knifing, and shooting in night clubs and public watering holes as well as work places where the faithful have infiltrated and been drugged on the belief of Mohammed's brand of opium: Islam. Another problem blooms in the bloody debris of jihadist terrors: the bombastic display of those willing to follow the thorny path back to the Dark Ages, throw off their politically correct camouflage, and fight blood with bloody rhetoric while the drugged and greedy meat puppets continue sowing fear of such unenlightened tactics and fear mongering to trump the past with a bright future and a New World Order. The end is near -- but not in an unwashed street preacher carrying a sign painted with black letters proclaiming "THE END IS HERE" on street corners everywhere in the civilized world.

I think I'll bow out and take up Bram Stoker's unspoken hope that with magic and watchful waiting a time will come when I will live again in the strength of my own power beyond the reach of small-minded establishment priests who did their best to take away my name, my power, and my soul and failed.

That is all. Disperse.

It Matters Every Time

I get why people are so surprised when a quiet man -- or woman -- living just down the street or next door is ultimately revealed as a serial killer. "He was such a good neighbor, always kept his lawn neat and his car washed."

"She was kind to everyone. Someone in your family died and she would come over with pie or cake or a pot of the best tasting stew. She offered to watch your house, take care of the kids, even water the house plants and take in the mail."
They are the kind of friends, family, neighbors, and people you want around -- until the truth comes out that Mr. Good Neighbor has been raping children and feeding their bodies to the mulcher that keeps his lawn so green or his garden flourishing. Ms. Kind Spinster had buried pensioners in her basement until it was too full of bodies and then she started burying the bodies in the basements or under the sheds of everyone whose house she had so graciously watched while you were away.
The disclaimer is always the same: "S/he is always nice to me." That is the ultimate stamp of approval -- how s/he treated you. No matter what s/he did, the yardstick always comes down to how you are treated spite of the fact that you have no children to watch the next time the itch needed scratching and there is no one vulnerable in your care. Every smart predator knows not to shit where they eat -- or where they live.
We need a different measure of who matters. We need to be more aware of the smell in the basement that isn't the plumbing backing up or the red mulch and actual bone mixed in the fertilizer that is human rather than bat or vermin making the roses flourish and the grass is always so green and lush.
Or simply the fundamental awareness that evil done to another is always evil done to us. It matters. When one person, no matter who, is abused, killed, maimed, or crippled it happens to each of us a little bit at a time. Family matters. Neighborhoods matter. Counties, townships, countries, and lives matter -- each and every one -- and should must matter to us.
I seem to remember a saying: "When we harm one person, a universe is destroyed." Or some such. It's more than what goes around comes around and more profound than s/he was always nice to me because ultimately when one of us is hurt, we all are diminished when all we watch is our own patch. Yes, we are our brothers' and sisters' keepers. What happens to the least of us happens to all of us -- and we are all diminished. S/he may have kept you in the dark by being nice to you, but every victim, every one of those hurt matters, whether you know them or not.
I am my brother's and my sister's keeper, whether or not I am personally aware of them. They matter. Their lives matters. All life matters . . . every single time.
That is all. Disperse.

Bremen-town Musicians From Hell

Has it happened to you? Is it still happening?

For almost 2 months now, the animals in my neighborhood cry out in what can only be described as fearful anguish. Not just a couple of dog or a cat in heat leading on the tom cats prowling in the bushes, but every single animal in the entire neighborhood.

The noise was jarring at first, enough to divert my attention from a movie I was watching or forget I was eating dinner or a snack. Always at 11 PM every night for weeks, a wind-up clockwork chorus of howls, screams, and haunted squawls that begins abruptly and ends without comment. Horses, dogs, cats, and every other animal in the area, even the deer and possibly a bear or two, scream in one ululating, tortured voice that last for a couple of minutes and then stops as if all the animals die at the same moment. Once was jarring, twice bordered on shock, and every night for weeks has been shocking and then interesting and now I am curious, bordering on fearful of what is coming.  

Something is definitely coming. Even I feel it. 

The hellish chorus of what can only be described as screaming souls trapped in fiery torment has moved on from 11 PM to 3 AM and 5 AM and 1 AM, the same time for days on end before the animals' torment finds another time. Something is happening, but what? It is ripping the souls of all the neighborhood animals from the roots at the same time and from all of them. No owner yells at the dogs or horses or cats or wild animals to stop. No gun is fired. No human voice joins the tormented chorus.

Nothing else is happening that blunted mortal senses can discover.

And no one talks about it . . . until now.

Have you heard it, these Bremen Town Musicians from Hell? Do your neighborhood animals cry out with tortured screams at the same time every night, screaming for a minute or two, and stopping as if they abruptly went mute or had their throats slashed at the same moment all at once? 

This is not the skittishness that comes over animals just before an earthquake as they respond to the sub-harmonics of the deep bowels of the earth as the ground beneath their feet rolls and twitches before turning over and opening deep gashes or thrusting upward as though disemboweled from within. This is not simply the restive pacing and pawing before a volcano rains fire and ash. This is something else, something profound, something coming that will rock everyone's world. This is something to fear, something to flee, something to beware and we will not be prepared. 

But what is it? How much longer do we have? 

A Step Forward, A Step Back

It often seems like every step or two forward means a step back, and sometimes a slide down, far down. Or it could just be me and how I see things, like my pursuit of art. All the videos in the world merely show me how much I have to learn and how far away I am from adequacy. My view of my own adequacy. At least I keep plugging away, trying more things, being as daring as time allows, and often resenting the demands that being an adult make on me.

And then there is art.

Trying different media, different colors, different paper, and learning that I need to put down a shield when working with certain pencils, pastels, and charcoal. 

Quick sketches  to see if I still have it. I really should use clean paper instead of sketching (scratching) on paper (newsprint) where I've sketched other faces, body parts, interesting objects. Cropping can only eliminate so much and newsprint is especially smooth and erasing intruding lines would damage the sketch. I rather like this one, not only because it is nearly accurate, but because it didn't take me long at all. 

The photo on a new box of colored pencils. That pugnacious chin and unusual angle were all it took to interest me. Not bad for another quick sketch. 

An older drawing that I keep refining and working on. A touch here, a new technique there. I'll finish it one day . . . or maybe I'll paint this one. Yes, I know the right (left actually) eye is less vivid than the left (to the viewer), but it -- and I -- is still evolving. For now. 

Another drawing of one of my granddaughters. This one is Savannah. It is also when I began to toy with the idea that less is more. The original photo was posted on its side and I maneuvered it into a full frontal straight up and down image. Computers are wonderful and I'm getting better with PhotoShop -- barely. 

Another sketch, and the most recent in this collection, of Mahesh Jadu. The actor is currently portraying Ahmad (heavy on the ACH as if you're clearing a hairball) on Marco Polo. Mahesh is one of the villains of the show. His long, pointed nose interested me first and that is where I began the sketch, all done in sanguine hard pastel. Another not quite right sketch, but I do find his face and this sketch fascinating. 

It didn't dawn on me until I searched for the name of the actor playing Ahmad that his face was familiar because I had enjoyed his portrayal of Ophir from I, Frankenstein with Aaron Eckhardt. He does have a very interesting face and demeanor and he's from Australia. I would've thought India or the Middle East, or even the USA would be more likely. Wherever he was born, raised, or lives, I still find his face interesting and will definitely draw him again. I do that with faces that intrigue me. 

I am toying with the thought of reducing faces to basic elements to see how much of the person is recognizable. Not so much body parts, or facial features, although faces are part of the exercise, but light and shadow. Can I sketch a face and make it recognizable by just sketching the light -- or the shadow? I sketched two eyes, the hint of a nose, and the mouth but nothing of the light or shadow or rest of the face and it was instantly recognized as Sharon Stone -- which it was. I did that sketch in colored pencil more than 20 years ago on a piece of printer paper because the minimalist style intrigued me. I have it somewhere, likely in a folder in an old filing cabinet in storage in Ohio.  Asking for someone to go looking for it will be futile. Oh, well. Someday.  

There you have it, some of my recent forays into art as I exercise my artistic muscles and try new media. Some are good, some are less than good, and one or two are approaching mediocrity. Art is a process, a journey, and I am still on the path. 

That is all. Disperse. 

In The Wake Of Winter, Fire!

Tyrion, Daenerys, and Jon Snow

I'm a fan Game of Thrones and have been since the first episode. After that episode I immediately bought the first eBook, appropriately called A Game of Thrones, and dove in without reservation. I have not looked back. But I have looked forward.

When Cersei told her story of Maggie the Frog's predictions I had a very different take than my friends, who are also fans. Maggie predicted that Cersei would be killed by her brother and, knowing Cersei to be extremely myopic, I knew it would be Jaime, her twin, who would do the deed -- and maybe even die in the process. Cersei would not go down easily or without a fight. I didn't know then about Jaime losing his right hand or how that would affect the fight. After season 6 finale, I know I was right about many things and had some insight into the future of Westeros and the coming fight against the White Walkers. And, yes, I was right about Cold Hands. He is, or was, Benjen Stark. Take that, naysayers.

So here is how I see this simple story of George R. R. Martin's.

The truth about Jon Snow has finally come to light and, without knowing he is truly Stark, though not of Ned's getting, he has been crowned King in the North as he should have been all along. He takes precedence over Ned's children because he is the son of Lyanna and Rheagar Targaryen, though still a bastard. Ned took the seeming dishonor because of his promise to Lyanna to protect her son. I've always seen Jon as the ultimate winner of the Game of Thrones as played in Martin's Universe.

Whoever Daenerys weds or beds, she will ultimately end up with Jon. He is the ice and fire to her fire. He is the Prince Who Was Promised. I don't see him giving up the North or King in the North to wed Dany or rule jointly over a combined Westeros. I've always seen Jon as one of the 3 dragon riders to come and it makes sense since Daenerys will also ride one of the dragons, and likely Drogon. Jon will probably get Rhaegal and Viserion will like be commanded by Brandon Stark, the three-eyed raven or possibly Tyrion Lannister. My vote is for Bran as he is, as are all the Stark children, Jon Snow included, a warg.

I do like that Jon Snow, King in the North, is also called the White Wolf, especially since the white wolf, Ghost, is the only one left, other than Arya's Nymeria still loose in the wild. They will meet again as Arya crosses Westeros to return to Winterfell.

Littlefinger is about to get his comeuppance soon and Sansa will not be in his future, except maybe as a part of his downfall. He has finally loose the Cat out of the bag and admit he intends to take the Iron Throne. No big surprise for anyone watching or reading about the Westerosi wars and plots and double- and triple-crosses. Robert's curse fall on Littlefinger. No doubt Robert touched Littlefinger many times on his way into or out of the brothels.

Okay, back to my predictions.

Jaime will kill Cersei, which will leave Casterly Rock to Tyrion who deserves the title and the income it will generate. Tyrion will rule Casterly Rock as Hand to the Queen with Sansa, his wife, by his side. Sansa was married first to Tyrion, but the marriage was not consummated. Now that Sansa has had a taste of the fairy tale life she dreamed as a young girl at Winterfell and tasted the bitter ashes and gall that came with the dreams as they shattered, she may see Tyrion in a different light, less as the Imp and more as the intelligent and tortured (by his own family) man of parts he is. I've always liked Tyrion and I will definitely like to see him where his family, other than Jaime, never saw him or considered for him: Master of Casterly Rock and married to Sansa Stark with children playing at their feet.

Jon Snow will marry Daenerys Targaryen and unite Westeros but Jon will remain the White Wolf, King in the North. Daenerys will undoubtedly take the Iron Throne and she will once again bear children -- to Jon.

Mirri Maz Duur's prophecy for Daenerys was: "When the sun rises in the west and sets in the east. When the seas go dry and mountains blow in the wind like leaves. When your womb quickens again, and you bear a living child. Then he will return, and not before." 

I dislike prophecies like the above because they are never what they seem on the surface and I wonder if that is not due to the nature of prophecy being like a puzzle that must be solved or merely the nature of the prophet who cannot speak plainly or cannot decipher the other worldly voice into common speech. 

Let's try this on for size.

When Daenerys is Queen of Westeros and takes the Iron Throne, her domain will reach from Westeros (in the west) to Meereen (in the east). The great sea of grass is already dry and the pyramids of the slavers are burned and their remains blow in the wind. Dany bled when Rheagal and Viserion took down the pyramids of the slavers which may be the sign that she is menstruating again. Since Daario Naharis is no longer bedding Dany, that leaves whoever she decides to marry once she reaches Westeros to get her pregnant, but at least her womb has quickened. That may be the result of all three dragons being unleashed and nearly full grown -- or maybe are full grown already. If Dany names her first child, a son, Drogo, the prophecy will be fulfilled. Whether that will result in Khal Drogo returning is another thing altogether, but anything is possible when magic is involved.

So much for Martin's simple story. I'm still waiting for the book, The Winds of Winter, but with Martin imminent release is uncertain. Such has been the case since The Game of Thrones was released. It's easy to get caught up in other projects and making a living that does not depend on a book or a series. Mortgages must be paid, food, shelter, and necessities, as well as wants, must be provided, and life still goes on, and Martin has a very full schedule with his appearances, interviews, other books and anthologies to compile, edit, and release, and his movie theaters and other business ventures to see to. I'd say it's difficult to focus on only one ball when juggling so many balls in the air. HBO will make sure that season 7 of Game of Thrones will roll out on time with or without Martin's final books in the Song of Ice and Fire.  

In the meantime, I'll get back to juggling my own balls and focusing on what I can control and leave prophecies to the Winds of Winter.

That is all. Disperse.   

Teenage Shame

I've posted some of my art without shame. I'm still scrubbing off the rust so the work reflects that. It's a learning process. Even in the summer of 1970 when I attended an honors class in art in summer school I knew the painting of my youngest sister was not good. My mother kept the painting and hung it out for all to see and I cringed every time I passed it. That portrait was not my best work. It still isn't.

The portrait is done in acrylics, a brand new medium to me in 1970, and I had a lot of problems with the paint drying almost before I could apply it to the canvas. Acrylic paint turns to plastic when it dries and, while I appreciated the freedom to bring my sister to school and have her son, I didn't appreciate the lack of instruction I got from the teacher. Lack of instruction as in none at all interspersed with being told to let loose and be free with the paint and the brush. Had it been left to me I would've applied a coat of primer and started over with something else or repainted the portrait with oils or even wrestled with acrylics some more and found some way to compromise with the limitations of the acrylics.

Luckily, acrylics have improved since 1970 and so have my skills in working with them. In the meantime, I'm still learning the pros and cons of colored pencil and brushing up my technique with charcoal and pencil. It's a process and a process that may well take the rest of my life to master. I'm not worried. Erte went from drawing and designing magnificent costumes for the stage in the 1920s and in his 80s turned to ceramics with the same flair and unquenchable thirst for new ways of expressing his art.

My teenage shame,
Beanie at 5 in blue dress to match her eyes.  

It's more of a cartoon than a portrait and I have done better since -- and even before I painted this. I threatened to destroy it when Mom died so she gave it to Beanie to protect it. So much wron

g, but there are glimmers of possibilities never realized. Maybe now I can find some way to rescue the feelings of joy trampled by the realities of my own limitations and the limitations of the medium and learn. After all, life is about living and learning and life is far from over. 

That is all.  Disperse.

Chasing The Past

Last year I jumped back into art in a big way, buying supplies, and trying out new media -- new to me -- and kept coming back to where I began 50 years ago when I discovered I could draw. As with everything in my life, I went from drawing pictures out of my piano lesson books to Sunday comics in the newspaper and eventually right into painting portraits in oils with brushes and pigments and linseed oil. I didn't know all the techniques and how it all went together and I plunged ahead experimenting with canvas boards and stretched canvas and eventually buying canvas and frames and stretching canvas on my own. Good thing I had a job by then at the age of 15 and bought my own supplies. The supplies that come in a single Xmas gift of painting materials didn't last long. I got a scholarship to the Columbus College of Art and Design when I was in 9th grade at Westmoor Junior High and our first lessons were in soft pastels.

I fearlessly attacked still life and more portraits, drawing fellow classmates when I'd finished with the model posing at the front of the class. Hands a dozen different colors and scattered sheets with finished portraits and the occasional still life. I raced through everything with an ability I never questioned and didn't appreciate -- or fully understand. I was in my element, testing the waters of various artistic disciplines offered in the art classes in high school. Never enough, I experimented with sculpting clay (and plaster of Paris at home), cutting lineoleum blocks for block printing (still have the scar where I gouged out a hunk of skin over the knuckle of my right index finger), screen printing, and finally into painting again, at home with the oils and frustrated with acrylics because they dry too fast and end up looking like hunks of stretchable plastic. Watercolor was fun, but we never had enough time in class -- or in the classes at OSU where I got my first taste of live nude models on Saturdays all summer long. I never learned about using negative space or glazing or dead layer (grisaille) paintings that lie beneath the glazes.

Here I am after nearly 40 years of ignoring the artistic abilities seething just beneath the adult facade of wife, mother, and working to earn a living because it's the mature thing to do, give up dreams for the reality of making a living that I stumbled through half alive. Art won't make me a living or feed my children and neither will writing. "Wake up, girl. Get a job and make sure to marry some guy who will take care of you. You won't make it any other way."

My hands were always moving, picking up a pencil to sketch an interesting face in TV Guide or Woman's Day or evenPlaygirl.  I couldn't help myself. No matter how I ignored the pull of the pencil an interesting face and whatever pen or pencil was closest to hand, even crayons on occasion, I sketched what interested me and hid it, put it away in a book or left it laying around until someone else put it in the trash. The drawings were more mature, more refined than what I produced as a teenager. I clung to the knowledge that even as I got older the art would always be there and would get better as I matured and viewed the world from a different perspective. It would wait for me --

-- until I took another plunge into the artistic stream when there was no one to stop me, to remind me I had obligations, to tell me no and found that my drawing skills had atrophied. The art didn't wait for me and I wasn't about to let go after I got used to the idea that I'd have to start all over.

Some of the skill remains beneath the rust and dust and I scraped it all away, dusted my atrophied skills, and did what I never had to do before when I was younger. I drew the same thing over and over, taking it apart and drawing the parts that make up the portrait. An eye drawn repeatedly, first the right and then the left, until I approached something almost like the photo. Lips in colors. Lips in pencil. Lips in charcoal. Refining the technique and the anatomy one feature at a time.

A year ago I finished this drawing -- in colored pencil, a medium I am not yet completely comfortable with -- and the features are distorted. Disheartening, but it was a first effort.

Click on the pictures to ee the actual size. 

Talk about a square jaw. I got that down, but it's still wrong. The proportions aren't too far off, but they're still not right. I sketched other faces from my desk calendar, pictures of my granddaughters pulled from Facebook, pictures of my grandchildren, Sierra and Connor, whatever picture stirred my juices.  I still hadn't conquered this portrait. It took me 6 months to get up the gumption to try it again. 

I can't tell you how many times I practiced the eyes, nose, ears, lips, chin, and ear and finally ended up with this version. I erased so many time I thought I'd ended up with fuzzy almost there lines and would never get to the point where I was satisfied. I covered pages and pages of facial features, my Great Aunt Ann's facial features. Still not there.

Getting closer. Still not happy with the eye and the lips aren't quite right. I saw my mother in every line, recognized her eyes that looked liked Aunt Ann's eyes. Of course, she was Grandpa's sister and Mom looked so much like her. I didn't realize at first why the proportions were off. I figured it out when I noticed the cheeks weren't full enough and the double chin was minus the other chin. Aunt Ann's hair was just like Mom's, the same dark brown, thick and perfectly coiffed. Aunt Ann owned a chain of beauty shops and she had learned much over the years she ran those beauty shops. She knew fashion and style and how to fix hair. She was always perfectly turned out.

Yes, that is a mink coat. I still have her black ostrich feather hat, the one that still has the haute couture label in it and looks like it was worn by Betty Grable or Katharine Hepburn or even Grace Kelly. It was the height of style in the 1930s and would've been a lovely contrast with Ginger Roger's blonde locks, dramatic. 

The angle of the photo is off, shot from too far below, but the finished result is really close. Not perfect, but an improvement on the one I did 6 months ago. It's in pencil because I'm comfortable and have lots of experience with pencil. I'll give the colored pencil version a shot again now that I'm almost there or I'll break out the oils and do a painting to hang on the way. If it turns out subpar I can always paint something else over it and give acrylics another shot. Or maybe charcoal.

That is as close as I'll get on this version, and it's really close this time. I'm happy enough with it to sign my name and add the date. Still a bit rusty, but much of the rust has been gouged off and the art is still there ready to be honed. I'll jump right into the middle of the stream with one of the media I haven't tried. I even got some pastels and will eventually get a set of pastel pencils. I like control and I like pastels -- or at least I used to like pastels. 

Time to scrape off more of the rust and chase down the old enthusiasm and intrepid nature. At least I'm willing to bear the erasures and scraping off layers of paint and dive in again. There no reason not to, except the urge to write another book or finish one of the several books I've started already. Rust gets into the most surprising places. I should buy a wire brush and get to scraping.

That is all. Disperse.

What's Hot; What's Not ...

Hems are  up. Hems are down. Puce is the new black. Backless. Strapless. The fashion changes from season to season and from designer to designer. Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada spoke softly and confidently with a sneer on her face as she lectured her hopelessly unfashionable new assistant about the color of the shapeless sweater she wore as an illustration of the importance of fashion. 

The same is true of the media outlets in every country and around the world. Fashions change. So do the headlines and lead-in stories. Both change for the same reason -- to promote the corporate agenda. 

When I moved to Colorado in 2003 the big news was the pine beetle infestation that was destroying the forests. Pine beetles were burrowing into pine trees of every kind to feed and hatch their eggs. It was killing the pine trees from the top down. The crowns of the trees were dying first as the infestation spread. Rusty brown spread downward in a death spiral that left the trees unfit for anything but crumbling, mealy innards that could barely support a hearth fire. The best thing that could happen was a forest fire that would destroy the dying trees and the pine beetles. The biggest wildfire in ages had already spread across thousands of acres of pine forest the previous summer set off by a park ranger burning her cheating husband's letters and landing her in prison in Texas. The nearly decade long drought made putting out the fire difficult and increased the ferocity of the fire due to the dry conditions. Still the pine beetle infestation continued. Pine trees affected bled their red-brown life down to the roots of the forest and the trees leaned and crashed to the pine needle covered ground. 

Living surrounded by pine trees and reluctant to watch my isolation disappear, I checked the trees on the land and looked for the signs of pine beetle infestation. I watched the rigid spines of lodge pole pines afraid to see the rusty death descending from crown to root. Every red-brown sign became the end until I noticed the tell tale signs were scattered throughout the length of the tree as pine needles grew and died in the normal course of life. The only trees with rusty crowns were the trees that wore death from crown to lower limbs as the natural span of life ran its course. 

More than a decade has passed and I don't read or hear about pine beetle infestations. The forest where I now live is full of trees in various stages of life: saplings rising to mature trees and old trees past the prime bare of needles and standing, leaning, and falling as the seasons change. The natural cycle of life continues. 

I recently discovered geo-engineering, which is man-made weather control. The aerosols contain . . . "[a] mixture of parasites, pathogens, toxic heavy metals and nano-engineered particles have been found falling to earth from the trails of certain planes. Aluminum, barium, bacillus spores, radioactive thorium, cadmium, chromium, nickel, desiccated blood, mold spores, yellow mycototoxins, ethylene dibromide and synthetic nano-fibers are among the ingredients found in collected samples." The result of weather engineering is that trees die from the crown down as they are poisoned by the heavy metals contained in the spray -- just as the pine beetle infestations were said to destroy forests. Coincidence? 

I don't believe in coincidence. 

Though it seems like coincidence, Alzheimer's and other physical ailments, like cancer, Autism, and immune deficiency diseases (Multiple Sclerosis, fibromyalgia, chronic pain syndrome, and lupus) have increased over the years -- in line with the increase of weather engineering and chemtrails. I believe that is not a coincidence, but rather simple cause and effect. Poison the atmosphere, kill the plants, and poison the water and earth and the plants, animals, and people will be poisoned as well. It's not difficult at all to trace the connections. Everything traces back to the government which controls the process -- and controls the information that filters down to the people through the media outlets. 

Newspapers, magazines, and television report the news and they are owned by companies and corporations that control what news the people see, read, and hear. What the people get has been edited and changed and the corporate spin applied so that the news contains little of truth and even less verifiable, accurate news. I learned first hand how publishers edit the news.

I broke into reporting in an alternative media outlet: Columbus Alive! I pitched stories I was interested in investigating and the Editor in Chief bought or passed on the stories I pitched. They liked my work well enough to assign me to various front page stories. I was thrilled. I was being published and had become a stringer for a newspaper. I wrote about the Ku Klux Klan's U. S. Supreme Court battle over their right to put a cross on the Capitol lawn during the Christmas season and interviewed the Jewish lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) who eventually won the case, Benson Wolman. The paper even printed my photo of Mr. Wolman posing in front of the American flag poster in the conference room of the ACLU offices in Columbus, Ohio. It wasn't until I interviewed Karen Jiobu who grew up in an Arizona Japanese Internment Camp that I saw how my article was edited to fit Columbus Alive!'s corporate agenda. 

The newspaper published my picture of Karen Jiobu in her home in Bexley, an upscale community. They did not publish my article as written. 

My first paragraph compared the Japanese internment camps with the death camps in Germany, detailing the way the Japanese-American citizens were rounded up and transported to the camps in cattle cars on the trains. I described how those American citizens lost their homes and possessions and their freedoms when they were sent to the camps and how they lived during the war years as compared to the way German prisoners of war were treated in POW camps on U.S. soil. I included my father's descriptions of the U.S. POW camps and how the German soldiers could walk out of camp and go to nearby towns, returning after a night of beer and girls and music. My father knew because he lived near a POW camp in Michigan. He met and made friends with the German prisoners of war and how they were treated, not as prisoners of war, except for where they stayed at night and the work they did as prisoners, but as men captured in war and held prisoner while the war continued in Europe. The POWs had German accents, but some had American accents and were spies. They had more freedom than the Japanese in the internment camps. 

When the internee children were old enough to get jobs and leave the camps, they were sent to the other side of the country and had to live with American families. Japanese-American soldiers who were already in the Army when war broke out with Japan had two choices: serve state side or fight in the European theater. The U.S. government considered them a danger if allowed to fight against the Japanese; they might become double agents (if they weren't already) and spy for the enemy. 

Karen Jiobu's father refused to agree to or sign a loyalty agreement and remained in the camp after the war was over. Karen's husband was also a child of the internment camps, but he refused to be interviewed. 

When the article was published on the front page, the opening paragraph wasn't how the German death camps were similar to the U.S. Japanese Internment Camps but how the memory of summer camp brought up the very different memory of camp for Karen Jiobu. The publisher and owner of Columbus Alive! had decided that my opening paragraph was too provocative and might send the wrong message, especially as the U. S. government was about to issue an apology and offer payment to the survivor of the camps. I had no say in the matter because I signed a contract that allowed my articles to be edited by staff. I didn't even have the right to pull the article because it had already gone to print. Check and mate. 

In the years since that article was published, I have watched as the news became less about telling people the truth and informing them of what was happening in their worlds and their communities and more about entertainment. In fact, magazines, newspapers, and television are all about entertainment. Once in a while a bit of truth leaks out and the average person misses it unless they know what is really going on and they can read -- or see -- between the lines. 

One by one, the country that was founded on the ideals of freedom, liberty, and honor has been replaced by the world that George Orwell foresaw in his novel, 1984. The media have become the propaganda mill that churns out edited and rewritten versions of reality and the truth, the modern day equivalent of Rome's bread and circuses that kept the people docile and feelings of rage and betrayal focused in a more manageable direction, either against the countries and provinces Rome stole in war after war or gladiators and prisoners of war sentenced to die in the arena. The politicians and rulers stayed in power as long as they kept the people's fed and amused the same way that governments keep their people fed through the dole (Welfare and food stamps in the United States) and amused with Reality TV and celebrity gossip as they cheer and jeer the political races and the boogeyman of the day: Gadaffi, Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, Osama bin Laden, Putin, and Russia. The boogeyman change as they rise to power and are defeated by the forces of the United States of America until a new boogeyman can rise from obscurity to rain death and terror and eventually be defeated in his/her turn. 

Keep the masses fed and amused and give them new gladiators and terrorists to hate and cheer as they fight to the death or are sacrificed on the altar of Justice. 

Each year, each day, the propaganda mill churns out new crusades with new villains to loathe and despise as reality is twisted and hidden beneath the weight of the masses whose minds have been controlled and their reason warped. They are teased with the latest revelation on the real cause of heart disease and obesity, offered another quick fix, and sold the latest medical marvel to keep them docile, drugged, and debilitated. 

Like fashionistas that followed the hem lines, color, and styles from season to season, the rest of the world follows the latest and greatest in propaganda. After all, even publicists and corrupt politicians need a job while the corporations keep raking in the money while keeping the masses fed and entertained. 

That is all. Disperse. 

What Are You Worth?

I keep reading and hearing people say that if people can get the book, and hence the writing, for nothing then that is all the book is worth -- nothing. Every time I think about that point of view I keep coming back to: if payment is the only measure of what something is worth no wonder the world is screwed up.

I do believe in a world and a society that is driven by money the only measurement available is money, but is that really valid? Story tellers throughout the ages have wandered from place to place telling their stories, some invented and some told and retold for centuries like Homer. Homer was a blind storyteller and his version of The Illiad and The Odyssey have become immortal and last through the ages. They will probably last for many ages to come. Storytellers and minstrels and bards and wanderers received payment in the form of shelter and food and help and often not even that because the communities where the wanders landed could not afford more than a bite of food and a post by the fire to sleep. Richer towns and wealthy landowners paid more for the wanders' services but did the amount of remuneration mean the rich enjoyed their stories and songs more or that they were more generous? That is the trap I believe we fall into today.

We have come to believe the amount of payment is equivalent to the product, in this case a book. But is it? I've read some truly awful books that cost me far more than I thought they were worth and wonderful, magical books that I would've paid three times the price to read again and again. It's not, in my estimation, the price that defines excellence but the story and the author of that story. If you write because you love writing and want to tell stories why debase that desire by counting coins?

Yes, we all need money to live because that is the way the world works, but are we happier when we have more money, more things, more everything or are we merely following the crowd?

If you write because you must, because telling a story is as necessary as breathing, then write. Demand payment from those that can pay, but be willing to give your work to those that cannot. Paid or free, it is not the coin that defines worth, but the writing itself.

As for me, I look forward to the day when the world no longer runs on money but on community and the worth of art and literature and even ditch digging is determined by its value to the worker, the artist, the writer, and the person. 

That is all. Disperse. 

Temporarily Banished

I was asleep, minding my own business in a dream that was just a dream. Only it wasn't. I see now that the dream was born of issues I may not have fully dealt with or at least an issue that remains a part of me -- as some things often do no matter how you banish them or ignore them. It became a nightmare that catapulted me into the wide awake world where I usually live with a raging anger and the same sense of betrayal and loss I felt when I ended things several years ago.

And now he's back, still a coward, still a jerk, and still upending my peace of mind.

The dreamscape is one I've visited numerous times before. It's one of several dreamscape that recur in my sleeping world.

I was in an apartment I usually don't live in when I visit that dreamscape. It was smaller than the usual digs, but comfortable with room for my hobbies and mental pursuits. I gathered the trash and picked up a bucket of water I'd used to mop the floors -- on my knees, so I knew it was a dreamscape immediately. I don't scrub floors on my hands and knees.

Anyway, I took the trash and the bucket of dirty water outside where some of my neighbors were dumping their trash and chatting (gossiping most likely) about whatever. As I dumped the bucket on the grass someone said, "Well, that's new. No one dumps such things out here. Usually use the toilet or the sink."

I ignored the comment until the other neighbors' ribbing pricked the edge of my tolerant mood the wrong way. "I felt like taking a walk and perhaps bumping into my friendly neighbors." I bit down on the sharper edge of my tongue. I didn't add that I should have walked farther or that I should've waited. I really wasn't in the mood for the usual onslaught of hurt feelings and injured cries of bruised egos and pricked self-importance. I just wanted to finish the task and go back to my cozy little nook where I could shut the door on petty minded busybodies.

Almost at the outside door reaching for the handle, he came at me from behind offering sympathy for the rude people and setting the nape of my neck tingling with upraised hair. Oh, how I wanted to escape his insincerity and his subsequent attempt at 'let's be friends and talk about us' before I gave into the urge to slap his face -- with a hand rake.

I consciously lowered my shoulders and eased the tension evident to anyone but clueless him, murmured my thanks for his attempt at empathy and slowly and deliberately opened the door. He was determined to make the most of me speaking to him at last. Sure of his welcome, grudging though it was, he stepped between me and the open door and took the bucket in hand. "Let's set this down here out of the way so we can take a walk."

I could've shoved him aside, got my bucket, and left. I didn't. Damnable manners got in the way and, if I'm to be completely honest, politeness and a smidgen of hope quickly quashed and stuffed into the nearest dark, blind niche. A moment of politeness costs nothing. Well, nothing more than lowering the thick, seemingly impenetrable wall built to keep him out and away from the shreds clinging to the remains of my heart.

"I did want to get some fresh air," I said and backed away from his outstretched hand. I'd walk a few steps but there was no way he was going to touch me. I'd slug him first.

We strolled past the goggle-eyed neighbors without a word and toward the massive tree that towered over the yard, its bottom branches so high they couldn't even brush the tops of our heads. No, not there. I veered away from his intended route and down the long lawn toward the river.

It must've dawned on him that the way he imagined our reunion I wasn't going along with the program. He stopped while I walked on. Since I continued to walk toward the river he pointed to the sky and called my attention to a shooting star. Rational mind kicked in with meteorite blazing to earth from friction as it screamed to its death, a death I had heartily wished on him a few -- million -- times since I'd last seen him.

Come to that, I don't remember him moving into the building and yet here he was. Bold as brass and twice as irritating against my skin. I resisted the urge to claw at the hives I imagined humping up the longer I allowed politeness to keep me from the cozy confines of my rooms.

Politeness can only move me so far. I'd had enough fresh air. Time to shake this hound off. Now. "Thank you for the walk." I turned about and walked toward the building. Sputtering protestations followed a few steps before he grabbed my arm and yanked me to a stop. Bristling, I hesitated just long enough for him to vomit up an apology and "I was wrong," stopping me from slapping the taste out of his mouth.

"Nice to hear you admit it. Too little, too late." I brushed his hand off me. "What now? Should I relent and fall into your arms?" He held out his arms and flashed me his patented crooked grin. "Not happening." His arms dropped as though made of lead held up too long for his puny muscles to withstand. "Thanks for the walk and the air."

"Please." The longing and desperation reeked from that one word. Tears threatened. I stopped to gain some semblance of control and he emerged from the shadows to stand in front of me. I never knew he could move that fast -- or be that decisive. He was all about over thinking everything and planning to bolt. "Please," he repeated.

"Please what?"

His head jerked back as if my fist had connected. "Please wait. Let me explain."

Angry retorts battered his limp excuses. Too much time, too much hurt, and too much silence stood between then and now. I felt my resistance waning, giving into the dis-ease I felt standing that close to him. My vision blurred with unshed tears. My stomach ached. My heart ached. Everything ached from the stifled emotions and resentment and repressed anger. Not sure which was stronger, the fury at myself for letting things get to this point or the horrible loss because he was -- and continues to be --- a coward and not being honest from the start. I should have been less naive and more cynical, but I have learned. Finally.

Suddenly, my temperature cooled . . . as it does when I have reached the outer limits of fury and anger, and the temperature around me dropped. He stopped dead in his tracks. His arms dropped to his side and he stared at me as I gathered myself, turned, and slowly walked away leaving him behind me. When I reached the building and opened the outer door I looked back. He had not moved.

I almost expected to see snow falling. The neighbors rubbed their arms and complained about the creeping cold. A few pulled their sweaters, jackets, and coats closed and moved away to go home as they shouted hurried goodbyes. I picked up the bucket and went back to my cozy apartment. I wasn't cold. I wanted to be safe inside away from prying eyes and nosy neighbors. Away from him.

It did not feel like a long time, but the expected knock thumped on the door. When I opened it he stood outside in the hall. "Why did you see me in that first time?"

"Of course I wanted to or I'd not have invited you."

He turned and walked away. We were obviously done at last.

Why is it that a man can't take a woman's word when they end? Why do they believe only a man can end it? My second husband told me that we would never end until he said we ended. I laughed at him and laughed even harder when he came back with "I asked you to marry me. It's not over until I say it's over." I told him, "But I had to say yes first." He didn't get it and I spent the next few years proving it to him when I moved away and made my family promise never to tell him how to get in touch with me or I'd not let them know either.

Not that I worried too much they would take me up on the promise to cut them out of my life. They wouldn't mind. They'd wanted to get shed of me for most of my life. I had provided what I was adopted to provide -- children of their own. My purpose was fulfilled. All they needed to do was get rid of me so their family, finally complete, could go happily on as a family without me. I was used to being alone and without family. My own birth mother didn't want me back. She had her own happy family. Oh, she loved me, but I was the past. I should stay in the past and not be a constant reminder of what she had given up. I was her child, but only by biology. She had sons now. Her daughters were part of the past. I was part of that past.

A few days later -- or hours since it was dream time -- the phone rang. I answered and confirmed I was me. He wanted to take me out, get to know me. He had been given my number. No surprise there. He knew all about the affair and he thought I might be lonely and wouldn't want to remain lonely. My girlfriend listened to my side of the conversation amused at the way I handled the caller. She was a little surprised that I was so calm, that I seemed to tease him and flirt. All I can say about that is that is my default mode: teasing, flirting, pleasant.

"Keep listening," I said and hung up.

"What was that all about?"

"He wanted to keep me company," I responded, voice tight, temperature dropping. My jaw worked as I clenched my teeth and sought to master the feeling of betrayal and anger bubbling like lava toward the surface. Our conversation was terse on my part and full of wonder and the need to get out of the blast range on the other as she sidled toward the door.

What had sounded like light-hearted banter was obviously not so light-hearted or pleasant. The caller had presumed too much and that presumption came from the man who gave him my number. A man who might as well have written it on a bathroom wall. A man I once trusted and, Goddess help me, I still loved. A man who had tossed me away without paying me off first as any good prostitute would have demanded. I never expected to be passed around like a dirty joke, but that is evidently where I found myself.

Even when it's over it's not really over. Not until the man says.

No wonder I was instantly awake last night. Betrayal and calculated disregard -- mine or someone treated that way -- always gets my attention. Had I answered wrong when I told him I let him in because I wanted him, because I wanted to be with him? Had I brought everything on myself with my feelings for him? I didn't know. I would never know. He was too much of a coward to face me or to tell me his promises and our plans were empty dreams. Had he told me, I would have still wanted him the way I've wanted anything that is out of reach -- without emotional investment. Or time. Or belief. Or trust. Or dreams of a future together.

And it would have hurt so much less.

Even the relationships that have ended and the men banished, the banishment is only temporary.

Or so it seems.

Wite-Out Sky

When I woke this morning the world was white. The sky was white. That usually happens when there are big fluffy clouds covering the sky, but this sky was Wite-Out white. Liquid paper spilled over the dome of the sky -- or white chenille stuck up there with the chenille side facing me. I had to go outside to make sure I wasn't missing part of the picture. 

I wasn't. 

I hadn't.  

It was all there.  The sky was white in every direction, not a sign of clouds overlapping or cobblestoning the heavens. White. Blank. Albino. Nothingness as far as my eyes could see. The absence of everything. Everything except the sun's light illuminating my world without a sign of the burning orb anywhere. Just light. White cold light that struck no answering faceted brilliance of gem fire like sparks struck from crystalline jewels. Just white. Absence. Cold emptiness. 

I expected to see snow -- on the trees, on the deck, on the railings, on the ground. I had watched yesterday's rain and sleet and smaller than pea size hail turned into thick clumps of snowflakes while I watched, and eventually into ground covering weighted with all the rain that had fallen moments before -- for several hours before. Seeing that white sky sent me outside to take photos and to marvel at the sheer surprising endlessness. A white hell pregnant with portents, frigid fingers creeping slowly up and down my spine, firing all my nerve endings with incandescent flames more pervasive than any Brian Keene novel. I fought the urge to load the shotgun and barricade the glass doors from where I would goggle mute, horrified, uncomprehending at the shambling, relentless hordes.

The Rising lurches like broken marionettes barely attached with rotting and broken strings from termite-infested crossbars at the edge of my brain to be glimpsed from the corner of the third eye, there and not there, threatening to become tangible.

There is a blue cast to the photos above, the same blue cast that tinges all my winter snow pictures. Must be the blue light the camera picks up that my eyes see as white. Unadulterated and untinted white. Dead white. Wite Out white. White that is not the absence of color but the presence of all colors and all light waves and all the colors of fear and apprehension and . . . ominous shades of chaos and . . . something more primal, more basic, more . . . nightmarish.

I am not given to flights of fear or nerves and hair standing on end normally. I am a rational person able to face the abyss as vertigo unsettles my vision and sets my heart thump, thump, thumping in abject terror with a smile on my face and reflexes tensed to spring toward safety should the edge crumble and tumble me to the center of nothingness. Always alert. Always ready. Always poised to flee. And yet here I am watching the heavy snow weigh the branches, bending the sturdy branches into arcs as though ice froze the branches and pine cones and needles into an eternity of stillness, until drips and drops and clumps and spilling walls of wet white cascade in crystalline curtains and drapes and frosty lumps to the mounded dunes growing up from the ground. Albino stalagmites growing toward the Wite-Out sky.

I wonder if my fantasy has overtaken my common sense in an avalanche of restless waiting for the inevitable while the world outside this snow packed dome that isolates me and keeps me prisoner in an albino world as the long day of watching -- and waiting for . . . something -- leaches color from my rosy skin as it has silenced this corner of the mountain in an upturned milk glass bowl. Only time will tell what slouches this way, time that has been plucked from the normal stream of seconds, minutes, and hours, slowed to a crawl, gliding along its freezing slime trail and the heart thunders to a diminishing crescendo of purpose . . . before it falters, stalls, , and . . . stops.

That is all. Disperse . . . while you can.