1/1/2022 #46
New Year updates, art, drive-thru pharmacy (chaos), tree migration, Dyson & Ufan, long-lasting love, wildland firefighters, Lindy Hop, and Muscle Shoals.
UPDATE: It’s 2022
Ugh, 2021 was a rough year. I’m thankful that I haven’t lost anyone very close. Still, at least ten acquaintances (including one cousin, and two spouses of cousins) died last year—one from Covid. It was a stressful time for all.
Also, three women I know (all over 65) are having to move out of homes they’ve been paying rent or mortgage on for years. All will have to pack up and move out of familiar communities and—because so many other people are now seeking new homes, and waiting lines for rentals are long, it’s really difficult and stressful to find housing. I hope 2022 will bring them, and others, relief. If you know of any available (and affordable) rentals, anywhere, do let me know.
We start over again, but with those we lost in mind and heart . . .
This is an old video (can you tell?) I took on my little Canon Sureshot about 6 or 7 years ago. Not sure why, but it seems appropriate, somehow.
I am reducing my use of Instagram these days, posting most of my new art here in the Outpost, or on my website at jeanvengua.com—doing this mostly to repair my ability to concentrate, which, after 20+ years of task- and context-switching online and in social media, has left me habituated (addicted?) to a pattern of distracted, short-term thinking, more or less. Freelancing and bouncing between contract jobs on a daily basis hasn’t helped.
Writing this newsletter on a weekly basis has helped. I’d also love to read whole books, cover-to-cover, again on a regular basis. I’d love to create art in longer series that have been thought through in depth; I’d love to just sit and think or journal and write for longer stretches of time, without feeling like I need to pick up my phone and scroll.
On Dec. 31st, I had planned to participate in a bell-ringing ceremony at the Salinas (Jodo Shin) Buddhist Temple. The idea is that you acknowledge your shortcomings (with each ring of the bell) and resolve to do better in the coming year. Unfortunately, the event was cancelled due to someone in the organizing committee receiving a “positive” covid (omicron) test result, so they decided to err on the side of caution. Understandable.
I never make new year resolutions; but right now, I’m “ringing” that bell in my mind: resolving to do things differently this year. I’ll also be focusing more on what’s physically around me: people, local venues, the bay area and environment in which I live. In fact, this February I’ll have some art up at The Pearl Works Monterey (sponsored by EAAM) and will be doing a reading for Critical Ground artists collective in support of Courage Within: Women Without Shelter at Captain + Stoker with a wonderful group of writers. More on this in the coming weeks.
ART
I needed to do something modern and jazzy, so I started drawing these little boxes in ink and marker that gradually became—accretions of things. Something like that . . . it was fun and satisfying.
This last piece, “Drive Thru Pharmacy (Chaos),” has a story behind it. My doctor retired and, shortsightedly, I didn’t think about renewing my prescriptions until they “ran out.” But this time there was no doctor to approve them. This far into the pandemic, with Omicron worries starting to spread, new doctors were not so easy to collar. I ended up having to go to Urgent Care to renew my prescriptions—but only for 30 days.
After a couple months, I finally managed to get a “real” doctor appointment with a new MD to renew my meds. That turned out fine. But when I got to the Drive-Thru Pharmacy, the staff were clearly overwhelmed (or maybe just incompetent). They had sent me a text message and an email, both saying that my prescriptions were ready to pick up.
Clerk #1: Referring to the one medication of the three that I really needed, the lack of which had caused my blood pressure to shoot up; the one that I’d been waiting over two months to get renewed: “Sorry, we’re completely out of your medication. You’ll have to come back later.” I explained they had notified me that the meds were ready for me to pick up. She told me she’d check.
She didn’t return. A line of cars was waiting impatiently behind me. A homeless guy knocked on the window of the car behind me, asking for spare change. Fifteen or twenty minutes later, somebody back in the line honked.
Finally, a pharmacist came by, and happened to glance at the paper on the counter. He looked confused, then concerned, and looked up the information on the computer screen.
Pharmacist: “Uh, I’m sorry. we’re out of your medication.”
I explained the situation again. He said he’d check.
This time, he returned fairly quickly. “Oh, I see what the problem is: we don’t have all the medication in stock. So we’ll only be able to give you a partial refill of that prescription—and, sorry, but you’ll have to drive around and get in the back of the line and come around again while we fill this.
I drove around and got in the line again (and yes I was cursing under my breath).
While waiting, I took out a pad of mixed media paper, an ink pen and a marker—which I’d brought for just such a situation as this. I started drawing “Drive Thru Pharmacy (Chaos).” Actually, the time seemed to pass pretty quickly while I worked on the drawing; it was close to finished. Finally, after perhaps 35-40 minutes, I arrived back at the pharmacy window.
Clerk #2: (Looking harried): “Sorry, we’re only able to give you a partial refill on that one prescription, and your doctor made a mistake with the third item, so we won’t be able to give it to you at this time.”
Me: “I don’t care! I’ll take what you’ve got!”
At home, a couple hours later, I glanced at my pill bottle and did a double-take. The clerk had said it was a partial refill. I tipped the pills out of the plastic container onto my table, and started counting them. It was the full prescription.
LINKS
Trees look like they’re standing still, but they’re not: The Great Tree Migration is underway.
Torkwase Dyson on the art of Lee Ufan: “I know the sculpture is a gateway, a conduit, a narrator; the object’s almost-touch sends me to memories of futures and worlds I do and do not know—it sends me to cities and geographies that make and unmake people. This is no innocent modernism here; I do have an encounter.”
Lee Ufan: “The creation starts when inside and outside coincide”:
A long-lasting love; article by Stephen Trumper: When My Wife Developed Alzheimer’s, the Story of Our Marriage Kept Us Connected.
We can’t expect these firefighter heroes to just keep going and going: “I thought I was broken: when wildland firefighters head home, trauma takes hold.” By Gabrielle Canon in UK Guardian.
SOUNDINGS
Listen to the story about how a dance traveled from Harlem to Sweden, and how Black dancers are reclaiming it as a living tradition. “May We Have This Dance?” All about the Lindy Hop, by Justine Yang and Gregory Warner (NPR).
That Muscle Shoals sound. A documentary — with Aretha Franklin, Bono, Alicia Keys, Steve Winwood, Gregg Allman, Clarence Carter, Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Jimmy Cliff, and more . . .
Have a relaxing weekend as we head into 2022 and the Lunar Year of the Tiger!
I’ll be back with more next Saturday—probably ‘round midnight, as usual.