Lenses
They were on the table, beside the machine and a solar system of stick pins.
There was one pair on the dining room table. Adjacent the small kitchen through a small door, parallel to the large window overlooking the garden and the high wall that kept the freeway out of view.
One pair laid near the recliner that stood in the living room. The recliner swivelled: entry hall to television to unoccupied sofa and loveseat. Crochet covered worn armrests.
Then, on the small shelf in the bathroom with all of the expired tooth brushes. They perched above the tower of curling magazines on the toilet tank lid.
The sewing room, of course. They were on the table, beside the machine and a solar system of stick pins.
In the small room on the front of the house, that’s where I found the strongest prescription, lying on the small dresser that spanned the space between the wall and the edge of the narrow, single bed. Everyone slept in that bed eventually.
Ideas are exhausting
A fence or screen it would have been more practical.
This how that idea got out of control: the apartment had an absurdly large terrace with a thick concrete wall just above waist height. The concrete was tinted a hue better suited to the American southwest; it was garish in the damp and there was a lot of it. None of the surfaces that coated that place were soft and perhaps that was the point of entry—where the idea came in. The terrace and the apartment had a generous aspect to the east and a coveted outlook to the north: mountains and city skyline. A neighbour directly south introduced himself with a threat: don’t block my view. Points progressed to punctures.
There was a lumber shop at the end of the block so maybe it was the ease of material access; this has happened before. What’s within reach becomes suggestive—consequential—like the mound of old doorknobs Peter dropped in the metal recycling outside the door a lifetime later. They ended up in the metal recycling again but not until they were a major distraction. The lumber distraction was cedar—silver, soft and sweet smelling. A fence or screen it would have been more practical. Why was the idea not for a fence or screen? Why was it instead for a box?
Because.
Because the terrace was so large.
Some of it needed consuming. Filling. It asked for occupation.
Because.
Because the terrace was so large and all of it was seen.
There were no places of intimacy. There were no soft corners.
The box was no higher than the terrace wall. It had a frame made from pressure-treated lumber and it sat in the centre. The intention was always that it would have a small door so its vacant core could hide things like garden hoses. The top of the box was clad in soft cedar and had a recessed trough that was filled with native plants that took easily, their changing profile layering delicately onto the view of the neighbour to the south. The vertical faces of the box were also clad in cedar and they were pleasant from every angle. A disruption, yes, but in possession of some purpose. The box held its ground. It made new spaces and yet everyone asked what the box was, what it was doing there. It was exhausting.
Aaron took a lot of the cedar to his studio outside the city. The lengths weren’t useful to anyone building a fence and no one else saw two seasons of weathering as the perfect base for paintings. The rain drew a faint outline of the space where the box stood in the centre of the terrace. The plants that thrived in the recessed trough quickly outgrew it; the survivors were relocated to better accommodations. There were as many questions about where the box went as there were about what it was. Ideas are exhausting. It’s easier to call them art.
Blanket weaving
A rubber mallet or a good shove is used to keep the weft tight and after the desired height is achieved, small nails are used to hold the top edge like a binding on a blanket.
Fresh willow is harvested between October and April. In fields north of the city, the branches lay in high heaps. They shoot out from stocky, unassuming trunks in every direction, small explosions that hang atop dozens of horizons. Furry buds give way to thin leaves of bright green. Things quickly get out of control and so, fresh willow is harvested between October and April to keep horizons regular, to make sure that they remain down to earth.
Traditionally, fresh willow is made into fences and screens. This happens in several ways. The informal way is a variation on a pile. High posts are drilled into the earth along a property line or waterway on a slight angle. The willow is then laid horizontally and added to every time willow is cut. This method of boundary-making is flexibility solidified: a mass grave of youth. Another, more formal way is through weaving. Posts are installed at a regular pace, usually every 60-80 centimetres. The minimum number of posts is 3 but that really isn’t enough for a good weave. The lengths of willow—varying thicknesses, green and pliable—are gently jogged around each warp, alternating from left to right to allow for each willow branch’s tapering length. A rubber mallet or a good shove is used to keep the weft tight and after the desired height is achieved, small nails are used to hold the top edge like a binding on a blanket. The thin ends of excess are then trimmed. If placed in a vase of water on a window sill, they can generate their own inheritance.
There are seven bundles of willow in the side garden. I moved each piece from the street where an amiable young man who only works outside used a tiny forklift from the back of his truck to place them on my sidewalk. Five meters of willow is longer in the city; each burst of excess growth wrestled against my door frames and kicked at my kitchen counter in passing. When this rain and wind stops, I’ll steer the fresh willow up to the terrace garden. Four posts are waiting. I’ll make some mediation there between the earth and many horizons.
Nomenclature
Mine has seven prongs and another, I’ve discovered, is growing.
I know it as a snake plant but here it’s called a woman’s tongue. Mine has seven prongs and another, I’ve discovered, is growing.
Fractions
Some of these quarters are so well behaved.
What’s your strategy, he asked, not noticing the difference between the piles distributed over the ironing board and upstairs railing. There are no more wholes. All of the wholes became halves. This was essential, to move it away from the thing that it was toward an unknown other future thing. Some of the halves were enough; they did not ask for more so those halves became a pile. Some of the halves were more demanding; they could not remain as halves. It was clear they would make trouble in pairs, or worse, they would do nothing more than lie around. So the lie abouts, they had to become quarters.
Some of these quarters are so well behaved. They are all together, congenial and relaxed. These are the modest pile closest to the water heater. They are content there, pressing one another’s seams flat in indirect light. But the rest of the quarters—too many of them, frankly—are on the worktable, in the workroom where the door can be closed. There is no where else for them to be. They won’t stop shouting. They won’t relax. They certainly won’t cooperate.
So here is the strategy: there are halves and quarters and now there must be some eighths.
Pull-out section
When you sit on the sofa in the early morning and lift up this section of the weekend paper devoted entirely to books, you will need both hands.
There is a section in the weekend paper devoted entirely to books. Not a special feature. Not a double page spread. Not an article continued on page 10. A pull-out section. With an index and excellent graphic design. There are more than 10 contributors. They are describing more than 10 books. There are clever illustrations with unified styling and sidebars with related commentary.
When you sit on the sofa in the early morning and lift up this section of the weekend paper devoted entirely to books, you will need both hands. It’s heavy with paper and ink and words.
New Year
I see one, looking from great windows into boreal forest, waiting for it to be consumed in white.
I imagine one without strength to go outdoors. I imagine another watching the electrical box outside her studio window. I see one, looking from great windows into boreal forest, waiting for it to be consumed in white. Another, in a suburb with a long commute, calculates the accumulation in extra time while another—older, earned—cashes it in for sleep and books.
The epiphany was that we each have our confrontations.
Damp patch
The ink of the blue only thins on the horizon. Like the runoff from that indigo pot.
Now there are clear mornings. When I pull back the drapes from the corner, the window that opens reveals a lightness in the sky that we never see. There is no pink as the sun rises. No orange, no heat. The ink of the blue only thins on the horizon. Like the runoff from that indigo pot.
I thought of it yesterday when I was talking to her about doing things you aren’t sure you should do; like going to live in other places for a while, with other people, in the hopes that new things can be made. Of course you can make things in the place where you are but there are moments when invitations can be answered for journeys to be taken. She said that the house she was given was unbearably cold—a confrontation in a cold January—being cold made her tense, she said. She wrapped my shawl around her waist; she wore one pair of pants atop another. The situation I dreaded before arriving there was that I could not sleep. They provided me a private room in the shared apartment across the hall from the shared bath. It was comfortable and clean and directly above the town tavern that stayed open until the early morning. I thought about leaving but that was before walking up hill, before breakfast with strangers and before the runoff from that dye pot.
I just found a damp patch in the corner of our bedroom. It’s right near the floor, where the east wall meets the south. It isn’t a leak; it’s developing from within. The cold that comes with this new sky has altered the possibilities in the interior and there is even a bit of mildew growing. Last year the conditions just weren’t right, I guess.
Dark soles
Black on corporate blue.
Look, he said, proudly. Black on black on black. They won’t show anything.
Five days of walking filled all their crevices. Not at home but abroad, on the slopes of modestly sized mountains and down service roads. There was welcome rain during one day and two nights that filled the guts carved into the clay and didn’t penetrate. The texture of buttercream but not the colour. I smashed the black soles on the edge of the small front stair.
A trip into town relieved some of the pressure. There was rain there too but it was more a rinse than a soak. The creamy lime stains on the laces washed away. The resistance provided by paved surfaces worked thin lines of grout from the cracks but there was excess. It had been applied like fondant, liberally, on the level that held my foot above the earth. In the airport lounge with the travellers who had come from places with firmer ground, it remained visible. I rubbed each toe cap against the commercial grade carpet. Black on corporate blue.
In the side street that bends with the house named Trial and Error, the residue finally gave way. The stones were smooth under foot and it was pouring. It didn’t take any effort. I came home clean.
Cutting with a dull blade
Don’t think that pressure will change things. It won’t.
Don’t think that pressure will change things. It won’t.
It’s hard to remember the last cut. Certainly on those two tables pressed together in the dining room bay window, light in the morning if there was any to be had and through the funnel of the rear hall in the afternoon. That cutting mat was taped down to stop it from sliding. Pressure was a problem then too.
It’s easier to remember all of the actions made to bind things together. At the sewing table in the window that overlooked the island of stones, overlooked by the boughs of the cedar that got scary in the wind—edges round, straight, smooth and rough—then standing with the machine atop a makeshift box in the bay window again. Better light when there was any and a lighter bodily burden too.
There are two extra blades left in the box even thought it looked like one, bound together with grease applied to keep them apart. Remove the time with the grease. The blade beneath is still fresh, its body intact. Up to the task. Pressing threads apart until they break.
Just now the cutting mat slid a bit. The new meter stick has its own backing but the mat just takes it along. It’s the pressure. I applied too much.
Sleep story
Our bodies sank into it at the end of each day and remained thus, unconscious and undisturbed until we heard cardinal song or commuter traffic.
We had no mattress when we got there. We left the old one behind in the apartment made of glass. The new owner was hurrying us out. The old mattress needed transport to the dump. I have a van. I’ll do it. My renter wants in. It was lying there on the floor when we pulled the door closed for the last time. Years of sleep or the equivalent.
The small house was unbearably hot when we arrived so it wasn’t so terrible to sleep the floor. We had an air mattress but it was precarious. He leaned in to kiss my forehead and gave me a black eye. We went to the store with the nice mattresses shortly thereafter. This was what I would spend the prize money on: a mattress made of latex that I would have for life. This is what my accomplishments could afford me: sleep at night. Rest for my left hip and his right shoulder. A mattress made of latex with a merino wool cover that resisted dust mites and bedbugs. Protection from calamity, awake and at rest.
I slept beautifully on that mattress. Truly, it was the best I have ever slept, even while waking life escalated daily with absurdity in the name of education. Our bodies sank into it at the end of each day and remained thus, unconscious and undisturbed until we heard cardinal song or commuter traffic. While we worked, it quietly re-established its form, expanding to fill pits born by our heaviest and pointiest parts. It was always remade by evening.
When I was pried from that house in late September, the complimentary mattress bag provided by the movers was insufficient. It was thin, foggy and had obviously been used to hold inferior mattresses. This isn’t good enough I said before driving away and crying in a parking lot. I hope you survive this a neighbour said before waving goodbye. On the other side of the country, at another small house the mattress reappeared as resilient as ever. That bedroom was cold and damp but it proved resistant to this too. It held its form but never the dust, even as I laundered a hundred meters of unbleached cotton. He propelled himself through one bad job and two better and I made soft things for long journeys. We always slept well at night except that Christmas Eve but it wasn’t the mattress’ fault. This is a mattress for life, I told myself. You earned it with your accomplishments. No one can take that away from you.
Of all the things left behind, this is the heaviest burden.
Endnote
The weight was surprising. I pulled. He pushed. It demanded further accommodation.
Actually, it was hardly manageable.
When the delivery truck arrived, the driver—knowing, cheerful—used his hydraulic lift and a dolly to steer it towards the front porch. There, the compact package pitched forward like a tall cedar and he shoved it—firmly, forcefully—up two shallow steps. Then he left.
We pushed it together from the porch door, through the kitchen on its side and steered it to the bottom of the staircase. We were damp from effort and the unexpected resistance but still enthused because finally, it was happening; finally, we’d have something we wanted and worked for and desperately needed. Finally we’d have relief from everything we’d put up with and more than relief, we would possess something of real value. But we couldn’t get it up the stairs.
The weight was surprising. I pulled. He pushed. It demanded further accommodation. We removed the railing from the staircase. We both got under it. We put on our shoes. We each used a shoulder against its rolled end and entire mass and climbed one tread at a time. We pressed our arms against the walls like braces. We rested, stuck in the shaft of upward motion, unable to control it or get out of the way if we lost our grip. It took so much time. There was investment in every step.
We tipped it—finally—up like a lever onto the respite of the top floor. This was where we intended it to be. We slit its bindings carefully and stepped back as it unfurled in space, taking over the area we had dreamed of it filling. Silently, it expanded for two days and two nights. We watched together from our inferior position on the floor, coveting fulfilment but wary of its capacity to crush and bruise.
Perspective
I see you.
I see you.
I looked and there he was, framed by the highest window.
Stemless and leafless
They floated across an invisible horizon. False colours on false forms.
She was folded into the rear corner, the one where the courtyard window and the china hutch meet.
May I use your eyes, she asked, holding out a small plate. What do you think of this painting here in the centre. I think the colour has been applied over the glaze.
The plate was a small, modified square, its corners docked and gently rounded. Along the edges were small flourishes, slate grey applied on bright white. I ran my fingers over them and detected a subtle relief.
No, she said. That was there from the beginning. I mean the flowers.
The flowers were simple petals in an assortment of ceruleans. The centres were rendered with dark dots, stemless and leafless. They floated across an invisible horizon. False colours on false forms. I ran my finger over them. I felt nothing of substance and said so.
It’s clear to me that someone painted these flowers over an existing, completed plate, she continued. At first I thought my eyes were playing a trick but I have my glasses on. I can see very clearly that this was a diversion. Someone added this. They weren’t content with what was there.
I said that I found it charming, especially for so little. She retreated to the corner.
I don’t care about the price. I’m just wondering who had the last word.
List
-twins, riding one behind the other on uneven terrain; hats small on heads, heads large on bodies, bodies large on bikes
-twins on a bicycle built for two, the first turns to speak to the second over his right shoulder as he peddles, the hood on his sweatshirt slipping
-twins, riding one behind the other on uneven terrain; hats small on heads, heads large on bodies, bodies large on bikes
-young men on a bicycle built for two, one dark-haired and one fair; collegiate, convenient
-couple, aged; he is folding a blanket with a watery floral pattern and she will pack it in her pannier; they’ve rested a while but are facing the same direction again
Boxes
The last box is harder to imagine. She wants to attach it to a microphone stand. It will hold some equipment to modify her voice.
She wants to build a series of boxes.
First, a group of three: they must all be identical, rigid and clean. They will sit on the floor in front of the performers and they will be painted soft pink.
Next, a single box. It should be shallower. It should also be rigid and clean. It will hold rubber gloves and cleaning cloths and should, therefore, be painted that particular yellow.
The last box is harder to imagine. She wants to attach it to a microphone stand. It will hold some equipment to modify her voice.
I need these boxes to complete my thesis, she says. I need these boxes to make sure it is finished.
Some foreground
I breathed. It came back.
I see a shadow.
The edges are fuzzy and not sharp. I looked again right now and it faded from view.
I breathed. It came back.
When I make colour, I want it to be flat. I don’t like delineation. I want it to be even and subdued. Heather said I wanted it grey. I said I preferred gray to grey. Not somber. Modest.
This isn’t modest but mute.
Just now I saw a shadow. The contrast is low, there is a blanket on my knees and the door shouldn’t really be open. But finally, I saw a shadow; some foreground in the depth of field, some action of the tongue.
Hard of hearing
No one taught me to sing harmony. I could just hear it, but then suddenly it was gone. It was around the time that we lived in the place with the front porch that I loved and the peonies whose hearts bled fuchsia.
I heard the harmony again in the chorus. On the inside of my ear, not the outside.
No one taught me to sing harmony. I could just hear it, but then suddenly it was gone. It was around the time that we lived in the place with the front porch that I loved and the peonies whose hearts bled fuchsia. They exploded out of the ground almost as soon as the snow melted but that was the way that it was there: a tyranny of ice followed by a tsunami of sweat. When I try to recall the moment I stopped hearing the harmony inside of my ear, it’s that street that I remember: seven houses long on our side with the small apartment block on the end closest to the river whose surface burst in the spring. They laid dynamite all over it.
I am walking toward the river when I realise for the first time that I am hearing everything differently. I’m on my way to do the thing that I was convinced was mine to do and I felt—wanted—willed that this was the way to do it but I couldn’t find harmony anymore, inside of my ear. Not with my headphones in the heavy heat nor teetering up the ice. Not while working in my studio with the stereo up loud, alone or close to the others. You’re having a good time in there, the undergrad painter said without any envy. I was having a good time but I couldn’t hear harmony.
All this time that I haven’t heard harmony on the inside of my ear, not the outside, I’ve been apologising for things that weren’t worthy of apologies or criticism, like earnestness, ambition or enjoying the colour pink. Ten years of apologies, building up like a sheet of ice. It’s so thick that it looks like it’s frozen all the way through. I get that people think that but down below, at the bottom, there is movement. The workers who lay the dynamite know it. They know when they release the charge that there will be something left to carry away the pieces.
I heard the harmony again on Wednesday afternoon. On the inside of my ear, not the outside. It was the low register, the one the never strains my voice. I was washing residue out of the kitchen sink. Chunks of cauliflower had created a blockage. I picked the big ones out with my fingers and let the inconsequential disappear in the current.