Gardening and Painting

I like painting pictures. Mostly it is old school, looking at things, admiring them, trying to create a likeness. I have sold some, bartered some. A problem any painter may have, even Leonardo da Vince, is that you are really satisfied only with a few, with many you feel “not perfect, but maybe good”, and some you can’t stant. Another thing about painting is there is a pleasure just mixing colors, working with the texture of paint. But everyone I know who paints on a regular basis ends up with a lot of paintings, not enough storage.

Gardening has all the same pleasures as painting, and for the same or analogous reasons. You make a plan, anticipate how it will look, with some uncertainty as to the final result. The sunflowers might be tall and strong, or thin and weak, depending on the weather. But you learn how to nurture each plant, and learn its properties. There is also a pleasure just from working with earth, with your hands. Pulling plants, trimming them. It is the same tactile pleasure as in painting. Time goes by, at the end of a session things look somewhat different. One difference is that at the end you might have something to eat, certainly something to look at. When you die, someone else will have a totally different idea for gardening, but they might decide to like this plant or that plant, pull up others. If you buy a piece of property, you consider a remarkable tree that someone long dead has planted.

QUOD VISUM PLACET — the ancient Latin definition of beauty. Something exists. Someone beholds it (maybe only God beholds it, like some jewel underground). When someone beholds, they just like it. Not because they can eat it, or it helps them get something else, just because it is good to look. It is one of the first messages of the Bible. God creates something, then He “sees that it is good.” He doesn’ need the things he makes, He just makes them because they are good. And He likes to look at them.

I do not like the idea that things like gardening or painting are the realm for a chosen few. Or that “musicians” are specialists. Times were, before we had television, that everybody did something. People built things themselves. Someone might have a flair more than others for one thing, but it is human and good to make things and work on things. We are better off for the intense artists who have devoted themselves to perfection, who agonize over their work, but in the times of the Dutch Masters, or the Italian Renaissance, the artists were craftsmen. They were hired to do jobs, as illustrators or people who design gravestones. I think that great masters of the past would have laughed if you equated their artistic inspirations with prophecy, that their states of concentration gave them a special channel to the deity.

ARS EST RECTA RATIO FACTIBILIUM — another Latinism — art is right reason about things that can be made. Any task where you are making things, whether gardening, or painting, or plumbing, is art. When you develop your skills, you have a state of concentration. You want the thing to look good, to work good, and you can get pleasantly lost in the work. It is an act of reason, and is also a matter of getting your hands dirty. Endorphins are involved. It is a good thing.

CITY OF REFUGE

A powerful song. Blind Willy Johnson formed that bullfrog voice as a street musician, to get volume. The song itself refers to the “City of Refuge” from the Old Testament. I happened to be reading Alphonsus Liguori’s “Glories of Mary” at the same time I was discovering this song. Willy Johnson and Alphonsus Liguouri both connect the city of refuge with the New Testament. Willy sings of the episode from the Book of Revelations (Apocalypse) where the woman with child flees from the dragon to give birth. Alphonse Liguori says that the Old Testament City of Refuge is a figure of Mary in the New Testament, and Mary in turn represents the Church founded by Christ. I also make this connection, Mary goes to the hills in haste (before she gives birth) to attend to the needs of Elizabeth her cousin. In which case, the city of refuge runs to the hills.

Selfishness

G. K. Chesterton once said, in a paradox to confound popular wisdom, that one must be selfish in the decision to enter into marriage. It is necessary to ask will that person make me happy, and to be very realistic about it. Once the married life is lived, the actual living cannot be selfish at all.

Irish Alzheimers

Irish Alzheimers — you forget everything but the grudge. I remember some Irish neighbors, an elderly couple, when I lived in a city far from here. They walked to and fro from their house, and they were always muttering at the threshold of hearing. From the look on their faces, they were narrating some sort of internal complaint related to some person who had wronged them. You really could not pick up any words, just a sort of lilt.

When I Die

I remember reading about “rouge” as a cosmetic. People use to die young of consumption, what we call tuberculosis. One symptom was that their cheeks would be unusually read. It was considered «tres romantique» to die of comsumption, so poetic, so tragic, at a young age. And so rouge became the fashion. It got me wondering, how much of the anorexic model syndrome is due to the tragedy of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome? Now, if you die past age thirty-five, it is not so romantic. That is probably the expiry date in countries such as Afghanistan. It is hard to make a big thing out of it. Unless it is very tragic and involves heroism. This is brutal writing, and probably offends you in your situation, but it is how I constantly think. I have felt death creeping upon me more than once, however I would express it in medical terms, and so have you. I don’t want to get into details. So, the question is, do we make the most of what is given? The tragedy would be not to have asked that question.

I remember a death, that she said “I want my four boys around me.” It didn’t happen. At that moment, there were only medical personnel. But if you are aware, your attention is probably completely on the Infinite, Absolute. All I can consider at this moment is that I should live so that whether I die definitively, or simply fall asleep for a while to get up again, I should live so that I don’t carry real hard regrets. Sleeping every night involves letting go of things, somewhat in the same sense of abandonment as dying.

Don't Worry

My brother, who has good opinions, and by his vocation and trade must advise people, says this. Most of the problems of most of the people can be handled by listening to the song “Don’t worry, be happy”. I agree, though at times it is hard to take that advice. Money problems? The old blues song says “If you lose your money, don’t you lose your mind.” Health problems? There are lots of people around me who keep on losing body parts, but keep on going. The main problem I have when I go to sleep each night, and lose control of my consciousness, is how evil I have been that day, and I hope it is not too much. But at that moment there is “quality time” with the Big Man, however each of us may think about him, and at that time I should discuss it with Him. Because maybe there is no tomorrow down here for me, or for you. You get the drift?

I could live in Poland, or under a bridge in Rome near the beggars’ burial ground. I could draw pictures in paper or scratch figures in sand. I have not figured it out, but do not know whether I am supposed to figure it out. Let us cling to the certainties we hold dear, and let the rest fall in the hands of providence.

Whistle While You Work

Are you sitting at your computer? Coincidence! So am I. I sit at it all day. I use a USB full-size keyboard so as to not wear out the lap-top keyboard. And my playlist of music today includes, Bartok, Sonny Terry and Browny McGhee, John Lee Hooker, Arvo Part, Mendelsohn, Language Arts.

And here is some Avro Part:

And here is some Sonny Terry and Browny McGhee, a greatly abbreviated version of “Key to the Highway”.

Pagoo

I discovered this blog-page: http://www.sunderingsea.blogspot.com/2011/04/pagoo.html Here are some beautiful illustrations from a book called "Pagoo" -- about a hermit crab. I enjoyed that book as a child and still do.

Barter System

As a sideline over the years, I have done many paintings, so many that I am tripping over them. Occasionally I have made a satisfying sale, put on shows, got written up in obscure magazines. I have enjoyed painting, especially at times when I “had too much time on my hands.” There were some paintings that took an entire month, a few hours a day. Now, although I have made good sales in the past, I am a busy person, busy with other things. I work reading and writing all day, and doing more “eye-work” has turned out to be too tiring.

I briefly marketed my creations on E-Bay, and I know from experience that it would be financially rewarding if I continued, but I just don’t have the time and inclination. It involves negotiation, correspondence, packaging, shipping. Lately, I posted some things on facebook, where I keep my number of friends to a minimum, and someone offered to barter. As it turns out, that person is an artist whom I respect, and she traded her own baked goods for a painting, with several more trades to come. Now, when an artist is dealing with people of ordinary income, they balk at spending. Suppose I spend a month doing a painting, and factor in the time spent at minimum wage, factor in materials, and other costs. It is unlikely that I will get that much money. But, if someone cuts trees, or does plaster work, or lays bricks, etc., a good trade seems much more likely. This will allow people to acquire my paintings even if the economy is in trouble, if they are out of work, etc.

I will mention also that when I barter a painting, I put it in my books as sold to a general customer, and at a reasonable price, and that is reported income. What the other party does is none of my concern. Just saying.

Internet Land and Familiarity

There was a woman on Facebook who posted some lines from a song, in such a way that it looked like she was contemplating suicide. Concerned commentators asked if it was real, but there was silence. It seems that the woman who posted the suicide-song-status at that point lost her internet connection, so there was no answer. Someone who was truly concerned called the police, and the police broke into her house. The next day, the woman who posted the suicide-note scolded those who were concerned for her safety, and said they were stupid for not knowing she was just sharing some words from a song. She invited those who “didn’t get it” to defriend her, which I did in an instant.

We don’t know just what the guidelines for Internet Familiarity are. Over the years, there are a precious few people whom I have never met in person, yet we are friends who know each other quite well. Then there is a big grey area. If you invite the whole world to know your troubles, if you invite a response, don’t be surprised if people you think you don’t know get concerned. You might have your internal guidelines and boundaries for how much other people may get involved in your calamities, but other people do not know them.

Ms. Translation and the culture of un-truth

My bread and butter work, and avocation, is translating philosophical works. It is very steady work, and so I don’t have a business card. Since the 1980's when I learned some Latin at the University of San Francisco, I was aware that the version of the Novus Ordo Mass we said in English was grossly mistranslated in a tendentious way. Enough is written elsewhere about that. If I made such errors in translation, I would have fired myself. The mistranslations often eliminated scriptural references, minimized Catholic expressions of personal guilt, and replaced references to spiritual realities and entities with material realities. Fr. Joseph Fessio suggested to us students of Latin that we make a study of the "Collects" in Latin and English. The fact that the Church has taken half a century to fix up a few mistranslations is sign, it seems to me, that Church-men have become used to a culture of un-truth. The Catholic Church’s teachings have always had plenty of things that make people uneasy, such as the claim to exclusivity, and clear-cut sexual ethics. But those particular things have been kept out of view. I wonder about the procedure for becoming a Catholic. Are potential converts only told at the very last moment that the Catholic Church holds itself to be the exclusive and true Church founded by Christ?

Mama died

Mama died at the age of 91. That was on the eleventh of November, 2011 (11/11/11), and she was an associate member of the Legion, because Dad was a soldier in WW II. When she was around age 89, we started going to places to perform music, and some of her performances are at: http://youtube.com/hyoomik. For the last three years, between my work, I have been indulging in music, playing in various places in Niagara Falls, Ontario. It has been at the amateur level, and some people have appreciated it. Also, I have made many friends, and a few very good friends, through music.

This past year, I had several bouts of illness that seemed near life-threatening. One was a bout of coughing and pneumonia, where it seemed that if I went to sleep I might not get up. The other was a blockage in an artery in my leg. I didn't need a doctor to diagnose it, because I knew exactly where it was and could tell which way it was heading. In neither case did I even go to a doctor, because in either case, if you are seriously ill, you merely lie in the hospital, and they really can't or won't do anything. The blockage in the artery was from being in a small poorly ventilated room in the hottest day of summer smoking cigarettes. Believe it or not, a cigarette or two outside is not that harmful. But in a poorly ventilated area you are breathing the same stuff over and over again. Even without cigarettes, poor ventilation is not good if you are ill disposed. People get vein and artery problems very often after airplane flights, because even though an airplane is swimming in air, the same air circulates on a long flight. In either case, I still had to produce the same quota of work every month, as an independent contractor with no provision for sick leave. That means sitting in a hospital is out of the question. It would mean that I would still be sick, but I would also be poor in such a way that I would be sicker still.

As it is, after taking care of a house that is too big for me for twenty-three years, with so much junk from other people that I can't move, I am free. I could go anywhere in the world that would let me in and peck away at my work on a computer. I just need a few hours of Wi-Fi a month.

Mom's funeral was a very big affair, since she is the mother of a priest (my younger brother). I have had discussions about funerals, and I find the customs of embalming, make-up, and so forth grotesque. I was present in the eight hours leading up to her death, although I wasn't there for the actual two or three minutes because she was in a room with medical attendants while I waited outside. The only thing that matters to me in this regard, and in regard to my own death, is that people will pray for me, and that I am as ready as I can to meet God at that moment.

The basic history of my last twenty-three years is this. I came "home" for six months with a return ticket to Poland where I would resume doctoral studies. My mother was in the hospital, in the psychiatric wing, and my father was in a nursing home dying. A social worker said to me, "Your mother has been in the hospital too long. Either she is signed out under your care, or she is sent to Hamilton." Hamilton has a lunatic asylum (whatever the euphemism may be today) and it is not nice to be there. And so I stuck around all those years. So, that chapter is over.

For long periods of time I was unemployable, because Mom often was in a state where she could not be left alone for more than a few hours. Eventually her condition somewhat improved, allowing me to teach part-time at a university, to wash dishes in a restaurant, and eventually my colleagues in Poland asked me to translated an Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Some of my translations cane be seen here:
http://www.ptta.pl/pef/index.php?id=hasla_a&lang=en. I have probably fifteen more years of work, maybe more, before this project is completed. I am paid the standard payment that a person in Poland would receive, but that is balanced by the fact that few translators have such steady work.

Fr. Mieczysław Krąpiec OP, my teacher, said that this work is not “for tomorrow”, but for the “day after tomorrow,” which gives me the satisfaction of knowing that my work may outlast me.