This is Dad’s napping blanket. Like his mom, he can fall asleep almost instantly.
One afternoon, in her hospice bed, she woke up, snuggled down deeper into the blanket, declared:
I’m a little kitty!
and fell right back to sleep.
Vacation Rumination
Chair Shadows
There Is No Such Thing As Too Much On This Page
Writing
Alley Toilet
I found a toilet in the alley. It was raining, and the scene made me think of overdrawn metaphors—like how I sometimes feels like I’m just making crap. But even if this is an apt metaphor, perhaps the toilet was put there to remind me that at least I should invest in a good throne.
Parked Plant Picnic
After being stuck inside for so much of the quarantine, Reed House Plants deserved a day in the park.
Well, not in the park, because it would have been nearly impossible to distance from the other greenery. Looking at friendly faces from across the street had to suffice.
Make it a picnic? Sure, why not! Except that the sun had already gone down, so there was not much in the way of food. We’ll try again another day.
S'mores
Made by an anonymous young artist I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for 7/8 of her life.
I wish I could eat s’mores with you too.
Most of the Marks I Made
For two months I was fortunate to have paid work. For anonymity’s sake, let’s say that my job title was “Artist Resentful of The Imposition of needing a paying job, yet Still very Thankful for said job,” or ARTIST for short.
During my time as an ARTIST, most of the marks I made in my sketchbook were words. Words of various sizes, placed in different parts of the page, with lines, numbers, circles, colors— the kinds of marks that guided my eye to the right spot at the right time. An organized system so I wasn’t scrambling when I got calls like, “Did NICL Labs get back to us?” or “Where are we with Jessica again?”
An organization system, and also the one part of my day where I could afford to be a little ridiculous and no one would know.
Yellow Socks & Orange Juice
I first noticed yellow socks rolling towards us,
skimming the parking lot pavement.
Dad quickly stopped to unlock a footrest
and prop up her legs—
ten wiggling toes quite pleased with their freedom,
but too tired to remember why they were six feet away
from three pairs of anxious eyes
saying goodbye.
The yellow socks had white grippy treads on the bottom,
although she soon retired from walking.
Instead, refrigerator trips were delegated to Dad.
How many glasses of orange juice have you had today?
A hospice-hesitant three fingers.
No, Mom, you’ve had five.
She used to water it down.
Do you want any of her scarves?
Actually, do you remember those yellow socks?
The hospital ones? Yeah. You might pay a $10,000 bill and die, but hey! Free socks!
That sounds like a Jack Handy quote.
I’ll put your name on them.
One Less Loaf
One less loaf of bread exists
because I chose instead
to sit sideways on our front stoop
and awkwardly observe a budding tree
that would not sit still.
Warmer Waves
When it’s warmer, scents are more pungent, evocative.
I had just stepped onto the back porch to enjoy the birds
when I heard the faint sound of her favorite hymn.
It must have been North Park’s steeple, like they knew
He Walks With Me And He Talks With Me
waves wafted through neighboring Dogwood trees.
Spring sounds and the smell of death.
Microwave Mascot
He used to sit, crystalized, in the pantry opposite from the microwave. Kept on a shelf just off the floor, hibernating between his organic-glass-jar grandfather and Costco-sized cousin.
Unlike Chickpeas and Flour, he survived the keto kitchen cleanse of 2018. Until I found his den. And needed honey fast. I microwaved Honey Bear— which was fine for 15 seconds, but 5 more made him and the honey a little melted on one side. After an oven mitt rescue, I poured the congealing contents into a snap-top-lid container and set it to rest between Grandfather and Cousin.
What remained: a pale, disfigured plastic shell I had abandoned on the countertop. Dark dredges of honey stuck to its hazy-clear-molded form. Head tilted and ear slouched, eyes uneven. Discomposed. Questioning me. What use am I now?
Honey Bear. My melt-preserved mascot.
Sump Pump & Peanuts
Finally the rain subsided. We watched the sump pump from the doorway, blocked partially by the moving boxes that hold Grandma’s kitchen. Dad on the porch in his raincoat, Mom and I perched on the threshold, a container of peanuts on a MISC KITCHEN box by the door.
The nuts were leftover from two days prior, sustenance for sorting through sheets, books, figurines, and gifts she hadn’t given us yet.
Mmm, would you hand me that file folder and put some peanuts on it?
Floods of memories and rain both call for refreshment.
It's Official!
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve been formally accepted into The Reed Residency! I’ve known for a while that I had the position, but the residency had to hop through the typical bureaucratic hoops with The Committee. Now that they’ve settled the paperwork, I can create, document, and update without reservation or doubt. It’s official!
Running Rounds
Starting the cycle always seemed to feature the perfect first run— beautiful day, not too hot, mostly shady, vaguely humid. The next day was never as dreamy, the one after that was humid, and after that, too sunny. Each day slightly less lovely than the one before it until I stopped running altogether because compared to the beautiful-day-not-too-hot-mostly-shady-vaguely-humid run, these days weren’t worth the exertion. Until I was met once again with that unlikely combination of temperature and clear skies. And workouts, each one less lovely than the last, would trail after another perfect first run. A decrescendo that repeated again and again.
This round, the first run was wet, wind-whipped, freezing, and foggy. No pre-prepared, temperate day met me that afternoon. I had no music. I did not want to go. But I could not stay in the house any longer and I could not stay still, so I dug out my shoes and locked the door behind me. The next day it was rainy and cold but not windy, and I was at a loss. Compared to yesterday, this next run would be marginally more lovely than the first. And that would be true for almost all of the runs that followed. My usual weather-related excuses now had no comparative foundation.
I suppose I could have decided right then that comparison is not a good metric by which to make my decisions. I could have freed myself to stay immobile by declaring rain an absolute obstacle for all running endeavors. But I was looking for a reason to rid myself of excuses, so I avoided this line of thinking altogether and I ran on a rainy-cold-but-not-windy day. It was terrible. And the day after that was also terrible because running in the late winter is never pleasant. Yet compared to the first run, these that followed have been marginally more lovely.
Now, tired of believing in some inevitable decrescendo, I keep my shoes by the door and do not check the weather.
Waiting for the perfect moment to begin a habit means that I never start. Idyllic starting environments are unlikely to repeat themselves, so every subsequent attempt at my activity-to-be-habituated is harder than the first. And the inevitable comparison is discouraging and demotivating. But if I start a habit under crappy circumstances, or even average ones, it’s much easier to weather the natural ups and downs of changing circumstances. If I have an example for myself of my own toughness— a first run in terrible conditions, for example— then I’m more successful in the future at believing in my capabilities, mustering motivation, and building a habit.
Yellow Cake
Rich, perfectly puffed morsels expand with
proportioned baking powder and precedent flour
to the delight of an array of eaters.
Food created for a guest, music for a listener,
writing for a reader but I wonder about
my object in visual art
is it sinking, collapsing inward, crumbling reflexively?
Drawing on my daily structure and context,
proceeding to my taste, egress-less, and stuffing itself full?
Buttery eggs in a banana-peanut-potato-pineapple cake with
lemon glaze and yellow sprinkles
Delightful audial descriptions and dazzling visual delicacies
to nauseate a dinner guest.
What constitutes an abuse of ingredients?
A misuse of materials?
Are there sounds to squander?
Words to waste?
I can’t get it out of my head: What if my artwork is just a weird yellow jumble, fun to make and superficially interesting but ultimately unpalatable? I envy the way music and writing interact with mass audiences and I’m afraid that my art will remain irrelevant and uninfluential. And why am I so obsessed with food?
Why?
Instead of quarantine, how lovely it would be to participate in an artist residency. To pack my running shoes, whisk, oats, and hearty collection of yellow objects and travel somewhere new. Stay there for a week or a few months.
Moving home, with room and board provided and no concrete plans until July, I imagined I could manufacture something like this for myself. After all, it seemed that the main differences between my situation at home and an artist residency was the lack of unknowns, lack of external structure, and lack of public legitimacy. The first two I was confident I could approximate on my own, and the third posed a delightful challenge— how legitimate did I want this to become? Have its own website, own Instagram? I might pretend as though I have a cohort, as though this were a normal residency, and manufacture all of the components. Perhaps this fabrication would become the work itself. So the Reed residency was to become The Reed Residency.
But I was recently offered a job. I would have been a fool to turn it down, so endless, open summer weeks now slot into a 9-5.
As has been a recurring necessity for the past two months, I’ve pivoted and begun to search for the advantages of my new situation. I have a three day weekend every weekend. I work from home and have given myself an hour lunch break everyday. Despite having not recently created many things that I would instinctually categorize as physical art objects, I have still been creative since school ended. And the drive to make has plagued me ever since I stopped my Dailies Instagram project.
I’ve been writing more. When I decided to add The Reed Residency to my website, I glanced at the “blog” option and it stared me down. With the same daily possibilities that made Dailies so exciting, a blog seems fitting. Frightening, in some ways— more deserving and accepting of vulnerability. So definitely fitting.
I have a small collection of ideas and writings I’ll probably post in the coming weeks. But other than this I have no expectations. I have not created a set of rules for The Reed Residency. I have no idea what this is going to look like. What an almost-paralyzing-but-ultimately-motivationally-delicious thought.