Absorbed Words

I wrote a letter recently to an artistic friend of mine in the hopes that he would join me in an imaginative Art adventure. I had a spark and I was pumped to share. I spilled my beans and waited for a response and alas, he's too busy and can't partake in my creative concept right now. Bummer. So I went home and grumbled for a while and then thought....what the heck! I can do this art project with ANYONE! And EVERYONE! or NO ONE! It doesn't just have to dissipate because he's too busy with his own artistic visions. It's whatever it wants to be, and isn't that what art is all about after all?  Whoa, didn't mean to get all existential on you there. So, here is a proposal to all of you, whoever you are, in the interest of art's sake and all that it encompasses. Follow along, if you will.....

Since I was a kid, I have written things that I need to remember on my hand. I used to write them on the palm of my hand but over the course of the day, washing my hands, (wait, I NEVER washed my hands which is the reason why I was never sick as a kid) sweating and so forth, the words that I would write would fade away. So, instead, I started writing on the top of my hand. That way, I could see the words and they didn’t get washed off. Somehow I was capable of only washing the insides of my hands, which is a fantastic talent to master. 

 Over the years, I have been constantly teased, chastised and questioned on both the reason why I wouldn’t just use a piece of paper as well as what the words actually meant. I found both forms of questioning quite personal, considering that the words were an extraction from my mind and a mental connection of some form to my own personal thoughts, even if in a rather mundane way. And if I thought that a piece of paper would have solved the problem, I would have done so originally, so the question is offensive in that it questions my mental capacity. 

Beyond the simple social interaction that writing on the hand conjures, there is also the concept of memory that is connected to writing. I try to condense a concept as much as possible so that it still makes sense to me, and will trigger my thoughts, without having to write too much on my hand. There have been times where my hand has been covered in words, and there have also been times when I don’t understand what I have written and it either comes back to me at a time of deep rest, or subconscious thought, or not at all and I am left simply with a random word that has absorbed into my skin. 

That brings me to my next thought; absorption. I have been writing on my hand for at least 30 years, I figure, having my first conscious memory of doing so when I was around eight. The only thing I can think of is that someone told me to write it on my hand, and I thought it was ingenious. Or perhaps it was just a voice in my head because I used to do really weird things like chew a pencil right down to the graphite and had wood and paint chips literally floating around in my mouth. I have no recollection of anyone telling me to do so; it was a self directed habit. Alas, I have used ball point pens of all sorts, as well as Sharpie markers. Permanent ink has been soaking into my skin for a long time. I’ve been literally absorbing these words both mentally and physically.

So with those concepts in your mind, I propose that every time I write something on my hand, I post those words to you to do with them as you wish, considering concepts such as social interaction, memory triggers, and absorption.  I will use my friend Harriet's suggestion, and post them on Twitter. (Twitter is so ridiculous that I might as well write random words that will seem senseless to everyone on there anyway.) I'll post my Twitter link at the end of this blog. (I also learned in the process of figuring out Twitter that after you have posted something, it's called "tweeting", not "twitting" or worse yet, "twatting"....Yes, I have learned.) The project would be random, yet perpetual, albeit timely (I do have a feeling that this project does have the ability to go on for the rest of my life while I still have hands and markers are still available). I too will do the project and then we can compare notes in a year? Two years? It will take a while for the project to work, as I never do know when I am going to need to write something down. I do have concerns that my hand writing will be contrived now, but then I realize that it is because of my lack of short term memory that I have been doing this for the last 30 years anyway. So it has been contrived and will continue to be. 

My personal approach to the project is once I have written something on my hand I will go home and write it on a pair of jeans that I have in my studio. I like the idea of the ink absorbing into the fibers of the denim. It bleeds a little bit, just like the ink bleeds when it settles into my skin.The words will be written randomly and not in order. I am also going to attempt to document what people say to me when I write on my hands. My nephew's words were the first to be documented, when he came up to me and said, "You're not supposed to write on yourself." (I look forward to the conversation he and I can have when he's a bit older about how people have been ritualistically and ceremonially "writing on their hands" since the beginning of time. He's a budding artist and am surprised that he hasn't coated himself in markers yet. My son was multi-coloured any chance I gave him when he was a toddler. He was always naked and always had a marker in his hand. *sigh*)

And I also have intentions of wearing the word covered jeans as I would any other pair of jeans and am curious of the conversations that will ensue not only with my inquisitive nephew, but with others as well. Words stimulate words. 

I don't know why I have the urge to do this. I have no idea why after all of these years, seeing the words "EGGS" and "stapler" written on my hand suddenly seemed so poignant. The mind is a funny thing and I'm just following this concept for a while with curiosity and interest in the direction it may take. Are you game to join me? 

Here's the link to my Twitter account....Man, I can't believe I have a Twitter account.

My Big Red Truck

I am in a complete state of awe right now, because today, I walked away from my big Victory red 2003 Chevy Avalanche; passing the keys on to the new owner. Wow. She's gone. We had a six year relationship and now she's gone.

Big Red was my key to independence....something I hadn't had in a long time. I was newly separated, settling in to a little house on the corner (shivering 'cause it was sooo damn cold in there) and driving my parent's borscht-mobile. It was on its last legs and I was feeling kind of desperate. (When I was selling that car for $500 I actually added a clip art photo to the sale poster of an old lady in a babooshka saying, "It's cheap like borscht!") So, I kind of had a running mantra in my head, "When I get my shit together, I am going to buy myself a big, sexy, red truck". I NEEDED a truck. Seriously. Do you know what kind of woman I am? One that likes to haul ass into the bush and tromp around a bit. (Not too much though, 'cause I'm afraid of bears.) I'm not into mud slinging, but I like to know that if I go down a dirt road, I'm going to get out again. The call came, a truck was available and my dad and I headed down the highway to Dryden to see my future partner in crime. I remember when I saw it my thought was, "Well, isn't that ironic. It's actually a big, sexy, red truck. Fuck ya." Sold.

 The trips started instantaneously. Suddenly Harriet and I could fill the whole back of the truck with stuff from the dump (which simultaneously meant that my house was getting furnished and Christmas gifts were being given). Deanna and I were loadin' the kiddos in and going on picnic adventures by beautiful streams, blueberries were being discovered down secret roads that nobody else has ever been to before, (I'm sure of it....haha), rock after rock was slung into the back to be potentially cemented into my yard, Christmas trees were being cut, then lost, then mourned. Sod, dog poop, art work, artifacts, children....you name it, I had it in the back of that truck and it helped turn intentions into realities.

And don't even get me started on the romantic opportunities that my truck has provided me. Ok, get me started.....if it wasn't for the Chevy Avalanche I wouldn't have had the confidence to drive by myself to the boonies of Northern Michigan, sicker than a dog and sleep deprived, (thank you Lewis the kitty cat for bouncing on my face all night for your sheer entertainment when I had an epic journey ahead of me the next day) to see a man that I was sure I was totally in love with. And I certainly left Northern Michigan in love or as close to it as I would dare myself to be, but was relieved that my Chevy wheels would spin out of that creepy little town where phones seemed to be obsolete and a strange man knocked on my cobwebbed hotel door and asked, "So....do you like to drink?"

If it wasn't for my red truck, I wouldn't have had the experience of being a passenger with my mud caked feet sticking out the window, fresh from a fantastic music and camping experience at the Winnipeg Folk Fest with a long lost boyfriend. Twelve absent years of confusion were laid to rest through conversation in that Chevy. 

 And how else would it have been possible to take a fine, foreign musician down Nungessor Road at midnight to watch a moose graze by a stream under a full moon while we lean against the truck, kissing and living in the bliss of being? My big red truck was immortalized in poetry after that night. I smiled every time I got behind the wheel.

And that truck of awesomeness saved my life a couple times, and perhaps the lives of others. This is when I realized the sheer power of the automatic safety features that kicked in to play on black ice. I remember feeling the pull of the vehicle and thinking "Oh shit...here we go," which then turned into a "Huh?" (but say it really drawled out and Scooby-Doo-ish)  and ended with a, "Did you feel that? It's like we're in a hovercraft!" My friend and I hallelujah-ed all the way down that icy highway, thankful for technology and our lives.A couple of summers ago, I hit a weird patch of water that send the truck on an autopilot struggle that left me completely helpless and submissive again to the power of automation, and once again in front of a gaggle of cross country skiing students that were also thankful for automation. Good thing they were all kids from the Catholic school or God knows what would have happened....

And in that whole time that I owned Big Red, only one catapulting partridge lost it's life to my grill. But I can't say the same for my friend's minivan and a post at Blue Lake. Hey, I'm left handed and Avalanches are notorious for their blind spots. And why do all of the provincial parks make their camp site indicators "tree trunk brown" and the height of a truck tire? If I was a tyrant, I probably could have sued them for that one. Not bad in the 6 years I had 'er....two dents by me, one dent to me. The woman backed her vehicle out of the grocery store, across two lanes of traffic and straight into my truck door. She forgot that she had a steering wheel and the opportunity to decelerate. It happens some times. My biggest concern was that my dog was in the back seat and it's not cool to mess around with my dog. She could have been hurt.

So, when it came to starting to toy with the idea of selling the Avalanche, I was really apprehensive to do so. Yeah, it's a big truck and I really don't need that BIG of a truck, but man....I have personified that baby. I really loved Big Red.To kind of get off topic here for a minute, I remember coaching high school boys soccer a few years back and there was a big tough kid on the team that had a tendency to get yellow carded all of the time and I was watching him and he honestly wasn't being aggressive on the pitch. He just had the luck of being a big guy and he stood out in the crowd. So I started calling him "Avalanche" and I explained to him that my truck was the same way. Big, red, flashy trucks just scream for attention, and if you go one kilometer (or maybe two or three) over the speed limit, you are being called on your actions. You just simply stand out in the crowd so you live with the stereotype. I see him everyone once in a while around town when he comes home from university or where ever he is now, and the first thought that crosses my mind is "Avalanche". 

Big Red's next destination is up to a small community North of here. I was teasing the guy that bought it, saying he's going to be stacking it with moose, but only if his wife ever lets him drive it. He said he's going to be hauling a lot of wood in it. He also said that he comes up to Red Lake quite often so I'm sure over the years I'm going to see Big Red parked at the restaurant or grocery store, getting loaded up with supplies to take back home to their community. She's going to continue to serve her purpose, and I hope that she continues to nurture sleeping children in back seats, initiate crazy sing-a-thons with girlfriends, instigate city shopping expeditions to Costco for oversized boxes of cereal, make strangers turn their heads and whistle and fill up their life with excitement and joy like Big Red has done for me.

On to the next adventure. I'm going to have a beer in honour of Big Red and if you've ever had a heck of a good time with us in the Avalanche, maybe you'll want to put your glass up in a toast as well. Cheers!