November 9, 2010

I have been in my chair since 11:15am. It is 9:00pm. I am typing this myself. I have taken Morphine twice. I went for a walk to the lake with Aki. I went to Laser Eagles and finished 1 ½ paintings. I have pooped – an important daily milestone these days. I ate three times and drank plenty of fluids. I cheated on my diet only once with about 2 ounces of cherry cheesecake. Mike Skubic and I reserved the domain name WPIT.ca. I discussed doing some development and admin work with the play – the Book of Judith.

Is this recovery or recovered?

Life seems pretty normal except for pain and the continuous reference – out loud and self talk – to when I can get out of and return to bed.

Likely I “should” return to bed NOW and let Eva finish typing this. My body is tired and sore; my thoughts jumbled by fatigue and intoxication. I am stubborn. I will finish and post this if I can. The reader will certainly recognize the compromise with my body in that the writing will be jerkier with more truncated sentences.

Laser Eagles. Currently there are five artists – at our peak we were twenty. Currently we paint at a community drop in centre funded for adults who live with mental health concerns. In the beginning we painted at an arts and cultural centre. Today I rounded up a “warm body” because we were going to be short a tracker. At our best there were ample volunteers – sometimes even two trackers for one or two of the artists. (Tracking is described at www.lasereagles.org.)

At one time we trained the trackers to sustain the quality of our work - to be certain that every artist guided his or her own work. Today at least three artists passively let their trackers dictate the process. Six weeks ago we nearly shut down. At our peak we had three locations running. This is all a sort of shake down, yet I feel that we are at our strongest in some fundamental ways.

Today the five of us experience each other as colleagues. To a certain degree this is also true of the people who support us to paint. It is clear that we come to paint AND to be together. Laser Eagles has lost the flavour of being “a good deed” and is, at least for the artists, truly a time of expression.

I and one other artist speak as a regular way to communicate. The other three are largely silent. On three or four occasions one of us has started laughing or humming and soon we are all giggling. When we had more space I would dance among the other four.

Today, most of us weren’t really into painting that much. The trackers carried on and we mostly just quietly sat enjoying each other.

I have a small art studio in my apartment and I paint there when Laser Eagles is closed. I could do so much more often. However I want to be with my fellows. This weekly moment gives my life a balance. In this context I am like my colleagues in a way that is not so in any other part of my life. It is a time when I get as close to being a “quiet” person as I ever can be. And I am accepted by my peers in a way that is unavailable to me in any other “regular” part of daily life.

Laser Eagles was and remains among the first three things that I knew I wanted to live for in Cycle 3.

Last week, “out of the blue” as they say, we received a $10,000 grant. I am taking it as a sign that now is the moment to fulfill on the unique collegiality that we, the five quiet artists, have.