Drawing on the walls

How important is art and creativity in your life? To me, it is neccessary as life itself, of vital, visceral importance.
Any ideas, sparks, art, words we can imagine within ourselves, and then, manage to translate them into something tangible, pulling thread by glowing thread out of ourselves, is purely magical. In a sense, we can melt and attain the literal crucible of expression.

It is not surprising that I think this way, considering this story from my childhood. It seems, my father was very, very much like me.

Strains of my moms conversation drifted vaguely over into the corner where I was playing with my toys, but the word 'walk' caught my attention. Tuning in, I heard mom mention she was going for an afternoon walk to visit some friends.
A walk? A walk was always such potential for adventure.

"I want to go for a walk," I said jumping up and running up to her.
She was still talking to the others, telling them to get their shoes on and to wash their face and hands.
Riv was six, Debbie fourteen, and I was the baby, just stubborn, contrary, curly four.

"I want to go for a walk" I said louder tugging on her long formal shabbos skirt and looking up at her with soulful eyes.

I want to go for a walk. I said more determinedly. "Can I come with you? "

Mom paused in mid word, looking down at my small, sticky form distractedly. "Not this time, Sara. You won't be able to keep up, and I can't carry you if your legs get tired, because it is shabbos." said Mom flatly.
You will stay with Mavis. Tommorrow, we can all go out to the zoo."
"...but, I like walks" I frowned at her, eyes blazing. I thought about raising the ante and having a tantrum, but saw the firm set of her jaw and decided not to bother.

She did have a point. I clearly remember wailing loudly all the way home on long shabbos walks, like a faulty car siren, because I demanded to be picked up, and nobody would listen. Religious jews do not carry on shabbat for religious reasons, there is just no question of breaking the many shabbat laws, so it was always impossible to pick me up and carry me home. So it is hardly surprising that I was left at home, absolutely furious.

Logic aside, I... still... wanted... to... go...

Well, I did not have to worry about Mavis interrupting me. The very busy housekeeper was nowhere in sight, no doubt cleaning up the dishes and detrius of a shabbos lunch enjoyed with many guests. She was probably arm deep in warm soapy lemon, scented water, washing countless dishes, and gazing dreamily out of the window.

Hmmm, they would definitely regret leaving me at home, eyes narrowed I formulated a suitable reaction to show my total and utter displeasure.
I pulled out my tub of crayons. Drawing was my favourite pastime besides adventure, but it was also forbidden to draw on shabbos, it was another one of the shabbos laws.
Shabbos was the reason I could not go on the walk, so now, I was going to draw!

I had to be fully prepared for my undertaking. I went and got a sturdy wooden chair from the kitchen. I was right, Mavis was preoccupied, and I passed by without her looking up.
I pulled the chair into my bedroom with effort, and tugged it all the way over to the stark, white wall...

Climbing up onto the chair, I picked up a pine green crayon to start, and begain to draw faces. Five feet up...I stretched my small arms out and up as far as they could go and drew with bright, bold, slashed lines. I drew large, almost life sized people, they towered over me... I drew their heads and shoulders, adding hair and ears and earrings or hats. I got off the chair to continue each body, drawing their feet in line with the floor. I got on and off the chair, pulling it over as I covered the wall. I drew no less then nineteen or twenty people all over the room. When finished, the room was very crowded. Every single wall was occupied by my wonderous crayon scrawled friends. I had done a good job too, my best work yet, maybe.

There! Now I was not home practically alone anymore, I thought with satisfaction and a twinge of fear. Not only did I draw all over the walls, but I also was not allowed to be drawing on shabbat to begin with.
I was not sure I cared either way. I frowned again, and waited for them to return.

When mom and Abba walked back into the house, they came looking for me to make sure I was all right. The walked into my bedroom and just stood there, amazed and flabbergasted.
I had most definitely protested in spectacular fashion, and the message had been received.
I stood there, trepidation on my face.

I had been a very, very bad little girl.

Before mom could bring herself to speak, Abba moved forward, and began walking from picture to picture with sparkling eyes. He turned to Mom, "Can we keep these on the wall? These are amazing. look at those expressions, they are all different. Look at the details. Look at these eyes, eyebrows and hands."
Mom leaned against the doorframe and finally said weakly, "No, I don't think we should keep this. I do think we should take pictures after shabbos though, then we can try scrub it off."

Religious jews do not take pictures or use mechanical devices on shabbos. Nor do they scrub walls. So everything would have to wait until after shabbos. Until then, my mural would remain on the wall. Abba continued to examine it delightedly.

At that point, I thought I had better slip out of the room, before my parents paid more attention to the perpetrator of this art vandalism.

By the time shabbos ended at sundown, it was bedtime, so I went to sleep, tired out from all my drawing.
I woke up the next morning and the walls were scrubbed clean, as if the pictures had never been.

I knew a photograph had been taken, and wondered if the picture had been sucked right off the wall and into the camera, like magic.
When I asked Mom about this, she laughed wryly and said, "No, it was not magic. We took the picture first, but we were scrubbing the crayon off the wall for hours."


From a practical point of view, things like making a mess, while working, becomes peripheral noise to the act of creating or forming the art. I know that, Abba knew that, he appreciated an unfettered creative spirit, which was lucky for me.

I do believe he truly understood that art created with vibrant spirit, and hands willing to follow the ideas of a beating, hot-blood heart, are to be nurtured.
Creating satisfies the deepest recesses of the glowing soul, both for the artist, and those who love to see it, feel it, and be moved by it.

My children hopefully will be creative for their entire lives. All of them draw, and write a bit, but aside from the usual toddler scrawl on the walls, mostly confine themselves to paper.
I am glad for that...
I think.

Kettle

True superheroes do not wear spandex with itchy tags; instead they wear nondescript clothing over their soft skin and warm bones. Superheroes do not all have capes to give them a sense of presence, we need no such fanfare for those we love so much, they color the air with a sense of blush sweetness, no matter the weave or fabric of their vestments.
My very British Nana was all of that to me. She may have had jiggly arms in place of tight biceps, but they enfolded me so very well. For any doubters, she did have an official hero’s mark on her, a simple rendition of a flower tattooed forever on her inner forearm. She had gotten it when she was nine years old, from a sojourning cart at the end of the street. One could do those kinds of things if one were born in Colonial Calcutta, India, and had enough gumption, and a good dose of sass to carry out such mischief. She definitely had that and more…
Mona was the oldest of three girls, sent away to an orphanage when their father died and their mother could not afford to maintain the household. Despite this adversity, Nana grew up to become a nurse.
My Grandfather Ken, was riding his motorbike and got gored in the eye by a bull, when he was recovering in hospital, he met Nana. As a PE instructor in the army, he could bark out commands to hundreds of massive men and have them jump to action, but he adored his feisty wife and turned into a puddle of indelible softness where she was concerned. When he went off to war, it was she who slept atop a metal cage, where the children slept for safety, and the whistling of bombs tore the air to shreds.
When I met her, she was in the prime of life, the elemental British Nana. That involved amongst other things, skills as a quintessential bargain hunter. She made it a hunting sport. Nana walked around clutching her leather clasp handbag on the red bus to town, the strap settling into the crook of her arm, her tiny feet in sensible sandals. Her hair was always coiffed carefully into a little round halo of steely grey curls around her face.
We would catch the red city bus to Rosebank, to see the sales, marching in and out of stores, while she sometimes triumphantly found the very thing she needed. More often than not though, the hunt was good enough, and she would ask with her blue eyes twinkling, if we should just get some chocolate and go on home. South-African chocolate is a whole experience on its own. To me, it was worth its very own field trip, either that or she would take me for another haircut, and then some chocolate.
She liked to cut my hair really short, perhaps it was her time in the orphanage, but somehow an idea of a neat and tidy child (which was not bloody likely from me anyway) meant shorn hair. More likely it was my hairs' tendency to curl out of control with a will of its own, so it would be trimmed into submission more regularly then you may imagine.
We got along as compatriots. I was her youngest grandchild, her 'darling', and I loved everything about her in return.
We would listen to classical music together, watch Golden Girls on television and have tea with milk and condensed milk drizzled in. On weekend mornings, I got to drink the spilt coffee from her saucer, it was strong and hot and just slightly sweet.
I came home to Nana’s house every day, as Mom worked full time. Right after school, I could always go and get a glass of cold milk from the fridge, The way it created an opaque film as it moved inside the glass, was slightly mesmerizing, and made it even more delicious…
Even simple toast with butter was better when Nana made it. Her specialty however, was true farm fudge, which was crisp and square, with a bit of creamy resistance unlike the gooey, muddiness which is considered fudge here in America. It was hardened in trays and was always eaten within hours.
There would be a draw full of candy in her bedroom; I would open it, to the scent of chocolate and toffees wafting out of it. Next to it was the drawer with her cosmetics, her shell shaped soaps and her lavender perfume. Everything Nana owned was pretty. Her bridge pencils had tassels on them. She collected Little Bone China figurines, which I was allowed to play with if I was careful.
The porcelain had smoothness, a delicacy, and tiny detailed fingers and toes, or paws and whiskers. Play with these, involved less movement and more focus. I would sit them together on the end table polished to sheen, and they could then discourse freely in my vivid imagination.

The way things looked, was quite important to Nana. I think creating her own sense of home and status gave her an appreciation for a sense of normal acceptance. I think she must have dreamed about bridge parties in the orphanage.
She was blissful when she entertained. She served delicate, wafer thin cumber sandwiches with the crusts trimmed off. (I ate all the crusts when nobody was looking, it’s the best part.) She had biscuits or Scottish shortbread arranged on a plate, and when the kettle whistled, brought forth steaming pots of tea, poured into rose painted teacups edged in gold leaf. Molly and Teddy, sisters apparently, were two of her closest friends, they all played bridge on special square, fuzzy, green tables.
Social issues galvanized her, or simply just any issues . She would type out letters on her little typewriter. Occasionally she sent a letter to the minister of education if she did not like what my school had done, and would get an answer from them too. The anxious principal would ask my Mother to intervene, pulling on his moustache nervously.
Nana had a sewing machine and on a whim, sometimes made me clothing. I did love what she made for me; it was never ugly or frilly, just comfortable and special to me.
This was my Nana; she was a lovely force of nature, determined as all hell, definitely not universally popular, a bit of a battle axe really, but just so wonderful.

The night my Father died, I was freshly ten years old. I had been sleeping over in her house , while my Mom stayed near the deathbed. It was 2.a.m. when I saw their light on in the dark hours.
“Why is Mommy coming home?”
“You know why… “
It was she who told me, and she was so right, I knew.

What I didn’t know was how precious Nana’s words were. How transient she herself was going to be... Within days, there was the wail of sirens, taking her away, the sliding, the stroke, the melting, the asymmetry. The way things tilted so suddenly, and never came perfectly right…
My sister Debbie got married weeks later. The wedding was a celebration laced in pain, without my father there; there was a glaring space in every picture, in every gesture and blessing. Debbie was so happy, she was glowing. Mom was holding it together somehow.
Then Nana arrived, and I saw her for the first time since her stroke. She was in a wheelchair, pushed by a blank faced nurse. I ran up to her with sheer joy on my face, this woman was just so important to me, and I had felt her absence like a constant dull ache behind my ribs and in my stomach.
The odor of hospital hung around her; she did not smell as she would have wanted to. A dull crochet blanket was on her knees and her once expressive mouth was slack on one side. She had lost a lot of weight, and had seemed to draw inwards, like a wooden puppet with tangled strings. Her right hand curled uselessly, and was cradled by her other hand, held close to her chest. Her hair was straight, nobody had curled her hair, not even for this wedding.

She could not return my greeting but looked at me with sad, blue eyes... which held me.

Oh Nana, what was it like when the words dried up?

Now coming home from school to her house, was quieter. I watched television, there was no conversation to be had, and I tried. Grandpa was silent, he would answer a question quietly and revert back to silence, a waiting, where Nana should have broken in and now there was just a void.
I bathed her sometimes, feeling it as a way to express the love we could no longer express in conversation, which were always so frustrating, because she wanted to say things, and just couldn’t. I could tell her about my day, but without her sharp insights and observations and wry humor, it was just not the same at all.
I would feed her ice cream, she was so thin now, and it had to be ice cream, because at least it had calcium and protein in it… I know, she did still have plenty of tea though. Grandpa tried his best to make her tea and something to eat regularly. In retrospect, even with a part time housekeeper cooking food for them, they were just no longer interested in surviving for much longer.
I tried to help her, desperately tried to communicate with her. I cut pictures out of magazines, pasting them in a book with categories like food, and other such mundane needs, so she could point and let me know what she needed. It sometimes worked, often not.
Sometimes, she could say a word, or part of a word after me. I would encourage her “Come on Nana,” you can do it. You can say it.” Sometimes she would try, then cry, we both would.

One day she managed to say the word “kettle”, in two parts Ket-ttle… and it was such a small victory, and she said it again then, while Grandpa got her another cup of tea, and my stomach began hurting.

What was it like saying kettle Nana, and delighting that your tongue could still form a word, and have that joy so laced with the horror of the very fact, the very act that forming a word had come to this…a bitter prize indeed.
And she had said it, forming the world clumsily on her tongue,
Ke-ttle.
And it was victory, a victory as raggedly sharp with pain as it was with joy, so it had come to this.
True horror is the inversion of potential, of what could have been, should have been, the knowing… that wrongness has prevailed for this moment… and yet… it hadn't, not here.

We are all such human, frail creatures and she lived her life with such incredible, bright tenacity, and she loved me. Her trying to say that word for me, involved such sheer bravery and love. She taught me so much about loving somebody properly, that dignity and suffering take a backseat to showing and trying, however we still can, to love... my superhero Nana.

Summer days

The lengthening shadows of the late summer day, seem to pull substance and spirit, out of the haze of New York's summer streets, like a sorcerers spell casting. Perhaps it flows like hot honey, into a simmering cauldron of syrupy alchemic absolution.
The warm winds randomly lift and disperse it again in ropey eddying waves, casting dark, gauzy veils under trees and around buildings, letting the threads go carelessly, where they settle down to roost heavily in clumped piles, on the muggy tar sidewalks.

The long, languid humid days of summer...Sticky sensuality settles over my bones like a spiderweb, and the venom of the sultry air, infuses my blood with dizzying, swirling wonder, like a child spinning in circles again and again, to see the world differently, to see the colors and shapes spiral into prisms.
The days and nights seem to take on the sharp, starkly soulful dreamscape of bright edges only to bleed and blur into smoke and dust.
It is these days and nights, scented with ripeness, fruits bursting from trees and falling on the ground in fermented piles, which stick to shoes and make one feel off kilter for a minute, until rectified, that call to me, on weighted wind.
The garbage cans are overflowing, because everyone is outside, celebrating light and warmth and liberty from school, the avenue's are busy, with people all going about their business, but as they leave their houses, they seem to walk more slowly, as they take in the wistful bright sky, and feel the sun brush their shoulders and the bridge of their noses.

Boys notice girls, girls notice boys, girls notice girls and boys notice boys, and they make eye contact then look away, or they make eye contact and hold it bravely ... and maybe even say hello... or whisper it in their minds...
Parents desperately hold gummy, sweaty little hands of evasive toddlers with ice cream, toy and pizza radar. The successful tots, have chocolate smeared faces or shirts, the less persuasive ones, just pout or whine. The truly uncooperative ones actually seem to levitate, their feet barely touching the ground as their caregivers try get their reluctant charges home. Dogs are all about, coats gleaming, their tongues lolling, but smiling all the while, with the joy of being outside for a walk.

The trees, with their sighing, heavy, curly heads, seem to turn their full, bright, green leaves towards the sun proudly, to bask in the scorching, raw countenance. They glow, with a faint aura of time passing, like Gorgeous Grandmothers' wearing all their beautiful jewelry at once, gifts given gladly to them in days gone by, in the name of truest love.

The flower gardens, perfume the air for the moment, a transitory sigh.
Like a hand opened wide, palm-up, feeding birds and beasts, flora and fauna burst in their absolute element, giving everything they can, for this festival of summertime.
Even in the city, they have been invited into tiny gardens. Their riot of color and bloom a defiant point of tiny contrary pride in a place of so much grey, brown and beige concrete.

The children play on the sidewalk close to home, periodically waiting anxiously for their balls, which have fallen into the street, to return and roll back into gutters where they can be retrieved safely. Their moms say every time "no, wait, don't get it" and the children already know the staccaco song and dance of "no" and "wait", and get down collectively on scratched up knees anyway, searching under the parked cars until they spot the ball rolling back, on their own trajectory, which it inevitably does.
Other children, scratch out dusty chalk pictures on the sidewalk or ride on small bikes or wobbly looking skates.
The adults sit on the steps, their cell phones by their side, just watching, enjoying the moments of relative city quiet. Some are itching to get back inside to their humming air conditioners and tv shows they just must catch up on. The thought of having their lovely, but vacationing children indoors for such an extended period of time though, keeps them rooted to the hardness of the sun warmed steps, until mealtime or bedtime.

These hot days, where the music is slightly plaintive and kinetically resistant, or breathy and husky like blue smoke tendrils seeping from sweet lips, are made for insight and complete illuminations.
The taste of the last insubstantial sip of beer from the very bottom of the bottle, lingers on the tongue for awhile, and thoughts and ideas, hover ever closer to the minds bright eye.
The night now, always settle on me, like a velvet swaddling cloth, hot and slurred, with a hint of breeze.

and I love these days... they have an awareness all their own. A whisper of gathering together, the ripening of the harvest, lovers finding eachother so they can hunker down for a cold winter, and this weighty sense of being in this very space, this very place...