This is Christmas Eve in Christchurch, New Zealand, my adopted home for the past ten years. Originally, I am from Oklahoma, ‘the place of the Red Man,’ and that is what we all are when we open ourselves up from the inside. This is what writing is for me, an opening up of my conscious self for my family and friends. And sitting before me as I write this are the symbolic representations of my past, present and future ghosts of Christmas…
This is the whole table, nothing is hidden or tidied, it is what it is…a red hand-painted tin can my grandmother was famous for recycling into usable objects. This one I now use as a brush holder fifty years on. Inside this tin can are a small collection of my grandmother’s, my father’s, my mother’s and my own brushes…a legacy of artistic tradition passed down through the generations….particularly at Christmas, when hand-made or hand-painted gifts use to be abundant, I reflect on the many objects embellished with these brushes over time, before my attention is attracted to the next object on the table…
Here sits a plant renamed ‘Cylindrica’ by the person who lured my husband to purchase this for me. It turns out that it is an appropriate symbolic representation of much of what he hears me talk about these days—the interweaving of our lives, separate, but connected—sporadic intermittent patterns sometimes dutifully controlled and cared for and sometimes touching and then darting off into seemingly chaotic directions…like the patterns I found myself drawing while reflecting on ‘cylindrica’…
I was thinking about how we communicate and create patterns that form our lives. Patterns that come in the form of creative actions and interactions sometimes by accident, sometimes by intention, often leaving us feeling the synchronistic or chaotic expressions that amplify these patterns. We begin to see patterns if we live long enough, or consciously enough to see what our actions and reactions create into our experiences. Caught in ‘cylindrica’ is where I long to remain, but alas, this is a utopian model to merely try to replicate. These days, there are those trying to dissolve some replications that I inherited from my family that also sits on this table, like the enjoyment of a good cup of coffee and a cigarette…
…with my paints not far from reach. I am not here to paint and promote my ‘vices’—but, to state that coffee and cigarettes are still a part of my daily rituals wherein I contemplate deeply whilst not drinking alcohol or making or supporting wars anywhere. I have noticed that outlawing, ridiculing and banning is not actually the best choice we can make. I often feel like a criminal in my own world…whilst watching others perform acceptable activities I abhor, there is no ‘cylindrica’ to that, but something more like the patterns I drew on my page…making me dislike connecting with those who shake their finger at me and comment each time ‘so, you are still smoking’ and I have yet to reply, ‘so, you still support war?’ LOL…you have to laugh, otherwise…
There is a bowl of chalk on my table I leave readily available for the grandkids, as well as my own consciousness. Chalk is easy to wipe away and needs no hard rules from any audience. My grandchildren are very young and need to write and experiment on different surfaces without intervention—I tend to think chalk is a more appropriate tool to create with in this rapidly changing universe we all have to share with our various vices that no one is exempt from. Mine are just more obvious and better accounted for by the mediation that surrounds us, thereby alleviating some from having to think about their own.
So, what does any of this have to do with Christmas? Well, it precedes my Christmas wish for all my family and friends at such a great distance…please write my faults with chalk and I shall do the same for you…and, leave the painting for our legacies of love…I love a good cup of coffee and a cigarette, but…I love you more and that will just have to be good enough for now as I am still learning how to draw…
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