Imagining myself out of nothingness

   I remember pretty clearly the days when I thought of myself as a punk rocker, later as a rockabilly music lover, and later still as a conceptual artist. Although envisioning myself as an artist now looks a bit less restrictive as a way to posit who I am than the other roles I mentioned, it still provided a clear, and I believe now overly simplified sense of definitive 'being' in the world, a way to be Adam (this Adam, and not the other people named Adam I knew), without being anyone in particular.
   As I grew older (and I like to think became at least a little bit more mature), the titles I previously held formerly to define me, and ways to locate that me in the world became a bit less clear. During the past couple of years in particular, my own sense of self has become downright murky. I can't really put a word or image anymore to the idea of who I am, and although I see it as a sign of growth, it can be uncomfortable, as I feel like my body doesn't have the physical integrity, the wholeness, to exist in the world without a way to be thought of definitively. 
   I have been spending much of my free time over the past year or so listening to music from my childhood and early teen years, and this music has helped me to uncover thoughts and ideas from that time that has served as a kind of time memory time machine that helps me to remember parts of my past, and to re-imagine them, though with me as an adult, rather than the child and young man that I was. It's as if I can revisit that time in the somewhat stronger condition that I now see myself in, and that seems to function as a new kind of way for me to think about myself. The music reminds me of the many years that I've lived, and the time gaps formed by the time when the music was new and how it functions for me now creates a kind of feeling of being in between lives. Interestingly, this feeling of being without an anchor seems to create a continuity where there previously seemed to be only nothingness.
   During this past year, I have also spent a great deal of time thinking quietly, especially during my morning walks and as I lay down to sleep, and this has also helped me to think more clearly, allowing my mind to float and make connections that I hadn't previously envisioned.
   I remember a song from my younger years by Billy Preston called "Nothing from Nothing", where the lyrics state that "nothing from nothing leaves nothing". I now believe quite firmly that something very powerful and alive can in fact come from what seems like nothing, and I hope that I never forget that.

Your author, beginning his search for identity

Arnold Skolnick

   I don't remember for sure where I was when I took this picture, but I do seem to recall that it was when I was in a restaurant. It may have been The Yellow Deli, a casual restaurant in Oneonta, New York  (and affiliated with the twelve tribes religious group, which I found interesting), where I ate a few times when I was visiting my mother. Wherever it was, I recall that the part of this poster that you see below was very close to me, at my eye level, and it reminded of a part of my childhood, as the poster was done by the father of my oldest friend, Alexander Skolnick (our parents were good friends, and he was born one month after me). The picture you see here is a snapshot of what is probably the most iconic poster of the 1960's; the poster for the Woodstock festival.

   Alexander's family was a very interesting one, meaning that they were to me unique (and somewhat crazy) in the way that in my opinion makes people memorable. I remember being afraid of Arnold (the creator of the poster) as a child. He was loud, at times vulgar, and I remember him telling stories about his friend Jeremiah, who according to the story as Arnold told it, "punched a cop" on at least one occasion. Arnold had a house in the woods in Springfield, Massachusetts, where he used to spend his weekends (he later moved there full time), and I recall riding up from New York City with him in his old Volvo station wagon (which seemed like a kind of unknown car at that time), and he would loudly tell me stories for what seemed like the seemingly endless, three hour trip. On one occasion, he was eating a meatball hero sandwich, and I remember his mouth full of meatballs and bread as he laughed and cursed loudly.

   I also remember Arnold fondly for a man who was very independent in his thinking, who started many of his own companies (producing books about artists he liked and a company which made stained glass are two that I remember), and who used to say about a person that had a lot of money that they were "richer than God".

   Arnold went to Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York, with my father, and they were good friends. I remember him seeming to be both perplexed and hurt about my father's condition, who had suffered an emotional break, and never really bounced back from it. The look of concern on his face about my father, when he saw me on the day that his own son, Alexander, had their wedding ceremony on the property at his Springfield home, still is with me and touches me up until this day when I think about it. 

   Even though the poster that he made far eclipsed Arnold Skolnick's own fame (which I thought was basically non-existent, though there is a Wikipedia entry on him), to me he is a person who can elicit in me feelings which seem both highly personal and nearly global at the same time.

   This is for you, Arnold Skolnick.

  

Shoes and security

   I like to think of myself as having rather simple taste in clothing, and have had a similar taste in shoe style for quite a few years, I don't believe that wearing any brand name or style makes a person better than someone else, so you might gather that shoes are not that important to me, but they are; enough so that they have warranted that I write this blog entry.

   Shoes are listed on most clothing websites as accessories rather than as their own category like 'shirts', 'pants' or 'outerwear' are. They are regarded mostly as something that adds to some other thing, rather than as the basis, but when I look at shoes on my feet, I see them as very base; they mark where I meet the earth, where I begin and the rest of the world exists, and they are the buffer for that coming together, which can feel harmonious, but at times seems volatile and hazardous. Under these conditions, shoes must be for me something more than just a covering and protection for my feet against the hardness of the ground below me.
   I should also add here that I have a condition in my feet called plantar fasciitis (which requires that I wear orthotic shoe inserts or shoes with excellent arch support), as well as being prone to foot calluses, but these conditions have only heightened my anxiety about where I meet the world; I don't believe they gave rise to it.
   Phillip Guston and Alberto Giacometti are two artists which have dealt with similar issues in their work, and I've always felt that the most interesting artists are the ones whose anxieties dominate their work. Problematic relations to oneself and the world are not necessarily enjoyable, but they can be productive, and possibly interesting. They produce something which is perplexing and hard to describe.
   Shoes for me then must possess extra powers. Like the spacesuit of an astronaut, they must be both in and 'out of this world'.

The Clarks Desert Trek...at one time my only pair of shoes

Poor Steering

   I drive my car, at least a little, just about every day. This has been the case for only the last 8 years or so, since my wife and I came to San Francisco from New York City, where I almost never drove. Being behind the wheel of the car can help me to feel free, but it can also give rise to feelings of agitation and anger, as other drivers (and often bicyclists) do things which I find at times to be disrespectful, dumb and downright dangerous. Being in control of a car seems to give me the illusion that I am in control over other things, and when other people do things that I don't like, the illusion is shattered, and I become frustrated. 

   Recently in my life I have taken time to learn better how to keep focus on my feelings by practicing self-reflection and meditating during my regular morning walks, but when I get into my car, I often forget these; it's as if I've opened the window in the car and my consciousness has been sucked out. I try listening to quiet music, talk radio, or sit while driving in relative silence (which does seem to help a bit), but still I find myself stymied at times by this strange powerlessness I seem to have when I am on the road. Perhaps if I can focus more on feeling out of control when I am behind the wheel, I can gain greater power over myself.

Nearing my apartment, as seen from the driver's side of my car

Light worry

   I'm 51 years old. I own a smartphone, and use it, but I'm not constantly looking at it like most people of the generation that followed mine, or even the half-generation that followed mine.
   Still, I'm apparently quite reliant on having an internet connection, and the concern over temporarily not having one seems to actually worry me more than being without it. The worrying is worrying.
   Yesterday morning, I was looking at my emails and reading the news while having my morning coffee before work, when the page I was trying to read would not load, and that's when I noticed that one of the green lights necessary to have an internet connection was not illuminated on my modem (this is what you see in the picture below). I also noticed that the normally steady light on my router was no longer steady, but blinking, as it does when it's beginning a connection or losing one. In this case, it seems to have lost one that it has not yet regained. In the past, I have been able to fix these type of issues without much difficulty, but in this instance, I could not. I tried to fix it on two separate occasions by unplugging cords, restarting things, moving tables, and calling my internet provider, but as of right now, I still have no connection.
   I have tried to make myself feel better about the level of worry this disconnection has caused me by telling myself I pay all my bills online, and this problem could take a while to solve, if in fact it's able to be solved at all, but it still doesn't add up to the reality of the situation. This is no light worry at all.

C'mon, ds light

The lady that prayed to trees

   I was looking at some of the older pictures from my phone, as I do periodically, deleting ones that I no longer felt were necessary to have close to me anymore. Usually this is because the experience I had when I took the picture no longer had as much importance to me, or because the picture itself no longer seemed to capture that time as well. Either way, looking through these pictures is always enjoyable, often makes me smile, and sometimes reminds me of something which I previously had seemed to forget.

   This is a picture of an older woman that I used to see walking around Stow Lake here in Golden Gate Park, where I walk daily. She was about 4"11", and always wore the same tracksuit you see in this picture. Although I wouldn't see her everyday, when I would, I found her intriguing; she would at times veer from the walking path, put her hands together like she was praying, and touch a particular tree. I would see her do this on occasion, and it always helped me appreciate even more the beautiful surroundings we were both sharing at that moment. 

   It took a few months of seeing one another for us to eventually say something, and I would say hello to her, while her response would always be "good morning, sir".  It took some time after that for me to finally get up the nerve to ask her what kind of religion she practiced with the trees, and she told me that it wasn't a religion at all, "just something I do".  The fact that I had asked seemed to amuse her.

   I haven't seen her in many months now, and I'm a little ashamed in some way that it took my looking through my phone to remind me of her.