Letter

I’ve never felt I belonged anywhere. Leaving a place as a child sometimes has that effect. Because I didn’t live in Moscow long enough to establish an identity I can’t quite think of it as home; in any case, the country I left at age seven no longer exists so there’s nowhere for me to go back to. I’ve been searching for that home-feeling in every place I’ve lived since.

In the country I came from travel was severely restricted. You couldn’t just get on a plane and go wherever you liked. I thought of that while looking through photos from the recent airport protests. Up until quite recently most people in this country could assume that if they got on a plane they didn’t have to worry about being let back in upon their return. But we don’t live in a country like that anymore.

In the thirty-nine years I’ve lived in this country there have been many times I’ve been appalled by the actions or policies of its government but never until these past few months have I wondered whether the fundamental underpinnings of the place were under existential threat. The unmoored feeling brought on by the daily assault of the current administration against this country and the people it is supposed to govern is so all-encompassing that it has left much more eloquent and shrewd voices speechless. There are many times on most days that just a passing thought on the subject will make me feel untethered from reality.

I see others around me grasp for some constructive way to respond. They go to protests and sign petitions, trying to make their voices heard. Many have never before felt the need to participate, so perhaps we can thank the troglodytes in power for inspiring civic interest in the populace. At Bernice’s the other day I saw a diehard Miller Lite drinker with an Amstel in his hand. He’d heard that Miller was a big backer of the current regime and wanted to make his disapproval count in the only language corporations understand.

The other night I went into a pizza place run, improbably, by an aged Asian couple. While the man disappeared into the kitchen to warm up my slice of sausage, the woman, with no prompting, offered this thought to me in broken English, “America. Used to be good. Now? PFFFTHHHT.” —making the sound of a suddenly-punctured deflating balloon.

Will we come to a point when all the people worried about being let into this country stop wanting to come? When my parents brought me here all those years ago it couldn’t have been with the hope that the doors would lock behind us on anyone else who wished for a better life than where they came from. I’m fortunate not to have to worry about being deported like so many people I know are nowadays but that bit of security doesn’t make me any less ashamed of what’s going on. America was supposed to be a refuge for those who weren’t wanted elsewhere but is being transformed into a country bent on keeping outsiders out. PFFFTHHHT indeed.

So where is there to go now?

I’m a collector of stuff that most folks ignore/You know that one man’s ceiling is another man’s floor/I’ve got gadgets and junk up to my knees/But it’s just like finding buried treasure to me…

These first few lines from “White Elephant” play in the background of my mind like a theme song almost every time I go into Steve’s garage. Looking around the old horse stable piled high with things he’s brought here because he thought they had value makes me wonder about what I consider valuable.

The only things I spend money on regularly are books and records. I like buying things made by people I know. But afterwards, when I’ve brought the thing home, more often than not, I’m left with a hollow feeling. The wanting beforehand is much stronger than whatever the feeling is after I’ve gotten it. Of course if it turns out the book or record is good, that extends the positive association while looking at the physical object which is like a vessel for thoughts and insights inside. A painting is different in that the package it’s in is the important part. There’s nothing inside, it’s all on the surface. But I hardly ever collect paintings either.

A couple months ago I bought one of Ken Ellis’s quilt portraits. I don’t know what came over me but I suddenly wanted one. Mine is of Shockheaded Peter from the old German children’s book. It’s the first piece of art I’ve paid for in at least a decade.

Every cardboard box, plastic bag, sagging suitcase, and bowed metal shelf in the garage holds something Steve loved when he first saw it. What happened after, when he put it back here, is another story. Whether most of these objects are forgotten after decades of lying in this place or are just biding their time for when he looks at them again and remembers why they caught his eye remains to be seen.

Because nothing here belongs to me, the way I see it is completely different. But there’s no way not to see this room as a manifestation of a man’s mind. In the paintings and drawings I’ve done I try to find some order, rhythm, pattern, and pathways through and around all of Steve’s stuff. Just as with all my other work I don’t think about meaning or narrative or content before starting but instead trust that something will catch in the process of doing the thing.

When I’m done I bring the piece back home and hang it on the wall to look at. It always looks completely different here than it did there. Then I sit and wonder whether I’d miss all my stuff if, say, I came home and the building burned down. I doubt I would. I’d know that the money I’d spent on those things had already helped the people I gave it to to make more things and that keeping the thing was always going to be temporary anyway. The buried treasure/scavenger hunt part of collecting has its appeal. But finding and keeping are very different from each other.

Painting pictures of someone else’s treasures has been its own reward. I don’t know what I’ll be left with after I’m done but I’m certainly glad I’ve done it.

My living room has old-fashioned wallpaper. It reminds me of the walls of 19th century sitting rooms in proper homes as seen in Westerns or depicted in paintings of the time to evoke stolid bourgeois life. Up until a few months ago I only hung work in progress over this wallpaper, but then it occurred to me that seeing as I’ve lived here almost two years and had no plans of moving, I may as well decorate. 

A crown molding shelf runs two-thirds of the way up the walls around the whole room. It’s just the right size for books with interesting covers, discarded art from reused thrift-store frames and mementos of every kind. When put up against the brown and mustardy-beige paper, each object is surrounded; the ceaseless pattern cushions and complements some objects, while overwhelming others. Like the paintings of my bookshelves which I’ve been doing for twenty years now, these new pictures aren’t exactly traditional still-lifes in that I didn’t set up or compose each element before committing it all to canvas or paper. They are just vignettes of the view I live with every day.

The Trick Dog is a replica of an old cast-iron toy which my friend Hannah gave me for Christmas. You put a coin in the little black dog’s mouth, push a button, and the dog springs forward and deposits the coin in the barrel. The orange clown used to hold a hoop which stopped the dog’s flight at just the right moment; without it, coins only make it through the slot every now and then. Most ping off the edge of the barrel and roll away willy-nilly.

On Friday, one of the most shameful days in this country’s history during my lifetime, I chose not to follow the news. I went to see a biopic about Ray Kroc, a huckster who swindled two brothers out of an idea which they’d both put their whole lives into and built a billion dollar fast-food empire. The man was no hero and even the great Michael Keaton’s portrayal couldn’t rid him of his conman’s stench. I went for drinks at the Rainbo and heard people I’ve known for decades speculate hopefully about the Vegas odds which favored our newly-sworn-in president’s impeachment within the year. I capped the evening with a play about the recently-retired newsman and presidential debate moderator Jim Lehrer having an identity crisis and wrestling with another version of himself.

None of these diversions were diversion enough of course. The only path through that I can see is to keep going deeper into my immediate world. Make the rooms I live in more habitable and render versions of them in paint as a way of connecting with the world outside my door. Whether doing this will help get our own orange clown to hold up the hoop and help the dog drop coins in the slot remains to be seen.