The freelance churchgoer
What is it to be creative. Creative is a state of mind. It is the ability to notice life elements as art fragments, it is to have the ability to be able to compare an uneasy feeling to a mixture of gray or purple which doesn’t do much, yet still exists, could be explained or the existence of which could be justified. If you can’t see these colors when having a bad day it is harder to notice wonderfully harmonized colors of a good day and noticing perfection and a system of harmony…
Creative Workshop Step Number 1: start writing your interesting thoughts on loose pieces of paper. After gathering about ten, start organizing them in categories. You may start elaborating around them to attempt to discover who you are.
Self-portraits, photos
How my own experiment started (the one I am presenting to you right now):
I have a compulsive obsession with clothes. But that’s purely visual. So why not use it for my art. I am still too lazy to carry this idea on. Starting is the hard thing for me. One day I am in front of a mirror testing some clothes combination. My dog comes in and stares at me. Here I am trying hard to look a certain way, and here he is, always looking his best in his black tuxedo. What he wants is to chase in a park after his tennis ball. He is more perfect than me. Better dressed and his mind is uncorrupted. Here we are. We look at each other and we wonder. Did it ever enter his mind how different and yet similar we are? Who am I to know his mind when I don’t even know my mind. My mind is full of debris, small stuff. My mind has only moments of glory. Yes, his mind is full of glory too. Like that time when he did not touch that squirrel who froze on a tree trunk, right within his reach, or when he let the hungry dog eat his food. Here we are. Perfect.
I want to take a picture of me, in my silly clothes, no makeup and my dog wondering intensely what am I doing. But he leaves the room. When I am ready to shoot, my cat comes. That’s when my project started.
Me, my cat, my clothes. Nothing fancy, really — just elements — instead of grapes, the vase, the pheasant (like those from old Dutch paintings), it’s me, my cat, my room. It’s my moment, my thought. It’s worth registering, because from the perspective of nothingness — that’s a lot of action and a lot of information.
~
Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023
The day after her funeral. Most of it I’ll forget. Just as with my father’s. Most of the words I didn’t pay attention to even in the moment, so I couldn’t forget them even if I needed to, they never really existed. Just some Polish blur. A priest who didn’t know her, just saying the ritualistic things a priest is supposed to say about someone going home. Mom didn’t even consider herself Catholic, is the thing. Even if she was raised as one. This I thought about. How she was deeply, profoundly religious and spiritual, but not one thing. She didn’t discriminate against any religion, nor did she discriminate in making fun of any religion (and maybe especially the Catholics). But she wouldn’t have minded whatever it was the priest was saying, I don’t think. When I’d asked her what she wanted, or where she’d want to be buried, she said she really didn’t care.
So this funeral was always going to be for others. Definitely not for me. Probably more for my grandmother. And that’s OK.
Me, as the priest talked in blur, I contemplated the gold fixtures on the ornate walls. And the flowers people brought and laid before her photo and her urn. How much does a funeral wreath cost, I wondered. How far in advance must it be ordered.
I looked at the box. My shoes. And away — away anywhere, to keep from crying (this was unsuccessful).
Yes most of it I’ll forget, but will probably always remember that it was cold. Just as with Dad’s funeral and how I’ll always remember that it was wet, with a lot of mud.
I’ll remember that yesterday I could see my breath even in the church, and I’ll remember the forever walk through to the other side of the cemetery after. And how I needed to walk first behind the cart that carried her ashes. And how everyone walked behind me, probably contemplating me. But also talking.
I’ll remember the snow all around.
And slipping and nearly losing my balance so many times on the icy path, but never falling.
And then the workmen struggling with the slab of marble atop the grave, and how one of them just appeared from within the grave (always shocking - I remember this from Dad’s funeral also). And how then, when it was over, the priest saying whatever else he needed to say, a few of these men worked together to put the covering securely in place, at last. This took quite some effort and teamwork and some wooden planks.
I’ll remember the driver of the cart at one point saying, “We need to get going. We have another funeral.”
I’ll remember crying. The worst of it, before the ceremony began, when we sat down and waited, and I could hear people behind me whispering hello to each other, and thought to myself, OK, so this is it.
I’ll remember Ewa reading Mom’s poem: “Where there is more of me.”
And putting my arm around my grandmother.
And the nod I shared with the violin player with whom I’d exchanged emails.
I’ll remember seeing Iwona, at the last moment in the last pew, and how much this meant to me.
I’ll remember my grandmother asking me a thousand times before the funeral ever began if I had gloves, that I really needed to have gloves.
And my grandmother saying after the funeral and the reception was over, and twice, “But the food was good, right?”
I’ll forget the rest. I think I’ll want to.
I woke up this morning thinking maybe I should write about this, but why. Nothing much to say, really. The ritual, the show of it. And the truth is, she could have written about it better. Yet she wasn’t even really there. It didn’t feel like it. So I wanted to share some of her words even more than mine, and I thought of these two pages I once found among her other pages, after she died. I really liked these two pages, especially the one below. And most especially the line about the love handles. And that’s where she is — she’s within those pages, those words. She’s there even — or especially — at the top of the excerpt I shared above, where in fact, before asking, What is it to be creative, she’d actually also written there:
half hour looking for plane ticket reservation, tempted to look at Matlock.
too hot for swimming, plan for next week, discs in order
Yes, this. This is her — more than the funeral was her. And that’s what matters to me. Her voice, her thinking, not the priest’s. Or the food.
But yes, the food was good. The food was fine.
~
Sunday, June 26, 2005 church
I had a good hair day and decided to go to church. I am a freelance churchgoer, I go as I please and to any church I please. I love God for the fact that he is such an abstract concept and it is funny that people fight over religions. It’s like everyone paints a different portrait of someone they have never seen and insist that that’s the only one that’s accurate. I feel that personal meditation is what counts and as long as I am working on my own goodness I am fine and it doesn’t matter in which church I meditate in. And if I meditate in my house that’s fine too.
I think that each church provides the atmosphere for meditation and we should choose the one that works for us. Today I went to a Greek church because it isn’t far, there is a lot of incense and the crowd looks intelligent. Plus choirs, music is important to me.
Do not blame me for making comments about people. They are what you look at for at least an hour, it’s not like a darkroom — a movie theater. In church if you sit in a wrong place you can end up contemplating someone’s love handles. I am traditional this way — I think that women should think twice about what they wear when they go to church. For everyone’s sake. On a street — I don’t care. Suddenly I see a lot of women wearing a similar shade of pink. It’s a purplish kind of pink. A palette of colors the Greek women wear. They also like red. Some like blue. Solid colors preferred over patterns. So, here it goes: black and white and besides that red, purple, pink, or blue. Now I see the system. I know that Russians are in love with purple, they are not too far from Greeks. I contemplate this instead of contemplating God.
Once in Houston I went to an all-black church, a small church where more people were on stage than in seats. I was fascinated with hats. I was fascinated with the flamboyance of these hats. And the prayer, boy these people knew how to pray. Improvisation straight from the heart. Two hours sitting there went quick. It was the best. I loved that small little church in a middle of a dusty road. A spirit was all over this church, the spirit there was alive. My first church in California was Methodist and I liked it. They did not emphasize on a sin, but on an action. When they expected social services from me I left. It was a small church and I wanted invisibility. I felt too inconsistent there. When I showed up after a while of not going they praised me for coming as I was going to stay now. And then I was gone again.
So today I stayed in the Greek church for a while, then went to a pharmacy, and started to write. Had to change clothes because my cat was all over me saying thank u for taking him from the shelter.
I am going to take two pictures, do my laundry, shoot I am out of quarters.
