Through the Looking Glass, again….

“But it’s no use now, to pretend to be two people! Why, there’s hardly enough of me left to make one respectable person!”― Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass–

Other Moon, 2013, oil on canvas, 61×76 cm (24×30)

“It’s just a jump to the left, and then a step to the right, with your hand on your hips, you bring your knees in tight………,” one moment,  time warp to the present if you please……..

I remember the sound of the incoming evening tide as it swished across the low rocks and shifted the basaltic pebbles in the sand, rattling them around the mangrove roots.  How rich the air was with the smell of salt and fresh bread calling you to make the hike down the sandy path to the bakery and obtain a loaf before they were all gone.  Then stopping for a chat at the bar/gathering place to catch up on the news of the day.

There were no interrogations, no condemnations, no judgements; there was just the doing, the anticipation of the next day, the challenges ahead. We were all in the same boat, so to speak, the same island. The world was different then.

I go back to my island days in my mind and listen to the incoming tide whenever I am feeling trapped.

Not meaning to whine and trying to maintain some integrity as an artist and being a cashier are diametrically opposed forces that are pulling me apart.  Two customers in the past 4 months have reported me to management for being “rude”.  The first was dismissed for what it was, the customer having a bad day, the second, well the second is why I am writing this.

There was a truly crazy customer whom I felt was trying to scam me, and after listening to her rant for nearly 10 minutes about what she wanted, how she wanted it, what she wanted to pay and what she was going to do to me if I did not give her way……well, for some ungodly reason I simply said “no”.  She stormed off saying she would report me.  I called my manager and advised her what had just happened, she told me not to worry. The other customers in line just shook their heads.  But upper management considered it a fatal error and I had unwittingly violated a prime directive…”no customer shall be told no.” Paraphrased, of course.

I was called into the small office with 2 managers present and read the riot act.  I was called in again 2 days later and read the riot act again but this time there were 3 managers present, a bit crowed and slightly intimidating.   They were they said, filing a formal written complaint on my behavior. This was my final notice (I asked where was the first notice), because now I had formed a pattern of bad behavior, and should one more customer report me  I would be fired.  Later that afternoon I went back to ask politely why I was called in twice on the same incident and was once again lectured on how bad a person I was, told they had to run a formal investigation on the incident.  I called HR Corporate Counseling in Atlanta the next day.

My record they said is squeaky clean, no reports, no violations, no nothing, but they would investigate the situation and let me know.  I do not expect any results, but it made me feel better.  My days of employment are numbered, at the whim of the next angry customer.

This incident has changed me a bit, I have now learned how not to do the right thing.  So if someone complains about the price, I just take 10 -50 even 70% off and smile. If someone starts yelling, I call a manager, if someone is trying to steal, I turn a blind eye, if someone is using someone else’s credit card I look the other way, if someone is returning obviously stolen items billed on another persons credit card I smile and refund them the money.  If drug users return items without a receipt, I smile and give them cash…not my problem right?   This is the new retail philosophy in the great US of A, employees are highly replaceable, and at my age, have even less value.

After reality set in, I was saddened when I was told by one of the head Cashiers, to “…..just close your eyes, do your job, and pray for forgiveness every night.  It’s not your store, it’s not your money.”

What is even sadder is she is absolutely right.

Hey Y’all!

“I got treated very badly in Texas. They don’t treat beatniks too good in Texas. Port Arthur people thought I was a beatnik, though they’d never seen one and neither had I.”      Janis Joplin –

At Days End ©2003- graphite on paper, 25×30 cm (10×12)

-I remember sitting on a veranda overlooking the city of Zagreb, the beautiful clear blue sky, the mosaic tile flooring, the Marine Guard who had driven me from Belgrade sitting across from me talking away; the plane was delayed a couple of hours and we were having that marvelously sweet, strong Turkish coffee.

The next thing I remember is that I am in Houston, I am in a Catholic High School, I am in a kind of hell.

It is quite apparent that the trip back to the US was traumatic, the arrival was traumatic, the situation was traumatic. It is apparent I erase things easily. Later I eventually gleaned what happened.

Upon my arrival my mother had arranged for me to take the SAT’s at the University of Houston so I could continue my schooling, Capitán was to forward all my transcripts.  It never occurred to anyone that I had not spoken or studied English since I was 9 (well I did speak English to my parents), that I took everything “literary” not understanding the subtleties of the language, that I could read quite well but I had immense difficulty understanding test questions.  In South America and Europe most of my test were oral, very little was a written exam, and then only in essay form.  In America the questions tested your cleverness, not knowledge and I could not decipher the innuendo, still can’t to this day! No one even realized that even though I could write, I could not spell!!!!

I managed to make only decent scores except in English, which I succeeded in failing royally. I could not be accepted as a foreign student because I was an American and no exceptions would be made, thank you very much.  To add to my mother’s dilemma, Capitán never sent the transcripts, said they were lost in the mail, would get copies, never did. My mothers solution was to put me back in High School so I could graduate from an American school, be able to learn English and hence get into an American college.

I was 19 at the time, going on 30.

My memories of that High School as you might expect, are quite fractured. I spoke with a British accent, which my Texan schoolmates thought to be pretentious and snotty, so I was bullied and mocked on a daily basis. I learned to keep my mouth shut and tried to get rid of the accent. I use to practice talking when I alone at my mother’s apartment. To make matter worse, I was clueless to the culture of American “teenagerdom”.  Not harboring any concept of what America was  except what I saw in a movie or two I was lost, and there certainly were no bobby socks here! I did not even know what a football game was, much less a Bar-B-Que.

Severe cultural shock took hold, I was frightened, friendless and having an extremely difficult time learning anything in school to which my teachers attributed to my metal defects as outlined in letters Capitán had written. I asked too many questions and was moved to the back of the class where I could be ignored.  I even had trouble using my empathic skills because I found everything to be not what I wanted! “Dealing” with it all alone was becoming a burden.

To my rescue came an angel named Dee, two years younger, a classmate, fearless and brave to a point, she befriended me outside of school (unfortunately she could not be friends with me in school, social stigma because I was such an alien…..and all that stuff I never understood).  However, she quietly defended me when others put me down, she helped me with my English classes and taught me how to speak Texan.  But the best thing she did was introduced me to Garry her sometimes boyfriend, a junior at the University of Houston, with whom I formed a karmic bond. He became my brother, my counselor, my teacher, and my life long friend.

I rarely saw my mother in those days, she put in long hours working as an executive secretary, we talked even less, although I do remember bits of joy and laughter, so we must have gotten along well. One day when I came home from school Capitán was in the apartment, I think he had come to try to get her back, but I never knew the real reason. What I do know is there was one of those terrible yelling fests and I left, spending the night in the hallway of an adjacent building. When I returned in the morning, he was leaving but not before I received a tirade of what a whore I was (his favorite word to describe all women) accusing me of earing a living on the street. I remember silently standing there thinking how some things, some tones, some words never change and how very much I hated him.

One month after this incident and only 6 months after I had arrived, my mother’s boss was transferred to New York and asked her to come with him to continue her job as his assistant. It was only 1 month before graduation when she dropped me off at the train station, putting a ticket in my hand and telling me my aunt would meet me at the station in New Orleans and I could finish school there. I do not think she kissed me goodbye.  She had done what she could and it was time for her to move on.  I did not see or hear from her again for nearly 10 years.

I had come to the conclusion that life really was a magic act, just smoke and mirrors: now you see it, now you don’t, very little was real.  Of course I blocked out the memory of the train ride to New Orleans. The only thing I do know is that my arrival was welcomed with open arms.  My Aunt and Uncle became a solid lifeline, became the parents I always wished I had, loved me beyond what was humanly possible and gave me something sacred: they believed in me.

They also made me keeper of the family stories, passing on the good tales and of skeletons in the closet that created the family history. It was from that day forward I never forgot anything again.

 

 

Evolving

“For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction” Newton’s Third Law of Motion

Land Treads, oil on canvas, 77×102 cm (30×40)

I think we have lost our innocence. I think we have lost common sense. I think as a society we have peaked.  I think we are becoming as callous as the perpetrators who kill and maim.  I think we are loosing empathy and are heading towards becoming more militaristic……de-evolving into a third world made up of Christian zealots wanting to take us back to the dark ages, radical gun totting, shoot first, ask questions later, idiots spreading unnecessary fear; Corporations spending quadrillions to convert us to their cause, slowly changing the fabric of this country. I think our legislators live in fear of loosing their jobs, fighting for personal agendas rather, than doing what is right for the country as a whole.  Now that the dumbing of America is complete, now that art has become a mediocre pastime, now that we have become one-dimensional nearly incapable of critical thinking, now that technology has eliminated the need for verbal conversations, now that we are more isolated from each other than ever in spite of social networking………. I think we are so very close to the edge of chaos………and out on the parameter are those like me, a small but mighty group going: ayyyyyyeeeeee!!!!.

Ok, now I feel better.

I guess this is all part of the process; everyone carries the seeds of their own destruction, their own Karma, even counties.  If you believe that Newton’s Third Law of Motion applies only to physics you are soooo very wrong.  It applies to everything and everybody! Do a little research and you will find there are no coincidences in this world. Things are happening simultaneously everywhere. We are all so connected it can be frightening, or enlightening. I prefer the latter.

All right I will step down from my visionary soapbox and look at the amusing side of the current reality:

Three weeks ago I was hired by Home Depot!  Whoo Hoo I yelled for the world to hear.  Unfortunately I have also fallen though the cracks once again…..as Home Depot has lost my paperwork and though I exist in name only…they are having trouble making sure I really exist.  Hahahahaha! As if that was something new to my experience in life!  So I will be patient and see if they can find me.

In the meantime, my painting The Red Thread is off to The Armory for the Arts exhibit in Palm Beach Florida.  This weekend my Women and Fish Drawings will be part of a two-person show at the Watermelon Gallery in Cedar Crest and I am busy working on the 4^th in the series (number 3 is above: Land Threads).  This series is evolving into something different and I do not know where it is going, but I like it!

AND… like a bit of icing on the cake, I have a drawing student.  Yes one student, it is quite wonderful, I am not as useless as I thought!!!

I also survived another birthday …….so, January was a very interesting month indeed…… I am now ready for the rest of the year!