CHAPTER 2

My good intentions were no match for my beloved kayak, its pull toward the water too strong. My vow to only buy new things when absolutely necessary went south. I hated the culture of consumerism or supporting any oligarchy, even with a single dollar bill, but found myself spending real money on a new anchor and bilge pump. My vintage face mask and snorkel were from EBay; convinced that the oval shape of the mask was sexier than the two-eyed triangle face masks currently in fashion. The day the mask was delivered I wore it around the trailer, dancing, and scared the cats shitless. Goodwill came through for my U.S. Divers flippers, cost less than two dollars on one fine, blue tag Monday.

The accessories associated with kayaking, and free diving, were thrilling visuals besides being functional. When not in the water they decorated my trailer, bling for the faraway places I was headed. I installed hooks on the walls and ceiling for the buoy, flotation device, ropes, paddles and all the other water accessories, their decorative nature a perfect accompaniment to my large oil paintings. My large abstracts could have been water and surf, greens and blues full of motion and moments, and, combined with the kayak equipment, all bright orange and white, made the whole place feel like a beach hut in Florida. We were crowded and happy. The cats eventually got used to my dangling wetsuit. No longer mincing around it in fear, slinking, crouching, dilated eyes looking upward, they played with the wetsuit’s ankle zippers, batting the legs back and forth with a tinkling sound. The wetsuit swayed on its overhead hook and the cats went wild. I let them shred the rubber, better that they be fearless than afraid. Neoprene made a great scratching post. They climbed up, claw over sharp kitty claw, then jumped down, over and over. I got used to the thud in the night, knowing it was kitty glee and not an opossum trying to climb in the window.

I tried to get air into the girl’s hijab. After a while it was the only thing that mattered, getting the right weight, light and air so it could be lifted in the hot breeze. She was translucent, her headdress defined all. I spent weeks in that hot desert with her, chasing those undulating folds of cloth. It was summer, imagining heat and sunshine was easy in my hot studio. The art patron wanted a painting that was large, so she sent employees to the castle—the only castle in Kirkland, WA. right there on billionaires' row—to measure the wall where it would hang. I was allowed to go to the castle with the employees after signing a non-disclosure agreement. We were in and out in five minutes, sock-footed with tape measures and reverent silence. It was probably a real Italian castle, imported and reassembled. The painting would hang near the stained glass nave, between ancient timbers worn shiny. Hypnotized by the castle's authenticity, I slid on my shoes and slid out the door, a creeping chilling sensation followed.  It took them ten minutes to reset all the alarms.

The painting became 72” x 48”, as big as me. The photographs were excellent; the company even provided close-ups of the folded cloth so I could see exactly how it was folded. I painted the heavy bucket of water she carried back to her family, up and over sand dunes scattered with scrub. I gave her arm enough muscles so it wasn’t too much of a burden. My paintbrush slipped while adjusting her nose; it made her ever-so-slightly smile. We became friends. Pakistani Woman was one of the best paintings I ever made. The colors sang, the drawing was solid, the brushmarks wickedly intelligent. I made a grand frame, thick and dark-stained to match the overhead heavy wooden beams of the castle and its royal sensation of kingdom. The company sent a courier, I watched as they drove away, stood in the street, suddenly lonely. Much later, I drove by the castle but it seemed deserted, only gardeners tending palm trees as marble fountains spouted. I knew Pakistani Woman was safe but missed her terribly.

It wasn’t much money but it was exquisite and by email he raved about it. I had been in perfect harmony with myself while painting Frozen Pond #4, brushmarks and colors were liquid, delicate, fine and silky, each in turn. I told him I’d be happy to deliver it and he gave me his address. It was one block off Seattle’s Pike Place Market, the place to be if you were from somewhere else. There was no place to park, of course. I circled First Avenue twice, obeying the no left turn and one way only signs until I had driven ten blocks before being able to turn around. The crosswalks were packed with tourists, making turning nearly impossible anyway, as they poked along and took selfies mid-stride. The cross streets blew a stiff wind east off the water and up the hill, screaming seagulls along for the ride. Mounted police ambled along with the crowds, the horses’ hips broad and powerful, their hooves made clopping sounds. A sightseeing pedicab whizzed past downhill, the occupants laughing, their hair flying out. My car windows were down and it was noisy.

I considered parking in the one single loading-only spot as it was in the same block as the address then thought better of it. The parking ticket people in this part of town were vociferous; sometimes I think each had a single block to drive around and around, so quickly did they arrive. I called the art patron and parked in loading-only anyway, and checked my watch. If he didn’t appear within two minutes I was leaving. I always delivered "to your door" but his door was surrounded by a moat of concrete and automobiles. Making him come to my car was unprofessional, even though it was parked close by and I could see the entrance to his building, but there was nothing else I could do, short of spending a small fortune at a parking garage. Besides, it was now three p.m.straight up, our agreed upon delivery time.

He appeared. He was friendly, gracious and grateful; an obvious CEO of some sort, middle-aged, dressed in business attire, smoothly ironed and crisp. He practically skipped away, as much as a dignified CEO could skip, gazing happily at the small canvas painting, holding it up and smiling to himself as he traversed the promenade. It was a sunny day, early in summer, and his balding head glistened in the sun and sparkled with his pace as he wove around tourists taking photos and buskers shaking tambourines. He had said by email he needed something to decorate his office, and the painting he saw at MiaCiao was perfect. His office had a great view of Puget Sound but needed a painting. I did an online search; he was an art history enthusiast, had studied art history in college while obtaining an MBA in finance. Regardless how beautiful one’s view—even if it’s Puget Sound and ferries and sailboats and the snow-capped Olympic Mountains in the westward distance—everyone needs art, and this person recognized good art when he saw it, even in a pizza place and not a fancy art gallery.

I put the RX7 in gear and pulled out, the parking enforcer clearly visible half a block back. I could have driven the Ford Focus because the painting was small, but for some reason I was trying to impress the art patron. Maybe it was because he oversaw Seattle’s fanciest real estate transactions, transferring giant skyscrapers to new conglomerates, and developed corporate advisory services. The people who came to his office were probably conglomerate types, and would need art for their new purchases. I was available, and I drove a great car.

I go down to the sea and what I see is scaring me, dead starfish. The news said it was a starfish-specific disease, but we all knew it was climate change. The brightly colored, pin-wheeled creatures disappeared from rocks and sand and pilings seemingly overnight; blank nothingness left behind as dead bodies went out with the tide.

I sold a painting, and the man knew it was art, real art, not just something to go over the sofa to match his rug. His email gushed superlatives, about how he and his wife couldn’t stop looking at Springtime at the restaurant, how their food got cold as they discussed it. He mentioned his wife several times, maybe he was going to surprise her with it.

Making sure it was after the lunch rush—four o’clock was usually best—I went inside Coastal Seas with the replacement painting, nodded and smiled at the cook, the bartender and the host. I never said anything, but we were friends, we must be, they liked my art. I always gave a deep discount to anybody who worked there and expressed interest. Even thinking about purchasing art on a hospitality worker’s pay was daring, more imagination than reality. I wanted them to expand themselves in this direction, as everyone should have real art in front of their eyes, all the time. I also wanted the servers to speak well of me to their customers.

My face, happy and pleasantly arranged, said it all. I understood MiaCiao, as its customers were all wealthy and well-educated, including educated about art. Coastal Seas was a few notches down the chi-chi scale but their less-wealthy customers still bought lots of art, even at MiaCiao prices. Seattle was an artist’s paradise, so thoroughly was art a part of the culture.

His house was older, solid and well-maintained. Trees lined the street and the view of Lake Washington was spectacular. When it wasn’t raining you could see Bill Gates's home across the water. As I approached my hair started to stand up. There were small brass stars embedded in the walkway, sort of a mini-Hollywood walk of fame; a tumbling water sculpture dipped and repeated as wrought iron oddities sprouted across the lawn. The porch was filled with sculptures. A life-sized running man was carved to look like it was in extreme motion, with welded metal in certain places, burnt wood in others. It was fascinating and vaguely repellent. Others sculptures similar to Mr. Running Man, and some creatures not so easily identified, filled the space and spilled over the edge of the deck railing. It felt like a sinking ship; dense-packed, off-kilter and chaotic.

As it turned out, the art patron was an artist himself; an old guy, retired now, but had taught sculpture at a nearby university for most of his life. He was prolific, too. He helped me haul the large, heavy painting up the porch stairs and into his airy living room, filled with windows and light. It was a great place to hang Springtime, and was shockingly clean and aesthetic after traversing the ratty porch. He said his wife had to run to the store and would be right back. By now I wasn’t even sure he had a wife.

After clucking in delight over the glowing painting, he said come with me, I’ll show you where I work, and went back outside, past the creatures that I swore had changed positions, and around the side of the house. A wooden door led down to a small basement, I could see inside from where I stood on the lawn. He led the way and turned on the light switch at the far end of the room. It was still dark. I stayed on the grass, peering down into what seemed to be a small workshop of strange and exotic carving tools, welding tools, art tools. He glanced up and said, “Are ya comin’?”, all friendly. Ted Bundy flashed through my brain. He’d tricked hundreds of girls with his friendly face, and they’re all dead now. I said I had to go. He laughed as he turned away and picked up a chisel.

My fingers were too big for text-messaging. I had to wear reading glasses to see the abominably small letters. Email was a wonderful improvement, but text-messaging, ridiculous. I got with the program anyway; you can’t wear a miniskirt and fishnet stockings forever. I owned up to my texting ineptitude, like a beggar gave them my email address with please. People were surprisingly sympathetic, probably glad to put their own reading glasses away.

I delivered one of the Shilshole paintings, Reflection Overlook, last night in a torrential downpour. The address said Lake Washington Boulevard, a winding tree-lined street next to the lake, beautiful by day but pitch black at night. That was another thing about rich people, they didn’t have to cope with street lights. The black night was usually tender but now dangerous in the deluge. I wound around this way and that, and overshot the turn twice. The car’s windows steamed up, worse where my hands gripped the steering wheel.

The painting was tightly wrapped in a puffy white blanket and lots of plastic. I pulled into their driveway and hurried to free it from the roof rack. The rain was fierce, hurled down like gravel. I cursed myself for tying the rope with so many knots. By the time the large painting was free I was drenched, hands trembled in the cold. The wife answered the door, and inspected me up and down, a wary look on her face. I stood there in the porch light like a drowned rat, under the swaddled-in-plastic 48"x 60" oil on panel painting slung on my shoulder. She turned in disbelief and asked her husband if he had ordered a mattress. We unwrapped the painting on their expansive, covered deck, and while I put the soaking wet wrappings in my car they took it inside and admired it. Upside-down. I was horrified but didn't blame them, it was fairly abstract and a reflection of a tree on glass-like still water, something I had seen at Shilshole Beach.

Shilshole was one of Seattle's best beaches, had been my favorite for a long time. Beyond the luxury of soft white sand that stretched forever it was dangerous. Railroad tracks went right by, unfenced, on what seemed to be a boulder-strewn sand dune. One time I almost got hit by a passing train. I painted the tree shortly after that. A beaming Oskar and I talked, his German accent thick and difficult to understand. His command of English had been excellent from his emails, polite and mellifluous. The wife put the painting in the kitchen where she was making lebkuchen cookies—she made me pronounce lebkuchen twice—so she could admire it, and leaned it face-first into the stove. Oskar had seen the piece as he jogged past MiaCiao; had emailed, had jogged by twice, had gone away for the weekend, then declared his love for it. He was German and the painting looked vaguely like an eighteenth century Germanic landscape. They were newly-weds and clearly nesting, and it was an ideal match except for the upside down and stove parts. I thanked them, and with payment check in hand dashed out into the awful, pouring rain. The smells of cinnamon and ginger ran with me. I drove home with the windows down, my allergy to cinnamon in full bloom.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I had come to the end of my rope, figuratively speaking, and if I didn’t haul myself back to some tangible land soon I might drift away, across an ocean where no mirrors could tell me how bad I felt. Freed for the first time in my life, I had let myself go, and now I wanted to go further. It was no longer a great game to see how many days I could go without combing my hair; now it just didn’t matter. Days became weeks, or maybe it had been months; even my respirator couldn’t hide the tangle at the back of my head. I couldn’t ask myself what was wrong anymore because self was no longer home. February became March and the cold, dark rain continued.

The stillness of my present life became a rippling pond, damn pebbles from the past flying toward me like cannonballs. I dressed like a bag lady, slept in the same clothes for weeks, in torn clothes that mysteriously didn’t smell bad. I was the luckiest person in the world, listed all I was grateful for each night as I fell asleep. I was a psychopath and no one had found out. I knew I was lucky but stopped feeling lucky right around the time I stopped brushing my hair. Show no weakness, stare down any adversary— I knew the drill but it no longer worked because I could no longer identify the enemy. Maybe it was the largest, prettiest rainforest in North America, at least in the contiguous forty-eight states, but the Olympic Mountain range messed up a lot more than weather patterns. I desperately needed to get out of its way.

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