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Art Supplies · Relatively Stable

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Stable Roots.
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  This is my weekly collection of writing that is a voiceover
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  that comes from my sub stack.
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  The title this week is Art Supplies,
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  or How I Can Draw Trees and Mountains.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's about it.
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  SPEAKER_00: But it doesn't keep me from trying.
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  SPEAKER_00: I bring you a series of tiny gifts this week.
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  If they were packets of seeds,
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  these words would be trying to turn into fragile sprouts.
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  SPEAKER_00: They'd need just the right conditions to thrive.
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  My brain is overly wintered and these snapshots started as a
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  way of giving myself
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  SPEAKER_00: permission to not form a lengthy extended thought.
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  a vacation from my usual long form essays as we near the
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  anniversary of a year of
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  SPEAKER_00: me posting weekly words for you to read here on Substack.
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  I kept my notebook near me this week and I figured that I would
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  collect impressions of things.
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  SPEAKER_00: A few paragraphs of images I saw or thought about or dreamed.
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  But like most writing and life,
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  my intentions led the way to something else entirely.
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  SPEAKER_00: What I bring you this week is a series of prose poems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Poems and I go way back.
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  Poems paid my way through college and gave me a canvas to paint
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  on when I,
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  SPEAKER_00: despite all my better efforts,
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  SPEAKER_00: couldn't varnish the shape of my feelings with a brush.
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  SPEAKER_00: I studied visual art because I'm a sucker for symbols and metaphors.
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  SPEAKER_00: Poems, to me, are tiny paintings made into words.
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  You see them in your head and they echo with a resonance that
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  pulses through your chest.
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  When given a literal blank page to draw on,
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  I sketch trees,
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  mountains,
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  and vines.
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  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing this since I was a kid,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the simplicity of these doodles hasn't changed much over time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher is the visual artist in our house.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's how I introduce him,
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  as if we only get one title for artistic license and aren't
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  allowed to tinker with
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  SPEAKER_00: all the things.
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  Somewhere along the way,
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  I created a rule in my life that words and images couldn't mix.
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  Like when I inhaled a puff of flagell while treating the pony's
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  feet this week and
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  had to do a solid Google search to see if it was safe to drink
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  a glass of wine afterwards.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have so many rules for myself,
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  SPEAKER_00: some arbitrary,
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  SPEAKER_00: some logical,
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  but I'm ready to toss the bylaws I've drafted for artistic
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  incorporation out the
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  SPEAKER_00: proverbial stained glass window.
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  I crept into the art supply aisle when Christopher and I were
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  out shopping this weekend,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I selected a sketchbook and pencils,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I felt like I was shopping for someone else,
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  SPEAKER_00: like I didn't belong there,
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  SPEAKER_00: which was all the more reason to drench myself in the glory of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Prose poems and flash essays are my writerly equivalent of sketching,
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  SPEAKER_00: a way for me to catch a scene or an image through impressions.
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  SPEAKER_00: They help me condense my thoughts and sink into the richness of details.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm sharing a few with you this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: They all began as separate thoughts, but started weaving together.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're messy and unpolished,
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  SPEAKER_00: like me,
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  SPEAKER_00: or the me that has my vote if I were given a seat to fill in a committee.
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  SPEAKER_00: My intentions for this new year are all about rediscovering art and awe.
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  I invite you to see what corner these elusive creatures are
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  napping in your own life,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I hope you wake them up gently and share your findings with me.
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  SPEAKER_00: They can be messy and unpolished and incomplete.
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  SPEAKER_00: They can be the incarnation of permission.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm giving you free reign to do whatever the hell you want.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can draw crudely and still be sketching.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can write essentially and still be telling stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can move your body to music that only you can hear.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's get started.
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  SPEAKER_00: 1.
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  SPEAKER_00: The Rapture
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  SPEAKER_00: The fallen tree is a trident split from the same source,
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  SPEAKER_00: a trinity of white oak,
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  SPEAKER_00: its bark smooth with pressed ridges,
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  SPEAKER_00: a fingernail on the hand of the earth.
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  SPEAKER_00: We thought about getting married beside this tree,
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  but moved the ceremony to the path in the woods where three
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  trails converged into
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  SPEAKER_00: an asymmetry of crossings.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most of these things come in threes.
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  The multi-forked white oak was the first tree we noted on the
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  ground when we
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  emerged from the thick sound of the generator to take stock
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  after the storm.
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  SPEAKER_00: I smelled gas and the wet ache of chewed wood,
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  and I remembered how my thoughts caught when I was a kid
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  pondering eternity,
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  SPEAKER_00: how I could reach the end of understanding,
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  SPEAKER_00: a flat earth knowledge,
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  SPEAKER_00: a line on the map warning,
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  SPEAKER_00: here be dragons.
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  It took days to saw the length of the triple oak so trucks
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  could pass to the hay sheds.
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  My shoes didn't make an imprint on the wet sawdust that covered
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  the ground.
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  SPEAKER_00: How could I possibly make a mark in something as large as this storm?
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  SPEAKER_00: I sit on an overturned log and watch the sky move,
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  SPEAKER_00: blue and limitless,
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  and I remember how scared I was when I was a kid and thought
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  that the rapture would
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  SPEAKER_00: happen and I would be left here alone.
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  But as I sit on this log and gaze at the overturned roots of
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  this storm-toppled oak,
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  SPEAKER_00: I uncover a fear greater than losing my chance at the second coming.
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  SPEAKER_00: What if I'm not left alone here in these woods and dirt and trees?
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  SPEAKER_00: What if I'm taken up into the sky?
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  SPEAKER_00: Without wings, can I make my way upward?
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  SPEAKER_00: Two.
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  SPEAKER_00: We fly.
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  The vultures play in the high wind gust above the barn as a
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  cold front presses down
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  SPEAKER_00: on the mountains like an oppressive relative.
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  SPEAKER_00: I keep losing my trail of thought as I announce their presence.
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  SPEAKER_00: Look at that big black bird.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's another one.
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  SPEAKER_00: That one's bigger.
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  SPEAKER_00: Wait, that's an airplane.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're on the flight path of the airport.
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  On clear days,
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  I hear the engines revving for takeoff or the windbreak of a landing.
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  As the planes pass over the barn,
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  I announce their presence and I wonder where they're going.
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  SPEAKER_00: I wonder if someone up there is grieving or if someone up there is happy,
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  SPEAKER_00: as if I can help them,
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  SPEAKER_00: as if I can lessen their losses and laugh at their jokes.
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  SPEAKER_00: As the vultures glide in the storm front,
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  SPEAKER_00: some alone,
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  SPEAKER_00: some together,
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  SPEAKER_00: the idea of flight stuns me like a newborn thought,
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  SPEAKER_00: a revelation.
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  SPEAKER_00: We move through the air.
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  SPEAKER_00: The buzzards seek down,
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  SPEAKER_00: I seek up,
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  SPEAKER_00: and somewhere in the icy currents above the treetops,
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  SPEAKER_00: our thoughts occasionally meet.
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  SPEAKER_00: 3.
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  SPEAKER_00: Torpor The trees and I have an ongoing conversation,
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  but the winter wind where the vultures swooped rattles the
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  bedroom windows.
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  SPEAKER_00: We gather the dog and move to the center of the house,
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  SPEAKER_00: where we can rest with a buffer of attic above us.
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  And I remember how a decade ago someone called when I was away
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  from the farm to say
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  the big white oak behind the bedroom window was filled with
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  sleeping vultures.
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  SPEAKER_00: Birds rest in a torpor,
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  SPEAKER_00: their heart rate and breathing slowed,
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  SPEAKER_00: and the grace of the vulture's flight becomes clumsy when grounded,
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  SPEAKER_00: a plop into gravity shaken off as they hop back onto a branch.
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  SPEAKER_00: The trees support their bumbling as they dream.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I,
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  SPEAKER_00: a featherless carnivore,
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  rest my heaviness into the blankets as the winter wind crashes
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  through the eaves
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  SPEAKER_00: and the trees keep watch.
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  SPEAKER_00: I bought star cards in a museum shop,
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  a heavy duck of perforated cardboard punched into the shape of
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  the constellations.
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  SPEAKER_00: I could never line them up.
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  I bought a telescope,
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  a lens to the heavens,
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  so I could watch the night sky close.
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  But like most complex games with rules,
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  I started playing and subsequently gave up.
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  SPEAKER_00: I bought an app to locate comets on my phone.
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  But I fixated on how the sun was underground,
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  beneath me,
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  and I forgot to look up.
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  SPEAKER_00: On a blanket where the water met the earth,
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  I lay there with you and didn't have to journey with my eyes to
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  see the holy weave
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  SPEAKER_00: of the inky jeweled blanket that mantles our lives.
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  The stars and the planets and the comets meet us with their
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  frequencies like
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  traveling kings bearing gifts for a story that is written
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  before our eyes.
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  Thank you for joining me through the journey of these four
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  little prose poems.
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  SPEAKER_00: Next week,
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  SPEAKER_00: Christopher and I drive to Nashville,
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  SPEAKER_00: Tennessee to pick up Gideon,
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  SPEAKER_00: our new farm creative director,
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  SPEAKER_00: muse,
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  SPEAKER_00: and vagal nerve balancers with his purrs.
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  SPEAKER_00: Gideon is a Siberian forest cat,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I'll probably just be writing about him for the next 10 years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Siberians are native to Russia,
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  SPEAKER_00: like Maine coons are native to the U.S.,
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  SPEAKER_00: but Siberians are hypoallergenic.
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  I was hesitant to add a house cat to our crew of hard-working
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  barn cats because I'm
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  SPEAKER_00: terribly allergic to cats.
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  SPEAKER_00: This hasn't stopped me before.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm also allergic to horses, hay, trees, and dogs.
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  SPEAKER_00: A snowstorm is headed our way,
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  and so many of you have already experienced blizzard conditions
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  and wind storms and
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  SPEAKER_00: fire this year.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's so much happening in the world.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't have an answer or an antidote to the madness,
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  but I'm beside you as we bear witness to the whispers and the
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  screams of the
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  SPEAKER_00: natural world.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about the awe you found this week.
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  SPEAKER_00: Tell me about the art you've uncovered.
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  SPEAKER_00: Let's bear witness to each other's stories.
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  SPEAKER_00: Love, Kim