Letters from an Artist

May, 2004

5-26-2004
When I walked into the hospital yesterday to visit my newly paralyzed neighbor, I was surprised at how normal he looked and seemed. He saw me immediately and reached out to shake my hand, asking how I was, how was the job, seeming totally normal as if it was our standard greeting over the hedge in the yard. The fact that he was lying in a hospital bed, paralyzed from the waist down appeared, at least initially not to be an issue at all.
      This accident has cost them both their jobs and his girlfriend W was there at his side, putting all his expensive toys up for sale on ebay with her laptop. She had figured out how to dial up through the hospital phone line and asked me for help on transferring some pictures from an email account to ebay. That was a no brainer for me, but far more troubling was the issue of why we men chase danger.
      Ever since we found out about JJ's accident last weekend (which actually happened 3 weeks ago but we thought they were on vacation) I've been in shock over how close to home this has hit. The guy looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger; totally buff. He has been an inspiration to me and Clint in his pursuit of perfect fitness.
       And the toys, he had everything: the high end motocross bikes, a brand new secure wired storage shed in the back yard, several new cars, one of which is a gorgeous red Corvette, his girlfriend W, who is a good 15 years younger and...well, let's just say he was a very lucky guy.
       He was kind to a fault, never intrusive as some neighbors can be. We led our life, he led his but if I needed a tool, or if it was nice out and we were both outside, always a friendly wave and hello. Our sons hung out when they were younger, and I've already written about how he got Clint started lifting.
       Still, as I sat there in the chair at the foot of the bed, listening to him talk about how his life had changed with such calmness and courage, I simply couldn't digest it. Here he was, in the prime of his life suddenly paralyzed talking about his future life as if he had totally come to terms with it. His girlfriend was putting his Corvette up for sale on Ebay!! to be followed shortly by his motocross bikes. It seemed unreal.
       Finally I began questioning him about things. For example: were his friends still riding, and why do we men have this sick hunger for dangerous sports. He had clearly been thinking along the same lines, as his answers came quickly. His friends were all still riding motocross, and in fact his son had ridden the next day. He had carried several buddies off the track with shattered ankles and legs a couple weeks before his accident. Evil Knievel and all that...the invincible warrior on his creature of steel.
       He has been thinking about selling the bikes, but had kept them one more year. He kind of winced when he said, "It was just so much fun! I didn't want to give it up". That's climbing for me in a nutshell. I love it. The only time I feel truly alive is when I'm doing the things about which I am passionate: climbing and painting. Everything else is just waiting. Don't get me wrong, I love my family and all that, but a man needs his adventure activities, and for some of us, we need the real thing, not just simulated danger.
       He says it was a freak accident but I'm not sure. Flying through the air simply doesn't make sense. When I am climbing I do everything I can to avoid falling, even though the rope is there to back me up. Back when I was windsurfing, I hated getting "air". Any attempts man makes to fly are piss poor imitations compared to birds.
       Clint does everything on his bmx bicycle that Jeff did on his motocross bike, just without motors. He lands (and crashes) big tabletops , which is what paralyzed JJ. He admires the riders who get big air and loves to fly over the jumps, just like JJ did.
      I've found myself out in the back yard several times lately, staring blankly across the hedge at JJ's empty house. They are all at the hospital and the height of the grass pinpoints the exact day JJ had his accident. He must have mowed the lawn that weekend before driving his trailer full of $7000 bikes out to the jumps.
       We talked, JJ and I, about the hazards of pursuing adventure sports. "Let this be a lesson to you", he said, staring at me frankly from his hospital bed, his paralyzed legs between us. "It's fun, but the price you pay can be enormous."

5-24-2004
Our next door neighbor suffered a terrible accident. He's been our neighbor for a good ten years or so. 15 years ago his lot used to be woods, and we were offered the chance to buy the property to stop development for $12000 but couldn't afford to go into debt any further.
       A local contractor bought the house and was soon hammering nails 30 feet from my bedroom window as I tried to sleep while working the nightshift. We hated that contractor with a passion, but now his son is best friends with our daughter, go figure.
        Our first indication of the nature of our new neighbor's character came when he moved in and brought along his two parents. It's a small house but his parents moved in with him shortly after JJ bought the house.
      We talk, as neighbors will, across the hedge now and then and he told me once that they had come into some hard times and lost everything. His comment was: "Well, they are my folks after all, I gotta help them out." Soon his son moved in, choosing to live with Dad, rather than his mom down in Florida.
       Clint and the son became casual friends and built dirt jumps out in the woods behind the house where all the neighborhood kids would come to fly through the air on their bmx bicycles. The ex-wife visited a few times but never stayed long, and JJ remained a very eligible bachelor dad, constantly working out at the gym and driving around in his late model red Corvette and elevated 4x4.
       He is generous to a fault, never hesitating to loan me a tool from his huge tool cabinet. He is the main person who introduced my son Clint to weight lifting, and the three of them: JJ, his son and Clint; used to car pool to the gym in town to lift weights, this was back about 6 years ago. JJ needed his house painted (the lousy contractor), so he worked out a deal where he would weld a weight lifting cage for Clint, and Clint would help him paint his house.
       JJ welded a huge safety cage for Clint to lift weights in and helped Clint install it out in the garage. Clint didn't have any weights, so JJ loaned Clint his entire set of free weights (about 20 pieces), saying he didn't need them anymore since he enjoyed working out at the gym in town.
        They never got around to painting his house, but Clint still has the cage and the weights which he uses religiously. About 2 years ago JJ began bringing home a girlfriend whom he had met at the gym. She was very beautiful and buff, not to mention a good 15 years younger. Well, I thought, that's a relief, now maybe my wife will stop drooling over his Arnold Shwarzenegger chest and the red Corvette. How many cups of sugar does she need to borrow anyway?
       He has a great job working as a welder for a major defense contractor in Tacoma and always has the latest toys. He and his son got into motocross racing and always had the latest motorcycles. When the girlfriend moved in, he bought a motorcycle for her too and we would frequently see the 4x4 drive out to the jumps with the 3 brand new dirt bikes on the trailer.
       They would spend hours out in the back yard cleaning and maintaining those metal monsters. Every time they returned from the jumps, he'd get out his steam cleaner and spray them down. They'd all walk around the yard in those brightly colored leather motocross suits, proclaiming to the world that they were participants in the death defying sport of motocross.
       About three weeks ago their house got very quiet, and we figured they must have gone on vacation. Both Clint and JJ's son are graduating from high school together this month, and, while they don't hang out together anymore, Clint overheard a rumor at school last week that JJ was paralyzed from a motocross accident.
       All of a sudden our innocent assumptions about the quiet house next door took on some ominous overtones. Was it just a rumor? or had something terrible happened. Clearly we aren't close neighbors; we don't have barbecues together or anything. They lead their lives and we lead ours, but you'd think we would have noticed something. People had been coming over to the house regularly, but usually it was just the grandmother of the girlfriends son, and I figured she was picking up the mail and feeding the fish in the aquarium.
       Yesterday, both Sue and I walked over when we saw the girlfriend drive in and got the bad news: JJ crashed landed while doing a 60 foot table top jump he had done a hundred times before. The bike hit him in the back and shattered his spine, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down. They don't expect him to walk again. He's supposed to be home in a few weeks. His girlfriend got fired from her job, even though she only missed one day.
       The guy was such a stud, always walking around without a shirt showing off that awesome chest, but not a jerk about it like many musclemen who drive Corvettes. JJ was a class act, and we felt fortunate to have him for a neighbor. Everything has changed now for JJ.
        What is frightening for us is that it strikes so close to home. Clint still flies through the air and does "tabletop" jumps, albeit on his bmx bicycle instead of a 200 pound motocross motorcycle. Still, flying through the air on anything is dangerous. Birds are meant to fly, but not people.
       I've often told Clint, and I think I might have even told JJ that they should get into something safer like rock climbing. We at least have a rope for safety backup in case we start to "fly". Accidents are a fact of life, and even people who swear they aren't into adventure sports wreck their cars every day by driving like teenagers with a death wish.
        On a lighter note, Sue and I pedaled from Gig Harbor across the Narrow bridge to Point Defiance park yesterday. The weather was lovely and I really enjoyed getting some good exercise outdoors in the warm sunshine. Pedaling the narrow sidewalk over the bridge is quite scary. The cars and trucks whiz by at 60, and they are only 3 feet away, separated from the sidewalk by a 9 inch high guard rail. Still, the view is stunning, almost like being in an airplane and the danger seems like a calculated risk. I've got 8 hours of lesson plans to write before tomorrow.

5-15-2004
My fiftieth birthday is coming up soon. It's quite a milestone, but not nearly as psyche shaking as some of my earlier birthdays. My thirtieth was the worst, especially after having read in a respected magazine: "If you haven't achieved your dreams by thirty, you're not likely to afterwards." I was happily married to Sue back then, and we had a great life together climbing and skiing for fun, but my career was the pits. I was stuck in a dead end printing job making a lousy wage after 8 long years with the company.
       I took the day off from work on my thirtieth birthday to stay home with my guitar. I set up my two microphones and recorded a couple hours of myself singing ballads and talking candidly about being thirty. I still have the tape and listen to it now and then. It's amusing to listen to that long ago thirty year old talking about being so "old".
       Had I been able to look into the future, I wonder what I would have thought? I'm still happily married to Sue. The two children who are now 19 and 16 were only a twinkle in Sue's lovely eyes across the campfire. We hadn't yet bought this house, although we would buy it within the next two years. I was climbing harder rock back then which was mostly a result of the increased free time. There was no computer software or lesson plans to worry about on the weekend.
       Our weekends back then began Friday night when we packed up the Gremlin for our weekend's adventure: usually a trip to the cliffs around Leavenworth. Paul would frequently meet us at Frosty Freeze in Tacoma for the three hour drive. Cancer took Paul away from us 5 years ago, but he was one of the people who counseled me to get out of printing and into a more rewarding field.
       I'm not sure I've found it yet, but at least I have a steady income, and the people I work with are kind and supportive, unlike the cut throat printing industry where my tendency toward perfectionism kept me in the hot seat. Pressmen need to be fast and good, in that order. I was very good, but slow...note the order.
       In teaching, no one complains about the time it takes me to create my lesson plans because I do it on my time, working for free at home. There is no element of production in teaching, the students learn or they don't learn and, at least in my experience, that has more to do with kindness and a good lesson plan than anything else we can offer them. Some of our students aren't ready to learn and this can be a source of frustration for those of us who care about the business of teaching.
             On a whole new subject, the war in Iraq has taken an ugly turn. I never voted for Bush, and I certainly never thought the Iraq invasion was a good idea. Now here we are, losing good men and women to the warriors of Iraq who hate the "evil invaders". They knew Saddam was bad, but judging by the torture our Army has been inflicting on the Iraqi prisoners, we aren't managing their country a whole lot better than the infamous Saddam. It's looking every bit as bad as Vietnam with no end in sight.
       The rooskis must be laughing their heads off over our stumble. We loved it when they tucked their tails in and ran from Afghanistan, now it looks like we may have to bail out of Iraq.

5-10-2004
Standing at the coffee machine at our local market, I glanced down and saw that the garbage can was half filled with the little creamer dispenser cups. These are the one inch wide by three quarter inch tall disposable plastic containers of flavored coffee creamer one sees at every self serve gas station coffee dispensing area. They are ubiquitous, the only difference being the variety of flavors offered.
       Our local market used to have a dishwasher sized dispenser where you could press a lever to dispense unlimited amounts of flavored creamer. It wasn't unusual to see plus sized men and women standing at the creamer dispensing machine pressing the lever like it was a slot machine at Las Vegas.
       Unfortunately, plus sized people being what they are, we soon saw a handwritten note on the dispenser notifying us that it was one squirt per customer or risk losing the dispenser.
       To make a long story short, there I was staring down at the garbage can, mourning the lost dispenser and thinking to myself that I really ought to go out to the car and get my camera to record the colorful contents of the garbage can. It was such an apropos scene, sort of an urban landscape of the new millennium. The colorful torn open creamers by the hundreds: Chocolate, Vanilla, French Vanilla, Butterscotch, Irish Cream, half and half, and several others.
       But no, I was simply getting gas and a coffee. My neighbor runs the cash register and I didn't want her thinking her next door neighbor was a fruitcake with a camera. I reached for a creamer, tore it open and very carefully poured it into the garbage can, blissfully unaware that I should have been pouring it into the cooling cup of coffee on the counter.
       Of course, Sue had to walk up to me at that precise moment to catch my 'senior moment' and started laughing. Not that it wasn't funny: the absent minded professor/artist and all that.
       Still, it does hurt a little to realize the mind can let you down like that. I'd rather not admit I'm simply getting old. I prefer to think that moments of inattention like that are a direct result of working 13 hours on Saturday, and not having a vacation in two years.
       The once precise mind I used to have has been trampled on by life and the scramble to earn enough money to pay my bills. Whenever I get a spare moment from teaching duties, I work on freelance projects. They bill by the hour, unlike teaching which tends to be open ended: always another lesson plan to prepare or improve or update for the latest version of software.
        For the last two years I've been writing handouts for my students to work from during my lectures. These can be up to 9 pages long and feature step by step directions complete with pointing arrows and screen shots that walk one through the various processes involved in creating sellable content on the computer. Some of my fellow teachers use online resources...why re-invent the wheel? But I've looked at them and found that I can write them better, customizing them to my students learning style.
       There are also books, but again, at the higher levels they simply aren't good enough. They skip too many steps and are quite useless for many of my students. I have seen a few textbooks that are decent, but they cost $50 bucks and many of my students refuse to buy them. Handouts seem to be the price one pays to work in this field, and truth be told, I actually enjoy creating them.
       I get wonderful feedback from my students on the handouts. Comments like: "These handouts are better than the textbooks" and "Mark, you ought to submit these to a publisher, they are awesome" are not at all uncommon. But the work I put into creating these illustrated handouts takes it's toll each week. Add to that the freelance work I do for my web clients and you have the dippy, absent minded professor carefully pouring his creamer into the exact center of the garbage can at the local market.

5-4-2004
Had fun in my drawing class today. This was the day of the portrait lecture. We are in our 6th week of an 11 week quarter and, as hard as faces are, if they are ever going to be ready, it's now. I prepared for the lecture by reading Chapter 9 in the "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" textbook. After I'd re-absorbed all the book learnin', I set up my double mirrors and drew a side view self portrait for an hour, finishing around midnight.
       I lectured for about 20 minutes, demonstrating proper face proportions on the white board before having them all copy one of John Singer Sargent's pencil drawings. After that I set up my big double mirrors (which I had carried to school in the minivan) on easels, arranged a spotlight for drama and did a quick timed 10 minute self portrait.
       I've got it down pretty well, getting a rough likeness in about 8 minutes including stopping to talk about what I was doing. I say that with a certain amount of pride. Drawing is the one thing I've tried in my life at which I am extremely fast. I can do lots of things pretty well: Jack of all trades, master of none. But drawing is something for which I have a gift.
       Actually, having the "gift" can almost be worse than not having it. If you don't have it, you might wish you did from time to time, but at least you don't wallow in guilt trips about not using the gift you were so unwisely given. I have to bring home the bacon, and drawing, fun though it may be is simply not a reliable source of income.

5-1-2004
Got a new fridge today to replace our 21 year old Kenmore which announced it's departure with a pool of water on the floor 3 days ago. I've been adding photos to my new photos page. Both kids have expressed an interest in learning to windsurf so I dragged the windsurf boards out of the bushes and scrubbed them down with bleach. The spiders were angry at me for disturbing their home of ten years. I can't remember why I gave up the sport. I was head over heels hooked on the sport from 1986 through the mid nineties.
       I can remember several summers when I would spend every weekend driving down to the Columbia river chasing the steady 30 knot wind common to that part of the state. There was an entire generation of young yuppies down there, addicted to the adrenaline rush of banging across the tips of 2 and 3 foot white capped swells on the mile wide river.
        I never got into the fancy stuff, like launching into big air, but I loved the lifestyle; living out of the back of the minivan for a week at a time, pursuing the elusive winds along the Columbia river and Puget Sound. Sue and the kids came with me about half the time, and some of the kids first memories are of waking up in the early morning and looking out the tent door at the the river,which was usually calm in the morning, unless we were camping at the Gorge where it howls all the time.
       Now that I think back on the sport, I remember my enthusiasm dimming when my hands began to hurt a lot. Winter windsurfing when there is snow in the air is vicious on the hands. Hands become frozen claws and many is the time I was so cold I was unable even to de-rig my sails until I had got in the car and turned on the heater. I've never been one to do things by half measure. If you're going to do something, do it all the way and be the best you can be.

 

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