Downtime

I wonder what any of it means. You poke among the leaf-litter, nose a few things around. Excessive rumination is an indicator of that might be construed as a problem, wouldn't matter I could argue nothing I said made any sense. Sense falls to the reader. Reading Agassiz, about visiting Thoreau at the cabin, talking about turtles. An interesting moment, back at my house, the various piles of books undisturbed, I can almost see what I was last thinking, before I left. Reconstructed memory. Bedbugs are fearsome and I advise Samara to leave everything behind that can't be sterilized at the laundromat. They die, and the eggs are toast, at 130 degrees. A light pass with a propane torch on the bottom of furniture, because they seek the pores in wood. But it's actually easier to leave everything behind. Starting over is under-rated. At the museum, I had factored in an extra day, knew I'd be hard-pressed and allowed a margin of error, Either that, or I had just misread the calendar. James came in for a couple of hours yesterday, retagged all the pieces in the current show and we enlisted D to get the five over-sized crates from the basement, bulling them up the aisle, through the theater. Going down is easy compared to coming back up. Gravity and a short wheel-base can lead to crushed ankles. Always look one step ahead. If you can discern a pattern, you're in the game. Most good stagehands play chess or solve numerical problems in their off time. Force of habit. The Great Unknown, the next moment, is always a surprise. I get the other 12 crates, one at a time, up from the basement in the elevator, line them up along the center-line in the main gallery. As prepared as I can be. This is where I come into my own. Logistics. Born with an extra gene or something. I visualize a sequence and make it happen, unless some overwhelming act-of-god intervenes, massive flooding or an ice-storm, an earthquake maybe, otherwise this show will be shipped out and the next show will be shipped in, installed and opened. A matter of course. Madder and woad. Might as well add some color, even if you're blind. What is red, exactly? Or blue? Merely a wavelength of light? Do nothing all day, but read and eat. I now know way too much about the relationship between mankind and cochineal, am also up to speed (I think) on the ethno-botany of the Amazon basin. The hardwood jungle has now, and in my absence, become complete. I can't see 30 feet in any direction. The greens, after big rains while I was gone, are resplendent, spanning that one color in hundreds of variations. An amazing sight. Like the sky and water at Key West do blue. To start writing, mid-day, I must put a freezer pack in a bowl next to my computer and blow a small fan across it, another fan blows across the room at my back, and there's ceiling fan, stirring the mix. If I sit very still, and drink whiskey on rocks, I'm actually quite comfortable. Don't much like the noise, because it cuts me off from natural sound, the wind in the leaves, birds and bugs, but I'm comfortable; much like mid-winter, when I seal myself within a cocoon, hear only the clicking of the stove. It's comfort-level thing. I need a day off because I am depleted, spent from white-knuckle driving, considering who my daughters are now, where I might fit in. Nothing makes any sense but drainage, when I spread the maps out in front of me, everything flows downhill. I knew that, but I needed to be reminded. Tomorrow, we return to the almost immediate present; I made a note, posted it on the edge of the screen, I hope I remember to look.