Driving South --through Cherokee territory in Oklahoma-- there was absolutely NO data available; data, phone, hotspot were all dead. I was avoiding toll roads (which had me driving through a reservation) and the electronic quiet was both eerie and reassuring. Suddenly Lisa's presence filled car. She rode along with me, our communication not really sayable here in fingertip-language-land, but clear enough.
When I got back to Texas, I took a call from her husband who asked me to go to Alabama and retrieve Lisa's art. It was, I was told, in an indoor storage unit, and a 10-foot truck would be adequate to bring it to California. As I love this woman like my eyes, I was honored by the request, and agreed handily to the task. "This should take about two weeks," we all agreed.
Now, four months later, I am in California -- unpacking the art, the books, the offices and household effects, and trying to snag enough furniture from Craigslist to fill in the blanks. My goddessdaughter and her dad are on their way to London today. He has never seen the British Museum and it may help jumpstart his writing again - which has been stalled since Lisa's death and his own unhappy health challenge. So EE is now Easterwood EveryHERE . . . in SoCal.A/k/a: One of my least favorite places on the planet. LA county is patchwork urbanity, thrown together in a louche, erzatz manner. It's not that there isn't beauty to be found, but it seems hyperlocated, bound to a particular block or part of a block, then freeways come and cut through everything. Extend your attention in any direction and it'll be filleted into seventeen layers...none of them speaking to any of the others. Damnit.
My own work (Eleusian Epiphanies) could find some footing here, so I'll have to ponder that ...
Truth: I'd rather (re)start in Greece.
Sigh.
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