such are the things.
As I sit down to begin this piece the emergency siren at UC Berkeley drones on in the background, this weekly test concluded, marked by the dystopian voice that announces it so; hummingbirds diving and chirping at my window, looking for their refill of syrup I currently have chilling in the fridge, I imagine, while my french press steeps on the counter, Morning Phase lilting gently in the background, another set of sirens burst in to my aural landscape this morning, this time a fire truck and ambulance.
A very apt start, it feels like.
Log on to here or to there to check in, see what’s the happenings to find time and again so many steeped in pointing out the numerous wrongs of the now with so very few what are you actually doing right now or making right now. I am certain I can’t stand alone in this thinking, I am certain I am not alone in the feeling we are all drowning in content for the sake of content, I am certain I am not alone feeling so desperate for some beauty, some art to heal the festering wound of fascist magamerica now so clearly is. Forced into a cocoon of intense meditation, various methods of self care, rabbit hole preventatives, as it were, the requirements of my self preservation.
Coming to terms with his golden golden years these past few, I knew it’d be coming. As the tech walked me through his first dose, a tutorial, it seemed simple, straightforward, easy enough for a novice, I was told. And while looking to be such a view, in my case, does not take into account the obstacle of my own mind, psychology, that wounded child, that trauma still held in my body, quelled only by naming it in the ear of a friend to wake up the following morning knowing that would be the day that I do. Feeling the saline run cool under his skin, relief coursing through both of our bodies - we did it, I told him. Gazing back up at me he says with his eyes he is not quite ready to go yet. I have seen that look before that says now.
A surprise of a message received over the transom from a fellow artist / member at our co-op, her mother, she said, was getting rid of her Pentax film camera and could I use it? How much, I asked? No cost, no charge. Picked up just yesterday, “for pan” and a heart on painter’s tape, I’d be delighted to find when I looked inside, arrived home, not just the Pentax, but a Canon - two with a couple of zoom lenses to boot.
Such are the things people are doing and making right now in this little corner of life.
*all photographs & artworks published here composed by pan ellington, unless otherwise noted.
🫂 love this.