Raimer Writes in Bits 'n Bobbles

Days, weeks or months after a death:

The composer’s finest work, a culmination of a life’s focus that she returns to when other pieces got too convoluted and tangled up in their contrived theme, lovingly notated in a well worked sheaf of bound staff paper, penciled in directly--no erasures--to a final easy perfection which lifted her toes in dance simply by the hum of it. Bottom of a pile thrown into a box of endless notebooks at the end of a cleaning session. Heirs are tired, sweaty, ready for lunch: “Just toss it.”

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An artist’s finest painting, years at the easel, layers of aged transparent loveliness, all in hand-made oils, a life of seeing what others miss. Impressed nieces and nephews brag to their friends--too busy to peruse galleries. Cleaning crew at assisted living, paid by the hour, sternly: “Get in the dumpster, tamp it down and make room for it all.”

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The writer’s third novel--the genius one--the obvious excised in the first, the second was all tricks and then the humanity showed its sweet face. Edited, backed-up formatted and re-read: ready to go. Thursday calendar says, submit. Died on Wednesday. Son sells laptop on Ebay for $62 after wiping.

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It’s not that I don’t pay attention to what you’re saying. I’m just busy working so I can’t hear your words (I’m sure they’re very important to you). My job is to look at things and that’s what I do. A person doesn’t need to make paintings to be an artist: it’s how they look at the world and I take that job seriously. Every waking moment. So, I’m looking at things and looking...and let me tell you: it is exhausting. I close my eyes because my brain needs a break from what is a 24/7 occupation. Do I get time off? No. It’s a compulsion. I sit down and think about what I just saw and by thinking what I mean is: I see pictures in my head. So an artist doesn’t seem like they’re doing much of anything but believe me it’s like watching a movie constantly as a job. And it’s not necessarily a good movie. Sometimes it’s dull. But also there are some unbelievable things that go on in my head and then I realize that this is my sole purpose in life but, even so, people are all like, “I’m not going to pay you for being artistic because there’s no product I can use.” So I do a painting to remind them of what I saw, kind of like a receipt for the IRS to prove I have business expenses and they hang the receipt on their walls (Okay, call it a painting.) and show it off to their friends while they admire me for having the guts to not have a job.

It says ENT, Surgeon, Doctor of FACS (we'll see) or something valid on the door and we’re in this room with the scalpels and clamp tweezers and the pharmacologicals, me and my little girl, and she’s in her own world playing with Mousie, and she’s got this thing, I’m saying, where she laughs too much and her throat closes tight and her face goes dark like rotten meat, like when it’s blue, and then I’m telling him: smack, she falls forward and she’s ¼” from cracking her skull on the concrete and I catch her—fuck my bruised knuckles--I catch her like this, cradling her neck, (her skin is clammy because it’s drained all its blood and, or hell if it’s not my palms. Sweating.) And then I go, her body is heavy as a sack of tools, it’s like a bag of plaster, I tell you, and then she’s limp, and then--I shit you not--she’s awake and it’s not me who’s done it, saved her, but her, by not doing something: she’s dead-gone and then her throat un-clamps—I saw it unhook through the skin--and she breathing and she’s back. She’s still in that flash where she thinks she’s in the middle of a laugh that she started like a second before but it’s me who’s laughing now, again, after eight years of this--but it’s not funny laughing, you know--and now she’s luckier than me as far as not watching someone she loves about to die (and crapping my shorts) and I don’t know what the hell...so I look again and, that’s it right there, the eyelash flickering and then, yea, that’s her color, I see it like the most beautiful thing and she’s freaking 120% alive. And I say, Doc, why’d she conk out like that? And he goes, and I’m not shitting you here, he says, I don’t know, “I don’t fucking know!,” and he doesn’t even pretend to have a God damn answer. That’s it? You’re the guy in the white coat! So I say, what should we do? In your expert opinion, WHAT SHOULD WE DO? And he’s getting tense, as he should, and he goes, I don’t really know and I think, yea, I could be a doctor.

I read the note on the tip jar over and over. It says, ‘You know.’ I do know, but still, does that make sense?

My turn. I step forward to the barista who is making no effort at all to earn the bill I plan to drop. I’m waiting for eye contact and I’m repeating the order in my head over and over so I won’t forget. Without looking directly at me she lifts a cup from the column and asks, “Can I get you something?”

“Maybe I want a large,” I joke, pointing to the small she’s holding.

She drops the cup back onto the stack making a clopping sound and now, her eyes focused on me, she reaches for a large.

“Actually, yea, small,” I laugh, “but how’d you pick up on that?”

She shrugs, “I know people.”

She holds the cup under the mild house blend and asks, with a fair bit of sass, “What kind?”

I won’t be disrespected so I go, “Double latte, Ethiopian organic and jazz it up with a shot of espresso.” She stares at me, ignoring the long line of groggy people. “My usual,” I lie, but I pull it off so now it will be with her.

“Okay, large cup it is then,” she says. Could be anger. Could be sexiness.

“Whatever’s easier for you,” I say and shrug.

“Fair trade?” she asks, nodding slowly. Am I that obvious or is she telling me?

“Once I give you the money it will be,” I joke. No sense of humor I find out. I go, “Do you know how to do that arty thing with the foam?”

She turns on the steam jet while I’m halfway through the sentence and mouths the words, “loud”, and points to her ear.

She hands me the cup and I ask again, “No picture on top?,” because we’re buddies now, right? I make a little squiggle movement with my hand. She holds her hand dangling my change over the tip jar waiting for me to slip my upturned hand underneath to receive the bills. She looks up at me with her black eyes made more stunning by eyeliner or eyelash stuff. She says, “Art for money is not art.”

I was going to say, “Next time we’ll keep cash out of it,” but she doesn’t give me a gap for it. The woman in the line behind me looks at her, annoyed, while her husband chuckles. I say, “Have a nice day,” because I’m a little nervous that I’ll screw up the rest of this interaction but, I don’t know, I like that; her straight-forwardness.

The girl argues, “No, Sir. You have a nice day,” and I haven’t put my hand under hers just yet so she loosens her fingers and bills drop into the tip jar.

I go, “Um, I was going to...yea, you have that.”

She says, “Thank you sir,” and leans in and whispers, “Not art, but it is magic.”

I laugh, “Yea. You got skills, right?” but she has already turned to the next person in the line and I walk off with my $10 coffee. Strong coffee. A lotta coffee to drink.

It is an itch that nips at my shin at the wrong time. I will not name it (like a pet. It’s more like the type of animal that is food). I quiet its whining with a stab of a fingernail (which is totally legal) and it retreats down its pore until my attention is elsewhere and it can claw out of me again.

I am aware that you will assume that I am one or all of these things: flaky, impulsive, lazy, impractical, spacey or indulgent, and that I can only be an artist because I come from a position of privilege but that I’m actually a leach on society. You’re probably thinking that I just do whatever I feel like while the rest of you are working your butts off in jobs you hate because you’re not losers like us artists are. Well, allow me to push back on that by painting a mind-picture of a beautiful island with a tree covered in juicy fruit hanging within reach on a sunny day and you’re sitting under it thinking about how great artists are. And just like that I’ve rearranged your thoughts. That’s the power artists have, to alter people’s perception and change lives.

Here’s another example: when I say to you, “Look how blue the sky is,” and you know that I’m an artist and you look up for the first time in months or even a lifetime and, since I’m an artist you trust that I have some expertise on this subject and it enables you to believe, maybe for the first time, the exquisite blueness of the sky. I mean to really see it. The rest of the day while you’re building your skyscraper or transporting a victim onto your ambulance or leading a protest against oppression or something most people accept as “worthwhile” and you’re under this brilliantly colored sky and every now and then you stop and enjoy it for a flash of second--that is something that makes you feel alive, doesn’t it? Don’t tell me it’s not or I will paint you a foul mind picture.

So someone will say to you, “Nice day.” and you’ll say, “God, yes!” because now you’re under an azure sky like you’ve never experienced before. So next time you see an artist don’t hold back—thank them for their service.

Somewhat persuasive but they’re faking it, saying, “yes, of course,” not knowing jack. And on top of that, they got it from someone else who was winging it. And me, calling attention to it, as if there were any actual objective reality. Can we start over, people?

Your life happened, such forth and so on, and now you present here in front of me. You, ‘Lisa’, fully a ‘Lisa’ claim it as mere happenstance, of course. The arrogance in this creation of your random fiction to explain it all, the history of ‘you’ until this precise moment where I, your teacher and your Real SELF (the real you, not a ‘Lisa’,) the seeker, meld and come home…

You squint and purse your lips. Lovely! No, I’m not against you: your covering is a delight. Your real love, the big You, now that flows freely, along with mine.

You get that and it is what you are and it is as simple as that but I, as your teacher, must discard the small part of you crying out for attention as it withers. Let me tell you dear: it’s all in play until you come home…

Ah. That’s it. Get you here with me. Multiply that part where you agree. I am no longer just one with you. The space between us diminishes and I’m all in: I am your Guru. Yeah!

If you knew what you didn’t it wouldn’t be so un-obvious...but you don’t and there’s nothing there anyway. But that’s advanced: 'nothing here' is an aspiration for later. Why want what you already have?

Keep up. Do not for one second doubt my dedication, my dear.

You expel the thought (of what?! Does it really matter?) and it feels like a lack of oxygen: when you give in to drowning you slide into sleep. It’s your first real breath and your first authentic viewpoint:

‘You have always been my Guru,’ your being expresses to my ‘teacher skin’.

And that’s it: I’m yours. (Notice how I didn’t say you are mine.)

Mock deny it with a laugh? Ugly as a death cackle and sweet as a fresh gasp of air at the same time. Nice try ego. If you’re not ready when it comes it overwhelms your vessel with a little eruption: a Ha! You are the sliding ground on the edge of a cliff. Did you get that I’m the cliff?

And as we slip you are no longer a body sack giving way but we exist, you and me together. Falling turns into flying. Freedom!

This is a taste of how great it is. We could do more of this if I was your Guru.

So: I am your Guru and we are lovely.

Yes?