I guess my post was a little over the top yesterday, but those were awfully good strawberries and they instantly reminded of your kisses as I ate them in the car. That wasn't some writerly thing. That said, it's not easy to write something semi-original every day, so it's a gift when something isn't the thing itself but can stand for something else. That the strawberries (cultivated, local) should presume to aspire to the level of your kisses says as much about the berries as of your wild, organic kisses. I am going to have to get busy and start coding ordinary objects, or somehow other invent strong metaphors, because how many times can I tell you that I made taboulleh salad? Which I did today. Which perhaps this post might remind you of a mash of ripe tomato, crisp cucumber, parsley from the garden, mint from the windowsill, red onion, crumbled feta, bulgur wheat soaked in hot water and lemon juice, salt, pepper, and olive oil. No sorry, I am just not seeing the metaphorical possibilities there, though it is still quite warm today - not like yesterday, only 80 now, but humid. Thunderstorms loom. I've turned on the weather. A big green splotch with a fiery orange center is headed right this way. I guess an hour for the orange to arrive.

Nothing new to report here, my dearest. Missed you yesterday, unless that was you in KS, which I assumed it was. Let's say it was you. I looked it up in the atlas. Over 500 miles from where you live. I imagined that you had driven all day and might now be having a wild night. Or maybe not, after such a long drive, too exhausting. I figured you were there for a gig today. So perhaps this evening I might get another hit from that Kansan burg. Then I thought, that's pretty far for a gig, maybe he's just completed one leg of x-country trip, maybe to see his son. In which case I predicted that I might get a hit tonight from (consulted atlas again, judged distances with fingers) Indianapolis or Cincinnati. I was very happy to learn that you're (back?) home this afternoon, but it threw off my original analyses. So now I'm thinking you flew to KS yesterday, did your gig, spent the night, and flew back this morning. They twisted your arm, they needed your services so badly. You made them pay for a plane ticket and room. I trust that on top of that you are being paid very handsomely.

Would I trade this idle domestic idyll for one of Purnima's death glares? I might wish for things to be a bit more interesting around here - but, no. Thus like ED I am going to have to continue to be as inventive as I can, endeavoring to stop short of near-psychotic breaks which I wonder how close I came over the winter - hard to say though, I got up every day, showered, dressed, did M.D.R.s of chores, etc. - in other words, was functional. Now songs on the radio are just songs (well, not all the time - even D picks up on the songs that seem to feature yo-la sounds, and jokingly sings them at me up the stairs).

***
I haven't heard Stella the Artist in a while. Can I put in the request?

***
I've been meaning to tell you a little more about the Marina Abramović exhibit, but I feel tired whenever I start thinking about writing it up. Still processing, I guess. Turns out my next-door neighbor with whom I've been on strange mostly-not-speaking-to-each-other terms the last several years saw the exhibit the other day too. So as I watered and she battled the "mothership" (as she put it) of poison ivy on our side of the fence (I couldn't even begin to help her, the garden is such a mess - it's too much for me physically) we chatted about the exhibit. But as usual communications broke down. She asked me what sounded like an interesting question but I only caught a few words ("what was she contemplating?" but it was more involved than that) and then her toddlers started to wander over, a baby cried, I said "what?", wanting to hear the question.... anyway - moment gone.

But when I was there last Sunday, I did take a few notes of my observations of Abramović as she presided over a gallery space at MOMA.

[Here also are images via Mr. North Fifth Street; click on his link, too, of Lady Gaga's visitation - though it's impossible to upstage Abramović, I think.]
***
M.A. looks like a cat
looks older than I expected
mirroring hand gestures
like E.D. poem I read on the train
[in Judith Farr's The Passion of Emily Dickinson, p. 161]

Like Eyes that look on Wastes -
Incredulous of Ought
But Blank - and steady Wilderness -
Diversified by Night

Just Infinites of Nought -
As far as it could see -
So looked the face I looked upon -
So looked itself - on Me -

I offered it no Help -
Because the Cause was Mine -
The Misery a Compact
As hopeless - as divine -

Neither - would be absolved -
Neither would be a Queen
Without the Other - Therefore -
We perish - tho' We reign -
(458)

M.A.'s wearing an ivory gown, not red [what I had seen in press images]

I overhear someone say that M.A. is impressed that the same girl comes back all the time - this may be her [I see a young woman takes the seat across from M.A.]
the young woman has wavy brown-blond hair, nice smile - angelic
M.A.'s ivory dress puddles on floor
her hair is in a long braid at her left shoulder

it's like a low stakes (?) stare-down
within the sacred space of a large square
Glenda the White Witch
and young protegé in black jersey, navy mini,
black tights & brown boots

woman drops head - then MA -

[MA is alone now]
MA seems to weep
gathers herself in a handkerchief
a grieving aspect
***

I leave and come back later. I see a wonderful exhibit of Picasso lithographs. It is a cliché that Picasso was endlessly inventive, protean, etc., etc., but truly, viewing this exhibit (a collection of diverse, assured, free, at once mythic & personal images, flawlessly executed) I am viscerally struck by his particular preternatural, exhibitionistic genius, really feeling it for the first time in my life, what is meant by genius in that grandly generative way, which I have mainly felt before with, say, DaVinci.]
***
[Back to the Abramović exhibit - a man takes the seat across from her]
he looks like Proust or George Stambolian
M.A. has a lot of focus & intensity
intent gaze
all so very serious

sign handpainted on wall [repainted daily, I assume] says she's been sitting there for 716 hrs/30 mins
(but who would believe that I sat in a cubicle for many years)

I expected a table - but there was no table
[I later read that MA deemed it an unnecessary barrier so had it removed]
***
The end, for now darling, with many kisses for you. Update: green and dark orange storm has taken a turn southeast, bypassing Hudson. Blue skies - now -

***
OMG, David Gray now - not Stella, art always comes slant - Fugitive I think -

love you