I recently created an acrylic on canvas painting. I thought lots about it before picking up a brush and thought I might share what I think it means. First, just take a look and see all the bright colors, flowers and creatures!
My view? The trellis is a community or city. The the flowers are what sustains the folks in the area, the grocery store. The hummingbird, butterfly, caterpillar and bees are us, people of all kinds and characteristics. They gather peacefully, don’t they? At least these do.
One thing folks don’t notice is that the flower vines have stems that have roots into the ground, aka the earth. What if that very bright sun with dagger rays shined for weeks with no rain? Drought is increasing. Of course floods are on the rise (ahem…) as well. What if petroleum or other pollution got to the roots? Happens too much.
If the flowers die, the whole system dies. And please see the flowers are all curved away from that hot sun; the planet’s already warming. I started considering this painting as a metaphor for love and light, the critters all getting together so well and all. It still does I suppose, love our planet and let the light shine on our correcting the harm done over the decades so those who come after us can have a safe and beautiful planet to live on.
Being angry on a crowded spaceship would be fatal. Ethan maintained a placid posture and kept his monitored heart rate and body temperature midline. He thought about how his life of writing, home brewing and riding his bike miles and miles each day among the green parks and byways was usurped by corporate New Yorkers. Options: Work on the massive sea wall for the East Coasters or help settle the American sector on Mars. Not everyone got the option for Mars, so all could have been worse.
How’s this for a journal entry: There is no sci-fi looking dome you can see leafy trees and happy folks inside while riding their personal dune buggy outside. Instead, our new home is a series of weird steel-like huge multi-story warehouses that were interconnected for services and transit but able to be cut out of the system easily if damaged, too bad for inhabitants. Arranged in an immense circle to simplify the connections to each neighbor and the central hub, the scene reminded him of a fallen Ferris wheel as seen from a couple miles up. On arrival, I was assigned to Building 8.
The Building 8 Administrator had requested him specifically, worrisome that. Turns out Colonel Bredagnian had difficulty wording his dispatches and announcements right. Being a ‘count my blessings’ person, I made subtle changes in his documents, nothing to show he had assistance. Actually his missive weren’t that bad. After a month, I learned the real reason he requested me. His list:
Interview technicians, scientists and others to create textbooks
Create a library of all available books, documents and the textbooks
Write Mars-based children’s stories, upbeat and fun
Get the skilled folks to work on things together
Teach writing in the Hub school, get other teachers going
Learn to use the available materials to make new items
He said the buildings had the ambience of a prison, and that absolutely had to change. Such change was not generally an Army specialty. Perhaps I actually could make some inroads!
This really invigorated me, to think I would be in on the ground level creating an education system, my part of it anyway. The stories would be a real service to the kids, they needed real help in their formative years. I’d done some teaching in St. Louis and enjoyed it. Making new items? Well, I’d worry about that later. If everyone had done as I did and loaded their laptops with eBooks, I should be able to accumulate a fine library in no time!
There were already several shared book and manual sites and most were easily incorporated into a site-side free library. A couple graphic designers made the library look really cool and a couple geeks worked out the borrow or whatever part. One of the people I interviewed for textbooks was a children’s book illustrator! How serendipitous! She’s very sharp witted and nice looking too. She said she needs paints or markers as the markers she brought with her have dried up. Perhaps I get to make a new item!
There was one older scientist who knew about pigments, glory! This chemist determined a way to make pigments a new way. I’ve got Dr. Chu and Jenny working together to see what works and what might with a tweak. This could be big, paints and dyes could brighten up everything! If Earth won’t send us anything but the barest basics and weapons we’ll make our own!
As I thought hard about proposing to Jenny, I noted how much weight I’d gained. The gravity is less so it wasn’t so apparent but the feeling of being out of shape had been bothering me. Bike riding! I know several folks who can help me but tires are a problem and sharing with the other few thousand folks here is too. One helpful thing, a track was made in the circle for the utility connections between buildings; it was for the train or at least a trolley Earth kept promising us. Right.
Now we keep bike stations at every Building and folks are crazy about them! They’ve put bushes and flowers all around the track, what a grand change! I found my wife loves to ride but didn’t want to talk about what she couldn’t have. Ha! There’s a couple medical doctors who’ve requested a stationary bike. No problem! An Engineer I’m working with whipped a stand up that can be used with any bike! I’ll just cycle right on over to Building 4 and let them try the stand out! Then get Lucas to make a hundred more! We’re definitely keeping the miners busy.
Jenny is due any day. We have only about 50 names picked out. One of the groups I’ve been meeting with about innovations wanted to celebrate. I told them about the musical instruments being made. They kept insisting on something else. That’s when I found out they have somehow acquired yeast. You don’t have to use hops to brew something good. We have more apples than we need here…Wow!
“Prissy girls.” Mama went back to her crossword puzzle and I stomped back to my room to take off those durn blue jeans that showed my ankles as soon as possible. Tossing my book bag and shedding my shame, the treasure spread across my bed stole my attention.
My Bookmobile treasure: Pollinators. Geology and the Inland Sea, The Science of Fire. Storm Dynamics. With a fluffed pillow at my back and my giraffe legs stretched out before me, I reached for the nearest tome. The 8th grade science fair was only 27 days away. Hmmm, weather instruments.
I had a jelly jar in my hand wondering what to use as a membrane when I saw the fancy syrup bottle with the plastic handle and spout in the trash. The jelly jar went back to Mama’s canning supplies. The smaller opening would mean the little balloon would fit lots easier and still be big enough for a pointer. A needle would poke the balloon. Dootdootdoot…what the hoot? Epiphany! A toothpick! Glue, where’s the glue?
The two poster boards were a breeze to do. One had a wild tornado in the center with a spotted cow and a couple trees in it. Labels and arrows artfully drawn noted the details. The other had a description of my EXPERIMENT. The harder part turned out to be affixing the index card to the narrow bottle neck. Scissors! Tape! Where’s the durn tape?
I added another reading from the weather report; the toothpick had a great range against the card which gave me pretty good room to record the data. The weather guys said a band of storms were on the way. Great! I might get a few data points in the low ranges right before the science fair!
Me, the biggest idiot in the room. The guy to the left of me had put an Apollo capsule model together. On the right, the guy with a hamster in a cage kept trying to make the critter run in the wheel. Across from me the guy had a printed, full color diorama of the Grand Canyon. Several boys had volcanoes. Except for me they were all boys.
Seeing the strange high school teachers quizzing the Apollo fellow reminded me of a warthog, me, realizing lions approached. Could I still run Where were the exits?” I blinked at hearing someone knock on the table and there they stood, directly in front of me. Holy bovines.
“Miss, please explain why you brought this mess here.”
Mess? By golly, warthogs had tusks. “Sirs, Ma’am, I made this barometer from ordinary items and calibrated the device using the National Weather Association certified reports that are televised each evening.” Here I pointed at the data on the card. “There are 23 data points taken before last Tuesday. On that day, the barometric pressure got so low, the balloon busted. This mess is the evidence that my barometer worked.” I did not add that the sight of that balloon getting sucked into that bottle and popping will amaze me to the end of my days, all the while Mama clutched my little sisters under the kitchen table and screamed at me to join them.
Well, 1st place won me $50. The April 3, 1974 swarm of ravaging tornadoes allowed me to proceed directly to the Woolco Department Store where I purchased a brand new Brother sewing machine. I figured out how to use it. From then through now, I choose the material for my clothes, I select the patterns and alter as needed. And my pants have always been the right length.
Tiana bent over low to peer under the orange pick-up truck, aha! She skittered away fast when the fat bearded guy walked up, slung his groceries in the back and yanked the driver’s door open. She kept a keen eye on anyone coming and going in the parking lot as the noisy thing finally left. The she went over and picked up the can of Cherry Pie Filling where he’d been, no dents or nothing.
Safely in her backpack, she patrolled the IGA lot for more dropped goodies, more stuff not recovered from busted bags, dropped money (seldom). Too bad they took away the Salvation Army donation box that used to be on the far corner of the lot, too bad. She wore a nice warm coat from there until she had to give it to her little sister. They had a church pretty close but she was afraid they’d chase her away like the church on the other side of the lot did. They’d called her ‘filth’.
‘Sheesh, one good thing all morning.’ Her thoughts darted between vigilance and wondering if her mother’s asshole boyfriend was gone yet. He was mean and evil and she hoped her puppy he killed would haunt him. She loved her pup, but put him under the seat of his car anyway because Star Baby would really haunt him with stink pretty soon.
The sound of a busting grocery bag arrested her attention. She raced over to the elderly lady and picked up everything that fell for her. Yes she honestly did, everything. The lady did not want the jar of bread and butter pickles with the crack down the side. Tiana did, and thanked her for it. She went over to the ditch to get a spare bag out of her backpack. She tied the bag tight with the jar securely inside. She had a pickle jar saved at home to transfer the pickles into. Win!
The old lady hadn’t driven away. Why not? She went over to check on her. The driver door was open.
“Hi there, young lady.”
“Hi, I thought maybe something was wrong cuz’ you didn’t leave. Are you okay?”
“I was thinking about you, child. Why you out here scroungin’ like this?”
Just as Tiana started feeling self-conscious, she noticed the woman had a Salvation Army jacket across the passenger seat. “I gotta be gone while Mama’s boyfriend is there, he’s very mean.”
“Mean to you, your Mama or both y’all?”
“Both, and he killed my puppy too.”
“Why does your Mama let him in?”
“I promised I’d never ever tell.”
“He sells her dope so she has no money for groceries or clothes or anything else.”
Tiana said nothing but nodded slowly.
“We can help you child. I got this here food to supplement an open picnic we’re having today. You are welcome to be there. You know where our church is? Good. Be there early and put some shoes on if you can. Okay?”
Tiana felt a bright light of love shining into her heart! “Yes ma’am! Can I bring my little sister?”
How Would You Do It? 