Dec
11
12-4-07
Liberty Dock is the closest thing to a village I’ve ever lived in. My Grandpa Max grew up in a village outside Cracow Poland in a one room shack with dirt floors and mattresses stuffed with straw. His mother bought water from a water seller and a chicken every Friday for the Sabbath meal. Our mattresses on the houseboat are Tempurpedic and our water flows from the lush hills of Marin to our tap, but minus the bone chilling winters and Polish peasants our villages are quite similar. The proximity of our neighbors is the same as Grandpa’s. You cannot avoid them if you try. You see people and they see you. For the most part this is a wonderful thing for there is no shortage of smiles and hellos on my typical walk down the dock. It can be unfortunate at 2am when you come up for a glass of water in your birthday suit and the shades are not drawn. Or when you hear the occasional midnight brawl between a neighbor and his ill tempered girlfriend. Sound travels very effectively over water. Or when another neighbor is so drunk he repeats at a sailor’s volume the same verse of the same awful song for ninety minutes while we’re trying to get some shuteye. All that said, once inside your place there is plenty of privacy.
Seeing as how both our families are on the opposite coast, the dock has become something of a family, and that family has taken a keen interest in our pregnancy and specifically, Jodi’s current bedrest. Neighbors have been dropping by with food, a kind word and just to hang out and pass the time. Lisa, our massage therapist friend, insisted on coming by yesterday to give Jodi a much needed rub and vehemently refused take anything in return. Tina popped over today with a pot of her homemade Sicilian red sauce with meatballs and sausage, then came by again with a stack of old books about the houseboats with wonderful photos from back in the day. There have been houseboats here in Richardson’s Bay for more than 100 years, though the major houseboat community as we know it resulted from the closing of Sausalito’s storied WWII shipyard, when the son of a water front property owner began buying up surplus boats, ferries, barges, and other floating equipment which he moored near his father’s property. This motley floating collection became a campground for Bohemians from San Francisco in the ’50s, followed by the hippies in the ’60s. A colorful collage of residents camped out in boats, built houses on top of barges, and converted ferries into houses. Basically, it was anything goes until the ’60s when battles with local authorities over the safety and legality of the houseboats began. In time, legal houseboat marinas like ours were created, and the houseboat community became an established part of Marin. Still, a bit of that closeknit renegade vibe remains.
Our next door neighbors Daren, Valencia and O, their darling one year old, dropped by later in the day. They chose the name O because a circle is complete and perfect, one of the reasons I use circles throughout my paintings.
“Its the first day of Hanukah, so we brought gifts” said Valencia as little O handed Jodi a beautifully wrapped package. ”When I saw this I just had to get it for you guys,” she added.
Jodi unwrapped the first gift and was delighted by a beautiful onesie with an elephant print. Valencia’s pure generosity and seeing the little baby outfit sporting my favorite animal made me emotional.
She handed Jodi her second gift, a glass baby bottle with a stylish silicon sleeve that Daren invented.
“Now baby can drink in style,” said Daren.
Jodi unwrapped her third gift, a wooden rattle.
“Wow, three gifts! You do realize there are eight nights of this stuff,” I said facetiously.
“Oh yes!” Valencia exclaimed. And for the next seven nights she brought us three gifts, each a special little something which said, “we got your back and you are not alone.” THAT is a village.
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Dec
6
The Magic Garden
12-1-07
I’ve never been superstitious. I’ll walk under every ladder you put in front of me. But after three miscarriages in twelve months I’ll do just about anything to get a baby. “Don’t mess with the Voodoo,” they say in New Orleans, my favorite vampiric party town. In other words, there may not be spirits floating around, but just in case there are, might as well make them comfy.
The moment you enter our houseboat you encounter our little fertility shrine on the ledge above the kitchen table. It’s been there for months now and I like it. An African fertility goddess carved of dark wood anchors the shrine, standing eight inches tall with arms outstretched as if to say, “come on baby, you just come right to big mama.” Small breasted with curvy hips (like Jodi), she was a gift from friends who also had a rough go but ultimately had a lovely baby girl. At her feet sits a luminous pyrite egg in a small leaf shaped dish. It too was a gift from another new mother, our neighbor Valencia who procured it from Amma, the world famous hugging guru. The egg’s shiny coolness feels magical and heavy in the palm of my hand and Valencia insisted that when she got it she felt it belonged to us. Eggs symbolize fertility and the silver heft of it gives it a notable substance. A small painting of a happy pregnant woman with a smiling baby flying in her belly stands beside the egg and below the painting sits my favorite thing of all, a pair of baby sandals decorated with elephants. What is it about baby shoes… I guess shoes make the man, whether he’s 50 years old or 50 days.
The area in front of our houseboat contains even more symbolic objets d’art. I’m out there daily watering, pruning and communing with my little fief of potted palms, succulents and citrus trees. In one of these numerous bowls of terra firma at the foot of our gangplank sits a regal succulent under which I’ve placed two little wedding cake figurines. Before these little personal action figures I’ve placed a toy elephant, trunk up, protecting his territory. Each time I enter the house I check to be sure Jodi’s figurine is upright and standing strong. So far so good. Superstition can be fun.
We recently watched the movie “The Secret” and while I’m the first guy to dismiss New Age (rhymes with sewage) nonsense, I do think there is something to focusing on one’s specific intentions to manifest one’s goals. I have used my art to do just that the past few years. I got married at age forty after many years of wandering aimlessly in the singles desert. One day in my late 30s I woke up hung over and lonely and said enough is enough and started painting a series called NOW, nude silhouettes drawn with the word NOW written hundreds of times. The figure from my mind’s eye was the woman I desired: shapely, triumphant, confident.
NOW - The Woman of My Dreams
I painted over 30 of these pieces, and not long afterward an amazing thing called Jodi happened. Boom! Not only was she cool and cute, she looked exactly like the figure in the paintings. After our third miscarriage I felt it was time to drop another intention bomb into the universe. So I started painting vibrant balls dropping from the sky - bouncing baby balls of joy that floated through the swirling pathways of our lives, pathways which in the paintings were made of comfort food recipes from antique cookbooks and vintage maps, metaphors for wisdom and guidance. I call the series BOUNCE. Simultaneously, I sculpted a number of found object “angels” to usher in our boy to a soft landing. Made of mostly driftwood I’ve picked up on surf outings the past 1-1/2 years, these rustic pieces form pathways or landing strips, so that when the angels look for a place to land, I’ve provided a clear map. Call it a GPS for the spirit world. One sits on the entrance of the houseboat to the left of the front door.
Angel Looking for a Place to Land
Most of my art is for sale, but this piece is yours alone, baby boy.
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