Living the Van Gogh Life

I was sitting out on the front porch yesterday evening with my husband. He was pointing out beautiful birds in our yard which I was pretending to see.  Red birds, blue birds, buntings and starlings and thrush moved from pine to feeder to oak to bath and back to feeder again. I could see the motion when they moved from one place to the other. The titmouse has a way of fluttering its wings when it moves about that I can hear from 50 feet away. It is like a humming bird and I love it. I could see the huge lazy shadow of the buzzards riding the Indian summer heat over our heads. I just couldn’t see the birds, or the feeders for that matter.

I looked out over our yard and I realized my landscapes have become those of Van Gogh. Beautiful colors, swirls and whorls and dots that represent definable shapes but have no strict definition. No red birds or blue birds or thrush darting about, no flowers or chipmunks or squirrels are enjoying the evening as we are. I hear a vehicle roll by at 250 feet but couldn’t tell you anything about it. I can’t see even the motion any more at that distance.

 

I love Van Gogh; this is not a terrible state to be in. I do worry about what comes next though in this interminable process of losing my vision.

I used to know my family by the way they walked, turned their head, held their shoulders or moved their hands. No more. I have to be within ten feet of them now to be sure they are who I think they are. This frightens me on two levels. One, and this is the big one, I do not want to NOT be able to see the faces of those I love. These people are why I am here! If I lose them I will feel adrift and frightened. The second, which is really still the first but seen from a different angle is that I can’t see! I already can no longer ride a bike alone. I move faster than I can decipher obstacles like trees, curbs and psychotic killers. I am now afraid to walk alone because I no longer see well enough to see anything approaching, like dogs with foaming mouths and rabid foxes and psychotic killers. You can interpret this two ways… either I am just a scaredy-cat or I read the news and know that there are indeed rabid foxes, vicious dogs and psychotic killers whether one lives in a metro area or the heart of the country as I now do. With my track record for one in a million happenstances, (tornados, pregnant while taking the pill with my tubes tied, etc.), I choose to avoid them whenever I can.

For now I enjoy the hell out of my impressionist’s yard (people pay hundreds of millions to hang a slice on their wall. I LIVE it baby). The fluid lines and melting edges and glorious colors titillate and soothe by degree. The morning I wake up in a five year olds watercolor, splotches of color running together into browns, lines obliterated and subject up for anyone’s guess will be a sad day for me, I think, maybe not. I will have color and light and God willing my lovely and loved seeing-eye-people to help me navigate it.

Vincent Van Gogh (Duh!)

Night and birds by John Scott's Photography (my hubby, in my front yard.)

The South, Where Elvis and Jesus Live Side By Side

Headlines are a mystery to me. I have decided that unless war is declared somewhere or a crazy person lets loose with gunfire in a populated place there are no real news stories. Instead a group of men and women wrap post its with ideas jotted on them around darts and start throwing them at a board. If it sticks, it becomes news. Maybe a bulls eye gets to be front page news and if you hit the wall but the dart still sticks then your story gets to be filler in the classified ad pages.

On the front page of our local paper headlines scream about one real story, a murdering kidnapper shoots himself after being confronted by the police. The two little girls he abducted after murdering their mother and sister appear to be dehydrated and covered in poison ivy but otherwise okay.

A slightly smaller headline declares the titillating (but not necessarily news)  information that  4 of the 11 members of a marching band indicted for the hazing death of a fellow band member participated in his funeral procession. This is a horrible reflection on them as human beings but not news.  Anyone who would murder and try to hide it has no character. Why would we expect them to be gentlemen and women and decline to march on that day?

In smaller font still are two stories, given equal weight. One is that three police officers are indicted for beating teenagers while they were handcuffed and in their custody. NEWS!! The other is that pictures of Rihanna wearing a daring dress can be found inside! Really? This is on the front page? Have you people lost your minds?

First, I am pretty sure that Rihanna in a daring dress is about as uncommon as the sun rising and setting. I don’t fault her, she looks great, but it is hardly  news. Mother Theresa in a daring dress would have been news and photo worthy! Bill Clinton even more so, but Rihanna? No, not even close.

The last bit of so called news above the fold on the front page was a study declaring that the South as a whole has less upward mobility and more downward mobility than most other states with the top seven (New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Utah and Connecticut ) nearly all being Mid Atlantic or Midwestern. First off, this might be news to people in states that are doing well but it is certainly not news for people who do indeed live in the slow moving south.

I do believe most of the states listed have strong labor unions. It is a matter of Southern Pride to hate unions for no good reason that I could ever fathom except maybe we like being less upwardly mobile. We also do not house thousands and thousands of overpaid (by our standards, but then again our motto is any pay is good pay, shut the eff up, eat your banana and thank God you have a job) federal workers . Unless I am mistaken, which would certainly not be the first or the last time THAT happened, we are a more agrarian group than the others and farming traditionally pays less than manufacturing. Some of these same discrepancies were around 150 years ago and in fact were reasons behind the Civil War. Seriously, look it up.

So why do we stay in this ‘backward’ or downwardly mobile place? Well, because we can have a pink trailer with statues of Elvis and Jesus out in the yard next to a Corporate mogul’s mansion and people on both side of the tracks just say bless their hearts and pass the moonshine. And our weather is so much better it barely even needs to be mentioned! 75 degree days are not abnormal even in the harshest of winters here and nobody loves forsythia in February more than a true southerner. 

Our bosses pay us squat but we can tell them to stick that squat where the sun don’t shine and walk out without it being held against us. As a person who has found themselves as often on the telling as the being told side I appreciate that immensely.  Lastly the food. Oh my God, the food! Fresh grown produce picked out of the yard seven months out of the year. Iced tea and cold beer going down oh so smooth while the grill heats up and the ribs go on. Short cake and lemon pound cake and Key Lime Pie, oh my, I get gassy just thinking about it but my mouth is watering at the thought of what a joy that is.

There are enclaves of ‘civilization’ here and there. Fenced communities are slowly making an inroad. All these years of the south fighting being known as a racist and brutal society  and then other folks move in and wall us all apart again while deriding our ‘backward’ lifestyle. Money is becoming more important than character, which is a crying shame and is happening all over from what I can see. In an effort to appease our more forward and upwardly mobile brethren we appear to be losing our social identity and the indomitable spirit and character portrayed by writers as diverse as Faulkner,  Poe and Douglass. 

Reading the newspaper we could be anywhere, any city USA. Take a drive through the country though, turn down that windy lane or onto those dirt roads and you can still find the pink trailers on lots next to huge mansions with Elvis and Jesus looking on with pride and love.