Excerpts: The Package

Resurrection Dreams (Comic Excerpt)

I have an illustrated story, a drawn writing, a comic, a graphic novel, a whatever you want to call it, that I am currently working on.
I found one panel from that story to work just as well on its own, out of context of this particular storyline I have in progress. The following comic excerpt is from a story about when I was very sick.

Dear Lisa Frank, What Skills Do Middle Schoolers Need?

 As I am preparing to teach a class called "Middle School Skills" to a group of incoming 6th graders on Monday, I started digging for memorabilia from my own middle school years to try and channel the feelings of that time of life. (I've been told I am permanently 13 years old so this wasn't a big stretch.) I came across this amazing letter that dropped me right back into the hallway... carrying heavy text books, trapper keepers (those things were so awesome, a foreshadowing of my love of bookmaking and paper arts perhaps?), and erasable pens, wearing rolled plaid skirts with oxford shirts tucked in 'just enough', and perpetually denying that you had a crush on someone. And as you will see in the letter, I was declining offers to smoke Pixy Sticks. Allow me to explain. Remember those candy paper sticks filled with flavored sugar called Pixy Sticks? We'd go to Helen's corner store and buy the sugar candy and then we'd walk to the park, pound back the stick of sugar, (then some of us) would light the hollow paper wrapper at one end, and pretend to smoke it. I kind of feel like I'm going to get in trouble with someone for telling you this. But it happened. I saw it. I was too chicken to say yes but felt pretty cool to be asked. UGH! Now that is getting at the complex, socially awkward heart of middle school.

You can't tell this letter was addressed to me because my avatar (I didn't know what this word meant then) in junior high was Martha. I have no idea why. We also addressed letters to each other with our personal symbols so that if a teacher caught us they would have to figure out who was the "shooting yin yang star" and who was "martha a.k.a. squiggle line with dots."
I also don't know who wrote me this letter. The symbol system worked!!! I must have lost my ability to decode our pseudonyms when I turned into an adult! I have narrowed it down to about 3 friends from middle school who I am all still in contact with regularly, or at least on Facebook. (Hi guys! Which one of you wrote this? Are boys still putting your belongings in inappropriate places?) If you went to grade school with me, you can probably figure out who is who in the body of this letter. I hope there is enough distance from junior high now to share this. Ha! I'll let you all interpret the rest of this gem of a letter. But I'm still left to wonder, what skills do middle schoolers need? Are you there, Lisa Frank? It's me, Martha.

50 yards from Crazy

At the end of May, I rented a yurt in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This was to be a business trip to work on things. I left on a Monday morning, grabbing antihistamine and one last iced coffee in Skokie before getting on the highway. After hours with my thoughts driving across what would be Governor Walker's Wisconsin, I found myself at the edge of Lake Superior in a remote old growth forest where the signs are amazingly still in English. I found no one around except a man and his dog several hundred yards away at another campsite.

This would be my home for 3 nights: a round wooden frame hut with a canvas skin. Inside were bunk beds and a table and chairs. The yurt had plastic windows looking out from a tangle of branches at Lake Superior's shore.  I stayed there by myself with no electricity, sleeping with heat from a woodstove (it got into the 30s at night), and all the food I would need packed in tupperware. I made instant coffee on a miniature propane camping stove. My diet consisted mostly of bananas,  pre-cooked pasta, rice and beans, a jar and half of peanut butter, and an enormous bar of dark chocolate.

 In the stillness that was my circular hut above the waves,  I watched the energy of the peanut butter turn directly into lines on paper and rocks. Peanut butter turns almost directly into words here with little interference from myself. I tried letting art happen like freckles. The yurt started working its winding spell turning around my thoughts. With no other people or any electronic source of sound to drown me out, I belted out fake opera singing all day long at the little table and chair. At one point, I could have sworn I achieved throat singing. Perhaps this two toned sound in my throat is only possible when no one is in earshot of it circulating round and round in my corner-less yurt universe.  I've decided that all of these uninhibited aural and visual experiences I had should be attributed to the intoxication that can only come from isolation.

No one told me that I've been 50 yards from crazy all this time. Just put at least a 50 yard radius between me and any other human and I dip down into my own universe. I can't think of a time in my life I've been at least 50 yards away from other humans, strangers or not, for an extended amount of time.  It became completely dark around 10pm each night but I continued to work on the floor next to the woodstove, a modest heat source that was occasionally fueled by bad-drawing-kindling. The flies would flitter and dart around the plastic walls of the Eveready 6 volt battery lantern making it look like a candlelit room. Spiders and other things with legs would meander across my drawings.
With no electricity to recharge devices, I used 3 different cameras until they ran out of power. I worked at documenting everything as if I were a spy on myself. In between naps and long hikes, I found a distinctive slab of rock about a quarter mile away from my yurt at the shore of the lake. I ended up embedding my endless pages of torn up handwriting onto this rock...as you do.  I worked all afternoon on my second day adhering the paper to the rock. I made several trips back to observe this installation I'm calling "Rock Written." On the day I left the yurt, I took one last walk to my writing on the rock. While looking closely at how the paper was holding up to the wind and the waves, I noticed fresh cigarette ash resting in a crevice next to the paper. Was I being watched from the trees? Who was here?!?! Does someone know I was singing all day? Did someone have a moment with my writing this morning before I came back? Did they sit inside the paper circle? Were they just passing by and flicked their ashes on my rock? Did it blow in from some mysterious ship sailing by? I left the writing on the rock to decompose and drove home to Chicago that Thursday afternoon.  Since then, I've been staring at these photos on my computer trying to decide if what I made was remarkable or not. I've also been wondering about the choice and act of being alone and the feeling of being alone. Was I really in isolation for 4 days and is that rock still holding my words?

New Orleans Marks and Remarks

During a weekend party, I met a couple who were trying to find a ride to New Orleans. Before realizing what was happening, all of the party-goers had publicly agreed on our behalf that I should offer my car and we should head South. So we did. Within 24 hours, two strangers, soon to be "friends for life", were at my door with road trip groceries in reusable bags identical to my road trip groceries in reusable bags. It was the beginning of a series of signs that us hardy souls were meant to be hurdling down to the swamplands of Louisiana prepared to sleep on yoga mats in a friend's shotgun house. It also helped that we were ready to don costumes at a moment's notice.  We drove the 17 hours from Chicago to New Orleans through the night, getting to know one another. The whole brassy trip - from music in the streets, to drinks on balconies, to strolls through the cemeteries - confirmed once again that whenever possible, just say yes. Above is a strategically obscured page of markings I created while on the trip. Below is a famous tomb full of markings. The people, the music, the architecture, and yes, even the smell. Gosh-wow, I just love New Orleans.

El Gallo v. La Gallina

Sorry for the delay in blogging. I've finally adjusted to the altitude here in Chiapas, Mexico. 2,200 m (7,218 ft) to be exact...Just reading an email took every bit of energy I had...oh, and learning to speak another language has had me a little preoccupied as well. Everything I do is an adventure and a mini-accomplishment. I took my clothes to the lavenderia IN SPANISH. I shopped in the supermercado IN SPANISH.
When you close out one language, (in this case, English), new languages brighten all around you. ...drawing, miming, tone of voice, facial expressions, etc.
Some thoughts from San Cristobal on language:

A meditative drawing on language nestled next to the famous mustard yellow hoodie.

Learning a language has amplified my reliance on learning visually. I was typing on my computer in the dark the other day and a student walked into the lounge and said something to me. I panicked because I could not see their face well enough to hear them.
Landing in a place to learn a foreign language is like becoming young again. I point at objects when I know what they are called and giggle...like I'm in preschool. Learning a language forces you to be creative and to think better. Learning a language gives you a good reason to sometimes listen more and talk less, or only when necessary.  Learning a language makes you notice things about your native language that are absurd. Perhaps much of language obscures more than it clarifies. I tried explaining the difference between a bit, a little bit, and a little yesterday. And then I tried explaining that "the wind blows" but you can "wind a cord"  or "get winded" as well.
Here's one vignette of speaking Spanish that sent me thinking about learning: I was running through flashcards with my teacher on various animals when I came to the picture of a hen/rooster. Was it "el gallo" or was it "la gallina?" Was this a vocabulary error or do I just not know my farm animals?..my urban roots revealed right then and there?
Learning a language makes you brave, humble, and has made me come more alive.