Without Words

Sweeping out the dirt

Top of the Southridge Trail Saturday, overlooking the Front Range. We got our biggest snowfall of the season, still not much. Enough to make me want to go run trails in it.

I don’t know where this week went but here it is, Sunday evening, 6 pm, and I’m ready for bed. My body thinks it’s 5 pm because we just reset the clocks an hour ahead yesterday. I don’t understand why it works this way but the spring time change always messes with me worse than the fall.

I had my second ketamine session on Wednesday and it went so much better than last time, the scopolamine patch completely eliminated the nausea. I didn’t get a headache, either. I took about a 20% lower dose of the ketamine, too. Things seemed a little subdued, not as vivid, not as exciting. There weren’t any obvious insights right away. I did paint this watercolor of it. All I can remember is that I was flying over Prague, and I could see a bridge over a very muddy river that was flooded, and the city streets were flooded, and somehow I flew into a parking garage with these little boxes that looked like cubicles, and I was sweeping the dirt out of them, and the dirt was falling into the river. I have never been to the Czech Republic, or anywhere near there. Don’t ask me how I knew I was there. It’s a ketamine thing, I guess.

Maybe I was cleaning out what’s left of the dirt in my brain cells. I know there’s still a lot of junk in there, though.

I recovered quickly even though the scopolamine lingers and makes me feel spaced out and sluggish. It snowed Friday, we got a couple of inches in town, the most we’ve had at one time all winter. It was First Friday Artwalk in town that evening, and my friend Steve was showing some of his artwork at Wolverine Farms. I got Dennis to go with me, and we saw Steve’s work. Some of it I had seen before, but there were some pieces that were new to me. He is a geologist and he worked in Oman years ago, and his desert paintings were awesome. I love the desert, and seeing the landscapes from Oman reminded me of Death Valley, with the dusty-looking mountains, palm trees, and the ancient irrigation systems making everything green.

We went over to the gallery where I have my work, and I dropped off my painting that I re-varnished to make it less glossy, and we hung out for a while and talked with a few people. We got home by 7:30, exhausted.

Saturday I went up to Horsetooth Mountain Park and hiked the Southridge Trail to get a short hike with some vertical. I want to be more consistent with that. The past couple of years I’ve been slacking. I felt good on the climb and there were enough people up there either Friday or before me that morning that the trail was broken. There were a good six inches of snow on the ground. The sky was so clear I could see down to Pikes Peak near Colorado Springs, about 120 miles from here.

I went over to the farmers market on my way home to buy some mushrooms for a recipe, and to check out the rest of the market, which I never had a chance to do while I had my booth all winter. I came home with the mushrooms, some locally sourced butter, some babaganoush, and a jar of fermented kimchi. I had a chance to talk with some of the vendors I usually just say hi to while we pass each other in the mall during setup and tear down.

In the afternoon on Saturday, and today, I did some painting, I was struggling and things weren’t going smoothly. I finally decided to give it a rest. I know after I take a break it will get easier. I can’t force it.

In progress. Yellows and pinks on a 24 x 30 canvas, two 18 x 18 wood panels with chaotic color and yellow drips, 18 x 24 wood panel with maybe a sailboat, 48 x 30 on canvas with flowers and sky, a page from my sketchbook.

It is nice having the light back in the evenings, it will take me a while to be able to stay up later.

I don’t even feel like writing about this illegal, immoral war that the Pendejo started. I’m afraid he will use nuclear weapons. Nobody seems to be worried about that, even as he gets more unhinged and aggressive by the day. More stuff is coming out in the Epstein files, and things we already suspected were lies have turned out to be lies. At this point I wish we could start over with a whole new country and constitution. I’m so tired of these wealthy and powerful men who get away with everything. All the projection about holy wars and the religious bullshit they blame Middle Eastern countries for is no different than the white Christian nationalism here. They really want to have Armageddon, and the Rapture, and all that shit. I just hope to live to see many of these people go to jail for war crimes and human rights violations, in addition to the pedophiles and rapists. I don’t have a lot of confidence that it will ever happen, but it sure would be satisfying.

The words will come back, the colors will come back, for now I will let them rest until they are recharged. Thanks for reading.