Blue-Black Redwoods on Red-Red Skies: Catharsis

Today I painted redwood scenes in scarlet and blue like I always do, like I have been since I arrived home to Aotearoa. I paint them towering, brave and grandfather-like because they are. 

I've spent a lot of time amongst them and beneath them. I've lain upon a fallen one with a friend and read my cards and hers. First in Whakarewarewa, Aotearoa and then in the North West Pacific Coast of California and Oregon. They're the oldest friends I've ever had. Trees that have seen and known my own family before me, family I could never see and know. My Californian ancestors would belly laugh when I was with them and make my hands shake. 

And my hands are shaking now as I write this but it's not belly-laughing in Humboldt, it's left over bits of that sleep-fall feeling and not the need to document here again but the reason why. In that sense, I am not here to inspire. Not today. 

And I want to be snarky and pretty and all "I returned with Saturn" like usual but I also don't at all because the pain is visceral and it is not beautiful. 

Because every other entry that ended up on this (since forgotten) blog came out of that place - that place geographically, emotionally, esoterically. Born out of "My Boots and Iced Coffee Days" in San Francisco and Jamesons at Lucky 13, or out of my weeks in Northern Californian cannabis farms with my radical juggler cousin. They came out of praying for rain on road trips through the Avenue of Giants and foggy opportunistic wanders in Southern Oregon and Washington State with my dad. From smoking what I can assume is the world's wackiest weed and realizing no one ever sees Puffins from the front. They came from falling in love and four years of coming and going simultaneously and constantly in the only other place that ever felt like home to me. Where things felt like maybe they'd be good for longer. 

Today I painted redwood scenes in scarlet and blue like I always do, but I swapped the colours and it was honest and it hurt it hurt it hurt. Before today I'd paint the trees deep reds, the sky a prussian blue blend broken only by an egg-shell moon or a single crow, or a murder of them. Today though I painted the trees phthalo blue-black, standing like wayward cigarettes against a mean red sky that's reddening still. It hurt. Yeah.

I painted them this way because they're burning and so are the farms, the houses, like Australia's old growth forests did. They're burning in an earthly fire visible from space like in my nightmares. 

And so the pain is visceral and not beautiful and for that reason I didn't want to write it at all in case it sounded beautiful accidentally. 

That said, there's no accidental beauty in the dreams of my mother with eyes like cups -- round and insane -- standing in front of fiery land and sky clapping and calling out, "It's all over, dolly! It's all over! Look around, it's all over!" Or my dreams of the ocean becoming a Tetris of toxic junk or lost dolphins. Dreams where we feel lucky rather than grateful to have anything that is good. 

And while my writing is often dark, it is also laden with quiet hopeful messages but today I don't know. Think of one for me.

I moved from California to Ontario shortly before Trump was elected and I watched the beast evolve from nearby, visiting as often as I could. I liked living in Canada, I found soul mates there but I did always worry for the North West. Still, I was able to bear witness to Turtle Island in all her glory and every now and then my Canadian friends would meet my Californian friends and they'd connect and my heart would stay full for ages. 

I described us as bawdy and audacious and free. We'd discuss the gross short-comings of politics and politicians, rampant racism we saw and heard, we talked about planting seeds, queering the world, about dismantling it all, a new landscape. 

Overwhelmingly, we discussed our manifestations and visualized the future because we (thought we) could see it better then, or a better one then. Nihilistic millennials all secretly buoyant. 

So we weren't quiet about it. This rise of authoritarianism, we talked about it all the time. Blue versus red. Everyone did. With gusto, with purpose and drive. We talked in San Francisco cafes during the day and parks at midnight and in smoking lounges in Toronto and in bars in Hamilton, Portland and San Diego, wherever. And everyone felt kinda the same. Fuck trump fuck capitalism fuck war fuck cops fuck racism. Mostly we said angry things and clever things but sometimes we cried. We cried around campfires in the Mojave Desert and bushfires in British Columbia. We cried, wondering aloud how the fuck we were going to make this work. I cried because I loved them and I couldn't stay and I cried harder when it felt like I was leaving my friends to die at sea. Like survivor's guilt from a lighthouse. 

Because I'm not here to inspire right now. I'm just sad. And I'm only writing about it like then and now because we talked and visualised and and organized and did what we could, and we're doing what we can and we're doing incredible things because we're smart and we're ancient and I have hope and I pray for rain, I do, but. 

I'm still painting blue-black redwoods on red-red skies. 

Ancient Redwood II 2019