Speed the Plow

Everything I write on here is so secret. Like little insects wrapped in their gauzy cocoons. Or like Simone's photographs of bare flesh and bodies hidden beneath surgical cloth. Maybe I write for myself, mostly.

I am up in Pacoima today. Or should I say, down in Pacoima. Down in the Valley where the smog hangs low and the swimming pools show the heaviness of the sky reflected in their glassy blue tops. I've been working on something lately, I've written about it in little bits and little pieces off and on and it's finally about to happen. I want to document it like I documented Ojai, especially because it is the fruit of that journey, the fleece at the end of the expedition. I've been sort of circling it low like a hawk trying not to show too much interest in case I spook the prospect. I've balked more out of fear though, than actual caution. Fear that it's too good to be true, fear that it's not possible that I actually could be, am about to be, as free as I think I am. Such a big change, such a big change in this world that is changing so much. Storms and out of season weather, the tornado's in Saint Louis and the great dragon that rocked Japan's shoreline and shook free the radiation from its concrete tomb. My mother told me Obama was on the air allaying people's fears about the radiation reaching our shorelines. It's not that bad, he said, just don't go outside. I never did look it up to see if that's what he said, but I believe her, I believe her. Everything feels like Speed the Plow, Mamet's play about the book that is about the end of the world. "All fears are one fear. Just the fear of death. And we accept it, then we are at peace."

I had a dream several years ago about the end of the world. I was 17 and in the dream was a map upon the earth and on the map was a dove, and the dove marked the places that would be destroyed. And the only safe place to go, was the highest place. I remember when Howard told me I would be a painter. I thought he was crazy. I am an attorney, a women's rights activist, an anthropologist, a politician. But paint flowers? You've got the wrong girl.

It is amazing to me how little we can know about ourselves, until some great event or some slow and consistent tapping, tapping etches away at the hard white shell that is the world and we finally break free. I suppose for me it's been a combination of the two, of the great events and of the slow tapping. For me it was a knocking. Something outside of this world, this shell, knocking on the door that is in the middle of my soul and it did not stop until I answered. Thank god for that.

I am moving to Santa Fe.

Judy Watson