Lucy sees herself in her dream
I have declared Sunday to be Bad Art day, because you can’t make bad bad art. This way, I get one day a week off to play with my stuff that doesn’t count as “real art.” To make stuff with the neon playdough, drag out all the bright colored pencils, and ponder how to make a Lite-Brite image in Photoshop. Remember Lite-Brite? My personal censor doesn’t like it, but I insist: one day a week to play.
I emailed Marlene to bring me a glow-in-the-dark Mary figurine from Santiago if at all possible. She’s a couple weeks to finishing, if all goes well, her pilgrimmage from LePuy, France to the cathedral in Santiago, Spain. The footsteps of thousands of seekers over hundreds of years. I would like to do it myself. When I lived in France in 1980, I stayed about 10 km from a major town on the Chemin de St. Jacques but I didn’t understand that it was still active. Now it’s exceedingly popular as a cheap vacation for the youth of Europe, so she is wise to be doing it early in the season. Twenty pounds in her pack, no room for a glow-in-the-dark trinket until the end. I hope she finds one, and what she’s looking for.
Lucy didn’t see me take these pictures. She’s functionally blind now. Can’t tell if she sees any brightness, but she’s not using any visual cues to navigate. She can still find the watering can she prefers to drink from. She still investigates odd noises around the house and knows when it’s dinner time. The sound of zippers scares her now, associated with our luggage and departures. She still loves the jazz programs on the radio, especially the muted trumpet. She’s been a good friend, and I tell her she can go when it’s too hard, but she’s having none of it. If she could work the stereo, we’d be listening to Ben Webster right now. In fact, it’d be Ben Webster, Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan, Chet Baker’s non-stop hits, and never, ever, a drum solo – that’s Lucy’s dream.
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