Author: Joy Murray

Over the July 4th weekend, things around my place were very quiet — except for the occasional explosion from firecrackers. (I sleep with earplugs, so my sleep wasn’t disturbed too much by the celebrations.) I especially enjoyed waking up to quiet. There’s been construction going on on my street for weeks now. Also, last week, my duplex owners sent over someone to sand and repaint the eaves and window frames. He’s been very respectful of my plants and scrapes the old paint straight into his shop-vac, which I’m grateful for, but that’s another level of noise.

Sunday I woke up to as near to silence as you can get on a busy Midtown Memphis street. I spent a long while enjoying my morning tea and looking at all the nothing that was going on. It was as if the world has stopped to sigh.

I spent the rest of the day taking care of things around the house and garden. I read. I napped.

I could have indulged in the illusion of independence. But I didn’t. Because I’m not independent. And no one is. I’m interdependent. My need for help from others is more obvious than an able-bodied person with a job and car might be, but we’re all dependent on one another. Even the inconvenience of having construction up and down my street, is a reminder of how much we depend on others to keep our lives flowing.

They’re updating gaslines, that run underground into almost every home around here. It’s how we cook and heat our homes. This work is only the visible part of a long chain of work that started with planning, funding, revising and making sure the work would be done safely. Then the physical work begins — crews of workers jackhammer through impossibly hard surfaces to dig and tunnel, insert pipes through the ground. I can go my whole life without otherwise thinking of such things. I haven’t even had to go a day without gas power. The energy arrives and is maintained as if by magic.

But it’s not magic, it’s hard work — and we all pool our money, in the form of the much maligned system of taxes, and many of us get all the services we need to speed through life thinking we’re the masters of our own destiny.

A little over a week ago, one of the men was boring a hole for a pipe, hit a waterline, and sent water spewing out into the street. For awhile it was like a muddy creek in front of the house. Soon, they had to shut off water service to the whole block. A new crew arrived, a new hole was dug. A pump was set up to empty the hole as it continued to fill with water, and men scrambled around in the mud to replace the water pipe.

I was on the porch watching, but also admiring and pruning my plants. A neighbor came over and asked if my water was off. I said yes. She was so angry. She couldn’t take her after-work shower. She spent a minute dissing the workers, but I didn’t take the bait. “They said it should take a few hours to repair,” I told her. She saw the crew out there scrambling around. Her temper went down and she went home.

At one point, I heard a lot of yelling from a hole in the street. A guy who wasn’t in the hole ambled over to the pump and kicked it. He yelled something back and then started looking at his phone. A guy manning the bulldozer rushed over and pulled something up with a sort of sling. Another guy jumped out of the hole. He looked at the pump and looked over at the guy who was on his phone. The guy from the hole went to a truck, came back with a gas can, refilled the pump’s motor, started it up, got the water pumping again, put the gas can away, and then went back in the hole to finish the repair. All the while, the other guy stayed on his phone.

The crew worked til after 8 in the evening. And then the water faucets in our house worked again, and the stream in the street dried up. Our water was full of sediment for a few days, so we drank bottled water, but after that, no problem.

I think about that guy who jumped out and took care of the pump, then kept working til the job was finished. I think about the electricians who work 24 hours a day when storms knock out our utility lines. I think of the whole invisible crew of workers who maintain roads, utilities, and all the comforts we take for granted.

Also, I think of doctors and nurses. Those who are working right now to make better ways for me to live, redesigning and improving wheelchairs, mobility devices, medicines, vitamins, diets. Those who are advocating for more accessibility, broadening our definition of beauty, moving us toward an easier and more respectful society.

And friends, who help me get to the doctor, weed the garden, buy supplies, encourage me.

So so many people I depend on to be independent. And that’s what I think of every independence day. And I continue to dream of a world where we acknowledge and are grateful for our interdependence. And this year, my metaphor for that is a world where more people are

willing to jump from a hole, soaking wet and stressed out from their own work,

do what it takes to keep what is necessary flowing,

then going back in that hole to do more

without cussing anybody out

~~~

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This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

I’ve found it almost impossible to stay indoors since the spring weather started. I felt restless and started wheeling around the neighborhood as much as possible. I wanted to garden but had to face my limitations. I can’t plant, weed, and take care of the little garden by my porch. I had to ask for help, which I have a hard time doing, though I have several generous friends who were available, and the garden got taken care of.

I spent time gathering plants and seeds for the porch, which I can mostly manage. I wanted there to be more turn around space for my wheelchair and not cover every available square inch with pots that I bump into. I mostly succeeded.

I’ve also spent a lot of time just rambling around my neighborhood. The city has been replacing the gas lines on my street, and my established routes have been dug up with lots of long term holes. Last week they accidentally broke a water pipe and the neighborhood was without water for half a day. When it got repaired, the water coming out of our faucets was murky, so my son got in gallons of water from his dad’s house, and we were good til the murk was flushed out of the system.

It’s been so interesting living with my adult son, to see how the roles have switched, and have him take care of so much for me. How wonderful to find that this family love and care still exists, even though roles and personalities have changed so much.

Now the summer heat has forced me to spend more time indoors. I’m not a morning person, so often spend the late afternoon and evening on the porch, or wandering around.

I’ve had a hard time finding space in the apartment to keep working on my Look Closer series. My son has been staying with me for almost a year now. It’s a small apartment, 2 rooms, small dining area, small kitchen, one bathroom — so we’ve had space problems. He’s an artist, too, so we both have painted less than usual.

But he got a job at the beginning of the year, and now he’s found an apartment a few blocks away, so he’ll be moving at the end of this month (next week!!!). Both apartments will seem palatial. And we’ll both enjoy having our independence back, even though we know I will be calling him for help because he’s so close by.

I had just about decided to stick to 8×10″ paintings, or smaller, and get used to living small. I knew my son would not be here forever, but life is so strange now, I didn’t know how long it would take for him to find a place, but he found a practically perfect one, and life is about to open up for both of us.

In another week, I’ll get to arrange the studio with more workable areas — bigger spaces to write and paint. More room to hang and store the paintings I’m making. I can do paintings in whatever size I choose. And there will be room for people to visit more, a lovely thought after over a year of social distancing and isolation.

This morning I woke up to the sound of children laughing instead of jackhammers or bulldozers. The schoolyard across the street had a little family fun-fair, with a bouncy house, frisbee toss, and other games. Later they had a water balloon fight — essential play for this hot summer day.

I hope all is going well for y’all. I should be back to regular blogging and blathering soon.

Stay cool.

The spring saga of the elephant ears:

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

I finished another painting for my Look Closer series, on sensuality and bodies in transition.

This painting is part of series I’m painting on sensuality and bodies in transformation called Look Closer.

You can read more about the series here:

Look Closer

Investing In Myself

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Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.

My son and I were discussing language the other day, particularly why certain words are censored, or considered low-class. I’ve had a lifelong interest in slang, in what is considered obscene, what kind of language makes you seem better educated, and what makes you seem low class. I love how language evolves in all directions.

The word “motherfucker” is very popular, as well as, fuck. In some places I’ve lived, fuck and motherfucker are in practically every sentence. In fact, there’s a phrase in my city that explains a certain attitude: Memphis as Fuck. Someone once asked me what that even meant, but it’s just one of those things, if you have to ask you won’t understand. Memphis is both a beautiful and ugly place to live, it’s warm and friendly, it’s mean and impoverished.

Life is like that. Any city, any town, any life — sometimes makes it feel like there’s a war raging against you, that you are subject to be erased. Even though many of us grew up in abusive families, the isolated, all powerful family unit still is our collective delusional ideal. When you grow up in something so far from the delusion you feel like an alien, you feel a sense of shame. So how do you keep an open heart and mind? For me, it was that I found help from kind people outside the boundaries of what was limiting my life. I got sick, a long term disorder, and met people who were different looking, who had different ways to survive. And I found art, poetry, fiction, visual art, music — they all gave me power over the hatefulness a traumatic childhood had planted in me.

I’ve recently delighted in the Allison Russell’s new album Outside Child. It’s an album about power and escape and collaboration and the strength it takes to be kind.

This is a great article about her from NPR:

https://www.npr.org/2021/05/26/1000521784/singer-songwriter-allison-russell-shares-a-personal-saga-of-trauma-and-triumph-o

In all the ways the word motherfucker is used negatively, this is the best use of it I’ve heard in music. I’m making this song a permanent part of the music in my head:

Hope all you joyful motherfuckers feel your own strength and beauty today!

~~~

Thanks for reading my blog. Feel free to share it, if you’d like.

This blog is brought to you by the generosity of people who support me on Patreon , buy my art, and who support me in so many different ways. 

If you’d like to make a one time donation, you can do so at pay pal

Cards and prints on some of my art is available on Redbubble.  

You can subscribe to this blog by email in the link below this post.

If you find a typo, let me know, and I’ll send you a postcard.