Sleeping with Peaches: An Interview with Painter Lee Price : The Other Journal

 

 

 

 

 

Sleeping with Peaches: An Interview with Painter Lee Price : The Other Journal.

Shema.

There is a pain inside my body that goes beyond the pain that I experience because of the seat I am stuck in. It is a pain that burns in my ears, singing the sadness of reality.

As I wriggled my way into my seat, I experienced the excitement of individuality. Despite the fact I am nestled so closes to Cody and to the unnamed woman on my right, I am alone. Happily listening to the slightly uncomfortable headphones provided for me. Songs pour out of the seat in front of me from a list entitled “My Selections”. Adele and Nora bless fill me with their voice and remind me that it is all about me and what I like, what I need. But, I wonder, what if they, I don’t know what I need. What if I need something other than a glass of orange juice and a movie selection that puts my small collection to shame?

I am flying to the land of the text. A ground that tasted the sweat of Christ’s feet, that absorbed blood of the bleeding woman, that rode on the wind following Elijah’s fiery chariot. I am going to a place that teaches people trust and provides life at God’s command. I am entering a landscape that deserves my ear, but consistently I fill my ears with buds that only speak my desires.

The woman next to me cracks a prayer book and proceeds to mouth the words. I take off my ear buds hoping to ear the words she reads in her foreign tongue. I hope to hear the Word in the movement of her lips, in the rushing of the wind, in the mumbling of the passengers who breathe this air with me. Will I hear it.? Am I trained to do so?

I am not now, but I pray this experience and those that will soon have me completely covered in dust and sunshine will prepare me for a life of listening. Listening with my eyes, with my ears and with my mind.

Shema.

re-use.

Time is a gift.

Words are a gift.

Pleasure is a gift.

Relish these gifts, and remember them.  I am.  I remember these gifts by making my moments into bows and realizing the beauty in history.

an excercise of line.

 

This is an image I copied in order to learn the movement and flow of line.  Line is an essential aspect of art.  It determines and defines.  Lines are important.  Lines are imporant in art and in life.  From this simple exercise, I learned that I need to know, understand and work with lines.  Lines provide freedom and safety.

Lines are like fences to a playground.

 

Chesterton writes,”We might fancy some children playing on the flat grassy top of some tall island in the sea.  So long as there was a wall round the cliff’s edge [so] they could fling themselves into every frantic game and make the place the nosiest of nurseries.  But the walls were knocked down, leaving the naked peril of the precipice. They did not fall over; but when their friends returned to them they were all huddled in terror in the center of the island; and their song had ceased.”

 

So find your fences and practice your lines.  They are lovely things that surround us with a caring embrace.  Look up look around every edge is a line that reminds us of our freedom and safety.

bracelets.

My mind wanders like bracelets on an arm,

confined but moveable.

My mind touches skin,

Twirling around it with grace.

It moves forward

reaching out for freedom

But confined by the freedom giver.

Confined by skin and motion,

I sit waiting for a moment to create.

 

Yet, I am inanimate

With out the work of Light

The rhythm of Motion.

Sound and color only spill from me

when activated.

 

By you.

 

You and me move.

Together we create sound, color,

And beauty.

Together we twirl and dance

An intimate dance of beauty and skin.

Tango.

 

Latin music full of happy sounds

Like the sound of bracelets

sliding their way up and down my arm.

These tokens of beauty

And Indian marriage

Are my feeble attempt at beauty

And reality.

 

For you.

todays little thoughts.

Warm my heart like gram

Cracker crumbs which fill hands

Of mice fleeing cold

***

History crack me

Like the stones of Parthenon

rich, old and useless

***

Idol of my soul

Show yourself with buds of spring

My gift to the frost.

Symphony of Z’s

It is said that sleep is for the weak, but

The strength found in the darkness makes souls strong

Besides, lack of sleep will kill you long

before a stomach with out food has cut

life away like fish filleted .  So, root

your day in that sweet symphony – a song

of silence mixed with squeak of springs and long

melodious dreams. Now, strike this chord and put

your head on the pillow and draw a sigh

like a cellist draws his bow across strings

of time which sing like the breath of your mind.

May the orchestra play till time draws nigh

And duty interrupts all the sacred things

in you by its beeping applause – so unkind.

a parrot named revival

If I say that certain words or phrases reside in the mouths of certain individuals, do you know what I mean?

For example, “totally awesome, dude” inhabits the vocabulary of surfers and surfer wannabees.  Another example is “revival” which lives in the mouth of Pentecostals and Emergents.  Coming from these mouths and rolling off of these tongues, they sound normal – almost mundane.  In fact, I find myself growing tired of hearing such things.  Overused words in their natural environment tend to loose their luster.

Yet, the beauty dances back into the equation when the words are used outside of their natural environment.  Like a parrot perched on a telephone wire, the renewed word brings excitement and joy to the routine plagued heart.

I saw a parrot today. Embedded in an envelope of color, I discovered the word “revival” coming from the oddest source – my oma.  Oma is my Dutch grandma.  On the outside, she looks to be your typical grandma – soft wrinkled skin pale from protection yet hinting at life, yet on the inside this woman is brimming with heart.  Being young and naïve, I thought that her heart was dated – only to be filled with thoughts of old books, lace and the Heidelberg Catechism (which I love but find to be a distant from my generation).  I was wrong.

This afternoon I received a letter from her. In her usual style she told me about the painting she is working on, her decorations for Coffee Break (a women’s Bible stud at her church), and my Opa’s health.  However, half way through the letter she exposed a side of herself I never knew existed.  She told me that she was praying for a “revival”.

My heart stopped. And then ferociously started again, setting the pace for my eyes as they raced through the disconnected lines of this letter.  I wanted to know what she meant; I wanted to hear her explanation.  As she wrote, the parrot perched.  I felt refreshed to hear her say that she and her whole group at Coffee Break are praying earnestly for revival.

Their prayers inspire me.  I pray they inspire you.

A word from the wise…

They might not need me; but they might.

I’ll let my head be just in sight.

A smile as small as mine might be

Precisely their necessity.

-E. Dickinson

Present someone with the gift of a smile today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Female cardinal

Sings for her mate. I

Sing prayers for you.

This haiku was inspired by Cody.  He left me a wonderful email yesterday morning about how he saw a female cardinal, and he thought of me.  These words were my response to him.

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