Hours, Visiting

(listen to this essay here)

Sometimes these essays fall out of me. Like the human compulsion to speak into the silence even if it may be better to say nothing at all. Other times, they feel like an archeological dig, uncovering layers buried beneath the surface that isn’t so much about the digging but rather what soon becomes exposed to the bright sun; the newest, freshest surface of strata contradictorily both new and old. Most of the time it’s somewhere between these poles with some parts coming easily, and other aspects needing a few rounds of echolocation. I often write about how painting is like writing, but maybe not as much about how I see my writing like my paintings. There is an interplay between the part and the whole that shapes these processes. The word makes up a paragraph, the intro speaks to the conclusion and the brushstroke contributes its mark that stands alone for contemplation while also serving as part of the overall. I’m also trying to pay attention to my emotional energy that changes my words and marks, though often wish to show versus tell the affective quality I’m aiming to expose, making sense of, the life we’re sharing together in these times by attending to the “ordinary affects” as Kathleen Stewart defines. “The question they beg is not what they might mean in an order of representations, or whether they are good or bad in an overarching scheme of things, but where they might go and what potential modes of knowing, relating, and attending to things are already somehow present in them in a state of potentiality and resonance” (Ordinary Affects, 2007, 3). What parts of the whole, what hole in the pieces can I share with you today?

The nurses station was right across from my grandmother’s ICU room which allowed me the opportunity to observe more of the inner workings of the hospital efficiencies while I sat beside my grandma’s shallow breathing on Thursday night. She had fallen asleep waiting on the special request item from the cafeteria to arrive, and I sat with her until the night nurse came in to rouse her and give her the 8pm meds, so that I could say goodbye and let her know I’d be back the next day. At this point I was delirious from not a lot of hours of sleep the night before, worrying about her fate after learning 24-hours before she had coded and was rushed to the ER, and my lengthy journey to the place where she was admitted to the tune of a 12-hour drive. The chair was tucked at the furthest wall from the door, adjacent to a mid-size window that peered out into a small grove of trees, patches of grass, a concrete sidewalk path and a picnic table. My line of sight out of the room included the foot of my grandma’s ICU bed, her swollen lower extremities covered with a white sheet and the thin blue standard hospital blanket with tubes emerging from under, and then past a bay obscured by a half closed curtain, the partially open sliding glass door met the hallway and then a long desk where nurses constantly, and doctors occasionally, gathered. I was struck by the efficiencies someone, somewhere determined, nurses wearing this color scrubs (maroon), physicians always in their white coat professional drag. The whiteboard on the wall of Room 10 showing the patient’s goals for the day, the nurse and docs on duty, phone numbers for the folks on call alongside contact information for family members. I observed different staff rolling people and carts full of medication or food or equipment bustling down the hallway. And I marveled at all the things these medical professionals were juggling in the ICU while attending to many patients. And all the ways someone determined processes for reducing medical mistakes like scanning the barcode on Grandma’s admitting bracelet and having two people present to confirm the patient is getting the proper blood transfusion. Blood sugar readings taken on a handheld device after pricking the patient’s finger, machines beeping and alerting visitors or nearby nurses if something like a low oxygen level goes on too long. So much to see and learn and wonder about. So much to be grateful that I’m not the one hooked up to those machines. So much to worry about…

There’s really no such thing as privacy in the ICU, even as Grandma was in a room of her own. The glass wall and the involvement of many people knowing about one’s bodily functions usually kept behind closed doors and not typically the focus of conversation outside of a medical setting, becomes the necessary starting point for information sharing in the ICU. All knowledge from all who have access to it can be important to share with the medical professionals working on the patient’s care. I would like to say that I am the kind of person who doesn’t eavesdrop, but I am a writer who takes pleasure in the overheard. I’m an artist who sees images when words are spoken. I enjoy a turn of phrase that surprises me. I am nosy and want to know everything I can about everything and anything so that I can add it to my rich tapestry of experiences. Which is how I found myself straining for more versus less of the conversation between the nurses on Thursday. Chatting and talking like colleagues might around the water cooler, as if no one might be listening besides them, I heard a nurse talking about her self-treatment of Ivermectin. While Ivermectin can be a drug administered for some human conditions related to parasitic infections, the nurse described her use of the drug as the over the counter kind (read animal dosage) and she basically took it for our benefit! She didn’t use these words of course, but the way she talked about her use of the drug, not supported by the FDA as a legitimate treatment for COVID, she spoke as if she were doing a public health service. She took it so she could report back on its efficacy and use for her friends and family. “You just can’t get any real information about it” she bemoaned to her colleague, so she took it when she first started having symptoms of COVID-19. I’m not sure when this all went down for her, if it was recent, or a long time ago. All I know is that she was proudly and loudly talking about her experience with a drug meant for livestock, in the ICU in Wichita, Kansas, during year three of a pandemic that is multiplying into pandemics. Something happened, so the nurse left to attend to whatever needed her.  And I couldn’t keep from thinking about how the owner of that voice went to a farm supply store, purchased something meant for cows and horses, and put it in her body. She disregarded the signs that we see at our local Fleet Farm that say their Ivermectin is not meant for human consumption. I think about the cows or horses that might need it more than she did. And marvel about how we can make checklists and technological interventions unknown to our ancestors, and some of us, who likely see the interactions of medicines more intimately than others, are taking livestock medicines.

Overhearing that conversation was but one of the many contradictions I witnessed by my grandma’s bedside. But what is this life, like a good painting, if not the tension between chaos and order? I see that the hospital tries to trend toward order to minimize human-error disruptions when the chaos of our unruly bodies inevitably make demands. Though it feels like from here, chaos is ruling the current phase of the US COVID-19 response. “Let it rip” since we have better treatments for it now I guess. “Let it rip” since we don’t care about the unknown impacts the disease will have on children, on people who get it multiple times, for the increasing number of people getting a long, ongoing, less-treatable version. Since people apparently were’t isolating when they were exposed, let’s just say you don’t have to anymore! Let it rip! I’ve exceeded my word count for the day and the whole picture is no more clearer than when I began. A muddied mess we find ourselves in these days. The result of overlapping layers that eventually cause all the pigments to morph into an overworked surface of singular color. I have to keep holding onto hope that peering into the potential ways of knowing of the ordinary can help me gain a deeper resonance with our shared understandings of the forces and realities that we shape and bear out. Grandma’s out of the ICU, she stabilized, a pretty miraculous recovery actually. Let us all hold out hope for those possibilities, even when it may seem unlikely. Let us all hold out hopes for those possibilities, even through the current chaos.

What I’m Reading

A difficult to describe collection of fictional short stories but one I appreciate for its complexity and general feeling of unease. There is a pull of wanting to get through the story to uncover the rainbow, and a bit of a sardonic nod to expose the underbelly of lives as queer and trans folk that isn’t all rainbows all the time. The collection has inspired me to learn more about the publisher and dig deeper into Conklin’s writings, because I am surprised by what the stories hold. I’m unsettled and in awe at the same time. A book worth mentioning for the short story fan, and for those who want a little something different from a happy ending, glossy, glittery queer fictional world.
 

Artist Offerings

• Ever since coming across Corinne Wasmuht's work highlighted in Landscape Painting Now I've been obsessed with her ability to merge all kinds of spaces in her picture plane. 
• I’m a big fan of Alice Wong’s writing and activism. This harrowing first person account of her ICU summer demands more of all of us in making sure our disabled fam gets the care they deserve and require.
• Currently celebrating the Second Edition of How Dare We Write, edited by Sherry Quan Lee which features new essays alongside those published in the previous edition (like the one by yours truly that opens up the book)!

Creative Ritual

Against many odds I made my deadline and dropped of 15 paintings at the Kaddatz Galleries! Exhibition prep was such a wild ride, as I also included 12 framed archival docs/photos to be enjoyed alongside the paintings and packing, loading, transporting, and unloading was enough to dream about having someone else take care of that for me! An artist can dream! Stay tuned to their webpage where there will be a virtual tour of the show you can view if you can’t make your way to West Central Minnesota before October 1st. Please join us on Thursday night 5-7pm central or on Facebook Live for my artist talk about the show! In other news, I submitted an application to a feminist artist group which I should learn either way about my submission by the end of this month. I’ve started working on another fellowship application, still a far cry from my 10 rejections yet this year… gotta keep finding those opportunities to be turned away. I submitted my interest in providing artwork for one of my favorite academic journals cross your fingers for me, that they would like to feature some of my work! I’d love to have a painting serve as the cover of a book so… if you are a writer with shared interests, keep me in mind! Heading into a couple of weeks of down time/vacation! Wahoo.

Questions to ponder

What ordinary event has made you stop and marvel? 
What are you wondering about?
How are you centering care for your community during this pandemic? 
What small parts make up a larger whole in your life? 

Thanks for journeying with me. I hope, as always, that you take what you need and leave the rest for someone else, or for another time. 

-KCF

PS: There are many ways to support this work, reading, discussing, responding, sharing and contributing. Thank you to my six monthly subscribers, I would love to have an even 10 by the end of 2022, with any size contribution, your support helps keep this work going. I appreciate all forms of support and am grateful you are here.