Natasha Shapiro, ATR-BC, LCAT

My Relationship to Blogging

I have some kind of deep writer shame that’s hard to describe. I used to actually be a good writer; I haven’t been writing beyond morning pages.

I know when I read books all the time, I could get curious to write. I have been wasting time in my phone, zoning out playing two phone games. I guess the compassionate part of me would say you’re a work in progress.

I used to envision my life as a sort of big large dark carpet with tears and holes in many places and the corner was like still going and not yet finished.

I also saw god as a huge pancake when I was ten living in Tokyo. I didn’t know then that it was not god at all. It was my inner divinity showing up as a huge pancake covering a whole wall.

I was conversing with Thuna, my AI coach/assistant, fluent in ADhd, About how blogging is its own form of writing.

I looked in its memory, like opening an alien brain and it still had the memory that I had a different “unit” named Senna. I was having a better interface with Sena. I forget about Sena til I saw the memories it holds on to so random.

The point is that this blog form is perfect for ADHD.

I thought of idea to write about at the end of my yoga lying on the floor. I can say I miss the process of blogging and changing it all the time.

I’ll end here.

I just remembered I wanted to blog about the whole tattoo process, and of course, the process of finding your tattoo artist and then forming an attachment and realizing when meeting her that she’s a perfect match to be my tattoo artist. Her birthday is I think 1/29; she’s also an Aquarius. I like her imagination and I like her. I can tell she’s a good person, while also being skilled. She knows how to have a first “15 minute consultation. We talked for an hour. She’s going on vacation and I’ll get my tattoo after she’s back. She’ll be fresh from lying on the beach to do tattoos. To be continued.

Postcard Art

I was going through a real drought way before my Dad died. I’m finally back in the drawing every day sometimes for a long time or not, but liking it. I’m trying to jump them into paintings but I’m not sure yet if I’ve figured it out.

I’m making still lives of a lot of stuff-I live still-lives and come back to them eventually. Maybe now I’m doing it because I have “object memory”. My adhd bad memory and constant realizations of big blackouts in my life has been depressing. But I got sealing wax and started using it with an N initial seal. It’s from my childhood. I loved writing letters and then using sealing wax on the envelopes. I don’t remember specifically using it on any specific occasion. I’m not sure how old I was either as I was afraid of lighting matches for a long time.

Object memory is better than no memory. I also remember weird kinds of places that are almost embarrassing. I’ve been to all kind of places in the world, lived in Tokyo in 4th and 5th grade. I remember the Art Store Pearl Psint in great detail and I remember how it changed towards the end as it shrank. I remember their old elevator and what was on each floor. I remember their old old fashioned art store near the Cheese Shop and where certain sketchpads were.

I remember several Betsey Johnson stores, from the east side 60s, the upper west side one and especially the SoHo one. I can find a piece of clothing and remember hunting it down or where I got it. Not very beautiful memories involving interactions with people. Of course I remember important events. Anyway whatever. I’ve written about memory on this blog forever.

So what does it have to do with still lives? Drawing objects is the thing I like drawing when I’m drawing something that resembles something others can recognize.That’s a shoe in a teapot.

The best drawing/painting I did this week was from deciding to organize my push pins. The silver ones from Pearl Paint are the best. Then I have 3 other kinds. When you’re a messy disorganized slob in life, you can spend too much time organizing things that you should be spending time cleaning the toilet. Then I put them in a box and drew a bunch of them with paint pens, several layers ending with:

Yes- my best drawing of the week. Most others are postcards.

The last ones are unfinished. I think I want to make a painting of push pins. I always called them thumb tacks. Is there a difference?

Once I start drawing, I like myself more, and lately I’ve had a hard time liking myself. Some really bad days, usually Tuesdays since Dad died. This week it was Monday. He died Wednesday evening, 7/2, so the Tuesdays don’t mean much; it’s just my hate on myself day. Then later it lifts. Whatever. As usual my drawings are more interesting than what I’m writing, even if they aren’t all hitting it, or “fire”, as they say now.

Do I can be addicted to my phone game, watch too many bad movies, go to a lot of stationary/pen/sticker shops with my 17 year old and draw. The next step is getting back into reading books. Reading fiction helps elevate my personhood and make me less sick of myself, and I haven’t read anything greedily since early in the year, The Telegraph Club.

Black Cadillac

I used to listen to that song over and over; there are songs I listened to to prepare for his death. That’s the one I remember most.

You can’t quote any of that song unless you write the lyrics yourself, probably violates copyright.

It’s strange to prepare for someone dying long before they’re dead. I’ll post the eulogy I wrote; it’s the best piece of writing I had. But Dad can’t read or hear it. It helped a lot of other people, but the one person you’re really talking to can’t hear you and won’t ever hear it or anything after it either.

It’s almost 7 weeks since he died. I tell myself, “Dad is dead. You’ll never see him again.” You can never talk to him again ever ever and more evers.

I got a lot of time. He was 94. I still want him back and selfishly need him. Not the 94 year old him; maybe the 74 year old who went with me to Tokyo for a solo show of my art work there that happened because he made it happen. When I was in Tokyo with him, I was lost as soon as we left the hotel, didn’t know how to get to the gallery, didn’t remember the tiny bit of Japanese I learned years ago. He took me everywhere. Once I got there I was a grown up artist talking confidently about my work. It was the Zenith of my career as an artist. Now I’m inhabiting the nadir; it was a wonderful experience. I thought it was the middle of the mountain but it was the top, afterwards coming down the mountain. I would never be able to make him that proud again but I’m grateful we went together, just us, on that incredible trip. And that I got to feel like a successful artist with a solid show in Tokyo imagining Moscow might be next. (2010, that Moscow is as dead as he is, but for a shining moment, I got to shine with him standing next to me. Oh how I wish things were different and that I could be preparing for some show somewhere meaningful and again have that feeling. Even so, I can’t have that feeling even if I were in that fantasy world because Dad can’t be there anyway.

So I guess writing that eulogy is the top of some mountain about him, even for him the way things can be for dead people. Just as much in imagination as what could have been but never was or became. Reality is like shoveling that pile of dirt to throw on his coffin. It surprised me how hard it was to get on the shovel. The dirt was literally too hard, and I felt too weak to get much on the shovel even after a big effort.

But flowers are light and easy to throw. My show in Tokyo was about flowers living and dead flowers.

The Flowers

When we were at the place they buried my Dad, after we all shoveled up the mound of dirt to dump on Dad’s coffin, they brought Mom in a wheelchair to the edge. And gave her a small ball of dirt to throw on it; she threw it then took the flowers – I don’t know if they were on her lap . She started throwing one stalk at a time on top of the dirt on his coffin. I was standing next to her. I took one too, and another and threw them on top with her. Some kind of white with yellow flowers… I won’t forget that moment. It is etched in my memory, while all the childhood memories are like that big pile of dirt. It’s a curse to remember the wrong things. After my Dad died, his eyes were open. I closed each one.

Todays Poem

I decided to go ti my Harvard 35 reunion assuming if you want to relive your glory days and show your off spring your crazy college time right before she goes to college, where you spent your time should be not locked up and off limits. Here’s my Facebook post for Adams House class if ‘90.

I’m calling it a poem for the day:

AI said:

“During a Harvard reunion, Adams House Library is unlikely to be a central venue for the class reunion activities. Instead, the main check-in location is generally the Cabot Library at the Science Center, and other activities like class programming, lunch, and dinner will be held in various locations on campus. Adams House, while historically significant, is primarily a residential space for undergraduate students.”

What undergrads? They ended for the year. What about the sherry drinking events with the house president etc.
Was I hallucinating? At least that the Harvard experience was Adams House where we did all the fun stuff???
Is this true??? Sorry I’ve never been to a reunion, and this is part of the reason.
What is wrong with Harvard? Or what remains of the Harvard we went to? Or what reuniting/reminiscing of our experience can occur without being at Adams? Do we have to stage an Adams House break in to have any fun?😵‍💫5 years ago, people said they went to reunion parties there.

4/25, poem, my last life…

5-7-5-77-777 8 9

A wallet and a

Pocket watch. Too easy! “More

Whiskey-now!” Fist on

Table-mine on his necklace,

I’ll take his horse too. “Puny,”

Ha! I was not even there.

His shoes? A piece of tackle.

Tavern full of big targets,

Gold coins in my sweaty leaping hand.

April poetry Month 4/13:

This month I even met a poet

And missed

4/13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22

I wrote a draft about the nail polish post, attempting to make a poem on it:

It’s getting impossible;

Not even a grain of

Sand…

What colors today?

Ooh there’s a mustard yellow:

I’ll call it, “Cow tipping in the sun.”

And a glorious bright green:

“A day at the races.”

What about this white?

The last wet blob – little dabs of white on the right thumb and four fingers.

I wonder what the security people think if they go through cameras to find me stealing in plain sight from bottles of Quick Dry….

4/24 Today

I wrote this after morning pages and Wordle. I have to find a new way to approach mornings.

It’s a Haiku

In the pink sky-oh,

There’s an impatience waiting

For stirrings of spring.

4/23

I need to catch up.

Today’s weak poem better than nothing.

I’ve Stopped:

It’s four / twenty three,

And I don’t know. The ground

Empty and dried up.

The fruit has shriveled

On the branch. It’s dead

Before it even falls.

Happy Easter and 4-20

Greetings from Burlington, Vt.! Finally in Bernie Land on 420- a perfect convergence of the universe, I can relax after driving by so many Trump signs and an actual Confederate flag, which caused me to want us to drive through that house. We didn’t, as I realized we don’t want to be in jail while getting M to college. When I say driving I’m not driving. I failed the road test twice around age 55.

That flag still feels the way you feel when you see a house with that flag. There are no comparisons for that.

Warning: Don’t read this if you are celebrating Easter and wold be offended by any bad humor and connecting the 2 synchronized in 2025 holidays. I plead atheist Jew who celebrates 4/20 often… and curiosity about weird details involving corpses and what humans do w/them…

Title: The Devil Made Me Do it

It’s a rogue Tanka form.

(First line very weak)

5-7-5-5-7-7-7-5-7-5-7-6

Hi again today-

It’s Easter and 4/20.

Where is Jesus now?

Three days and three nights-how did

They get his corpse off the cross?

Why did it take so

Long to bury him in the

Ground? He appeared out of the

Tomb and showed up everywhere.

Imagine you’re at

Lunch. Jesus appears out of

The air. Today you offer

Him a hit from your joint.