Kim Abeles Essay
#33 Lita Albuquerque (Visiting Painting)
#34 Kim Abeles (Response painting)
Why did I remember one red dot, rather than seven, and a slight one that drifts back toward the distance? That one red dot.
I recollected, many times over, transformed into scores of gold leaf spots. How could I have missed the rest of those red dots?
My distractions are aging, my mother at 92, a zealousness for projects that make for a lot of work, and dishes in the sink that won’t disappear. My distraction now, at this moment, is one of the scrappy republican debates that I can hear in the background like a schoolyard fight.
I fly too fast and don’t remember much of where I was before this moment. The hummingbird moves her wings eighty times a second and like me, she can move backwards. The search for nectar is a hunger and I fly too fast.
But the bird is in a confined compartment, a satin-lined casket, and melancholia stalks her every day of her life. There is no nectar in those flowers but a memory of the hummingbird’s feast.
At a certain age, let’s say 60, everyone starts dying at a steady pace. Each death reminds us how lucky we are to have-another-day. Each passing friend continues to watch us, prodding us to quit whining over our failures and prompting us to keep trying since that’s where faith is located.
So at some point, seven or nearly eight dots give way to 120 gold spots, maybe stars, or probably angels.