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Sunday June 25, 2000 "I am particularly interested in the things people leave behind by force of circumstance; things which embody very specific memories and experiences, yet have wider social and cultural resonance." Penny Siopis
Church on the back road
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losing Clarence My day starts by looking for a slip for my mom. Hers are still in the dresser she moved. All my skirts are lined, I tell her. All two of them. So I don't need slips and so can't find my one slip. I try to get her to wear my black skirt (lined of course). But it needs to be longer so she can wear knee hose instead of pantyhose. So she wears pants to church instead. Everyone wears pants to church, I'll bet. Especially in Austin. Their friends have picked a church and want them to come to early services. We are delighted, of course, that they are already building their own social life even without a home. After dealing with the missing slip, I find my dad has backed the van and trailer (as yet unloaded) into the street and is trying to unhook the trailer to drive his van to church. Loaded, it's hard to do. I get him a spare key for my Honda and he starts it and takes off, quickly adapting to the gears although it's been a while since he's driven a standard. Good old Dad. I start my Sunday with newspapers and coffee. I'm sure the parents are being introduced as guests at a service and meeting new people. I watch Fred Astaire dance on the ceiling in 'Royal Wedding.' When Dad and Mom are back from church, Dad and I go to the in-laws to start the Buick. It's been in their garage over a month without being started. We try to call before we go, but no one answers. That's a little worrisome but I figure that my mother-in-law is outside. My father-in-law can barely hear. So we just go over there and she comes out and I can hear my father-in-law's tapes booming from inside and, yes, she was outside a few moments before. She opens the garage door and we crank the Buick and it turns over straightaway. We back it out and let it run a bit and talk to them. Then we put it back into the garage. Maybe the Buick can go home soon. I give my parents some little jobs. Dad is in charge of taking food scraps and coffee grounds to the compost pile. Mom is assigned to make some tuna salad when I notice we have all the ingredients. I want them to rest but not be too idle. I expect my mother to make the tuna salad tomorrow but she gets after it right away. I decide to unload this last stuff tomorrow, somewhat early in the morning rather than in the heat. FFP and I attend a reception at The Austin Museum of Art. It is called 'Liberated Voices' and it displays work from South African artists since the end of apartheid. One of the artists, Samson Mnisi, discusses all the art. He is young. Maybe thirty. He says that he was involved in the struggle to end apartheid. Then he saw that they were 'going to get a raw deal' so he became a criminal. He was used to guns and running from the police. But he tired of it. "Crime isn't intellectually stimulating and I didn't like my friends." His reaction to some of the other artists is interesting, particularly the white ones. He likes Claudette Schreuders who carves wooden figures from her memories. He is obviously quite negative about Penny Siopis although I find her found object display (of things she obtained when cleaning out at her mother's house) fascinating. And revealing. I could make such an art work from what I've seen the last few days of my parents' things. We noticed sometime today that Clarence had escaped. Crawled out of the plastic milk crate. We laugh. We aren't too upset. Still, Dad puts out some dog food and hopes to entice him back. Home again, Mom and Dad are entertaining their friends, showing them the backyard and getting the treatment from our mosquitoes. We all go to Chili's for some drinks and food. The Chili's in our neighborhood has been there for quite a while, but this is our first visit. I'm feeling very weary when we get home. We all watch part of 'Giant' on one of the movie channels until each of us drops off to bed.
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