© DaniseCodekas, 2012
- “It is the glory and good of Art, That Art remains the one way possible Of speaking truths, to mouths like mine at least.”-ROBERT BROWNING, The Ring and the Book
There are reasons to live in a city. Nighttime is when I am able to connect with the energy of the city:when I can hear her speak to me.
Walking through the empty streets and alleys, you can see the true face of a city, late late at night. During the day, the harsh reality or the incredible beauty of a village or town is only a partial story of its inhabitants.
“The Cafe Terrace on the Place du Forum Arles at Night”(Van Gogh,1888)
Van Gogh was inspired by Arles, France. The cafe is still there, as I found out a few years ago. And the same starry nights, blanket the village on Fall nights. Van Gogh found inspiration in Arles, and love.
Walking alone, after all clubs and stores have closed for the night, I am able to smell, observe and gain a perspective, which adds to my thoughts and feelings about the mortar and brick siren, men are seduced by and to, for millennia, in many cases.
Remembering the hundreds of cities passed,these last 6 months, of my life, I wonder if one of them held all that I needed? Most times, you move to a city because there is beauty, culture, art and inspiration to do your work. Denver, has delivered with its power, Architecture, cannily creative people, and its location in one of the most incredible, mountain kingdoms, on Earth, that all compel and inspire me to write.
“The great artist when he comes, uses everything that has been discovered or known about his art up to that point, being able to accept or reject in a time so short it seems that the knowledge was born with him, rather than that he takes instantly what it takes the ordinary man a lifetime to know, and then the great artist goes beyond what has been done or known and makes something of his own.”-ERNEST HEMINGWAY, Death in the Afternoon
Struck by the incredible homes and mansions, I walk past daily, in a neighborhood which is famous for its famous residents of the past, I wonder what is my new standard to judge a city and neighborhood by, as it has been more than 20 years that I have lived in a large, thousands of humans, per sq. mile city.
At night, like tonight, the silence is wonderful and the colors glistening off the city streets enhances the mystical quality of Denver, or any city, for that matter. Cold, yes, and safe in certain moments.
Remembering how many deserts and miles I drove through on my way here, Denver was not an easy city to arrive in my wagon, or horseback. It was, a long time ago, a place you really wanted to go because the arduous trip, without trains or planes, was long, dangerous and exhaustive.
Since arriving, the Subaru has received two citations for braving the wrath of tow-trucks and neighbors, who wanted it moved from street locations. In this neighborhood, there is a 2 hour parking limit. Which means, you are near businesses, lots of them.
Also, the first Tuesday or Wednesday of the month, from April to November, depending on the side of street you’re parked in, street cleaning converges to send vehicle owners scurrying for new parking slots until streets are clean.
The town has a lot of refuse in the streets and litter everywhere. Don’t think I have seen so much litter in a while. Surprised by the lack of garbage cans and the casual throw-it-in-the-street attitude, of Denverites. Why is that?
Denver seems to run pretty smooth. And, at night, crisp cold air, a little rain and a few cars illuminate its power, as a congregating place for some rather influential and creative individuals.
When I went looking for a new home, 5 months ago, I never thought I’d be here. It was on my list of places to explore, however, living, in the middle of a medium-sized metropolis, was not in the plan. A mountainside, lakeside or high-desert plateau was on the ephemeral agenda.
City, metropolis, downtown was not in the vocabulary for relocation. Now, it is and the universe, once again, proves to me, it has a sense of humor, it’s perfect agenda for my development, oh, and wait, an incredible energy and peace for my writing, which occupied the number 1 spot, for the other reason to stay, health.
My health and my writing are the two most important guides in choosing a place to live. Yes, beauty and peace are always in my field of life, however, if I am going to unpack the car and commit to an abode, I have to feel good physically, and I have to be able to write for long periods of time, peacefully. Got both in Denver.
“Perhaps there is no other way of reaching some understanding of being than through art? Writers themselves don't analyze what they do; to analyze would be to look down while crossing a canyon on a tightrope. To say this is not to mystify the process of writing but to make an image, out of the intense inner concentration, the writer must have to cross the chasms of the aleatory and make them the word's own, as an explorer plants a flag.” NADINE GORDIMER, Nobel Lecture, Dec. 7, 1991
Sure, my work hours are weird, and sometimes, like tonight, 3:37am does not seem that strange an hour to be writing, because by 5am, I will have finished whatever added words are whispering to me to bring them forth, into 3rd world dimensionality. My muse is asleep tonight, and my Sisyphus sits to my right.
Instead of rolling a stone up a hill in Hades, to only have it roll back to the bottom of said Hades’ hill, I move fingers across keyboards, relentlessly, until I am able to sleep. unlike, Prometheus who had to walk back down the hill, and roll the stone up again.
At least, I didn’t trick Hades into slipping on a pair of handcuffs, and then locked him in the closet for a while, making it impossible for anyone on earth to die. If you were chopped up in battle, you didn’t die.
Earth was in turmoil because of Sisyphus’s fun with Hades. He convinced his wife not to bury him, which meant he could not cross the river Styx, and convinced Persephone to send him back topside, so his wife could put a coin under his tongue, to pay for passage across the Styx. Of course, he partied on for a long time before Hades caught up with him.
“The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.”-Albert Camus
What I am doing is looking deeply into the heart of a city which is beginning to intrigue me. Will I be here for long? Don’t know, however, I have landed somewhere which is interesting and intriguing, surrounded by great, magnificent Nature.
The humans here are also thoughtful, imaginative and very direct, with me. Refreshing , they are. Healthy buggers, too. If we were in Santa Barbara or Lahaina, I could understand the great physical shapes which are all over Colorado. Constant reminder to move and enjoy the sunshine.
Speaking with a new acquaintance, this week, I mentioned that a decision I had was when I turn 70, and if I was still living alone, I would move to Rome. He asked my why was I waiting and my standard answer, for the past, has been because of a family member, who I needed to assist at bedside, when Hades comes to lead them on.
Thinking about that response, I realized I had changed my idea about my future Roman relocation.Of course, Italy and Rome will forever be a possibility, however, my reasoning for relocating changed somewhere along the 8000 mile roadsides I drove by this year.
Not in Rome or some other place, because, for now, this is what my psyche and soul need. This place, this latitude, this Mile High City. Unlike, my Greek-Cretan forbearers, I believe there is no more dreadful punishment than to live a life without love.
Futile and ceaseless labor seems to be the lot, of any artist ,as we pursue our craft, usually alone; our fascination with the creation; and, in the end, rolling the creation off the other side of the mountain, and hiking back down to begin a new sentence, a new design, a new, ephemeral idea which leads to birthing the unknown into creation.
“Whether it is the beautiful that brings to our hearts the love of truth and justice, or whether it is truth that teaches us how to find the beautiful in nature and how to love it, in either case art does a noble work. It drags out the soul from its everyday shell, and brings it under the spell of its own mysterious and wonderful power, so that a memory of this experience stays with the people, sustains them in their daily labors, and refines their minds.”--HELENA MODJESKA, "Women and the Stage," The World's Congress of Representative Women
