Papaya Mistake?

I may have made a mistake. I'm not sure yet. I'm here at art school in Barcelona, and I kept missing class because of depression, paranoia, etc. So when it came time to present a work of art related to our personal identity, I decided to drop another papaya, only this time as performance art, in a gallery/classroom. I dropped the papaya from about 8 feet up, so it did not break completely. I spoke some of the details of the accident and its aftermath. I explained that this was less a presentation of art and more a necessary communication from me to them, in hopes of dissipating my fears so that I could come to class.

They all critiqued it as a work of art - "you should have just dropped the papaya and not said anything" "you should have smeared the papaya guts all over yourself" "this is NOT a place for art therapy, this is a place for art, and your 'performance' doesn't belong" "I didn't want all those details" "I wanted more details".....and so on. It degenerated into me shouting that I HAD prepared another, completely impersonal piece, but that I needed to share this as a human being, not as 'an artist'.

So it wasn't my most successful venture.

Papaya

I dropped a papaya
off the roof
to watch it smash on the ground.

Then I took lots of close-up pictures of the carcass
Why?

The car accident was an act of destruction
in which I feel I was forced to participate
I was not the author of those moments,
nor an arbiter of the physics
mass
velocity
vector force of metal on flesh
I was not acting deliberately or willfully in any way
I can't even remember what happened

It has left me
unmoored,
demolished,
furious.
It has turned my skin inside out.

I DECIDED to drop the papaya,
I carried it up the stairs,
I opened the door,
I held it out over empty space, and
I dropped it.

CRASH

I documented it myself
the pulp oozing out of the rind
the juice flowing into the grass
no police or coroners necessary.

And I cleaned it up.

Finished.

PARASITES OF THE MIND: PTSD Healing: What are the Causes of PTSD?

PARASITES OF THE MIND: PTSD Healing: What are the Causes of PTSD?

Bad (North) America

I am furious with Ronald Reagan, with Oliver North, with both George Bushes, and, yes, with Bill Clinton. US intervention in Central America and all over the world is perceived here in Nicaragua as imperial arrogance.

It doesn’t matter that I tried to educate my schoolmates about the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s, that I marched against the first Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq, that I have worked and voted in favor of greater democracy and self-determination. It doesn’t matter that there are thousands of Americans here working in public service, and that some of them have been here since the Sandinista revolution.

When something bad happens I’m immediately swept into the Ugly American category, no questions asked. Jessica doesn’t exist as an individual person, she’s just another one of those selfish gringos who thinks she can get away with anything, who thinks that brown people don’t matter. Decades of poison.

And this is only Nicaragua – think about Pakistan.

This experience of being treated with derision and hate gives me some idea of how much work President Obama, the US government, and the American people have ahead of us before people in other countries start to think well of us again.

(my photo of a Spanish-speaking worker preparing to cover a Shepard Fairey mural of President Obama on a wall in Washington DC.)

House Arrest

the idea is to keep me a semi-liberated prisoner,
prevented from leaving the country,
when actually I don’t want to leave the house.
I’m a prisoner inside my own head,
captive of grief and self-torment,
paranoid that every person outside will spit on me.

The cop who took my garland came back later.

“These tragedies happen all the time in Nicaragua
It was an accident,
You shouldn’t feel so terrible
It wasn’t your intention to hurt anyone
Even tho they are still going to try to lock you up for several years.
Do you want to read my Bible?
Is Jesus your Savior?

Look, thank you for trying to help, I appreciate your kind words.
I’m Jewish, and sort of Buddhist, but not really religious,
and I’m too distraught right now to contemplate any evangelical attempts.
They kind of make me feel ambushed
But thank you for your support.

(recycled throne by Otto Castillo)

Heavy Mo/u/rning

Sitting alone in the cell, on the top bunk,
Looking at the blood on my clothes
Out out damn spot!
Rrrrrrip.
Rrrrrrrippp.
I tear the t-shirt first
Then the jeans
I tie them end-to-end,
Weaving in strips of a Vogue magazine someone brought for me.
(here! You killed 2 people and you’re in jail! How about some expensive fashion to cheer you up?)
a policeman checking on me thought I was preparing to hang myself.
Was I?
I don’t know.

I told him I was making decorations for the cell.
I wanted time to think.
He took my garland away.
Was that for my protection, or his?
The police had ignored or overruled 2 medical reports saying I needed urgent psychiatric attention
In their determination to keep me in this cell,
so I doubt they would want anyone to know I was actively trying to hurt myself,
or that I was loca enough to make decorations out of evidence

(mixed media painting/collage by Jessica Hirst)