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I’ve just published my 20th Ask Isabel column. I’m still having fun.
Ask Isabel: God and infinity and eternity, oh my!
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Joy and I went to my mom’s in SoCal for the long weekend, and before plans had even taken shape, all three of us said, “Let’s go to Luna Luna!”
Luna Luna was a combination art extravaganza and amusement park, conceived by André Heller and created by an incredible roster of artists: Sonia Delaunay, Keith Haring, David Hockney, Salvador Dali, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kenny Scharf, Rebecca Horn, Roy Liechtenstein, Georg Baselitz, and many others. Heller asked them if they wanted to create an art amusement park, and they said YES. It opened in Hamburg in 1987, ran for six weeks, and then . . . disappeared. The plans to go on to more cities fell through, and there was nothing to do but pack it all up into 44 shipping containers.
There was a documentary at the time, and these artists weren’t exactly obscure, yet it was all but forgotten. Several years ago, after pulling together a team that crucially included Drake as a funder, Heller and his son brought the pieces out of storage. A small number of them are resurrected in Los Angeles, and even though you can’t go on the rides, it really feels like an amusement park, not a gallery. After this run ends in May, Luna Luna will go to New York. Maybe one day kids will be able to ride the Keith Haring carousel and a classical violinist will once again perform with a professional flatulist in Manfred Deix’s Palace of the Winds (fart jokes were apparently even more amusing to 18th-century Austrian adults, including Mozart, than they are to 21st-century US American fourth graders).
No one need wait for another of Luna Luna’s features, however: André Heller’s Wedding Chapel. “Do you want to get married?” I joked to Joy. “Yes!” she said, sincerely, and soon we were standing before a very sweet celebrant, who took the time to ask how long we’d been together and other details of our lives, sighing sympathetically when we said our first wedding wasn’t recognized by the law. Then we picked up bouquets and I put on a top hat. Joy already had her Flying Spaghetti Monster baseball cap, and I thought that it introduced a key spiritual element, so I urged her to stick with it rather than take one of the top hats or veils the chapel offered. We re-exchanged rings and kissed. My mom video’d the whole thing, and the people gathered around cheered, while one impresario rang a bell and another took our photo. It was fun and funny and lighthearted and art-infused, just like our life together. And to look into my wife’s eyes as she was asked if she would “venture an adventure through galaxies of love” with me, and to have her gaze back as she said that she would–that was a sacred moment I will always remember.
We were married in the eyes of our family and church in 2005, and again in 2008 when the state of California opened its eyes. So now we have our third marriage certificate. It’s good to revisit our decision now and then and remind ourselves that we would marry each other all over again.
I didn’t realize until after I’d drawn this that the location has a name very similar to a name in our family, the branch that came to the US from Lebanon.
I was 40 before I heard the term “executive function,” when a parent at church said her child was getting some coaching in that area: the cluster of cognitive functions, such as working memory and emotional regulation, that make planning, problem-solving, and time management possible. Like many, probably most, people who got that far in life while regularly misplacing objects, forgetting any appointment that wasn’t written down and some that were, underestimating the time tasks would take, and overestimating the time I had in my day, I had a lot of shame and internalized criticism about these difficulties. In a shabby little corner of my mind, I even thought it was indulgent to consult a coach instead of just sucking it up and doing what most other people seemed to manage on their own.
Another ten years along, I had managed to shed a lot of that “just do it” nonsense. Around the same time, I considered that I might have ADHD; discovered that I didn’t tick the necessary diagnostic boxes; but also learned that a lot of the advice that ADHD-wise experts give was useful to me also. It seemed to fit the way I thought and the difficulties I had. (I distinguish between these experts and the people who just give supremely unhelpful advice like “Have you tried writing things down?,” the psychological equivalent of tech help that asks you if your computer is plugged in.) It occurred to me that if there were people who helped children and teens develop their executive functions, there might be coaches for adults, too. There are, and they do often work with people with ADHD–but they don’t care if you have the diagnosis. Presumably they have also noticed that the approaches that help folks with ADHD help a lot of us who live on some point of the spectrum between Diagnosably Neurodivergent and Textbook Neurotypical, if the latter exists.
The approach of sabbatical is a time to reflect: What would I like to do differently in my ministry, or do more, or do less? What do I want to learn during this time that could help me accomplish that change? One theme that emerged from my reflections was: I’d like it not to be quite so hard. Or rather, I’d like the hard parts of ministry to be the hard parts: staying present with people in times of grief and uncertainty. Crafting worship that is engaging and deep. Strategizing how to help a community adapt to cultural changes like a global pandemic, and respond courageously to threats to democracy. I wanted to be able to put more energy into those aspects of ministry, and not have it sapped by searching for files that were sitting right there yesterday, damn it or scrambling to meet a deadline I had forgotten about until it was upon me. I decided that sabbatical would be a good time to see whether some executive function coaching could make what was easy for some people easier for me. It sure didn’t feel like something I could squeeze in to my work week.
The only down side of getting my coaching during sabbatical was that maybe, lacking the daily influx of emails, meetings, etc., I would not have enough material to work with. No fear. Within a month I had plenty of leisure-time examples of executive dysfunction to analyze with a coach. I began meeting with Kelly in August. And it’s a profound relief to talk about these things with someone who understands “I wrote it on my to-do list, but then I was scared to look at my to-do list,” and who can help me come up with ways to overcome that fear: ways that actually work, not for other people but for me. Just like in sports, the coach can’t do the work for you, but a good one can help focus your attention on what will make the biggest difference between today’s training session and the next one.
I don’t have any illusions that I will be an organizational genius by January. These functions may always require particular attention to run smoothly. But I have some hope that they can run smoothly, most of the time, if I keep working on them–and that’s something I haven’t felt in many, many years.
I hope you’ll check out my new column, Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed
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Content warning: image of a grief-stricken child
This is as done as it’s going to get–I think I’m better off starting from scratch if I want to improve it. But the making of it has been painful and beneficial. I am trying, over and over, to embrace my art as a spiritual practice and only secondarily concern myself with the physical artifact that results.
The subject is a child whose name I don’t know, who came to this Gaza hospital a couple of weeks ago when the refugee camp that is her home was bombed. Next to her gaze, and the so-adult expressiveness of her hands, it’s the little details of normal life that wring my heart (as normal as life in a refugee camp can be said to be). Someone helped pull that Minnie Mouse shirt over her head. Someone pulled her hair into a ponytail with that white elastic. Is that person’s blood on her shirt now? Is that person alive? Is she alive?–an ambulance just outside the hospital has been bombed since, and the lack of fuel is turning Al-Shifa into a “mass grave,” although a rumor that a group of Israeli doctors actually called for the hospital to be bombed seems to be sheer invention. (I found reports about it, but searching for the “Israeli news site” they claim to be citing, and the name of the group they claim is doing this, turns up nothing. “The truth is the first casualty of war”; read with care.) 11/7/23, ETA: I saw the same story with full citations here, thanks to Jewish Voice for Peace. At this writing, over 90 doctors have signed the letter. Utterly sickening.
I will never know her story. I just know that I hope neither I nor anyone I love ever has to look upon whatever horror her eyes are seeing.
Yesterday the fifth Ask Isabel column hit the email inboxes. It’s getting more attention: more subscribers, more readers, and the first Like and comment!
This week’s column asks whether God matters.
You can see all of the columns here, and of course, subscribe (it’s free and spam-free) and also submit a question if you are so moved.
I’m really enjoying delving into the many questions people have. Clearly, even for people who aren’t religious and don’t think much about spiritual matters, these issues make themselves felt: via the wider community, in conversations (and sometimes conflicts) with family and co-workers and friends and neighbors, in chance encounters, through memories of communities that were once important to them. It’s an education just to hear what people are thinking about.
Which will it be?
Something big has taken up residence in our garage.
I really love Halloween, and in my neighborhood, it’s the occasion for the year’s best block party. Most of the businesses on the commercial street, Cortland Avenue, stay open late and post someone out front to give out candy or, in the case of The Good Life grocery store, apples. Some turn their spaces into haunted houses. Everyone strolls up and down, enjoying each other’s costumes. Many of the nearest residences go all-out too, with fog machines, or in one case, a multistory haunted house that incorporates their backyard treehouse and ends with freshly-made cotton candy for all who want it. I repeat, they own a cotton candy machine. That is a serious investment in neighborhood joy. Another is made by the couple who always project The Nightmare Before Christmas onto the wall of the house next door all evening. They don’t stay inside, but sit out on their front walk, admiring everyone’s costumes and giving out full-size candy bars.
The library always has something great going on such as activities for little kids or a jazz band on their steps. They already have this gorgeous display inside, “Halloween on Bernal Hill,” complete with the iconic swing that’s in the hilltop park.
This neighborhood-wide party is a consolation for the fact that even if we decorate the house and turn our lights on, we won’t get more than a couple of kids trick-or-treating. We are midway down a steep hill, and I think almost everyone squints along the block and decides it’s not worth the climb. School-age kids do go from door to door, but the little ones don’t do anything but Cortland, and we always go early to see them, then home for dinner and a quiet evening.
This year, if anyone does come to the door, Joy will have to greet them, as starting at 6:30, I’ll be the featured speaker in a Tuesday Talk by my friend Jess. She hosts these on Zoom, starting off each one with a presentation by a friend on whatever is their area of expertise. I am going to offer several provocative statements on religion, then do Q&A. It’ll be so much fun to meet her friends.
For Halloween, I am going as Weird Barbie. I think that aside from being a fun costume, it presents opportunities for a family ensemble. But no one in this family has said, “Oh, I’ll be Ken” or “Allan” or “Stereotypical Barbie.” Humph. Of course, they haven’t seen the movie.
I tried to sell Munchkin on Barbenheimer when there was a Barbenheimer Day during her school’s recent Spirit Week. Obviously the intent was for students to be able to dress as Oppenheimer or Barbie, but wouldn’t going as both at once have been awesome?: pink outfit, fedora, tie, pipe? I thought of that for myself, but then my hairdresser, in the midst of greening my hair, suggested Weird Barbie, which I think shows a great sense of humor about her own artistry. Maybe next time I’ll ask her for this ‘do.
Just try to find a fedora in a Goodwill, anyway, much less a pipe. Whereas I found a hot-pink dress immediately. I still have some shopping to do, having tried on sparkly silver sneakers but regretfully returned them to the shelf because they were a full size too big. I won’t be going door-to-door for two hours as in my youth, but still, just walking up the hill and up and down the few blocks of Cortland will raise blisters in the wrong shoes.
The key items are in place, though: pink dress, to which I’ll sew patches; hair gel whose packaging promises it can raise spikes; and face paint for the all-important marker makeup. I need temporary hair color that I couldn’t find at the pharmacy, and, I now realize, black eyeliner I should’ve picked up as long as I was there, but that’s easily acquired. Heaven help me; I haven’t put on eyeliner since I was a teenager; but I’m sure I’ll remember how.
Everything else–tights, shoes–could be managed with things I already own. I can’t do a split, unfortunately, and won’t be able to by Tuesday or by Halloween 2027, for that matter. If you don’t know why this is significant, watch the movie already. It’s really good!
Now, to decorate the house. It’s going to be minimal, because the painters will be coming on the 31st to power-wash the whole front of the house, and decorating our entryway as we have done in the past is out of the question. I have a plan, though. Pictures to follow, if we follow through.
I hope you’ll check out my new column, Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed
To receive it via email each Tuesday, subscribe for free!
Sabbatical Activity No. Umpty-Ump is, of course, making art. I’ve been doing art almost every day, which is a major accomplishment.
A lot of what I’ve been working on is nothing I want to show yet: more explorations of the Tower of Babel and several themes that cluster around it. I’m working on one right now that uses the names of God in several dozen languages, and I think I’m likely to keep exploring that direction for a few pages of the sketchbook.
I’m annoyed at myself right now because I’ve had the below piece ready to submit to the Tiny Show (at Studio Gallery, early November to late December) for weeks, and was holding off only until I finished another piece that fit the dimensions, thinking I’d send them at the same time. But I finished that piece and didn’t like it–I don’t think I can make it work at this scale–and so I finally photographed this, frame and all, and submitted it.
Except that the deadline was not the 25th, like I had in my head, but the 20th. How old was I when I learned that I could not trust the dates I held in my head? About 12. Oh well. My chances of its being accepted were slim anyway; they didn’t want the ginkgo piece, citing too much similarity to other things they had already accepted for the show, and to my eye, anyway, the two pieces have a lot in common. But I really like them both, and that makes me happy.
I would like to show my art, but as every artist knows, it’s a whole other job to submit it, and takes a lot of time and effort that I’d rather put into half a dozen other things, including making art. I will renew my lapsed membership in a local art network and keep an eye out for opportunities, though. I love Elizabeth Gilbert’s practice of responding to rejections by immediately sending the piece right back out (just read about this in Big Magic, which I read for class), but for that you need to have a list of potential galleries.
I also have an idea for a mural in my neighborhood, on a wall that really wants something. I feel like I shouldn’t describe it here because the theme is directly related to the business in the building, and I haven’t talked to the owner yet. That’s the biggest “if” to actually making it happen; both the owner of the business and the owner of the building have to want it (I’m pretty sure they aren’t the same person). Once I’ve sketched a few ideas to my more-or-less satisfaction, I’ll take them and some other paintings that show what I can do, and go talk to the business owner.
So, back to drawing.
I hope you’ll check out my new column, Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed
To receive it via email each Tuesday, subscribe for free!
A photo essay
The only thing a professional hair stylist has ever done to my hair is cut it . . . until today.
Many thanks to Wren at Native Hair SF! She’s an artist and just such a lovely person.
I hope you’ll check out my new column,
Ask Isabel: Advice for the Spiritually Perplexed or Vexed
Sermons in Stones 
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