The Isolation Journals - Day 100

Well this is it.  We have arrived at day 100 of this project, Suleika Jaouad's The Isolation Journals.  If you would have told me 100 days ago that I would show up and write something every single day for 100 days, I would have been skeptical.  If you would have told me 100 days ago that our country would be in worse shape than ever regarding the virus that prompted this project in the first place, and that we are in for many more months of fear and uncertainty and, well, isolation, I might have pulled an Iowa and stuck my head in the oven.  Except my oven is electric.

Fortunately, the project is not truly ending today.  There will be weekly prompts coming soon.  I'm looking forward to shifting my daily writing energies towards my own creative efforts, or even taking a break altogether for a few days.

Prompt:  Reflect on all the colors that make up your emotional palette—from the brightest neons to the drabbest grays. Examine the different hues and shades that occur each morning, midday, afternoon and evening. Write about how they’re playing out on a canvas, how they work together to make each day a painting of its own.

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Will it be a Rothko day or a Mondrian day?  

Mark Rothko Untitled (Black on Grey), 1970

Piet Mondrian Composition with Red, Blue, and Yellow, 1930

Yes, that's what I ask myself each morning as I get out of bed.  Consciously.  Aloud.

And then I get a whiffle ball bat, stand it on the floor and place my forehead on the handle, spin around a few times, close my eyes, and stagger towards the wall.  Whichever art.com reproduction I slam into dictates my emotional spectrum for the day.

No, I kid.  But if I was serious, would you actually be surprised?  I do a lot of weird shit, why shouldn't that be part of it?

Anyway, that should give you a sense of the emotional range I'm working with here.  Some days are more colorful and clearly delineated than others, but the palette is always somewhat limited.

A Mondrian day might go something like this:  I get out of bed feeling pretty good, so maybe a yellow square.  Then I walk the dog and he has a terrifying outburst when another human enters the stairwell or a mail truck drives by on the street and because I'm PMS'ing, I just can't even.  Red square.  

After the walk is out of the way, I pass through several flat white squares where I'm going through the motions of the day with a neutral affect.  Then I start thinking about what a skidmark the world is at the moment and get lost in a boundless blue square.  Eventually, maybe the cat does something hilarious or I make a really bitchin' peanut butter and apple sammich for lunch, and I find myself in a blip of yellow square.  After that, it's back to flat white until something external provokes me.

A Rothko day goes like this:  We both slept poorly, and wake up more tired than when we went to bed.  I get up, but only because I'm tired of staring at the ceiling and I'm starving and the dog needs to go out.  I drag myself through the motions of life, slogging through a vast, muted gray swath.  We don't exchange more than two words all day.  Charlie acts like a dick on his walk, and I can tell that Andy is pissed about whatever sad attempt I've made at putting dinner on the table.  I slip into black.  

I get in bed at 8:00 and read until I fall asleep with a book on my face, and have night terrors of a Heironymus Bosch palette (the 3rd panel of The Garden of Earthly Delights - I hate to be that guy, but if you haven't seen it in person, you. haven't really seen it.  Sweet Jesus it's disturbing.)

Heironymus Bosch The Garden of Earthly Delights, 1495-1505