We Poor Mules

August 19, 2009 Waffle House, Statesboro, GA:

Man'm I exhausted. This job's hard work. Everyday save for maybe one per week is excruciatingly exhausting.
Yesterday was an "easy day" or what our bosses like to call a "day off". So Rosasharn and I had a slow morning of hotel check out, breakfasting, I stretched awhile. Then we drove four hours to Statesboro, GA, checked in to our new hotel, drove to our next job site and checked that out, then we drove back to our hotel and unloaded the contents of our entire box truck into the parking lot and reorganized all of the merchandise. This was heavy labor. We were working in the dark to avoid the day's heat, still our bodies were covered with sweat. I was being very careful not to do anything wrong on my back. By the time of our usual bedtimes we were still working. Rosasharn started feeling unwell-- faint and queasy. I guessed it was dehydration and got her to drink a lot of water. She felt better.
The Georgia heat's been hard on us even though we get to sleep in AC every night and we also get AC when we drive, but still it's been wearing us. I've been trying to drink a lot of water everyday. My goal is a gallon, but still my pee's dark-- must all be going out as sweat instead. So I've got to drink more. Rosasharn has been having the same problem.
We were hoping to finish organizing our inventory so we'd really have a day off the next day- our only day before having to work another week of 15 hour days. We just couldn't get it done.
We worked a little over an hour past our bedtimes before we quit, leaving the rest for the next day. We were delirius with exhaustion by then, but we were determined to swim in the pool. That was the reward we'd been looking forward to all day. We even changed our hotel reservation so we'd have a pool. And it's exercise is needed to limber our tired, stiff bodies up before we rest. So we changed into our suits and dove in.
It's right outside of our window. This hotel has a beautiful view.
I exerted a hard swim, pushed myself hard. Working on getting stronger. After we got out I did another half hour of stretching. It was going on three hours after my bedtime, but I'd already decided that if it comes to the point where I have to choose between sleeping and stretching 'cause of these long hours, I'll choose stretching cause it's way more restorative for the time it takes and it's the only way I can prevent a serious injury on this job.
I've been stretching both morning and night since I started this job. I spend all my spare time stretching. It's hardcore. Still I feel I'm gaining weight 'cause this road food is most I can get. It's getting my system all slugged down. I fight that by drinking coffee like I haven't in years. I drink coffee and "sweet tea" all the time. But that doesn't mean much since a lot of it's hotel coffee which is light as tea.
So anyway, I woke up today,--my "second" "day off"-- accidentally slept in 'till 8 am. My whole back was stiff as a tortoise's shell. My whole body all creaky. I couldn't walk straight. My mind's dull. I feel totally burnt.
So this is my "weekend". Still need to spend a few more hours in the Georgia heat finishing up on organizing the truck.
I am very unhappy today.
Joyless.

Rosasharn and I are hoping to get a lot done on the Bum Tour and debut the blog by the end of the day.
That's more work
but, as Rosasharn reminded me yesterday, the Bum Tour is work that makes all the rest of this worth it.

Our time is devoted to:
Work for money
Work for our bodily health
Work for our lives/spirit

There is no rest.

Driving is like play.

We get a kick out of driving a big truck and out of being the "lady truck drivers".

We joke a lot,
That's like play too.

So we play within our work.

Today I have to be creative when my mind is dried up and my body stripped from work.

There is no joy in my mind today. I just have to push through my obligations like a mule.


How can you make art when you're a joyless mule?

That's the problem with doing a real "Bum Tour". Us hoboes are too downtroden from work to get much art done well. The down trodden life is hard to report from the inside. So most of what's reported on it is a look from the outside: "Oh, dear Rose of Sharon, let's do a "Poverty Tour" of this great nation of ours. We can blow all the money stacks we're sitting on on a dependable car and gas, and devote all of our time to doing nothing but driving around the country documenting all these poor people. How delightful! How noble..."

Then you have these "documentarians" and, separately, you have these "poor people". They're not gonna be the same person. There's a divide in perception. The concepts of what this is about are different. The priviledged, documentarian is now the subject and the "Bum" only the object.

So here we are-- Rosasharn and I. We've got that much straight. We are the struggling masses. We are the "tired and poor". As are we the documentarians and the artists.
But from here how can we find any extra strength for anything beyond rote survival?

Maintain my body, maintain my job. Work, work, work!

We can mule it through our art project like it's another job that has to get done, but if our light goes out from fatigue, how can we make Art out of any of it?

You need a spark for creativity. You need a light.