The “Do you live in a bunker?” Checklist.

I am rebooting this blog and beginning again because I have to stop wearing my “fuckit” tie to the senior center meditation group. No one can read the fine print there.

We’ll see what happens here. I am not sure where it is going. I call it “Notes from My Bunker” because that’s where I live for all practical purposes. Here’s a checklist to see if you live in one, also.

The Official “Do you live in a Bunker?” checklist:

• You know you are right.
• Facts are optional or overwhelming.
• You never listen to certain broadcast channels. Ever.
• Sometimes, you *bloviate so much you explode.

*blo·vi·ate/ talk at length, especially in an inflated or empty way.

But, the creative process is phony-free so that’s what I do most days.

When I describe myself as having ADHD of the Arts, I can back it up.

Pat Coakley

I’ve been reading, writing, and using a camera most of my life. At various times, amidst my real-world employment as a School and Educational Psychologist in private practice, I took essay writing adult ed classes in Boston every Thursday for a year and half, and playwriting at Brown University, photography evening classes at RISD, along with Physics at Providence College because let’s face it if you want to calm down, entering an entirely different world helps. Creativity is my go-to alternative different world today.

I ultimately had a play produced along with my first anxiety attack in 1985 and that was before the very bad NYTimes review, so I realized early on the arts could also be dangerous.  My photo self-portrait in 2008 shows you what an anxiety attack feels like to me.

Anyway, my favorite award citation was from the judge of my 2008 essay submissions.  They cited my “eloquent irritability”. In other words, they were saying they thought I could rip someone a new one in an enjoyable way.

I can only say that if I were physically able to stage an updated self-portrait, which I’m not thank you aging, my mouth would not be closed it would be an option ‘a’ Edvard Munch screeching or option ‘b’ head submerged in a bowl of Hershey kisses.

I developed a creativity daily habit about 10 years ago in order to lose weight due to many years of option b and demanding Rosemary Onion Foccacia bread to return to Panera. It became my secret health plan: if I photographed fruits and vegetables, I ate them.  Best diet plan EVER.

Art of the Diet® which began in 2015 as a weekly podcast is now monthly,

The Photo Gardener® is my portfolio of garden photography and gifts and interior decor from farm to table to wall decor.

The daily creative process is the reward that has resonated and endured most in my life and is the gift that keeps on giving. Today, I use YOUTUBE tutorials to learn new things instead of traveling to adult ed classes in Boston or Providence, photo workshops in Sante Fe or humor writing conferences in Dayton, Ohio.

I can’t draw for beans. I can’t even draw beans.

pat coakley

In the past two years, I have learned about eco printing, fabric design, bookbinding, how to thread a bobbin, do a Coptic stitch on handmade journals, sew a zipper, apply resin to a photograph, and this week I’m planning to learn about thread drawing, using the needle on my sewing machine as a pencil and stitch my drawing. The only problem? I can’t draw for beans and sewing isn’t really a swear-free skill either.

Learning new creative tools gives me a daily injection of hope and an opportunity for good humor in the hours ahead that mute for a time the dread of creeping physical vulnerability and those bleeping beeping news alerts.

For those readers who discovered my blog early on, you might remember the post I did in 2009 about my best friend, titled, “The Runner” about her early signs of dementia in her late fifties. I visit her monthly now in an assisted care facility on a locked memory care floor where she has been for 10 years. I put a photo of her waterskiing when we were 16 onto a 5in x5in wooden cradleboard and applied encaustic wax and then painted it with wax pastels. It is in her room next to the TV. I talk to her about how good she was as a waterskier and how horrible I was. Usually, she doesn’t open her eyes but if she hears me I bet she is thinking, “Horrible” is putting a good spin on it, Patty”.

Below are a few photos of what my town, Franklin, Mass looked like before I entered the bunker.

My hope is to seed a bit of that hope and humor amidst reality to any reader here although not entirely sure as I post this, how I’ll do it.

Some of my archived posts shall be linked at the bottom of each post & on the Tag Cloud to the right of this post, arranged according to the subjects most often mentioned.

My shop will have some of the ‘results” from my 2020 daily creative habit.  & you can follow me on any of the three Instagram accounts listed on the right- hand side of this post.

So, that’s what is planned.

Let’s just hope the world doesn’t blow the f up.
Pat Coakley