No More Mojo

Normally, out of embarrassment, people don't talk about their compulsions. Mine started sixty-five years ago when I first lifted up a brush and realized there was a power in painting and drawing, that emotions could be conveyed on paper. I'm 81. I draw every day and with that kind of persistence, I should be a whole lot better at this task than I am. Never mind the result. I have little choice in the matter.

For subject matter, I scour the internet for copyright-free images -19th-century mugshots, horses, camels, shamans, birds, insects -whatever I think of. Most of the criminals in the mugshots were arrested for petit larceny, often for stealing a loaf of bread, a common crime among eight-year-old felons.

Just recently I found stomach-churning photos of unwrapped mummies. I hesitated but then, the bone structure was so obvious, so easy to draw; the skin of the faces stretched so tight, teeth projected out of gaping holes that once served as mouths. I couldn't resist.

Like the felons in the mugshots, the mummies, except in those cases where 'curses' were attributed to them, had lost their agency.

You don't have to be a mummy to lose your power. Sometimes you lose it because you can't hold onto it e.g. you're let go from your job or your health deteriorates; and, sometimes you lose agency because you cede it. You can cede your agency by identifying too strongly with your job, failing to believe you can be anything other than what you were. You can cede agency by saying you're too old -I'd prefer to say, you're too lazy to get off your aging butt. And finally, ask any mummy you happen to meet on the street, you can die. There's no coming back from the latter.