First attempt.

Desmond, my 9 month old, is teething. Today was a cranky day, for both of us. In hopes of distracting him from yelling at me, I suited up with the baby bjorn and we walked into town. Stopping in antique shops and the thrift store in town and then for some medicine, I mean chocolate. A single earl grey truffle from Lucky's chocolate shop, $2.16. (For me, not the baby) An expensive but satisfying remedy. Things were looking up.

Approaching our house I thought, now is the perfect time to stop in the funeral home, since I was reluctant to go back inside our house where the whining would resume. It was a good a time as any, baby and all. I stopped home to drop off a bag of things I had picked up in town and on my front walk, I found an arm. This must be a sign I thought. Or a clue. Or good luck. A very small plastic gray limb. Army guy. He's not an army guy anymore... How did it get on my front walk? I have no idea. I picked it up and put it in my pocket, dropped my bag inside the door and walked across the street to the big gray house for dead people. I take notice of the sign, Funeral Home. Is there a difference between a funeral home and a funeral parlor? 

Rehearsing what I will say in my mind as I walk up their front walk. The old fashioned phone rings and stops. "Hello, I am your new neighbor, I just moved in across the street there..... cosmetologist.... portrait painter..... need anyone, ever? Love to try it." Love to try it? What the.... "Interested in learning how to..."

I walk up the wide stone steps, looking at the cracks, thinking about how it would feel to be here for a funeral. A neat row of chairs line the porch. An old iron and glass light fixture hangs a little crooked from it's wooden ceiling. Beside the double doors is a sign that has sliding plastic doors to reveal different messages. It says "Walk in". I try the door and it is locked. I look at the sign again. I try the door again, a little harder. Still locked. I knock lightly. Nothing.

Standing for a moment on the porch, I look back at my own house. It looks far away and like a hot mess. Our renovating has left the yard to fend for itself so far and our big bow window is temporarily missing, replaced by plywood. Not a great look. Yellow dandelions are scattered all over the lawn, giving me the finger.

Earlier today, I went outside after I wrote a post to take a picture of the Funeral Home from my front yard. There were two men standing on the porch here and they watched me take pictures of them. I tried to look like I was taking pictures of everything. Pointing my camera all over the street. Now I imagine myself standing there, taking pictures. I must have looked like a nut job. Funeral Home stalker.

All in all, first attempt at contact unsuccessful.

Funerals

After I re-read my first entry last night, I felt sure that if and when I get the chance to do this, I will not like it at all. It will be more like slopping make up on dead people than anything else. The make up will be really bad. There will only be one color. One brush, not even a brush, a sponge.

Living across the street from a funeral parlor so far, has been sort of interesting. It is a big old gray house with dark green shutters. It has a long gray awning the stretches from it's front porch and a sign. Otherwise it is just a beautifully kept old house. I like that about funeral parlors, a lot of them are old homes. Funeral homes.

When there is a funeral the street fills up with cars. Women in heels wearing dark colors. Men in khaki's and white shirts. Sometimes there are a lot of young people. Sometimes people are hanging around in the street by their cars laughing. Once we heard someone fighting which I thought was appropriate for a funeral. Some old Italian sort of guy, yelling at some other younger guy. At least I think, I don't even know that I really saw them but my mind has made up these details. True or false, it's what I remember. My husband Joseph stood in the baby's room and looked out the window across the street. "I bet we'll get a lot of that," I said.

A couple of mornings ago, I was out trimming some shrubs on my front lawn. Cars were arriving for a funeral and the funeral director was outside approaching each car with a very enthusiastic, "Hello! Will you be following us to the cemetery today?!" It sounded like he was welcoming people to a wedding or a birthday party. Maybe someone very mean has died, I thought. Maybe he was just so overcome by the warm spring morning and the flowering trees that are everywhere you look.... he could not help himself.

There are always people standing on the porch smoking cigarettes. They mill around. I try to see myself through their eyes. Someone they love has died and there is a woman across the street weeding. There is a woman with a baby in a stroller. There is a couple with a baby standing on their front lawn across the street, looking at us... When I see them walking from their car to the parlor I want to run up to them and ask, "Who died?!" I am dying to know. Every time. This alone is a good enough reason to work at the funeral parlor. I'll know who died. Mostly I find myself wondering how old they were.

At the end of the funeral there was a single bagpipe player that stood outside and played. Why are bagpipes so sad? That vibration just wraps it's plaid flannel blanket around your heart and squeezes so gently, it's like the funny bone of musical instruments. The sad pipes. Those pipes fill up with air and hot wind runs through my chest and face. I kept trimming my shrubs while I cried.

My favorite thing about this funeral parlor is that there is an old fashioned phone ringing that comes from somewhere, in the house? Outside of the house? I can't tell. It sounds like it's outside but it is like the old phone on the wall sort of ring. I can't figure out what it is doing outside. Is it an alarm? "Another body has arrived," it says. Or, "Body on it's way out." "Another sale." "Another angel got it's wings."

Macabre

When I was in cosmetology school, one of the teachers there talked about working in a funeral home. Mostly she had done it for friends who had passed but also for money. She did the hair and makeup for dead people. When I heard this, bells went off in my head. Balloons flew into the air. Firecrackers shot off around my feet. Me want.

I am an artist. I paint and draw from photographs. I do it well. It's something I love to do and I have done it since I was a kid. And I happen to have a cosmetology license from that time I went to cosmetology school. Passed the test and everything. Not to mention a BFA from that time I went to art school. AND, I'm a big fan of 6 feet under. BECAUSE, I am a big fan of pretty much anything macabre. Not gore. Not guts and blood. Just mystery really. Macabre may not be the right word, but I am a fan of the word macabre.

I love ghosts. I am fascinated with death, not obsessed mind you, just fascinated. And people, people fascinate me. And painting pictures is what I do. I think to myself, is it not a perfect combination? Give me a photograph of someone and give me that someone. The printed living image of their face and the washed out canvas that once displayed the living image. Let me paint it back on. I can do this. I bet I'd be good at it. Let me hang out in the funeral parlor, get to know the funeral director and their family. The families of the deceased. Let me be alone and work magic on the dead. Oh, if I could crack my knuckles, I would. There, I just cracked my wrist. I'm tellin you, this is a job I may be made for. One of them anyway.

First had this idea 4 years ago. 6 months ago, I moved with my husband of 2 1/2 years and our 9 month old baby to a new town and guess what? I live across the street from a funeral parlor.

Almost every time I take my baby for a walk in the stroller or walk out my front door with him buckled into his baby bjorn, I glance over at that funeral home. I think about walking in, with the baby, without the baby, dressed up, dressed down. What is the best way to approach a funeral home to ask if you can paint on peoples faces? I am thinking, dressed nicely, no baby. Or maybe dressed casually, with the baby. After all, I am also their neighbor. Do I bring pictures of my portraits I've painted? What do I say exactly?

For 4 years, I have driven past funeral parlors and imagined going inside to inquire about such a position. What would it pay? Do they all already have someone to do this? Do I have to know how to reconstruct noses and cheekbones with putty?

Before I go in and ask across the street, I thought, I would write about this. I always think after the fact, I should have written about that. This time, I will start off writing. I don't know how long this journey will be. Maybe I'll never go ask. Maybe I'll ask and they'll tell me it's not possible. Maybe it will be the beginning of many years of painting dead people's faces. When I say painting, I mean applying make up. I am guessing it is heavy make up and then also doing their hair. But to me, it would be like painting.

Painting people back into their faces.... oh man.