Stanford contacted me unexpectedly for new work. A few people would love to simply take classes with me either individually or with one other person because they love the concept. I have a new tutoring job that came the same day as the Stanford work.
And I began a picture book out of the blue. I had thought of it, kicked it around, but sat down and started doing my studies for the actual book!
I allowed myself to feel hurt and angry. I had a grand wallow. I was literally sick for a day and a half from the whole mess, which acted, perhaps as nature's purge of the gall and the bile of the whole mess. Then I breathed and went to my brand new studio and drew. I could have done this in my "home" space above the studio, but, no. I took myself down to my art studio and sketched giraffes and cheetahs. Reminding my hand of its abilities when I let myself breathe and relax into the work.
I will not let anyone rob me of the dream; but the dream is about helping others explore art and play with the process, not about how large the "class" is. That was something that the Town insisted I put a growth cap on. In a hurry, I put a number on it that scared my neighbors. I cannot help it if they felt they had to attack rather than talk or ask questions. I cannot worry about what scares others.
I'll do what the law allows for now and see about where to go beyond that later, when people calm down. I ventured into the back yard, but was approached there by someone in a car who had been at the meeting. Perhaps they meant to be kind, but I know I looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She rolled the window back up, waved tentatively and the couple drove on. It was too soon still for me to be collected. I thought I could work in my back yard without being approached, but no. I am vulnerable working in my own yard. People have been watching me and I do not understand it.
I don't have to for now. What I must do is not give in to fear or neuroses here, depriving myself of the one exercise I can perform, the one truly physical thing I can do. Or deprive myself of the pleasure of my flowers, the smell of the mulch, the pleasure I feel when I see one bed ready for planting, ready for easy weeding. I cannot let some scared people do that to my life.
I won't. Some want me to take a stand and go after this now. I don't want to do that. I want to go ahead with what I have for now and think before I act. Live my life as I have, so people see that I am not being vindictive or changing how I've been. I will figure out how to handle the next door neighbors eventually, but for now, I can simply garden and heal. Have individuals in my home as I choose.
Do my work and be grateful that those two doors swung open so quickly, reminding me that my life has several threads to it, all of which work well together. This episode cut to my core, but it did so for reasons that went beyond the actions of these people. I have to recognize that some of them have reacted so negatively to what they decided my intent was because of things in their own lives, beyond me, too.
I have to okay in myself long before I respond beyond what I did--I took down the hedge two weeks ahead of schedule. People may read that as they chose, but I did it in part to say, "Hey, I recognize the legitimacy of that concern." In part, I also did it to go, SO THERE.
I am far from perfect. Rats. I hate that. All is well. I'll be okay even though I'm not quite there.
Accidental Spring
"Accidental Spring" This began as the background for painting other papers, but became something else!
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Neighbors of the New Millenium
I had an experience that saddened me beyond words. I was torpedoed at a zoning board meeting. The board did not foresee the outrage of my neighbors on the cul de sac. I would put their children at risk, having up to EIGHT cars potentially leaving my home all at once during school hours. I am changing the tenor of the neighborhood, trying to sneak in a big business like running art workshops up to three days a week in my home.
Yes, indeed, I am a subversive. We moved in and added to the house, nineteen years ago, putting in a family room right below the in-law apartment, so that my sister could use more of the house as her own. It was permitted, mind you. EVERYTHING we do has its proper permits attached, well, because I try to follow the law. That's why I went through the zoning board, posted my big yellow signs for THREE weeks, not two. Made sure I was in the yard often enough so neighbors could ask me questions. People smiled and waved, as always.
And signed a petition behind my back. Wrote letters about how some young man lived TWO Years below the main part of the house, renting or something illegally. I pointed out that this was my son. He didn't pay rent.
Anyway, the commission had to deny me my dream. I cannot work outside the home like other people. I have legs that collapse with shooting pains that go up into my head--spinal cord injury from the past. Surgery kept me walking, but there was collateral long-run damage.
No one cared. Not even the four neighbors who knew it was my son, who knew why we had an in-family apartment, who knew I left for a year and a half to get over my daughter's death (and came back 12 years ago), who knew about my back and disability. Not the neighbor who told the zoning board that my forsythia hedge should be torn down, but I need to leave the lilacs for her, because I let her cut them every year. She told them I have a way with flowers. But I shouldn't have workshops. I was destroying the neighborhood, they said.
It seems to me, this paranoia, never talk in person mentality has done the destroying already. I bring bread to my neighbors, and let them cut my flowers. I give my candy at Halloween. Compliment the moms on their babies. But I am the bohemian hippy I guess... the spinster on the corner. I don't know. I know only that I cannot teach my workshops.
I never meant to instill fear in my neighbors. Nor turn the area into a commerce zone. The board calmed the neighbors down several times. Four of the commission never looked up except when I spoke. And they smiled at me, but the damage was done.
I think I'll work on flowers in the back yard this year, away from the joggers and the smiling faces that mask fears that only they can describe. For now? For today and perhaps tomorrow, too, I mourn the myth that I believed about my little corner of paradise. I am angry. I am hurt. I am sad, however, beyond belief.
The forsythia were torn down today, something we were going to do this year anyway. topsoil arrives tomorrow. We may spray on some lawn, as they do around the neighborhood. Don't know. But the terrible hazard of yellow on the corner is gone. One less thing to be hurled at my head, by neighbors who were never taught to simply talk when they think there might be a problem. Modern life in suburbia. I would like to leave here, go to my central Pa, to the farmlands there, and the areas where people are allowed to make a living from their home--and have cars in their driveway to boot.
And I will rise. I always do. I have a studio now and I will use it. I'll share it with my friends, a few at a time. We wouldn't want the neighbors to talk!
Yes, indeed, I am a subversive. We moved in and added to the house, nineteen years ago, putting in a family room right below the in-law apartment, so that my sister could use more of the house as her own. It was permitted, mind you. EVERYTHING we do has its proper permits attached, well, because I try to follow the law. That's why I went through the zoning board, posted my big yellow signs for THREE weeks, not two. Made sure I was in the yard often enough so neighbors could ask me questions. People smiled and waved, as always.
And signed a petition behind my back. Wrote letters about how some young man lived TWO Years below the main part of the house, renting or something illegally. I pointed out that this was my son. He didn't pay rent.
Anyway, the commission had to deny me my dream. I cannot work outside the home like other people. I have legs that collapse with shooting pains that go up into my head--spinal cord injury from the past. Surgery kept me walking, but there was collateral long-run damage.
No one cared. Not even the four neighbors who knew it was my son, who knew why we had an in-family apartment, who knew I left for a year and a half to get over my daughter's death (and came back 12 years ago), who knew about my back and disability. Not the neighbor who told the zoning board that my forsythia hedge should be torn down, but I need to leave the lilacs for her, because I let her cut them every year. She told them I have a way with flowers. But I shouldn't have workshops. I was destroying the neighborhood, they said.
It seems to me, this paranoia, never talk in person mentality has done the destroying already. I bring bread to my neighbors, and let them cut my flowers. I give my candy at Halloween. Compliment the moms on their babies. But I am the bohemian hippy I guess... the spinster on the corner. I don't know. I know only that I cannot teach my workshops.
I never meant to instill fear in my neighbors. Nor turn the area into a commerce zone. The board calmed the neighbors down several times. Four of the commission never looked up except when I spoke. And they smiled at me, but the damage was done.
I think I'll work on flowers in the back yard this year, away from the joggers and the smiling faces that mask fears that only they can describe. For now? For today and perhaps tomorrow, too, I mourn the myth that I believed about my little corner of paradise. I am angry. I am hurt. I am sad, however, beyond belief.
The forsythia were torn down today, something we were going to do this year anyway. topsoil arrives tomorrow. We may spray on some lawn, as they do around the neighborhood. Don't know. But the terrible hazard of yellow on the corner is gone. One less thing to be hurled at my head, by neighbors who were never taught to simply talk when they think there might be a problem. Modern life in suburbia. I would like to leave here, go to my central Pa, to the farmlands there, and the areas where people are allowed to make a living from their home--and have cars in their driveway to boot.
And I will rise. I always do. I have a studio now and I will use it. I'll share it with my friends, a few at a time. We wouldn't want the neighbors to talk!
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Grace by Any Other Name
Perhaps the beginning of my book... we'll see. The time has come to be brave I think.
***
Our family was a rain forest: lush and rotting, with little in between. When I was flailing between childhood and adulthood, I never knew whether it was a blessing or a curse — I had to learn a different language to finally accept it as both. The pivotal word in that language is “grace”. I gradually came to realize that I had been aware of moments of grace in my life right from the time I had words at my disposal for speaking — perhaps even earlier. "Grace" itself, however, was a word that I would not find until much later.
HOW I GOT RELIGION ©2007
And there were angels in the willows,
And fairies on the water,
All singing,
All sighing,
All circling her soul.
Closing ranks, they called Hosannas
To the God who saved a child,
flying to her in a mouse,
In the shine on water,
And the sound of silent saviors
Who cleared the wayward strand
from wide eyes too terrified to see,
Who wiped big tears
from the face too tiny to know death and blood.
Yet she knew.
They circled her soul in innocence,
And in the stillness of a mouse
beneath her hand,
She heard the answer “Love.”
She already knew.
And there are angels in the willows, still,
And the fairies on the water dance.
And the question and the answer are the same.
... And she knows.
We had mice in our first home, a gingerbread Victorian farmhouse in Connecticut. Mousetraps were a part of country life, and I knew full well not to touch them; and I knew what the telltale snap meant. I was always the first one to rise, from the day I discovered how to escape from my crib. Even at three, I loved the solitude of the dawn, before my mother must have been aware that her youngest was on the prowl and it was time for her day to begin as well. That morning, as I wandered into the kitchen, I heard the snap in the basement, and decided that was the day to explore.
To my dismay, it squeaked. The mouse. It squeaked and I thought it was wriggling.
I ran to get my brother, Jim. His room was the nearest. “Jimmy, Jimmy. Get UP! We have to make it stop!”
I remember pulling at him, and I remember his face: cold, dark, masked. He hated being wakened, but I was too little to understand what that meant. I knew only that I could not play with the trap and that the mouse needed our help. “Come ON, Jimmy. NOW!” I pulled at him and he quietly accompanied me downstairs.
I remember his looking at me, down to the mouse, and back at me. He smiled and said, “Put your hand on him to keep him calm, Jetty.” Jim walked away and I squatted down. The mouse was warm, but he was quiet; I must have calmed him down. He was very soft and warm.
“We’ll stop him now,” Jim said. He gently placed a board on my hand, and in the time it took me to look up to ask why, his foot met the board and my hand met something different. In that meeting of my hand and another life, I met God.
My God, forever the God of a three-year-old. I might have come away with only horror, or, even worse, a sense of myself as a murderer, but I did not. Instead, I became The Watcher, defender of all mice. I was their companion and friend. Every morning I checked the traps and, if a mouse was there, just to be sure, I would sit by it for a time, stroking it with my pinky, whispering that soon it would be okay. I simply loved them, and I loved them simply.
My innocence died with the meeting of my flesh and a mouse’s, but I clung to something greater. I knew only that Love was It. That simple thought, “Love is God.” No more, no less.
***
And this is grace, to me. Through the moments of terror, agony, and loss, Grace has surrounded me — a cloud that envelopes me to usher me home, rather than an epiphany or some grand wisdom from within. I was far too little to understand the enormity of my brother’s act, and too little to wrap my mind around the feel of death beneath my hand. It was the birth of the writer, perhaps more than the death of innocence. I transformed the horrible into Myth, at the center of which was Me, the hero. I liked that. Who wouldn’t? It was a way to rise above most anything that happened. I spun episodes of torture into television episodes of Robin Hood and Maid Marion, Flash Gordon, Sky King. If I was the hero, then Jim could not really touch me. God was my buddy; Love was my mantle of invincibility. It worked for me.
Unfortunately, it never went over big with some adults. Particularly the minister’s wife. She taught Sunday school at our Baptist church, back when I was nine. That’s when I was expelled from Sunday school.
Mrs. E. told us we were to pray to Jesus, and I asked, “Why?”
I can still hear her gasp and see her shudder. “Jeannette, what do you mean, Why?”
I couldn’t figure out why she was so mad, but I explained what was obvious to me. “Well, look. Jesus taught us to pray saying ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven,’ right?”
She nodded, but still didn’t seem to get it. And she was still mad.
“Well, he didn’t teach us to pray saying, ‘Our Jesus who art in Heaven,’ so what do I need to pray to Jesus for? I can pray straight to God.”
She grabbed me by the shoulder and shouted at me to stand up. She pushed me to the front of the class and said, “Don’t any of you listen to this girl. She is a sinner. Jeannette, you go home right now, and you think about this blasphemy. I will be calling your mother. Go on like this, child, and you’ll find yourself in Hell.”
I suppose I should have been terrified when she made me walk home. It was a pretty long walk, a couple of miles at least. I was embarrassed, and I was vaguely disturbed about the Hell business, but it was a sunny day, and it was warm, and there were flowers in bloom and I found myself singing instead, and reasonably sure that God and I were still buddies.
Of course, then I saw my mother’s face and it was clear that Mrs. E. had called. That held far more fear than Hell.
“What happened, Missy?” The dreaded 'Missy.' Nevertheless I looked her straight in the eyes, took a deep breath and auto-fired the entire story in one breath, ending with, “I don’t get why that was so bad, Mom.”
She came to me, then, and tipped my face up toward her, as was her custom, two fingers under my chin. She didn’t look all that mad. “Do you think you were sinful and bad?”
“No!” The force of the word scared me quiet a moment, but my mom was smiling then, so I added, “I think God likes me just fine.” I could feel myself scowling and the stupid tears would make an appearance then.
But there was my mother’s kiss, right on the tip of my nose and her only answer, more whisper than spoken, “I think He does, too.”
I never went back and my mother never even asked me to. Furthermore, I never did pray to Jesus, preferring to take it all to the Big Kahuna, directly.
***
Grace came to me crashing or creeping; who’s to say which was what? Sometimes as simple as the love in my mother’s eyes. To my child’s line of sight, the moments loomed large, and God danced around in them all. To my older eyes? It all dances pretty much the same.
***
Our family was a rain forest: lush and rotting, with little in between. When I was flailing between childhood and adulthood, I never knew whether it was a blessing or a curse — I had to learn a different language to finally accept it as both. The pivotal word in that language is “grace”. I gradually came to realize that I had been aware of moments of grace in my life right from the time I had words at my disposal for speaking — perhaps even earlier. "Grace" itself, however, was a word that I would not find until much later.
HOW I GOT RELIGION ©2007
And there were angels in the willows,
And fairies on the water,
All singing,
All sighing,
All circling her soul.
Closing ranks, they called Hosannas
To the God who saved a child,
flying to her in a mouse,
In the shine on water,
And the sound of silent saviors
Who cleared the wayward strand
from wide eyes too terrified to see,
Who wiped big tears
from the face too tiny to know death and blood.
Yet she knew.
They circled her soul in innocence,
And in the stillness of a mouse
beneath her hand,
She heard the answer “Love.”
She already knew.
And there are angels in the willows, still,
And the fairies on the water dance.
And the question and the answer are the same.
... And she knows.
We had mice in our first home, a gingerbread Victorian farmhouse in Connecticut. Mousetraps were a part of country life, and I knew full well not to touch them; and I knew what the telltale snap meant. I was always the first one to rise, from the day I discovered how to escape from my crib. Even at three, I loved the solitude of the dawn, before my mother must have been aware that her youngest was on the prowl and it was time for her day to begin as well. That morning, as I wandered into the kitchen, I heard the snap in the basement, and decided that was the day to explore.
To my dismay, it squeaked. The mouse. It squeaked and I thought it was wriggling.
I ran to get my brother, Jim. His room was the nearest. “Jimmy, Jimmy. Get UP! We have to make it stop!”
I remember pulling at him, and I remember his face: cold, dark, masked. He hated being wakened, but I was too little to understand what that meant. I knew only that I could not play with the trap and that the mouse needed our help. “Come ON, Jimmy. NOW!” I pulled at him and he quietly accompanied me downstairs.
I remember his looking at me, down to the mouse, and back at me. He smiled and said, “Put your hand on him to keep him calm, Jetty.” Jim walked away and I squatted down. The mouse was warm, but he was quiet; I must have calmed him down. He was very soft and warm.
“We’ll stop him now,” Jim said. He gently placed a board on my hand, and in the time it took me to look up to ask why, his foot met the board and my hand met something different. In that meeting of my hand and another life, I met God.
My God, forever the God of a three-year-old. I might have come away with only horror, or, even worse, a sense of myself as a murderer, but I did not. Instead, I became The Watcher, defender of all mice. I was their companion and friend. Every morning I checked the traps and, if a mouse was there, just to be sure, I would sit by it for a time, stroking it with my pinky, whispering that soon it would be okay. I simply loved them, and I loved them simply.
My innocence died with the meeting of my flesh and a mouse’s, but I clung to something greater. I knew only that Love was It. That simple thought, “Love is God.” No more, no less.
***
And this is grace, to me. Through the moments of terror, agony, and loss, Grace has surrounded me — a cloud that envelopes me to usher me home, rather than an epiphany or some grand wisdom from within. I was far too little to understand the enormity of my brother’s act, and too little to wrap my mind around the feel of death beneath my hand. It was the birth of the writer, perhaps more than the death of innocence. I transformed the horrible into Myth, at the center of which was Me, the hero. I liked that. Who wouldn’t? It was a way to rise above most anything that happened. I spun episodes of torture into television episodes of Robin Hood and Maid Marion, Flash Gordon, Sky King. If I was the hero, then Jim could not really touch me. God was my buddy; Love was my mantle of invincibility. It worked for me.
Unfortunately, it never went over big with some adults. Particularly the minister’s wife. She taught Sunday school at our Baptist church, back when I was nine. That’s when I was expelled from Sunday school.
Mrs. E. told us we were to pray to Jesus, and I asked, “Why?”
I can still hear her gasp and see her shudder. “Jeannette, what do you mean, Why?”
I couldn’t figure out why she was so mad, but I explained what was obvious to me. “Well, look. Jesus taught us to pray saying ‘Our Father, who art in Heaven,’ right?”
She nodded, but still didn’t seem to get it. And she was still mad.
“Well, he didn’t teach us to pray saying, ‘Our Jesus who art in Heaven,’ so what do I need to pray to Jesus for? I can pray straight to God.”
She grabbed me by the shoulder and shouted at me to stand up. She pushed me to the front of the class and said, “Don’t any of you listen to this girl. She is a sinner. Jeannette, you go home right now, and you think about this blasphemy. I will be calling your mother. Go on like this, child, and you’ll find yourself in Hell.”
I suppose I should have been terrified when she made me walk home. It was a pretty long walk, a couple of miles at least. I was embarrassed, and I was vaguely disturbed about the Hell business, but it was a sunny day, and it was warm, and there were flowers in bloom and I found myself singing instead, and reasonably sure that God and I were still buddies.
Of course, then I saw my mother’s face and it was clear that Mrs. E. had called. That held far more fear than Hell.
“What happened, Missy?” The dreaded 'Missy.' Nevertheless I looked her straight in the eyes, took a deep breath and auto-fired the entire story in one breath, ending with, “I don’t get why that was so bad, Mom.”
She came to me, then, and tipped my face up toward her, as was her custom, two fingers under my chin. She didn’t look all that mad. “Do you think you were sinful and bad?”
“No!” The force of the word scared me quiet a moment, but my mom was smiling then, so I added, “I think God likes me just fine.” I could feel myself scowling and the stupid tears would make an appearance then.
But there was my mother’s kiss, right on the tip of my nose and her only answer, more whisper than spoken, “I think He does, too.”
I never went back and my mother never even asked me to. Furthermore, I never did pray to Jesus, preferring to take it all to the Big Kahuna, directly.
***
Grace came to me crashing or creeping; who’s to say which was what? Sometimes as simple as the love in my mother’s eyes. To my child’s line of sight, the moments loomed large, and God danced around in them all. To my older eyes? It all dances pretty much the same.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
On Writing, Painting, Permissions to Create
This feels like practice, keeping a blog. It is utterly public, though not many people stop in to read ... for now. (Thank you to my follower!) I have wondered for many years whether my small life would warrant a book and, of course, many of us tend to think that our own life story should somehow be read by the world. I don't know whether I have the ability to draw the larger themes in a small, but fairly dramatic life. If there isn't something to be learned beyond the incidents, beyond the "Gee, she had some hard times and lived," I don't think it warrants a book. Yet I write. I am drawn to writing as an addict is drawn to her drug — but this is more fun.
Keeping a blog, to my surprise, is helping me be more disciplined. I practice here and broaden my range. I never wrote about my love of flower gardening before, except as it related to my mom. Taking the time to laugh at myself and my aversion to all things practical is fun; it also makes me write a little differently. It makes me think before I post. A little bit different from forums and twittering and such. Books on writing help, too. I have many books on writing, written by published authors of fiction and nonfiction. They offer inspiration and that sense that I'm not alone when I flounder.
I want to plug someone here, and her book. I took a workshop last year that inspired me in ways I cannot articulate, by Connie Griffin, faculty member at Amherst. She has a new book, TO TELL THE TRUTH: Practice and Craft in Narrative Nonfiction. Her love of writing was infectious as our workshop guide, and now I can build on the experience with this book. The exercises, the selected readings--these things speak to anyone, I think, who wants to write, but is scared. Scared of success, of failure, of being judged, of being ignored. Scared that our lives are too boring, too depressing, too off the wall. Simply scared.
In this one book are nuggets written by writers who've shared every concern and found ways around it. This is relevant to any sort of writing. On the most practical levels, too, it is a user-friendly text--well indexed and with the most detailed Table of Contents I've seen. Writing's a lonely pursuit sometimes and great books can be great friends, frankly.
Enough of selling a book and a person, but her work and my being part of a workshop have moved me toward starting this blog, and to trying to understand how this may move my life forward. I think that if I try to write from my heart, tempered only by the desire, as a writer, to resonate in a productive or supportive or simply humorous way with someone out there--if I keep these things in mind before I hit "publish post," this may prove to be a good training ground for me. This may be the writing practice that will move me toward being brave enough to publish less anonymously, and disciplined enough to move beyond just self-absorbed "navel examination," as my dad used to call a certain kind of introspection.
Where I write doesn't necessarily matter as much as that I write.
For now though, I'm going to go downstairs to my brand new studio. At 57 years old, I've finally given myself permission to have one in my home. I seemed to need to find a way to make a living USING it to do that, but whatever works. I'm going to step away from words for today, go downstairs, and finish a large watercolor collage piece. I started it three summers ago, when I stayed at an artist's house and had ROOM to spread out. I've not had the space--literal or emotional--to finish it. So, before my closing on the refinance of my home, when there is a world of "practical" concerns on my plate, I'm going to finish my painting.
I will lose myself in painting the view of childhood from the top of an island, from atop my daddy's shoulders, looking down through a cacophony of spring-blooming trees, to the Lake I have loved all my life.
Life is good.
Keeping a blog, to my surprise, is helping me be more disciplined. I practice here and broaden my range. I never wrote about my love of flower gardening before, except as it related to my mom. Taking the time to laugh at myself and my aversion to all things practical is fun; it also makes me write a little differently. It makes me think before I post. A little bit different from forums and twittering and such. Books on writing help, too. I have many books on writing, written by published authors of fiction and nonfiction. They offer inspiration and that sense that I'm not alone when I flounder.
I want to plug someone here, and her book. I took a workshop last year that inspired me in ways I cannot articulate, by Connie Griffin, faculty member at Amherst. She has a new book, TO TELL THE TRUTH: Practice and Craft in Narrative Nonfiction. Her love of writing was infectious as our workshop guide, and now I can build on the experience with this book. The exercises, the selected readings--these things speak to anyone, I think, who wants to write, but is scared. Scared of success, of failure, of being judged, of being ignored. Scared that our lives are too boring, too depressing, too off the wall. Simply scared.
In this one book are nuggets written by writers who've shared every concern and found ways around it. This is relevant to any sort of writing. On the most practical levels, too, it is a user-friendly text--well indexed and with the most detailed Table of Contents I've seen. Writing's a lonely pursuit sometimes and great books can be great friends, frankly.
Enough of selling a book and a person, but her work and my being part of a workshop have moved me toward starting this blog, and to trying to understand how this may move my life forward. I think that if I try to write from my heart, tempered only by the desire, as a writer, to resonate in a productive or supportive or simply humorous way with someone out there--if I keep these things in mind before I hit "publish post," this may prove to be a good training ground for me. This may be the writing practice that will move me toward being brave enough to publish less anonymously, and disciplined enough to move beyond just self-absorbed "navel examination," as my dad used to call a certain kind of introspection.
Where I write doesn't necessarily matter as much as that I write.
For now though, I'm going to go downstairs to my brand new studio. At 57 years old, I've finally given myself permission to have one in my home. I seemed to need to find a way to make a living USING it to do that, but whatever works. I'm going to step away from words for today, go downstairs, and finish a large watercolor collage piece. I started it three summers ago, when I stayed at an artist's house and had ROOM to spread out. I've not had the space--literal or emotional--to finish it. So, before my closing on the refinance of my home, when there is a world of "practical" concerns on my plate, I'm going to finish my painting.
I will lose myself in painting the view of childhood from the top of an island, from atop my daddy's shoulders, looking down through a cacophony of spring-blooming trees, to the Lake I have loved all my life.
Life is good.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
I don't DO vegetables
I mean grow them. I eat them, though.
I do love to garden, though. Jetty's living art, my sister called it. She said I designed little rooms all over the yard. Yes, that's pretty much the truth. It's the one thing that is intense labor that doesn't kill my back. I don't know why that is; I don't care. When I garden, I constantly shift position. I have a small, light wheelbarrow I can never overload. Same with shovels. I have learned how to lift and it is automatic. There is a rhythm for me and it has become the one dance I've mastered.
But here we get to the core. I do flowers. Shrubs. Decorative container gardens. I don't do vegetables. Not now, not ever. Why? Well, something in me rebels at the practical. I mean, I'll gladly steal, beg, wantonly grovel for the veggies of someone else's labor. But the BUGS. No, really. Bugs like all those nice, juicy things, too. You'd think a gardener would be fine with them, but I'm not. I like a good worm, of course, but they stay put or simply burrow away from me. And honey bees kind of leave you alone in general. Flower garden bugs know civilities. Flies don't care about flowers and I don't know why.
I don't care why. I know only that they don't like my flowers and, when I wear a broad-brimmed hat and a hint of bug repellent, most all of them stay far away from me. My friends tell me to just do tomatoes? Why? I'll take theirs because they always have too many. I do them a favor, really, by eating them.
Besides, we go to flower gardens for respite; to look and to drink in the beauty. We don't go to the vegetable tangle for that. I don't think vegetable garden bugs had mothers. It's flies in your teeth, up your nose, and creeping greenish yucks crawling up your sleeves. Let's face it: no one has to pick little crawly things out of their hair after a little sit-down by the Japanese maple, amidst the hostas and astilbes on a July afternoon. Even cottage garden tumbles are civilized. Nope. Give me the pretty stuff that does nothing but feed my eyes. The worms and birds are happy. So are the bees. That's enough for me.
This is sacrilege I know. Oh, well. There is no symmetry in my plans. No rows. Just rooms that have grown through my twenty years in this house, in this place of peace for me. I had visions at the outset and have seen these visions become real through my small efforts every year, step by step. Through the turmoil of my years, the garden grows in peace. I start new rooms every couple of years, with an eye toward five to ten years down my road, and I hope I travel here long enough to see them to fruition, knowing my vision for them may change along the way.
That's the thing. When the vegetables are eaten, the following year you plant again. It's precise. When you plant flower gardens they are forever evolving, changing, yet offering the stability of the heart's design. My maple was a twig. Now it is as tall as a house, a mass of deeply cut shade and wonder through three seasons. The peonies will outlast my life. There are bits of my mother in the Canterbury bells saved at another friend's house until I could have a garden of my own. The deep blue-green hostas were from slips at my grandmother's cottage in New Hampshire, planted when the cottage was new in the thirties. And all of it my late sister--in my love of asymmetry and knowledge of the power of complementary color.
My flowers offer me the model for my life. Unbalance at first glance, perhaps even a chaotic mess to some. Slow to come to fruition, offering nothing much beyond the colors I've offered and BEEN given. Some years and to some eyes I haven't looked like much, but other years, to other eyes? I have had my seasons; I will have them still.
Leave me to my flowers; join me when you will.
Just remember to bring me your veggies and we'll argue over wine...
I do love to garden, though. Jetty's living art, my sister called it. She said I designed little rooms all over the yard. Yes, that's pretty much the truth. It's the one thing that is intense labor that doesn't kill my back. I don't know why that is; I don't care. When I garden, I constantly shift position. I have a small, light wheelbarrow I can never overload. Same with shovels. I have learned how to lift and it is automatic. There is a rhythm for me and it has become the one dance I've mastered.
But here we get to the core. I do flowers. Shrubs. Decorative container gardens. I don't do vegetables. Not now, not ever. Why? Well, something in me rebels at the practical. I mean, I'll gladly steal, beg, wantonly grovel for the veggies of someone else's labor. But the BUGS. No, really. Bugs like all those nice, juicy things, too. You'd think a gardener would be fine with them, but I'm not. I like a good worm, of course, but they stay put or simply burrow away from me. And honey bees kind of leave you alone in general. Flower garden bugs know civilities. Flies don't care about flowers and I don't know why.
I don't care why. I know only that they don't like my flowers and, when I wear a broad-brimmed hat and a hint of bug repellent, most all of them stay far away from me. My friends tell me to just do tomatoes? Why? I'll take theirs because they always have too many. I do them a favor, really, by eating them.
Besides, we go to flower gardens for respite; to look and to drink in the beauty. We don't go to the vegetable tangle for that. I don't think vegetable garden bugs had mothers. It's flies in your teeth, up your nose, and creeping greenish yucks crawling up your sleeves. Let's face it: no one has to pick little crawly things out of their hair after a little sit-down by the Japanese maple, amidst the hostas and astilbes on a July afternoon. Even cottage garden tumbles are civilized. Nope. Give me the pretty stuff that does nothing but feed my eyes. The worms and birds are happy. So are the bees. That's enough for me.
This is sacrilege I know. Oh, well. There is no symmetry in my plans. No rows. Just rooms that have grown through my twenty years in this house, in this place of peace for me. I had visions at the outset and have seen these visions become real through my small efforts every year, step by step. Through the turmoil of my years, the garden grows in peace. I start new rooms every couple of years, with an eye toward five to ten years down my road, and I hope I travel here long enough to see them to fruition, knowing my vision for them may change along the way.
That's the thing. When the vegetables are eaten, the following year you plant again. It's precise. When you plant flower gardens they are forever evolving, changing, yet offering the stability of the heart's design. My maple was a twig. Now it is as tall as a house, a mass of deeply cut shade and wonder through three seasons. The peonies will outlast my life. There are bits of my mother in the Canterbury bells saved at another friend's house until I could have a garden of my own. The deep blue-green hostas were from slips at my grandmother's cottage in New Hampshire, planted when the cottage was new in the thirties. And all of it my late sister--in my love of asymmetry and knowledge of the power of complementary color.
My flowers offer me the model for my life. Unbalance at first glance, perhaps even a chaotic mess to some. Slow to come to fruition, offering nothing much beyond the colors I've offered and BEEN given. Some years and to some eyes I haven't looked like much, but other years, to other eyes? I have had my seasons; I will have them still.
Leave me to my flowers; join me when you will.
Just remember to bring me your veggies and we'll argue over wine...
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