My Gratitude List for Thanksgiving

• That I had the mother I had: her unconditional love, her intelligence, her imagination, her acceptance of my need to believe in all things magical, her passion for beauty.
• That I had the sister I had: her unconditional love, her patience and her desire to teach me about the beauty of asymmetry and the incomplete line, her devoted belief that I had talents beyond the ordinary, her faith in my strength, her grace in the face of so much criticism, her insatiable curiosity, and her unbelievable grace in the face of death.
• That I had my brother Jack: His protection of me no matter what from our brother, his acceptance of a baby sister who followed him everywhere, my best friend through high school and half of college, his beautiful and deep brown eyes, his ability to step forward and own his own mistakes two years before he died, his ability to refuse a liver because he knew his limitations--that he would destroy it through his drinking, and his grace and sweetness in his last two days when I was with him in the hospiatl.
• That I had my father: his passion for my mother despite his philandering, his love of his children--flawed yet palpable, how he insisted on shopping for Christmas to "even things out," His attitude that if money did not help people you loved what was the point, his belief in me as an artist--not a nine-to-fiver.
• That I had my son Jason and Jessica: though I never gave birth, I had all the joys of loving them, of working with them, of hearing their joys and sorrows. I could not love two children more. And I have a son who shows me every day that he is a loving, kind, gentle man.
• That I have friends full of talent, love, generosity of spirit, curiosity, and unbelievable strength.
• 
  That I have Adam and Claire, my friend Gail's children--they give me joy, even when I would like to smack them upside the head with a comfy pillow. They are loving, warm, sensitive and are funny enough to take their show on the road. And they have unique talents--Claire in art and Adam in music. It is a joy to watch them develop their abilities.
• That I have known what it is to love without reservation, regardless of the outcome.  I learned the lesssons from my mom and from my sister--to give love without expectation of return, and that we can use it as a reservoir of light upon which to draw for other things in life
• That I have learned that love given is never a waste, whether or not the gift is received well or discarded.  It has lessons of its own--EVERY kind of love--for children, parents, siblings, friends, and even lovers who leave. It is never wasted.  So I am grateful for those who have inspired me to love--every one. While it is so wonderful to be grateful for the love I have received in my life, perhaps we learn just as much from the ways in which we GIVE love, even when it is hardest, even when our lives are full of loss or pain

My sister will be the one of whom I will write soon. I think I have learned about giving love as much from her as from my  mom.

May God or whatever Spirit or Light one chooses to tap into. keep all who read my blog, anonymous or otherwise, safe and happy for this American Thanksgiving weekend.  Thanks for hanging in there with me. I'll be back.

Brief update

I will have to be in a place I've not been in a couple of decades. The mindset of the athlete, which would sound ludicrous to some who know me, but not others.

The first MRI has revealed thoracic spinal injuries of disks. I already had injuries to the bottom three disks of my spine. Now this. Not one, but two disks. This accounts for the collapsing of the legs, but we have not yet accounted for the hand and leg tremors and spasms. One thing at a time. To keep walking I will be beginning PT again. The big stuff, to keep my legs moving. And a friend bought me a membership at my gym again, so that I can take whatever we come up with directly there, every day. Period.

When I had all the lumbar spine surgery, I followed up with six days a week of PT. No. Six SESSIONS, four days. But I never stopped some of the exercises, to this day. It's why I walk. But the current situation is too risky for surgery, too risky NOT to try PT.

I am afraid, but I've been here before. And I was married when I did this before... to a man who pretty much laughed at what I thought of as markers for progress, so sometimes alone IS better than that. I have friends. I will persevere. I don't know how often I will write, but write I will. I have to write, like breathing.

Miss my parents, though, for all their flaws and illnesses. It is a far lonelier time without siblings, without a clear reason to believe my life will have joy after all this struggle. The pain will not abate through this... the essential injury is not likely to disappear, just perhaps lessen from the work. And I am not going to suddenly feel "good" or be able to work more hours. It is all about functioning, being able to walk at all and to save the spine from being, well, choked off in essence. It was less scary when I thought I was not alone, even if it was an illusion, it offered comfort.

There isn't something in particular I am working toward this time, so that's different as well. R. Gave me hope for something beautiful and took that away--the illusion of partnership, which still feels cruel. Too cruel. Still wish he'd never come at all, because it is harder to have seen the possibility of so much and have it gone when I am facing so much, but I have no more time or emotion to give to that, either. He is in a box marked "Later." That's all I have time for where he is concerned. The damage is what I have to deal with and I will. I do not feel, for who I am, there is a choice.

This will be an exercise in blind faith. Faith that there WILL be something better in life, that in the process of working simply to walk, to stand, to be able to be independent, something new will reveal itself as a purpose. A reason to be here and be taking up space. NO, I am not suicidal. Not even close. Quite the contrary, I am determined to not allow this surprise development to ... what ... defeat me.

The doctor called me from his home, in the evening, so I knew it was not good. HE, however, is wonderful. And when he asked if I was up for it this time around, there was no hesitation in, "Yes. Of course. I don't lie down and die."

So I am eating whatever the HELL I want for the weekend. No one said I have to lose weight, but I figure I"m going to tackle it ALL. I will begin on Monday, when my friend--my other "big sister"--and I go to our gym and sign me up again. I'll just click into that mode I clicked into so very long ago. I will walk as many steps as I can, then walk five more. I will stand up straight. I will not bend, except to stretch, and I will find the point of discomfort then bend just enough further before the point of stabbing pain. I will stand beautiful and strong, and straight, and face whatever is going to come after this. For the next few months, my purpose is simple and focused. That will have to be enough.

How that will translate in here is anyone's guess. Perhaps I will find it freeing, living simply to walk.  Physical pain has lessons in it, and I thought I was done with those lessons. Evidently not, so I am determined to dive into them, and to move beyond the blockage. Move through Louise to maybe... what. To HELEN.

Find something new to live for, perhaps something I never dreamed. I need to hold onto that, I think. That there will be possibilities I have not yet dreamed, and just let that be.

But for now? I will get the medical tests and learn what I must, and I will relocate that heart of the warrior in me. And I WILL FIGHT. I will find Hippolyta inside of my soul here, the Amazon queen. And I will fight this until I win.

THEN, when I have slain my dragon, I'll look around and see what comes next.

Thanks for reading.

Tales of Thanksgiving: Norman Rockwell Redux?

Just read Jo's entry on the human condition and laughter... I have never liked Thanksgiving but it's pretty simple. Mom drank herself into a stupor and I had to do "girl" things. I could be all dramatic and say it mostly because of Mom, but ... nope. It was the girl things. Mostly, as I got to be about ten or eleven, the drunk thing had its up side. And my family found ways to create traditions, no matter what the scene.

And sometimes we found our way to Love, no matter what...

While this is a tough entry, ostensibly about  my mom and drinking, it is also one about adapting and humor. My mom found a way back to that, even though it meant sometimes she had to face her own illness. I remember these two Thanksgivings as if they were one. I remember the pain, but I remember her. And that, in the end, she found the way to make them live as special to me, despite the pain. And while the  holiday was not the one our family did well, I would still rather have had my mom, for all of it...


There is a children's game called "Hucka-bucka-beanstalk" that involved hiding a small object in plain sight and the first one who FOUND sed object would shout "Hucka bucka BEEEEEANSTALK!" And win. The right to hid the thing was all we won, but we played the game nonetheless.

Jean Ellen and I played this starting about about 9:00 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning, as we'd find Mom's partly drunk glasses of port.  You got five extra points for finding something in a bizarre place, and won the game outright for a glass from last year.  Mom always wondered why we hadn't enough juice glasses in the fall... Mom was not mean when she drank, at all. So there were no horrible scenes or traumas. Mom was simply drunk when she drank, which meant that dinner was a crazy quilt affair, but usually close to edible, except, perhaps, on these two holidays in question.

I think the first was when I was in fourth grade or so. Jean Ellen was home from college.  So Jack was in sixth grade, Jim in ninth.  I think JFK had been elected. It doesn't really matter. I was old enough to have faced a great many truths, to have locked away some, and to have learned to shrug off others.

I was in charge of the fruit bowl. Mind you, this included mixed nuts. And the fruit had to be polished, as did the fruit bowl, which was one of those liquid silver and glass creations developed, I think, to make my life a living hell. I had already polished the silver, but Dad kept finding "spots" I'd missed on the bowl. The "boys" including Dad were out playing football, which was my usual role in the house. But, no. There I was helping with the dinner because that's what "girls do." This girl stuff was worse than boring, worse than unfair. I knew we would also be stuck doing the dishes. At least this year there would be no guests. This year it was just us, and the grandmas were elsewhere. Joy and Jack were elsewhere, too, so we would be spared the non-gourmet critique.

Sometimes, on Thanksgiving, I think she was better drunk. When she tried to behave, I think the strain got to her--putting up with relatives whom she could think and talk under the table, yet who somehow knew how to make her feel small. Thanksgiving was her bender time, the last hurrah until New Year's. She usually was bone dry until then, so as to keep Christmas clear in her heart, I think. She cherished the season, but not this day.

Nope. Today,  my mom had had trouble with scrambled eggs and Jean Ellen and I knew we were in for a time. Garlic. There was garlic in the scrambled eggs and she'd forgotten to thaw the Stouffer's coffee cake.

It wasn't fair though, really, because Jean Ellen started right off with a five pointer and the port glass in the toilet paper drawer.  By noon we'd tied at seven points each, though, because I'd found one behind the celery in the refrigerator  vegetable drawer. We think Jack had interrupted  her making the stuffing, but were not sure. It came time, though for my least favorite chore--wiping the crystal to make it shiny. We only used the crystal at Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, so it was pretty dim just now, and coated with a layer of dust that had found its way through the glass door.

But suddenly, glee overtook me! "I WIN I WIN! Hucka bucka beanstalk!"

There, behind the large, water goblets was an encrusted small glass, still slightly tinted from its evaporated contents from last season's celebration. I won. And the day was only half done.

***
Jean Ellen and I always did the table proud, and JE even measured the distance for globlet from knife tip, everything just so. the table was beautiful, and Mom was "resting" in her chair, the boys--including Dad--etching nail marks in the wooden armrests of the living room chairs as their favorite teams lost. Funny. The turkey wasn't smelling that good.

We sent Jack in to test it. Mom didn't like me doing that because the turkey weighed about 20 pounds. Jean Ellen was sick of the whole thing.

"So," said Jack. "I suppose the turkey's supposed to be, oh, hot by now?"

We went in to check and there it was. The oven was at about 200 degrees and all you could smell was spoiling fowl. Foul is the word.

"MA!" Jim shouted.

She roused herself and stumbled into the kitchen, to realize her mistake. "Damn. I'll make hamburgers." I groaned, but Jack didn't miss a beat.

"Jim. Quick. You get the hockey sticks."

My mother's hamburgers when she was sober, were a miracle of cuisine. Legendary, in fact. Charred outside, raw inside. You could not chew them. But, then, you couldn't even cut them, so the whole thing as moot. And this year? When she put them on the platter, they clattered.

Jack threw one on the kitchen floor and he and Jim were happy. When Jim shouted, "GOAL!" with a smooth swipe through the arch, my mother just looked tired. Suddenly, oh, so softly, to the tune of the Hallelujah Chorus, Jean Ellen sang, 'SAL monELLa, SAL monella, SalmoNELLA..." And we all joined in, softly at first, then in full sway.

My mother began to glare, but then suddenly she joined in with, 'FOR the Lord God OmNEEE-POTENT Laugheth. Salmonella ..."

***
Let's just say that the following year, we had absolutely NO points for hucka bucka beanstalk. Joy and Jack were due and Mom would have none of the previous year's mistakes. NO. Not for the gourmet snob and  her brilliantly spoiled husband.  Mom was stone-cold, seriously SOBER. I was a little nervous that this would not bode well for Christmas, but I had to admit it was rather a welcome change for the holiday. In fact, we women did some real pre-Christmas caroling rehearsals.

I think she was proud of things that year. She had created a different stuffing, with mushrooms and finely slivered, caramelized onions, sherry. I tested a little before it went in the bird and it was divine I thought. The table was beautiful, with its lace cloth over a deep claret lining. Perfectly ironed claret napkins matched one color in the china. The fruit bowl was perfection, if I say so myself. And I do. Jean Ellen had put some touches on the relish and cranberry sauce trays, garnishes of HOLLY. Beautiful. The goblets shone. Mom felt good for once.

About ten minutes before dinner, she did the final browning of the perfect bird--a 24 pounder this year, so there would be lots of leftovers. We got carried away with one of Jim's "Stupid non-magic tricks" wherein, deadpan, he would make a metal "Shoot the Moon" ball "disappear" By throwing it over his shoulder, dropping it, or simply asking you to close your eyes while he put it in his pocket--you never knew.  His timing was flawless, and he never cracked a smile, but he realized he'd delayed dinner and offered to get the bird out of the oven and save Mom the trouble.

"So Ma," we heard him tentatively, for Jim, calling. "Is it done when it changes its race and bounces?"

"DAMN!" My  mom shrieked and Jean Ellen and I followed her in. The turkey was BLACK. Charred entirely. She'd put it on broil for a final crisping and we all forgot. Poor Mom.

She realized, though that it was not burned through. We were in no position to waste food. The bird clunked onto the platter and was presented to Dad for help.

Joy and Jack barely contained their sneers but were, for them, polite. Dad tackled it with words of comfort to Mom. "Jean, inside it's perfect. Don't worry."

He tried to cut through the thick, blackness to reach the drumstick, then thought perhaps a sneak attack from underneath would work, with which a drumstick flew into the air and landed into Jean Ellen's water glass.

She blinked and looked at Daddy, through her coke bottle glasses, and said, "Daddy, you know I prefer white meat."

A whisper of a smile rippled across six out of eight faces, but we all looked down. He handed a plate to Mom, to JE, then worked his way to Jim. Carefully, Daddy removed every trace of black from every slice, and handed Jim a flawless plate of white meant, to which Jim said, "No skin?"

We looked down again--quickly, this time. Jim's slight smirk lingered, and Mom's napkin landed on top of his head. He left it there. Then, the next plate went to Jack my brother and the next to Jack, Joy's husband. Joy's Jack moved the meat around his plate, to let us be well aware of the disdain. And Joy? She flipped a piece of meat over and simply said, "THIS is not fresh turkey. It's frozen."

MY Jack, said, "HEY. Be happy it's COOKED." We gasped, but Jean Ellen began to lose it, and Daddy stood helpless, knife and fork poised over the pathetic bird, looking at my mother, his eyes compassionate, his mouth twitching.

Mom stood up. For a moment I thought she would cry and we were suddenly silent, with Joy and Jack still sneering.

She opened her mouth to speak, but what came out was, "SAL monELLA, SAL monella."

And we sang our way through the season.

And that is the worst and the best of my mom... Thanksgivings were hard, most far harder than these two.  Writing about them would serve no purpose at all. I cannot enjoy the day... but I was and always will be glad I had the mom I had, for worse or for better.  Perhaps some see this as bitter... I don't. If I had not had the dark humor, I would not have survived the worst. If I had not had the mother I had, I would not BE my best.

Addendum to Watercolors

Three of my great aunts were water color artists: Alice, May, and CHAAAAHLotte. Massachussetts. The Skinnah (Skinner) girls.

I remember sitting at my Aunt May's house near Worcester. Mom and I once went there with Grandpa and Grandma (Harvey and Louise) to visit Uncle "Kinnith" and Aunt May.

Aunt May always had a painting in the works. Outdoors it was oils, indoors water color. I don't know why except I think it had to do with the smell. They would be on one end of the deep front porch, May and Weeda (Little brother's pronunciation of Louise). Weeda did her embroidery and May did her paintins. The men on the other end, smoking cigars, and rocking. Mommy and I would sit on the steps in the middle, lost in the beauty of dappled light on ferns and the neighborhood retrievers galloping over for an afternoon call. Four of them, shinging and sweet, would wag themselves to our feet.

Hahvey and Kinnith would tell a "joke" about as off-color as ecru. Weeda and May would punctuate the punch line with a "HAHVEY!" creak, creak "KINNITH!" Creak, creak. And the afternoon would drift away, while Mommy and I dreamed to the rhythms of old New England couples.

That was when  first thought that painting was a good thing. The sisters painted and our house had a world of flowers and landscapes in it, from them. Aunt Charlotte visited me when I had the measles. all the way down from MAINE. And she brought  me dresses and she smelled of something faintly pungent. And when she aske dme  how old she was, I believe I said, "103."

Just about the age she was when she died. They called her Strange, AuntCharlotte. After she was widowed, she had a lady companion who was always at her side. I didn't find her strange. I loved her. I mean, there were hollyhocks that lined the walk to her cottage by the sea. Big as Daddy, they lined the walk.

Her paintings of the cottage had six hollyhocks by her door. I remember that.

It's a theme in my family, this art. Mom's brother was an artist, too. But they all did it on the side, and lived quiet lives full of complaining and sharp edges, which somehow made me sad.

Except Aunt Charlotte. She liked life by the sea, the wildness of it. And she liked being far from  home, so she only had to visit sometimes. I think I need to remember these women. Another day we'll speak of Aunt Ellen in Alaska, too.

Now THERE is a woman who loves the edges of EVERYTHING.

Watercolor and Collage: an Exercise In Letting Go

I'm afraid I have been rather more than nuts the last few weeks. It goes far beyond a love story, but that was the easiest to write about.  I think we all hit dark times and we all hit walls that, for a time, we cannot find a way over, around, or through.  We bash against them for a bit, somehow think that by sheer will power, or even through sheer love we can break the wall down. Sometimes nothing works at all and we realize we are simply hurting ourselves more.

I've just been getting all mixed up about what's love, what's pain, what's wanting, what's the real deal. Agape. The only part of religion I ever really "got." For me? Every major religion boils down to "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Bam. That's it. Everything else is just static and our humanity getting in the way. Some of that humanity is fun, mind you, but it's still not agape. "God's love." I don't believe in the Kahuna in the sky pulling strings. And if God is unknowable then I will just not worry about what or if God is.

I am finite. Lately? I'm so finite, I cannot see past an hour from now. So what do I do with all this? It isn't really about my broken heart or dreams because of any one person. Never has been. And it isn't so much about where I live as the process of decisions. It's about figuring out what to do and how to create a new life again, when the picture is more than bleak: health, finances, family, loneliness, where to live.  While I can visualize possibilities, there are too many unanswered questions and too much real, raw pain to be able to think clearly for now.

I have had real trouble thinking and  I am not accustomed to that. It scares me to death when I cannot reason.  I have not been behaving with grace, just panic and craziness. This past week it all came to a head for me and while I am not vindictive when I lose it, it is still not easy for anyone around me. Or for me, for that matter, but wherever I go there I am, so... I'm stuck with me.

 I know many people hit those places; I had not been here since my husband left and my daughter went into treatment, and then when she died. Those two times were times when I lost myself entirely for a time. And  once before that, after an incident of brutal violence... I did through this as well.

I need to look at how to get up again, not just where.
***
We can say that when you hit the bottom you have no choice but to get up, but that isn't true. People do choose to lie down. And sometimes they choose to "fight" like a runner or a swimmer. Hit "ROCKY." Sometimes they have people who pick up the pieces for them and who take care of them out of love. I have people around who are helping me that way and I am so very, very lucky.

But they cannot save me and shouldn't.  And R.? He does not need my anger or to be loved to DEATH through this. I can laugh at myself in this. I SHOULD for Heaven's sake. It's a little dumb, all this angst at 57. The love is not dumb, but the drama is. I can't undo the last week, but there is no shame either. 

Strong people can break sometimes. I broke. So I have to put me back together again somehow. And even if R. had chosen to be the man he presented and promised, I'd still have had to put myself back together again. That thought, unfortunately, while it floated around in my brain so that I could express it, did not fully sink to the rest of me until the middle of the night. Long after I'd been nuts this past week. Oh well.

I hate this being human and flawed crap. HIGHLY over-rated. My blog reflects my best intentions sometimes, but my heart and ability to act on those intentions lag behind.

So where's the watercolor and collage stuff? Hey. I meander. There's a reason I love rivers!

***
Which brings me to watercolor and collage. It's no fluke that these are the media that draw me! I love pen and ink, too, because my sister taught me to draw. I connect with her when I do little illustrations, and intricate "doodles." But pen and ink is all about control. Even acrylics and oils... You WAIT a lot to do layers. You can scrape layers off or paint over them. I used to watch the precision of my sister and envied her that.

But for me? Here's the big surprise. Not. I was never satisfied with my work. I spent too much time scraping off "mistakes." Painting over. Trying to plan and plan and plan. I gave up in despair at my own  "failure."

But out there in PA? Sharon was teaching us contour drawing and we had GIANT newsprint pads. I drew my roses in the lower right hand corner and they looked like roses well enough, but Sharon said, "MY GOD, woman, you have ALL THAT PAPER! What are you  holding in so tight that you have put yourself in that corner, with  nowhere to go?"

There was my life, right there. Putting myself in a little corner, or allowing others to do that for me — that does amount to the same thing. I let my marriage shape me into a caged panther. That was the image I had of myself. I was a panther in a cage in a crate in a closet in a room with no windows. That was how I described myself in my journal, the year my father died. Just before the flashbacks begain and I got help at last.

And here I am now.  R. awakened the untamed person  in me again. I don't mean that in any negative sense at all. I am not a tame sort of creature. My life the last six or seven years—since I hit fifty and had a wonderful birthday with a man who I know is a friend of my soul, of that untamed spirit, and I tried briefly to honor her again at home—has been about trying to be what I am not. Trying to fit suburbia, trying to be the good sister, the good aunt, the good friend.  I forgot how to be Jeannette.  I hit a bottom about a year ago, trying to come up with a plan to make a living, to work around this worsening spine. I thought of Paint, Paper, and Pens. The workshops for stay-at-hom parents, or perhaps people out of work... something to do int he DAYTIME. Not a course in drawing.

It was about a course in letting go! It was about helping other people unlock their own creative, untamable spirits! I wanted to get people to play with art, to just let the medium dictate direction. I had an exercise planned where each person would swap off the picture, so there could be  no plan. For every step there would be a simple "assignment," then the picture would be passed on, so that at eh end of class, each person would have a completed work that was ALL OF US together.

I was just beginning to awaken with this studio of mine.  When all the time, the planning, and the trying to do things above board and "right" exploded, the awakening was still too new. I had no time to really work at an alternative before Stanford appeared. THAT was my knight in shining armor. The work that had given me a career, given me some sense of accomplishment and challenge was there again and  thought I'd be fine.

I wasn't fine. The work that called me was my art... were my arts. Writing and painting. I wanted to paint. I had to earn a living though. I didn't want my son to have to take care of me. All these old things closed in around me again and I slipped back into that person who wanted to do "the right thing" was there. Boxing me back into my little corner. I began great guns to paint again, but then as the work for Stanford became increasingly difficult and whatever is going wrong in my spine or elsewhere was showing me just how bad this was, I backed away a bit from painting. And R. appeared. Like music, WITH music, with his bigger-than-life, wonderful passion and humor, there he was.

Both of us dimmed... but suddenly we were shining again. The biggest appeal for me was that he wanted me to be able to simply paint and write when I wanted to, when my health allowed me to. He wanted me to be able to have choices for my life again, to simply be Jeannette. To fly. To NOT be tamed or have to worry about life so much. I wanted the same for him, to live out his own passions, not feel constrained by a veneer of the "responsible guy." He did not need the veneer--he was a good man without it. Both of us were imagining a different kind of life.  That was where he touched me so deeply inside. He spoke to the woman who kept choosing to draw in the bottom right hand corner, with nowhere to go but BACKWARDS.

So this week, when the feelings of being dirty because of the last six weeks drove me to the shower to get clean, something began to click in, even during the craziness. This is what many women who've been raped do, sometimes for any situation where we feel violated and betrayed again, we absorb the shame as our own, and think we can never be clean. WE already ARE clean and the shame is not our own, but we do it anyway... for a time. We think that everything going wrong in our lives is somehow because we. are. just. not. right.

Until we right ourselves again. And last night, when some sort of clarity hit, as I leaped out of bed because I was feeling that way again, I went downstairs to my studio instead.

I crumpled and tore tissue and I slapped some glue on it and put it on the paper. And I began to throw paint on the paper, and just watched the paint be absorbed, spread, feathering out in all sorts of peculiar directions. It may easily be the worst painting I've ever done in my life and I will never let it go. I had absolutely no control over how the paint would run. I could predict how the colors might blend and recognize a general direction the water would run, but  nothing more.

I did not have to think. I simply let the water run. I let the colors do what they would. I chose my colors, but let the rest happen. I trusted myself to simply play. I trusted my heart to come out there on the paper, and some of the colors make me cry. It is not a happy piece, but it isn't about terror. It isn't about angst or anything that big. It is a sadness there, on paper. Sweet. The colors over half of the paper are beautiful and soft, and sweet. It is uncontrolled, like me.

I do watercolor and tissue papers, or some of those marvelous handmade HOLEY papers... I love how they make the colors run. The textures are unexpected. I am never sure whether I can create what I have imagined... sometimes what I create is more lovely to me that anything I planned. Sometimes, not so much. I don't care. It's the doing that helps, and if the product pleases or touches, so much the better. And yes, the  metaphor is obvious, but so what? I could not feel it until last night... I couldn't get that distance from intellect to spirit until then.

All of this gets back to the same place, every time--honoring the artist, letting myself live freely.  So many have tried to tame me, to make me into what I am not. I love R. because he did not want me tamed... He loves that part of me, the artist, the one who grabs life with both hands, who loves all out, without holding back. And I do use the present tense. Turns out, though, that he, decided he didn't want to live with me, or that life after all. And other concerns trump whatever we might have had. He is who he is, and chose his path, and felt his own risks were too great and that the life he has now will be better, and it really is not my job to judge that. I actually understand those concerns from his point of view.  It is not fair of me to be angry for his choices--I can be angry at how he treated me when he made his choice, but not at how he lives his own life. That's not love on my part. That's just me wanting.

I can criticize him, but that's not fair, either. A life that is familiar, and offers continuity and calm for one person can have riches and offer real security and benefits... to him... How I feel about his life is irrelevant. My life as it stands is as far from secure as it gets, but I also realize I have opted for what appeared as safe too often myself—it was always an illusion for me, because I will  never be happy with my life unless I DO go out on that edge. Running to security in  my past spelled trouble, but that's me. My life. I have no right to judge him or to judge others, or their circumstances.

I come alive on the edges of things.The border between the yin and the yang. I will always have that sense of loss because I HAVE now seen what life would have been with this soul I have loved for thirty years, to live that sort of artistic life with a true partner. He placed this in my hands and said it was mine, then simply removed it in the blink of an eye. For some of us we DO meet the love of our lives, someone who speaks to someplace deep within, at every stage of our lives. Some of us, inside, do mate for life. I did. And that's that. I do not have to mourn him on my sleeve, nor beat my chest any more, nor allow the shame of older wounds take over. I can simply choose to love and be quiet.

And that is entirely up to me.

I have absolutely no idea how this poverty , this pain, this strange spine of mine will play out in my life. I can put myself in senior subsidized housing, in the lower right hand corner of my life... I can be the good aunt, sister, friend. I can try to control it all with a plan that will get me through. I would  not be unhappy, and there would be times I probably would be more than just content.

But, as I talked about a couple of entries back, I think that would be settling and I just don't want to settle.  There is more.  I can use this love, the agape of it all--the GIFT of love--as one of my colors, despite the sadness, recognize his color is unique, and one of my favorite colors in this life, no matter what did or did not happen, and use it with all the other colors I love. The colors my grandmother spoke of--I have been lucky in my life with all these people and all these colors. I need to be more like her, no matter where I must live... it's the how that matters most.

I can recognize my life as torn paper and color and water. I do not have to choose safe, thereby, for me, choosing fear.  There is a way to do this, no matter what the constraints of body and means. Even with a sadness here, there is also joy. For more joy, in fact. I have the entire pallet. The entire canvas. I can live it like my art, no matter what the constraints, and start each painting wherever I choose. That is how I can fight the fear, the pain, the loneliness. It isn't about fighting; it's about the living.

It will be entirely  up to me to learn to treat what lies ahead like watercolor and collage, and to find the beauty in the uncontrollable of my life.

sporadic again for a while--but visit new blogs!

I will be beginning medical tests and be working with Social Security, and trying to figure out how to survive financially. I guess it's called taking care of business.

It is a strange feeling to be this alone, in terms of actual help with survival, but that's life. I have friends. I know they love me, and I'm hoping that will see me through. My right hand went numb three times today, for about a half and hour at a clip and sometimes fear kinda trumps creativity.

No doubt I will be visiting other blogs, and when there is something that strikes me that has nothing whatsoever to do with heartbreak and the pain of the last two weeks, I'll write again--when there is time.

Jo's idea is a good one! look at my favorite blogs, and if you see one you haven't read, check it out, please!

NEW NOTE: on Tuesday. I know my friends care--I know YOU all care. I do know that and I hope you all realize that it matters a great deal to me. This virtual world is not all that "virtual," and good thoughts matter. Thank you all for the kindness. It calms the fear more than I thought possible.

Nothing LIke a Twelve String Guitar, and thoughts of my soul's true home

I said a while ago, that this blog for me is my practice memoir--a place to learn to write about pain, about fear, about life. And tonight I had a breakthrough on more levels than I can count. Another wild ride, perhaps. And for some, uncomfortably personal. But if I write a book, it will be uncomfortably personal.  I have to learn to be brave enough to reveal my own stupidity, and my own frailties.  And to learn to do it so that I tell a story that reaches beyond the personal.


Thank you for reading. I understand if you'd rather not! 

Tonight one of my best friends showed up, just to help me remember what has gotten me through everything. He showed up with his twelve string guitar,  his ridiculous sense of humor and, well, his friendship that stretches back to eighth grade. Maybe that's not why he showed up, but it's how it felt anyway. Kinda like my beautiful stag. It doesn't matter whether or not the reason the deer shows up is to help me. His presence DOES help. That's what counts.

Jamie and I riff, in our own strange place. He will start playing chords and I hum, to fill in melodies that simply run through my head while he plays. I know just enough to hear where the music is headed and we do our thing without words. Without fanfare. Without an audience. We simply talk to one another as we fill in each other's lines. And I remember that once, a long time ago, I thought he would be the one, too--though, to be fair, I kept hidden from him, as I did from everyone else. And it broke my heart when he no longer wanted me. Both times. Yet here we were tonight and the friendship is rich and true, as deep as any friendship I have. Just different. He shows up when I need the calm, the substance at the core. He and Martha seem to know when I am in trouble before I speak. Everyone should be this lucky, to have people like this in their lives.

 I had told my son about how tenuous my future is. And he had the panic-stricken look I'd feared.  Modern life. I'm his stepmother, and no matter what I want to believe, or how I feel about him... It's there. It isn't that he loves me less.  He feels he is overwhelmed by parents, but, at least, he had said, his mom and dad were remarried, and to younger people. I think he sees this as something he'd have to  deal with later. I don't blame him. I get that. I don't want it for him, either... but it broke my heart to see it.

So Jamie came with his guitar. And I sang with him, and I simply put the world far away. He brings different music and even the songs that overlap with things that are hard to hear just now... he does them in his own way. And when he left, I connected on FaceBook with my friends in Pennsylvania. Friends who are coming out with a new CD. Someone who went to an all-day silent retreat. A singer who contacted me because I posted about singing.

My Soul's Retreat
Where the rivers run--Penn's Creek, Buffalo Creek, the branches of the Susquehanna, Lycoming--so many rivers, large and small.  Where the mountains are just an hour from home, in Lewisburg. Home.  I think that I may aim myself back there, at least for a few years, if I have to leave my house. I went there after Mark left, after my Jessie died. I ran to the place, more than running away from home.

I re-created myself there. I learned to paint. And since I left? I met the musicians there. The Local Music Collective. There are professional and amateur musicians, a group that gather once a month to jam at one another's homes.  One of my friends took me to a jam and I was hooked. I re-discovered my voice with these people. It's a community of artists and writers and musicians.  I think the water makes the difference. I don't know. But there has always been magic there for me, and I think I will need the magic soon.

When I first moved there, I realized that I'd have to make a life from scratch, and the way to make it happen was to get involved with something that mattered. Within a month, there were two activities: An auction for a battered women's shelter, and a potluck picnic for an organization that was created to fight the KKK. These two organizations set me up with structure and purpose in my life that lasted the whole two years I was there. But the friendships and connections that sprang from them are with  me still today.

Art
I stood in line for the auction and a woman came up behind me in a rush. She was late and introduced herself to me and asked me what drew me. When I told her I'd been in town a month, that I'd simply packed up and moved here and this was my first main event, she grabbed me and said, "You're at my table. Bid on my art lessons."

Sharon taught me to paint. Introduced me to a new world, and the possibility of more artistic fulfillment than I thought was possible.  She was my first brand new friend. Because of her then, I have a studio now.

First Sense of Community
I used to eat lunch on Wednesdays in a little cafe inside an antiques mall/mill. There was a group of people fifteen to twenty years older than I, and I loved hearing them talk about the war, about the fifties, just about life. One of them turned out to have known my dad. My dad had helped him get certified and was pivotal in helping him succeed in his education career. I had one of my bouts of pneumonia about a month and a half after I'd started going there. When I returned after a two week absence, my group all started to yell at me, and one by one gave me their phone numbers and the proprietor of the cafe sent me home with soup and one of his quiches. And they told me that I was not in Connecticut any more, and that I never need be alone and sick again.

That I never need be alone again. See, that's what resonates still today, particularly now.  Solitude and living alone need not be a sentence of loneliness. I lived there just two years, but in that time, I found people with whom I will be connected for life. And I know now that there are about a dozen people who would show up if I were in need, within half an hour. And there would be music and a community of which I could be a part. The give and the take in life, fully connected again.

I love my house. I love New England as well. And I love my friends back here. But it is not a community of friends. We are all together at Christmas and we visit in between.  Mostly it is more fragmented and modern--there is little inter-connectedness.  They mostly bond through me.

I want more from my life again. And I think, perhaps, I will need that the most.

Water, Mountains, Peace
There is a bend in the river below Port Trevorton, where the mountains rise high on either side. In the mornings, just a couple of hours past dawn, the clouds rest in puffs on the water. The coffee Clatch of them seem to gather for the morning gossip, and the glitter in the rising sun, sometimes shooting rainbows all over the place. Then, without warning, they simply rise, racing off to wherever clouds go after sleeping.

There is a rock at World's End, smack in the middle of the creek. On a summer's day, I walk there from the parking lot, and pick my way down over the rounded river rocks. I wade into the water, beyond the loudest of the family picnic noises.  The laughter and the squeals are close enough to hear, but far enough to sound like white noise. I lie on my rock, braving the pain of swollen scars on rock. I look up and watch the eagles circle. I drift away, to the music of laughter and the beauty of bird against blue.

At night, in town,  I walk the best I can over the cobblestone sidewalks, peeking through the old carriage gates at gardens as wondrous as any botanical park.  And I run into friends, who stop and talk. We laugh and move on, together or on our separate paths.

The town's in trouble these days, like everywhere else. But it is alive. It is alive with art, with musicians, with the small town gossip of anywhere. But the river edges it all. It has a pulse that never ends; it shapes this place in spite of itself. It slows everything down.

When I lived there before, it was a winter of blizzards. We got one dumped two and a half feet only our town and Milton, the other side of the river--nowhere else in the country! This as after two feet just two days before. The town became alive with people walking. No cars. Sleds. Children. I stepped back into another century and we had a magic two days, until the flooding started. I remember walking with a friend up onto the bridge. Two elderly ladies were wondering why, when the plows were pushing water off route 15, they could not plow Front street. I said, "Ladies, this is the RIVER itself. You cannot plow a river."

"Well, I don't see why not. they can do all sorts of things. What are our taxes for?"

Suddenly the bridge shook. And ice flow about twelve feet long crashed into the pilings. The ladies said, "Shows how strong our bridge is."

I blinked and said, "No. It shows how strong the RIVER IS." And I left.

The town is not Nirvana. Nowhere where there are people ever is.  But it has its own music.  And if I am to be alone in my heart, in my day to day life, I would rather be alone in this place of water and mountains. Among these people who are so kind and talented. And they fight and make up and are flawed. And their lives are messy and often hard. But they opened their hearts and welcomed me in, and somewhere inside? This is home.

The Need to Shake My World Up: The NEED for change

Jamie and I talked without speaking, as is our custom at times. It's more that we punctuate the music with occasional speech, I guess. He moved me there those many years ago. He knows how it touched my soul. It's cheaper, too, to live there than here. But he knows where the place touches me. He was there.

That's the way plans develop. First we kick them around in grief, and in pain, knowing now isn't the time to move or do anything drastic. Yet I am opening my  mind to the possibilities, nonetheless. The subsidized housing complex is fine. It would be adequate. It isn't that.

I want more than fine! I want way more than fine!

In refusing to stuff those parts away again, that I had so carefully hidden, it will be next to impossible to go to that cold, gray place, before R. woke me up. I am awake. TOO awake now. And the ache for him will be there, long after I no longer bother to mention him to anyone, least of all in here. Long after he may have forgotten a thing about these last weeks, I will remember what counts for me from it all. I am awake; he did that for me. And I may never see him again, but I will never forget his face how he looked, when all of me appeared, when I let all of who I am appear at last. The love remains in me. I would rather not kill it, even if it means living with that peculiar ache. It's livable, that ache.

BUT ... I owe it to myself, and to whatever was real, to remain awake. To take all my "committee members" and use them. Perhaps they will add to my writing. Or maybe they will simply give me the courage to try to start over again. Fresh. In the place I have loved for so long.

I asked Jamie whether he thought it was a good idea. He asked something about state disability and I said, "Disability's federal."

"Well then go. Right away." He knows.

And I know myself, too. If I stayed here? Somehow or other, because I am so good at deluding myself, I would find myself waiting for something to change, for a dream of what I wanted. For something to simply happen: for R to come back, for things to work out with people here. I am afraid, if I stay, I will not allow myself to run after my dream. I will get caught up with the families who consider me their own, but only to a point.  They love me; I love them. It would be easy to be absorbed and to let myself be lost in whatever their lives become. Or I'll be waiting to try a plan with some friend or another. I will fritter the precious years I may have without poverty, not daring to even try... my memoir, my poetry, my novel, the drawing, the painting. I will wait for "something" to make things better. I will simply dabble, marking time, waiting for a miracle.

Sometimes you have to create the environment for miracles, and sometimes the miracle itself is in knowing when it is time to shake things up.

*****
I need mountains and water, like air. And people who feed the spirit in me to explore. And I need to make things better myself.

They call the mountains that fill the state north to New York and on to Canada the Endless Mountain Range. the first time Jean Ellen and I drove north from State College, we went through a place called Snow Shoe, then we curved northeast, for a day-long mountain arch home. We were rising slowly, but did not realize it, until we emerged from a woods, and out before us stretched, in three directions, nothing but mountain tops.  We were among them, looking out like gods all around. And lining the edge of the road, as far as the road could be seen, were monarch butterflies. A million butterflies glittering golden and flame in the sun. We pulled off the road and got out.

Jean Ellen began to laugh and said, "THIS is what someone was looking at when they wrote the Bear went over the Mountain." Like children we shouted the song. And both of us had butterflies on our arms and our head and we danced around like children.

It was a moment of pure joy.

I have had many moments that equal that, while I lived there, and in my visits home... there. My home.

Not Settling: NEVER SETTLING... If joy won't find me, then I'll just go after it
The place speaks to me somewhere that music speaks. In  a place without words. And it inspires me to be better than I am.  Geographical cures are not always about running away. We take our problems with us, yes. But sometimes a brand new life, in a beloved place? In a place that speaks to our soul? Sometimes it can offer us miracles we believed were done.  

Not since Jessie died has life seemed so uncertain, so painful on every front.  And never has my actual financial future been so devoid of any buffer. There is only my house. When that money is gone? I will have nothing at all. Yet others have had to survive like that, and without good health. I want to be a success story. I don't think, once we straighten out my health, even if my health is scary, that I can stay where it is so "safe."

I think, if I am to live a long, long life, like my Grandma M., that I must not choose what is safe. She knew how to create adventure from string beans, for Heaven's sake! She had her love for most of her life. I don't have that, and most likely I never will.

But I can still walk and do for myself. And even if there are new troubles, I don't think that they will keep me from being able to create. It will just be harder. But I don't think I was built for "safe." Doesn't mean that I like danger or am dangerous. I'm not. I just feel that to grab onto the joy, I have to be willing to risk doing what is difficult, doing what I know will make some very angry with me, and what will make a few people more than sad.

The angry ones want me to be there for them. The sad ones want me with them. There is a difference. But I will not do more than drift from one person's problems to another's if I stay. I will be committing myself to being the single older woman, who is there for others, but not for herself, and there is nothing whatever wrong with that! It just is not me. My time with R. reminded me of that. The moment we spoke of our dreams, I knew that my life was off-track, and it cannot be dependent on him. It was wrong for me to believe that his being at my side was the key to hope. He simply reminded me of what I want--and I think I was unfair to pin the hope on his promises. Unfair to us both. I simply want him with me, to make it all richer, not to make it possible; I don't need him with me, to go after the dreams of a life beyond fine. That is an important difference.

I think I have to go out on an edge again. Move away, to find my interior home. I think I need to leave the safety of the cocooning friends and run to this nest of people who ... do not know what it IS to have money. Who start nonprofits, develop rituals for all occasions, find odd ways to make ends meet, because they would rather experiment from their hearts than be "safe." Perhaps that's why R. came into my life. He may not have wanted any part of the change that meant being with me.  And I realize that the change of being with someone who shared this passion for life... this yearning to do more, that this would have been the making of me. It might have been for him, or maybe not--don't know, maybe it was timing; but that's all irrelevant. It has to be now. What matters in that, is that he wanted that for me, to do more, to explore. There were no lies in that, no misleading. We want that for one another. And I can hold onto that.

So I'll figure out a way to do it alone. That will be okay, no matter how raw the wanting still is.  I know it will be okay. I've never feared change.

And I believe that if joy--the happiness you cannot feel unless you know its flipside--if joy is what I want in this life, I have to go running out and grab it with both hands.

We cannot wait for luck to happen, sometimes. Even when everything's a mess. Even when our hearts hurt. We have to find what will shake us loose. I need to shake loose, even if I have MS. Even if there is more spinal cord damage. Even if I have no job. And even though I will still be flying alone. It's scarier now than ever before... but isn't this just the time to go after it all? I am not, was not wrong to love R. all the way, to learn  that I DO feel joy and absolute happiness is worth the risk. Worth pain and fear and losing.  It's worth doing what's hard. There's a gift in there, beyond the love story, beyond any pain... There is. And I have to believe that it's never wrong to love. And that lesson, that gift can withstand the absence, the anger, the ache. You learn simply what to do with the gifts that the love brought and try to put them into your future, regardless of where the other person travels or lands.

And I need to be where I will focus on what counts.

I want to go home again. It's time to go home again.

************
When I was in Lewisburg, I wrote all the time again. As I said, I began to paint. I felt free of my family, of the weight of my past, and I could spin the pain into gold. I can do this again. Jamie began a familiar riff, he calls the "Let's annoy Jetty riff."  It wanders and goes nowhere. Just when you think you know where you are headed, he changes the key and we're off on another trail. It reminds me of my life, I think. We always end up doing something fine, in among the mis-sung notes or the chords too far off any trail. We forget that it began as a joke and get lost in the moment. We get lost in the joy of creating.

I created that studio to free myself, to develop a talent my sister saw, but I never dared explore.  I started this blog to begin my writing for real. I let R. in at last, because it was time to be whole.

November 2nd revision...to R. in particular

I can no longer settle for okay, for "tolerable" in my own life. I guess I've had to sort out  my own life, too, haven't I, as we all have to. The anger is gone. And that blind terror, even, at what lies ahead.

For the first time in two years, I feel I can handle whatever is coming: losing my house, new central nervous system problems, poverty, leaving here again. For the first time in all of my life, I am whole.

Thank you, Jamie, for simply being you.

And if you come in here to read again, thank you, R. For showing me I had more light in me, than I ever let myself see; for bringing out those parts of me that I had silenced for so long.  Forgive me my anger, where it was out of line, and know it was from a place of pain and fear beyond what you did or said. And because, well, it hurts. Pure and simple. I know you did not lie.  Know that I refuse to douse that flame, or shove those parts back into the dark—because you came. I can and will use them to go after something more than okay — because you came. You did that for me.

The love remains, as it has for thirty years. Not shoved in a box in the dark, though. I think I'll keep it closer to the surface, where I can see its light when I need to. That's really all that matters for sh... that matters.  ... The rest can go into our really bad country song.

****
And so ends this love story on my blog. But because I write, I heal faster. And maybe someone else will find something in here that strikes a chord, makes you smile or tear up.  Thanks for hanging in with  me through this part of the Wild Ride.