I'm Back... No. Really. More than every three weeks or so

AND, not whining even!

It's been a long, difficult climb back to myself, but that's okay. I will not say that all is fine, but somewhere between the Christmas tree decorating  and the five-day stint of tutoring my nephew, I made real progress.  Part of that progress had to do with gratitude. How could it not? I have this circle of friends I've discussed, these women primarily, who simply will not allow any among us to hit bottom at full tilt. I will have to hit bottom. It's there, still coming, but the landing will be far softer. Free fall is over.

One gave me my gym membership, so that I am able to pursue my new PT regimen independently as often as I choose. Already this is paying off.  Others gave me gift cards to my grocery store, to my pharmacy, to some little restaurants. They were creative in giving me, well, MONEY. It is so hard to take help, but when people offer it with such glee, how can I not simply say thank you, cry, and be grateful? We do this for one another. Each of us has had to be on the receiving end, and each of us has been in the position of being able to give--it is a wonderful net of love we have. I think there are always about ten of  us per person to help.

I will lose my house, yes.  And I Still have no idea how I will make it until I sell this place, but I finally have faith that I will.

My physical therapists and I have worked up a tremendously difficult routine to keep these legs moving, and in these first six weeks, already I have--WE have established a new nerve path to move my left leg in one particular motion. It is one small enormous victory.

PT I think may be the most important source of life lessons for me. Patience. Perseverance. Blind faith. They all come into play there.  Most victories are solitary. I move the leg when I am alone, in the middle of a series of repetitions--suddenly I realize I have moved the leg twice without thinking about it.

We take it for granted that we can move our legs sideways. Move our foot up and down. The little things. I could not move my leg to the side. We found this out during therapy. I went to do the motion and nothing. Not weakness. Simply no movement. So I took my hand and moved the leg. I lie on my bed and use my right leg to push the leg. ANYTHING I can think of, I make that leg move and I Focus on it. I stare at my leg and I tell it to move. You do this over and over and over again, and somehow or other, our brain maks a new nerve connect in a new way to that muscle and slowly, jerkily, in nearly imperceptible increments, the leg moves. I'm lucky. SOMETIMES, it moves okay, but more and more? With the new spinal injuries, not so much.

But on Friday? I was on my third set of reps. In the water, I'd move the straight leg in front of me, crossing my body, then grit my teeth and try to pull it quickly out to the side, away from the body, using the abductors. Sometimes I Give it a shove with my hands, to start it and my mind can take over just enough to move it jerkily all the way out to the side. sometimes I can't seem to make it move the whole way, but it's okay. I was doing well, focusing so hard I was breaking into a sweat in the water. It hurts to do this. It hurts MORE not to. On rep 13 something happened. A woman next to me asked what was making me focus so hard and I told her, but the LEG KEPT MOVING. I realized on rep 15 that Iw as talking to her but moving the leg, albeit slowly. As soon as I tried to make it move faster, with more resistance, NOTHING.

But the point was, it moved! Somewhere along the line, that new root path is there, despite all logic. It's there. I Don't GET how this happens, but it does. And I cry a little and the woman next to me thinks I am nuts.

I am, but so what?

And I think that this is how I heal my heart, my body, my  mind. Constant, consistent effort and the baby steps happen. My heart goes to R. and I make it turn instead to my other friends. I start to feel that ache and longing; I pick up the phone and  I call one of my artist friends. I look at the photograph a photographer friend sent me and I remember I am far more than my broken heart or my broken back.

Jetty is damaged. Terribly, terribly damaged. The  last three years have had too much roller coastering for one little heart to withstand. But on Friday something clicked into place and I remembered how it is that I get better. Practice. Simple, but terribly difficult retraining.  I used to block pain out entirely, but I worked hard to learn NOT to do that any more. It comes back to bite you in the end.

Christmas held a world of magic as it always does. And my New Year's Even rituals did their work this year. I gave away one of my paintings, to G. When she had it framed, she said that several people asked whether I had my stuff in a gallery! I haven't painted enough for that, yet, but the question stunned me. She said that people examined it because they could not figure out how I had gotten so much depth to the painting, such texture. Two kinds of paper are all I use. Tissue and... I don't know what it's called. It is a paper that is mostly holes. Wonderful stuff. It takes paint beautifully and is WONDERFUL for forest work, for heavy texture. Yet it is light enough to layer and allow what's underneath to shine through.

But I realized that my plan to give myself two years may really be practical and doable.  That NOT to give myself that time to go after my passions with all that is in me would be a huge mistake.  No matter what happens, if I give myself the time to work on that, and simply to work on my physical health, who am I to say that it will not open all sorts of doors for me?

Who am I to say that my art is less than anyone else's when I have not allowed myself to really try? Why do I suppose that my memoir, my poetry, my stories are not worth reading when I do not let myself FINISH them?

In some ways, I feel as if I will be reconstructing Jetty--the family name I was given by my father.  When I am lost in my arts, my sister said, I always have an aspect of the little girl, Jetty, lost in her world. I used to extend and curl my pinky fingers whenever I was enthralled with something--a feather, a color, a cloud, a puppy. I do this still, especially when I paint, or when I am planning and dreaming. People catch a look and the gesture and call me Jetty.

I lost her for some months entirely. Yes, sad to say, the love affair did her in the rest of the way from what the battered body and spirit had already started. The physical pain and the way my town killed my plans for art, and the way the physical problems had shown me I could no longer work at what had been my career--these things had me at the edge of a fragile place. R.'s shoving me off the rest of the way, I DO confess, put me over an edge I'd not been over since my daughter died. Too much too fast, and I did not cope well at all. The grief was obsessive and a little dangerous. I just could not seem to process what had happened--there was too much happening all at once, and all of it was bad at the time. Still, I know I was in trouble there for a while.

Feh. I'm human. I will be starting a new blog at some point...I'll let people know when it's well underway.  I want to keep writing about my family here, about my mom, my sister--the memoir things. I have such a colorful family and have had quite a life.

But I want to keep a record of what it is to start from scratch at fifty-seven or fifty-eight. Selling this home that's been mine for twenty years, knowing I have possibly just two years to make my two arts fly so that I can stay in the next home I have.  What it is to actually give myself the permission to DO this. I will have a limited amount of money from the house, from my disability check. ALL my "extra" allotted money will be going to art supplies and to my living space. It's still cheaper to have an apartment large enough to have a studio than to rent studio space. It's an extra  couple of thousand a year to have it be my home space... studio space would be DOUBLE that at least. And I can be in my home and work around my health.

I suddenly started thinking, what if this works?  What if I find that I do have talents for which people will pay money? What if I CAN scrape by and now, at this point in my life, do nothing but paint and write?  How exciting would that be, that at sixty years old I could start the life I'd always wanted to live anyway? Maybe it would inspire others to turn health horrors into something else... to find the way to turn having a profound and painful disability into the chance of a lifetime.

That's what I am slowly turning my attitude toward--thinking of the workouts as the chance of a lifetime to get healthier, no matter HOW little I can walk, and this inability to do substantial gainful employment into what amounts to a new training session to do what I've always wanted to do. I never thought I deserved to paint and write and nothing else--to create art just that I WANT, and to write for ME. I've done graphics design and rendering. I have written copy on deadline for others.

And I have taken care of everyone else, at the expense of myself.

When we finally sell this house, there will be just me. An apartment and me. No job, and extremely limited income, some cash, and TIME. Two years is enough time to create a body of work, to go to a gym/pool three days a week to build my health up again, to work on my memoir AND other work--poetry, Jetty Reconstructed, the novel I began.

Here I am in the New year. YES, I think of R every single day. I do. I confess it. But so much of the moroseness is gone. And some days it is a fleeting thought that I CAN easily redirect. And some days it's the thought that I am so glad that he talked about how it was about damned time I was able to get up each day and CHOOSE to pain or write, or stay in bed and sleep if my back demanded it, without tending to others' expectation or demands.  I am so glad we talked about what it would be to have a life dedicated to our passions, our true passions... he awakened that in me and the ONLY way I can honor that short time he chose to stick around is to try to live that piece all on my own. I want to hold onto the real stuff that kept that love alive, in tact for a full thirty years--to block it all out or simply focus on the mess he made... I don't know. It seems wrong to me, and it belittles the truth of us. We built everything else on a friendship that was there in eighth grade. We are passionate people who grab life with both hands. Who are interested in many things--it is part of what drew us together. Passion is not all about chemistry, though that can be there, too, if you are very lucky.

In taking what he reawakened in me, I can hold onto the good of us and gradually the pain will subside, and maybe even go away.  But the real beauty of his having come back to me, even for a time, is in recognizing that his being in the picture is not necessary to my fulfillment. At least not when it comes to living a passionate life. I'd forgotten how to do that for too long, I think. I was rediscovering it when I started this blog and when I put the studio into my home a year ago in March. He HELPED that,  he did not destroy that. I need to remember that--let him go to whatever life it is he has chosen, but keep the fact that the man saw what mattered to me and wanted it FOR me.  He would think it was a travesty for me to stay in some sort of limbo, to NOT go after these dreams if given the opportunity.

I am lucky to have a home to sell, to HAVE the possibility of a couple of years to dedicate to going after what I want. Many--perhaps most people never have that. Perhaps people who appear to have far better, fuller lives than I have, feel trapped there. It's easy to stay where things are predictable, to tell ourselves that we are doing this for others, that we are choosing what is right and somehow noble... when in fact, we are finding a way to avoid risk.

It's a little scary to decide to, what, think I might make a living on my painting and writing? I might have tried to do this when I was married, but my husband laughed at my dreams, my kids "needed me"--LESS than I told myself--and I told myself that I SHOULD do work that would help support the family right away, that I had no right thinking of my own wants. I starved my very being in my  marriage, all in the name of being the "good wife." I was NOT a good wife and I am sure the martyrdom was palpable to my husband. I had a back problem and punished myself for it.

I dabbled in what I loved, but I did not risk. As long as I listened to his priorities, I was "safe." I could look as if I was the great stepmom and oh so strong, going through surgery, caring for my dying parents, taking care of the kids... all that. But if I am honest with myself, i COULD HAVE used that time to live my passions. I chose not to.

Hard to see that it was partly  my choice, now. And it's easy for me to say now it's too late. Too late for R. to have left his life and started a new one with me. Too late to start an artistic career. Too late to start again. After all, soon I'll be sixty. I can tell myself our culture says I am too old. I can do what is "safer" and move to Lewisburg, get the little place that costs less, make new friends and lose myself in that life. But I do not think I would focus on my own art. THEY are already artists and musicians. It's a town with lots to do. Nope. The harder thing to do is to make the choice HERE, where I live, to CONTINUE the work I have started, to choose my comfort and my own life for a time. To commit to the artist's life for real.

Why is that scary? It shouldn't be. But it seems to be. For the first time, though, in many  many years, I KNOW that this is the right choice for me. To my toes. And I don't know how it will play out. I SURE don't know how to get from here to there--to get this enormous place ready to sell, to weed through all my junk, while I'm in PT, WHILE I keep painting... IT feels overwhelming.. WHILE I apply for Social Security Disability. Praying for the money to hold out.

Yet it's right. I know it's right. And I don't think I'd have been willing to make this choice if R had NOT come back. Isn't that odd? He reawakened far more than my passion for him. The first time he shut the door on me I was getting ready to go off to grad school in Boston. I was going to get a master's in Adult Education. I had JUST realized what I wanted when he made the choice not to give us a second chance, to go with the sure thing he was in. And I fell down the stairs and my back changed my life for good.  But I had realized, because of him, that I wanted PASSION not safe, in my life. I'd broken things off to see what a far quieter relationship would bring. A gentle intellectual... but within a couple of months I KNEW. I knew that, tumultuous or not, R. and I held the possibility of a life that would be rich beyond my dreams--that we could build something extraordinary. He did not want to risk our NOT working out. He, on the other hand, felt that he didn't want to try, that the risk of our not working would mean he'd lose out on the sure thing he felt he had with someone new he'd met.

I chose "safe" when Mark came. I could have kids, have a family, do the right thing. When R. left then, I decided that I'd been stupid to believe in living a passionate life and maybe he was right. Well, perhaps for HIM, but not for me.

I was meant for the edges of things, not the safety of the farmlands of New England. I was meant for the place where shore meets water, rock meets air. The edge of yin and yang. And NEVER did I let myself truly live there in a constructive way. NOW? I have absolutely nothing to lose but what amounts to about $5000. That is the gamble I'm talking about. To give myself REAL time to heal, to go after what matters?

R., when you read this, thank you. You are right. I DO need to do this. And while I would have loved you to be my partner in it all, and for you to give up the safe job/career and go after your own wonderful passions, I know we are different and have different circumstances. I've been judgmental because, well, you hurt me you big bobohead! But I do not live in your shoes, and maybe things have changed so that you can be more yourself now. But whatever your own circumstances, thank you for waking up that part of me who KNOWS she belongs living in that place where daylight fades into night, night into morning, and the rocks meet the sea.  New Englander that I am. A woman of extremes, built on very solid, stable ground. I need no tornadoes, few hurricanes, but the seasons offer me the drama I need.

And so here I am again on my blog, working it all out in front of eyes who do not know me. Yours do. And I know when you read this, you'll understand and smile. Losing you again will remain a hole that no one else will fill. I can live with that. I miss you. I can live with that, too. As I said, I leave it to your heart whether or not our paths cross again... and I can only pray that you are living your life closer to the bone because of our reconnection. I hope that you found something through us that has helped you grow. I will keep writing and I hope you will continue to check now and again... but I must let go of that thought, even. I must truly let you go entirely, without blocking you out. Time. Agape. Han. Music. I will be fine.

But mostly I write for myself and for the other bloggers in here who are struggling to find their own ways to live their passions, to share their lives and purpose. Who inspire me every time I read their entries. You all have done more to help me keep a toe on solid ground than you know. You remind me that gratitude is important, honesty without necessarily being sordid or dangerous in our honesty.  There is not a day that I read the blogs I follow that I do not find words that make me rethink my selfishness in my pain, or reexamine unhealthy habits, or laugh, or cry--you all make me so very glad I started my blog just about a year ago. Thank you for following me through my ramblings, the pain, the joy of this last year. Your blogs offer beauty, wisdom, honesty that can touch anyone who reads them.

So here I am again. Starting fresh. This next month I expect I'll be fumbling around with what I write, finding the rhythms again, finding my voice, finding the subjects. That's fine. Blogspot bloggers are so forgiving. We are all works in progress anyway.

The phoenix has found her way to the TOP of the ashes, but has a whole bunch of cleaning off of her wings, and has some pretty nasty burns that need healing before she flies. But fly she will.


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For now? I am going to go have an early dinner with four acquaintances. They are going to a special showing of Avatar. I can't do that because of the nerve thingy in my face. So instead, I will have supper--we'll all be silly and laugh a lot, then I will come home and work on the three paintings I have going.



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PS
I do not know how to photograph them. My work is meant to be viewed from at least eight feet away. Somewhere around that distance, the picture suddenly emerges for people. One of my friends tried, but when we put the pictures on the monitor, they simply looked like little dots and lines of color, barely discernible as the forest pictures they are. Perhaps I'll find someone who knows how to make it work. OH, well. It's the doing that counts!