Some art, such as it is

Happy New Year one and all. Still looking to get a friend to try to photograph some of my work. I have had to do these two by scanning sections on my little flatbed, opening them in Photoshop and tiling the best that I can. The winter scene shows particularly that I did not adjust the rotation--tweak it so that the bottom of the cloud is at an angle. NOT SO IN MY PAINTING.

Enough of you have asked, that I at least wanted to offer a clue about my work. Both A Glimpse of Peace and the mountain scene were dreams. I once was at that crater lake in New Mexico at about ten in the morning after a February snow. My friend and I wondered what it must be like at dawn. There is NOTHING subtle about dawn on mountains. Once I flew into dawn, going to Europe. I was fifteen and remember being dumbstruck at the fact that there was an actual line between night and day. Somewhere in my little mind, the image of that endlessly mountain ringed lake and flying into dawn were mixed. The real picture's lighting changes depending on the time of day. While I use tissue and water color, primarily, I have some paints that offer irredescence. The waterfall and the mountains, when struck directly by any light, shimmer.

My Glimpse of Peace is a bit personal in origin. One person generated an overwhelming sense of peace, strength, and beauty in me. It is what I hold onto rather than anger. And I have ALWAYS loved Asian art, so I combined love and Water and some chinese work I have seen somewhere or other and woke up with that painting. Again, it is collaged.

I really do feel that the work in person is far better than what I've put here, but I guess you've all been so loyal in looking for my writing, I kinda wanted to show that, YES, I really HAVE been putsing along with the painting.

I await the ruling for my hearing on disability and once again we will try to sell my home. BUT, I am far more at peace with uncertainty again. I rebelled against it last year, I'm afraid. I had tried SO hard to build some sort of financial stability, to keep my home, to keep my legs moving. Everything fell apart at once and it took me a good long time to find my internal footing, so to speak. I have, though, regardless of what else may happen. I've lost my insurance yet again, and wrestle with whether or not it is worth shelling out the money for another month or so with coverage that is abysmal. High risk pool insurance is horrible now. Practical matters blowing up are the norm these days, but I've acquired an "Oh well" shrug at it all. Panic does NOTHING.

My back, as I mentioned stabilized finally in the late summer. I'm beginning to understand what makes it suddenly not function so that I fall down, and the very, VERY subtle warning signs. Do I always listen? Oh, PLEASE. This is ME. Jetty. Jeannette. Learn all lessons by bashing into walls, Jetty. That's me. Still, I'm doing better at not bashing into the same wall more than three times.

This whole process of adjusting downward in terms of mobility and lifestyle because of money has been interesting.  I have the best friends in the world and they truly are my family. My wealthy aunt called me because her husband asked her to. She told me that her home health care aide has cost them all their extra money. I asked whether she had new meds. Nope. Or whether she was coming more than twice a day. Nope. Or whether she needed the visiting nurse more or had been in the hospital. Nope. Amazing how fast 4 million dollars can go. Then I asked, "Did Jack tell you to tell me this?"

"Yes, dear. The reason we cannot help you is all my fault. I have run us into the ground."

"Joy," I said. Yeah. She CHANGED her name to this!!! "Joy, I am never asking you for a dime. Nor do I expect the trust fund Jack promised. You know him. He doesn't want to feel he has to help me and he knows I am in a bad way. He has made you feel it's YOUR fault. It isn't. Listen to me. Don't worry about it any more. You are ill. You are dependent. He is lying."

"Well. I wondered. But you know him. And I can't... I depend on him for everything."

"Right. Let go of it. I'm fine, dear. I love you."

"Well call me please. No. Not often. I know you will never get better so I really can't take hearing that. So call, well, maybe every three, three, what is the word, three or four..."

She has Parkinson's. I gently said, "Four weeks?"

"Oh, N O. The longer one. MONTHS. OH no. Not weeks. I don't want to hear your voice that often. Just a few times a year. That's fine. Just so I know you are alive and where you move when you lose your home."

And there you have my family. A year ago, this sort of thing hurt to the quick. ALl the phony calls about my welfare. Now? I know she is trapped. And I was even able to talk to Joy for the only time in my life about how she's always run away from what made her uncomfortable, and like my mom, she was able to say, "We deserted you when your father died, when your mother died, when your husband left, and when Jessie died. We were angry at them all and we just didn't want to have to hear your unhappiness. That was weak of me, Jet. And I fear it was cruel."

"Yes, it was both. But I love you." And I do.

We all find closure in odd ways. Her husband is a truly cruel and cold man. But Joy? More a tragic figure who could not get out of her own way, who could not rise above her compunction to appear to be the Lady of the Manor. The appearance of affluence, sophistication, class. It mattered to her and now she is trapped in a chair in a room with a view. The most beautiful lake view I have ever seen! She looks back over Lake Champlain to the mainland mountains and can see the sunrise every day. She has her own beach. I told her this and she said, "It isn't the ocean... but it's all I'll ever have now."

I hope I do not grow to be so embittered, so afraid. I am technically alone. And I am poor. But I am so very, very wealthy in friends and in the two family members left--my son and my aunt in Alaska. And I can still walk. And write. And paint.

Mostly, I laugh... and my friends and I do all we can to make each other's lives as sweet as we can. Perhaps this year will yield some financial relief for a year or two and I can work like crazy on finding a way to make it a nother few years after that... WITHOUT letting myself forget to live in the current moments. Many of them are wonderful.

Again, happy New Year. I hope you'll look at my two pictures here and know that whether or not they are good, they give me pleasure--the process AND the product. I wish I could reproduce them here a bit better, but that's okay. This is a blog, not a gallery. Good health, happiness, and much laughter to one and all.