From Ashes to Butterflies: a Dancing Good Bye

I wish I had some photos to add, but for now, I don't. I lived in the moment and let someone else worry about pictures.  Last week I was in northernmost New Hampshire for three days to scatter the last of my dear sister's ashes.  I know, I know. That hardly sounds like a happy thing, but it has been a long, long time in coming.

During the last weeks of my sister's life, while she was in hospice, she thought long and hard about what she wanted. One day she said, "Jetty, I don't want some burial spot. I want my ashes scattered in Lake Winnipesaukee, near the Teddy Bear Inn in Vermont, Pemaquid Point in Maine, off the rock's at the beach near Gail's, and in the source lakes in New Hampshire. And Paris would be good."

I looked at her a moment and said, "Jean Ellen, I love you but not that much. Let's just say that I'll get to some of those spots, okay?"

She laughed and said, "You are so fussy. FINE. Deny a dying woman her last wish." Of course, then she saw my face and my eyes and said, "No, honey! That's a joke! It really is a joke. I forget--for you, my dying is hard. For me, you know it's what I want. You know I have felt DONE with my business in this life for a long time. I'm so sorry. The only point is that I really don't want to be any part of a cemetery. I want to be part of the flow. Water, mostly, just the way I feel I flowed through this life from another and am flowing INTO another."

It was, of course, too late. I was crying, but we had a close hour together then. Well, my health went south before I could do too much, but I decided that when I was strong enough, her best friend (my other big sister of my heart) and I would trek up to the Connecticut River source lakes up near Canada.

Finally, this, the week before my sixtieth birthday, which is today, I was well enough to go. It was a wonderful trip and I took many inspiration pictures, fully replenishing the creativity well. Nancy found the very beach on the third Connecticut Lake where JE took one of my favorite photos--pebbles through water, just ten minutes south of Canada. (I have no passport, but I waved to you Canadian friends.)

This is just a quick picture of someone else's--Robert Knapp. Remember, this is not for commercial use!

It was about ninety degrees, even there. I picked my way through a shore trail, about twenty feet up-current and up wind of the little beach. When you dump ashes, they do not disperse; they remain in a beautiful water-born cloud for quite some time as they drift. I think that doing this six years later made me better able to connect with all the love I feel for her--most of the grief is gone, as is the somber mourning. I miss her living spirit, but I feel her spirit lives through me as I paint. I am surrounded by her--pen and inks, gifts, family treasures, treasured belongings that were hers.

So I looked at the transluscent silver cloud of what were physical remains of a spirit long gone and said, "There. Okay. Fine. It took me six years, but are you happy now? Fly!"

I called to Nancy that I was done, as I watched the cloud drifting toward the beach, and I heard her suddenly go, "Jeannette! LOOK!"

A swirling chaos of pale yellow butterflies flew up, fluttering in a spiral above the ground. They did not leave; they hovered in that one area, dancing in a space no more than five feet square. They lit on a damp patch of earth, I guess doing the butterfly version of drinking water, but then lifted, dancing in and out among one another for the ten minutes we stood there. Nancy's camera was clicking nonstop, but I simply watched, smiling.

Do not speak of science; I am aware of the logical explanations and of coincidence and all.

I don't care.

She sent the energy to hatch the butterflies to dance for us.

Don't bother to tell us differently; we were there.

When we left, the cloud was by the beach and the butterflies were still dancing.

***
If you care to know more about my sister and me, this is an early entry "Flying into Dawn: Memories of My Sister."

Everything Is Good ... Gone for GOOD reasons this time

Sometimes timing is freaky. I sat down to write this and there was a message from one of my followers. Timing is all. Anyway, I will be online next weekend with studies from the three, yes, count 'em, THREE paintings I am working on. I have been singing a lot. I am not sure that I have mentioned that I sing. In fact, the group of women with whom I sing every Thursday night formed a smaller group that practices before the larger circle. We performed together at a coffee house just over a week ago.

I will be honest. I was hesitant about joining the singing circle. The first two times I went, I was uncomfortable with the GoddessEarthSpiritIsOurMotherLoveUnitesUsIntheInfinite sort of thing. Until one night we all broke into harmonies, and a sound unlike any I've been a part of flew around the room, catching my heart and making me tear up.

We could be singing Blah, blah, blah, for all I care. It's the sound that gets to me. And somewhere along the line I became a clear soprano. I've never been one before. I could sing soprano, but it was never easy. So I can BELT out an alto rock song as well as I could when I was twenty, and that sure is fun. (I sang "White Rabbit" extemporaneously, before the thing started.) But now I can harmonize with a clear, sweet soprano voice that comes from someone else in my body. No. Really. Must be. Can't be me.

And I am leaving for Littleton, NH on Tuesday, to scatter the last of my sister's ashes in the Connecticut River Source Lakes. One of them. We'll decide that on Wednesday. It's long overdue, but I could not have traveled so far until now. Her best friend--my other big sister, to me--and I will go and come back home on Thursday.

ALL three paintings were inspired from my hospital story. It will take a very long time to finish two of them. One is nearly done. As I said, I will put some studies of them in here, so you can see what I have been up to.  Whether or not I will publish the last hospital story remains to be decided. Not for a bit, I don't think. My soul's flitted off to different things for now. I tend to listen to that voice.

AND, I've been using my exercise bike three-four days a week for about an hour each time. This requires a two hour recovery, but it is finally helping me start to lose the sixty pounds I have that I should lose. I've lost ten... in six weeks, which is slow. Still, slow is okay. I am not out to win a beauty contest. My goals are clear: to get as healthy as I can get and to keep walking. Period.

There was one week that was brutal, but it was only one out of the last five or six weeks. I was terrified, truly, because both feet were numb for three full days. I could not drive. Walking was odd, to say the least. I could feel the impact of each step when I was barefoot, but not as the sensation of the skin, more as the impact of two solid surfaces. It took a full week for the pain to subside, the swelling to go down, for the feeling to fully return. Didn't want to write about it. Didn't want to talk about it. I simply wanted it to go away. Which it did.

I am struggling a bit with the decision of whether to stay only one more year in my wonderful home, or give myself two years. Money, of course, is the issue. I have limited assets and they will be depleted by half if I stay two more years. I am eligible for enormous subsidy by going into a small elderly or assisted housing place. I don't want to go. And I don't know whether that's a spoiled brat talking, or whether it's a legitimate voice. I have room to paint here. I would not, elsewhere. The wait list is about a year, so I may do it, just in case. I want to stay in my new home. Paint. Have company. Feel this alive.

That's the thing; I am alive in every fiber of my being at last. I have not been like this for weeks in a row ... not for three years now. And even three years ago, it was short-lived. Since Jean Ellen died, I have been partly numb and asleep inside. I was awakened when one man returned. He brought out the Jetty in me again... I have to admit that about him whether or not I want to! He did. I almost lost her again when I lost my health, my career, and my home all at once, but nope. She kept yelling at me to let her come out and play.

And one day last week it occurred to me. He was the one who had said, "I wish you could wake up every day and Jetty could tell you what she needs: to rest, to sing, to write, or to paint ... or all three, without your having to worry about money, without your having to panic." I turned that into MY words as soon as he was gone. And I resented him because HE was going to rescue me.

Blecchhh.... pity pity pity. Since when have I thought I needed rescuing? Ugh.

Well, last week I realized I WAS asking myself that question every day and had been for a month! Only in his words, with the addition of "to focus on getting stronger, to dance" in there. And I am trying to put the money stuff OUT of the picture again for at LEAST six months. But I do ask myself that question. And the answer lately has been all combinations of focusing on getting well, dancing, singing, and painting! AND, without the OR!

Sometimes one steps away from the computer to fill the well. That's all. It is always temporary. I cannot imagine my life now without writing, including my blog, even if only fifteen of you eighty-eight are willing to hang in there with me.

So I will take pictures of my paintings, tell you their stories, and ramble on and on next weekend. Thanks for thinking of me there, all of you. Life is a miracle to me. Truly. How can it not? A couple of nights a week, I turn out all the lights, I put on my gypsy skirt and a tank top and I dance to music from the nineties, the music I danced my way to freedom after my husband ran out of my life. Peter Gabriel's "Us" and Bruce Hornsby's CD with "Fields of Gray" on it. Not all my FAVORITE music, but selections that I cannot stay still for. And they remind my of those years in my forties when I was slim and strong, but in pain and trying to find my solitary strength and joy. No one can see me, including me. All I know is the music, the dark and absolute abandon, while I set the girl free.

See ya!