Seurat Paintings and Signs of Life

I went out today to a spot in my town that overlooks some of my beloved Connecticut hills and reaffirmed that in the first part of May I get to live in a Seurat painting. It reminded me, too, of the blog entry about getting out of the hospital, perhaps the last serious posting I could make. I did not realize that finally trying to write the story of those hospital stays would take so much out of my soul. I did not realized that I had not yet recovered from those lost six weeks, from the decade of: nine hospital over the course of ten months total,  fourteen months in body casts, eight trips back and forth to Boston to have my "blood-letting" of the giant hematomas,  207 physical therapy sessions, and countless tests. When I sat down to write those three entries, I thought I was doing it from a secure spot in my life.

Boy, was I wrong!

Yet I know that writing those three entries completed the process I had to complete. I wrote them while my back was still getting worse, when all I could see before me were more hospital stays, more tests, and a wheelchair.  I remembered a gentleman--a writer--who had to live in his wheelchair, who could no longer stand, tell me, "IF you have a choice, never choose a wheelchair. Never choose to sit down. Do it if and ONLY if there is no other choice. I was told that I would be in less pain if I used a wheelchair, and that I could probably accomplish more in my career if I stopped fighting it so much and so I CHOSE this. I CHOSE IT! Don't do it. Don't fear the pain; fear this chair, because it takes away a whole lot more than your ability to walk." I was just 28 when he told me that, but I hear him now. I see him. He told me what his life became and what organs in his body were affected beyond his own original physical problems.

So I wrote about the hospital and I reminded myself of what I endured so that I could have a shot at walking. I am walking still.

So I got out of my car and I stood very straight, and then I STRODE away from the car to a rock and sat there to look over the hills, at this beauty that can still make me cray. The hills dotted with every shade of green imaginable, punctuated by softened versions of autumn colors. Once again I was overwhelmed by so much color, so much beauty, and the knowledge that I am still here.

In case you need a reminder of pointillism and Seurat

I am alive; more alive than I have been since the Spring of 2009, at least. I am more alive than I was even when I was eagerly writing up a business plan to teach adults to paint, to PLAY with art again. From the moment my neighbors submarined me with their protests of that plan until this Spring, something in me could not wake up. Something inside felt half-dead, and only in brief flashes has that inner life come to.

I've been coming back for about ten months, just a little bit at a time. Recovery is never smooth.  Turning sixty helped; it set me free. Exercising and focusing on choosing to keep on standing, to keep on walking, to re-learn how to stand up straight; composing music in five part harmony for the first time in my life and rediscovering the joy of blending with other singers; occasionally blasting out a painting--all these things showed signs of life.

Still, today I sat on that rock and felt as I did when my dad brought me home from my nine weeks in a Boston Hospital and the colors were too much for me to bear.  I have not died. I have a gravely damaged spine, but it will not kill me. It cannot touch my ability to appreciate the things that matter in my life: the people I love, the beauty of my surroundings, my ability to sing or paint or write, or my ability to laugh. I can find ways to show my friends--my family--that I love them. My spine cannot touch that. I sat on my rock and let the heartbreak, the losses, the pain all fly away across the hills, dissipating in the brightness of this day. Some of my dearest people truly are going through hell, but I realize it is important NOT to absorb their pain, to stay Jeannette. I can help and love and support, but I am not my friends. I am just one woman.

I live in a Seurat landscape and it is a magical place. For the first time in  years, I feel as if all those colors have infused me to my core, and have driven the last bits of darkness out.


Enjoy the Spring.