Well, I am getting a LITTLE better at coming back!

I thought I would share with you the latest IN PROGRESS painting I'm working on, just so you all know that creativity did not disappear from me. I am working on an entry about my friend and me... Gail and me. It is difficult because she is playing "Beat the Clock" with death, and I have known her since I was 17 and we have been more like family than just best friends since we were 19. I am her children's aunt, period. I have settled on writing about that moment for me when I knew we were connected in a way that spoke of family, not just friendship. She needs a kidney AND liver transplant. But first she has to see whether a new drug coming out in a couple of months will destroy hepatitis C. She got that in the days when we played leapfrog in the hospitals, and both had more than twenty units of blood. I was lucky. Gail? Not so much.  And interferon nearly killed her. A lot hangs in the balance in February or March. She is about to start dialysis within the month...

So my attention has been elsewhere, when it comes to time.

Still, without art, without singing, without some outlet for my soul, I could not be what she needs me to be.

ANYHOW...

The painting.

It has no real title yet. This is what I had about 2/3 of the way through. The top third is just "sketched" so far. The beam is not so yellow in real life, but that's fine.  The foreground has more contrast, with more dark to it.  Perhaps I will snap a picture later today and lengthen this entry. I never tried posting a work in progress. I felt that I was not an ARTIST. Not really. Not like some of you! So I thought it was presumptuous.  But perhaps it isn't so bad to simply show how I am growing, too. I've watched Krista and Carl--REAL artists on your journeys. And neither of you would particularly tolerate my talking about myself that way. The silly mean things we say to ourselves that we'd never even think about others!

Okay. Where was I. Ah. THIS painting...

I did this in response to our pastor's sending a message to the congregation that any artist could read a draft of the book he is working on and, if so moved, create a drawing or painting that could be considered for the book. He writes a great deal about morning and hope. It's a Unitarian Universalist community, so we are connected viscerally to the natural world. It is part of what drew me there.

I've written about mornings on Lake Winnipesaukee, and I had a strong image in my head. Once again, the painting came in a dream, so it has been a long process of laying that image onto paper. I would sit on the screened in parch, deep in the island's shade, and watch the early sun kiss the foliage and branches on the shore, while leaving me in the dappled-dark seat. I could breathe slowly, deeply and simply watch the morning rise toward the house.

I have a ways to go, but it's so much fun to see my dream gradually rise there on the paper.  Anyway, I'm finding ways to breathe deeply and try to find strength inside for the long months that are still ahead.

I hope you all are well. I miss Dave King. I miss him a LOT. I see your name every day as your blog's delivered to my email, Brian, and I think how you must miss him, too.

That's all for now. Yup, this is disjointed. That's okay. My brain's just like that for now! I am so grateful for my friends who are now my family, for my son who is now my friend, for so many bloggers, people in the virtual world who are so very real to me, whom I consider friends because I think about YOUR lives, YOUR successes and trials--just as you  have let me know you think about mine. Love and caring can be very real whether or not we ever meet in person, don't you agree?

Thanksgiving is around the corner... I will be with Gail, Claire, and Adam. I will be with Chuck, Gail's ex-husband, who is walking this journey beside her, too--in his words. "Gail, you and I fight about the stupidest stuff and that won't change. We can't live toether. We are not married and shouldn't be. But we are family. And I can drive you to Yale or wherever you need me to. And I can do laundry and grocery shopping. When it comes time to do those things, I can do them and I will. You are my family." I was there when he said those words and they sure shocked the hell out of Gail and me... but in a wondrous way. That's the other kicker, that people can rise to the occasion when we assume they won't! That they can remind us of all that is right instead of all that is wrong.

Thanksgiving is around the corner.  It has been one of the hardest years in several lives that have had too many hardest years. I will be taking the holiday seriously for the first time in a long time. And Christmas will be more poignant. I will write about that another day.

For now, may you all hold families/friends/pets you love very close and remember Chuck's words, if they are appropriate. I sure will.