Visitation
detail of textile, pigment on wool flannel
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When my brother, the fabulous captain in the fleet of Southwest airline pilots
Comes to visit
He knows to prepare.
He has to do stuff.
He’s done it all his life;
The thing is.. he knows how to fix pretty much everything
Which really makes it impossible for him to just kick back
BECAUSE THERE ARE JUST SO MANY DARN THINGS TO FIX!
He cruised through my list in short order
And one of the items was to take a photo of my fabulous new BRUNO mechanical arm
Which lifts my wheelchair into and out of the car.
My brother-in-law wanted to see it in action.
So I stood there with the controls
And the chair attached just so.
Because it was a weird enough situation
Inviting a family member into the strange world of disability I live in
And because my brother and I just naturally make things fun,
I decided to ham it up and behave like I was at a car show
And introducing this new and wonderful model everyone should have.
My brother says: “See here..even a WOMAN can do this!
Even a WOMAN WITH MS!”
And we both collapsed into down deep gut laughter.
It was a moment I’ll always remember
Because of the ease with which we moved from awkwardness
Into silliness
And a cherished memory.
It really isn’t just mechanical things he fixes.
The peril of too much “NO”
detail of painting
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An important aspect of my healing has been to get comfortable with saying “NO.”
There have been many, many layers and shades of this monumental (for me) lesson.
My varying degrees of functionality make it a challenge for me to say a distinct “YES” to invitations.
But, in my mind I am often the eager life-liver of old
For whom the reining in of energy expenditure
Was uninteresting at best.
I watched myself say no to a dear friend’s art opening the other night.
Yes, I did have something else important to me going on
But if I really had my wits about me
I would have skipped it.
In truth, as hindsight,
I now have the backstory built in
That goes like this:
“There will be too many people in a small space
And it will be exhausting to negotiate.
I feel too fragile to have attention on me as ‘the disabled one.’
I don’t want to see any ‘pity faces.’
She will understand if I am not there.”
Each of those concerns are quite true.
But the bigger issue is that I am left after the fact knowing I did not support someone I love deeply
When I could have.
I missed a shining moment in her life.
And I will never get that particular chance again.
And my heart hurts.
I know she may be disappointed I was not there
And I also know she is OK with the fact
Because she loves me
And we do that for each other; two women who gift each other with the freedom to BE.
However, I became aware
That there are just those times in life
Where the only thing to do is push through
Because THE SHINING PLACE
Is what we’re all after
And there is muck in the moat
To be crossed.
Saving A Life
“CLOUDS”, 2001, 10″ x 24″, m/m
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The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.
© Mary Oliver.
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..And We All Fall Down…
detail of monoprint
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I grew up in a suburb of Detroit
Which housed the army of those employed by the automobile industry.
‘Cars R’ Us’ was our motto.
We drew them
Screamed over them
Dreamed them
Loved them
And hated them
As the case may be.
That industry affected us Michiganders differently as individuals.
My family was wrecked by the alcohol
That ran in the blood
Of the decision makers
Trying to appear jaunty and carefree.
Even so..
I ended up having cars in my blood, instead.
Detroit is in what we call a ‘decline.’
Artists, like me, often prick up our ears
When we hear such words.
It means nothing less than OPPORTUNITY.
We know how to take the dregs of something
And juice it up.
And so I have an odd take on the landscape..
Which extends to my own body, too,
IN DECLINE.. as they say…
When something as we know it
Changes, dies, falls down, is blown up,
A vacuum is left
To be filled, created, remade, re-thought.
That space was never there before
So the possibility never existed till it did.
And THAT kind of thinking excites me
And keeps me curious
And steppin’……
Women With Tread
untitled, 2000, 24″ x 4″, ceramic, steel
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I take a class with 4 other women which meets a few times per month.
I am not quite sure how to describe what we study as the topics are wide and varied.
Suffice to say it is lively, intense, thought-provoking…
Really, the word PROVOKING
Might describe our small clan perfectly.
Certainly NOT easy
But the kind of women you want beside you
If you happen to be in a blinding storm.
Women with tread.
We usually meet for two hours at a stretch
And after yesterday’s gathering
I was hungry, energetically spent, challenged, peeved, awed,
And most importantly,
I was grateful for the quality of women in the room with me.
We are not there because we like each other.
Hackles are raised fairly often
And we wonder what keeps us pulled to show up
When we know we’ll have left some cherished identity
We wore like jewels
In the wastebasket
Along with the damp kleenexes
With the DNA
Of five students
Eager for a life
Of freedom
From everything we are not.
But really..
What else is there to do?
When freedom is the call.
And in order to get there
All the murk
And sludge
Of making a place for ones’ self
In a world addicted to the junk
Of fitting in
Has to be removed.
I wonder what will be left?
One thing I trust
Is that this quest is worth every bead of sweat.
Another thing is that these women
Will back me up
No matter what.
They would sew me a dress
Should I find myself naked.
They would string a necklace of
Shells and feathers
So I would be sure to feel pride
In the woman I had become.
Equinox
detail of painting, m/m
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The word equinox literally means ‘equal night.’
The ancient Egyptians built the Great Sphinx so it faces the rising sun on the vernal (Spring) equinox.
This is a good time to think about balance.
I like the word: “COMPORTMENT.”
It feels like a very old word but I’m not sure about that.
It means ‘behavior’
And I think of the word when I see the Japanese people in their sorrow and utter grief
Over losing the life they knew
Just a week ago.
What do BALANCE and COMPORTMENT have to do with one another?
In my mind, I am pretty darn sure
That had the events in Japan
Happened on our soil, instead,
They would be held in a very different way
By the American population.
We, here, do not know much about containing our state of being.
We are exuberant and messy
In our efforts to wring every drop
Of individualism out of us
In fear someone might take it away.
The Japanese have exercised other muscles.
Not to say either is better or worse.
But witnessing a population
Suffer,
Taking care not to slime their neighbor
In the process
Causes me pause.
Really, the golden rule I follow
Which is truly my most potent medicine
Is the rock solid knowledge
That for every contraction
There is an equal expansion.
It usually does not come on my timetable
Which is unfortunate
But, it does come.
This morning’s example is my arm and leg
Which happen to be in periodic spasm.
I hate it.
I’m edgy and it just came out in a phone call with a friend.
Slime, slime..
This afternoon my body will be different.
Or it won’t
And tomorrow it will.
The point being
The Universe has a self-correcting
Button somewhere
Which creates balance.
We may want it NOW
Or never at all.
But today,
It soothes me
That there is a larger intelligence
Than mine.
The Shattering, The Reconciliation and The Return
“GRID”, 6′ x 3′, m/m
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I am interested in being with people who have been shattered.
It seems like GRACE is a virus
And it recognizes the tatters
On the clothes of a divorcee
Or a father who has lost a child
Or a job
Or his home.
Perhaps it is a teenager torn apart over a lost first love.
Maybe the passing of a beloved pet.
Could be you had a belief and knew you were right
Then, in an instant, you had to concede that you weren’t right at all.
A tsunami may have taken your entire town
Or a diagnosis spoken in the hushed, almost embarrassed voice of a doctor.
A SHATTERING, to me, is any experience we meet
Which makes it impossible to go back
To who we were before the thing happened.
We are shattered.
We do not have the comfort of the carefully constructed identities we have used as ballast.
That palette is gone.
We must find a new one.
Become new.
Or not.
There is the crux of the thing:
People who have experienced some life-altering event or thing
Have something very important in common:
They have been given the opportunity
To crawl in the closet and pull the blanket of denial over their head;
Which could mean a multitude of ways of checking out:
Drugs, drink, sex, suicide, numbness, illness, depression, work… the list goes on and on..
OR – They / we / I could CHOOSE LIFE
Which means a virtual unknown many times.
But the CHOICE is the thing
Which marks those I want to be around.
It is a modern-day stigmata;
A holy mark which hurts
And won’t go away
But acts as a constant reminder
We are here.
We matter.
We ARE THE MYSTERY.
This shattering-thing
Is only figure-out-able
Moment by moment.
Never by careless hand fulls.
If we choose life, living, uncertainty
An interesting thing happens on our RETURN..
The road is peopled by faces we seem to recognize
Who seem to SEE us
For the GRACE attached to our tattered jackets.
We all of a sudden walk into our TRIBE.
And somehow never ever feel alone again.
I have no idea how all this works.
That is the very mystery of it..
But I do know it has to do with having a shattering,
Meeting it at the door,
Inviting it in
And offering it tea.
Us and Them
detail,earth,ceramic,nails, 2006
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I have been tossed this way and that waiting for my soul to speak up
Regarding what is occurring in Japan.
Everything that surfaced felt colored by fear
Or denial
Or numbness
Or compassion,
Separateness,
Overwhelm,
Awe,
Anger,
Relief,
Curiosity,
Paralysis,
Love,
Terror,
And relief again..
The very humanness of me was/is
So relieved it wasn’t me.
I am saying this out loud only because it is the thing I most don’t want to admit.
The fact is
That it WAS me,
IS me,
And likely,
In the not too distant future
WILL BE me.
I will be the one walking exhausted beyond
Any weariness I’ve yet come through
Walking down a gritty road
Missing my beloved dog
Who I cannot find
And holding a shiny tea kettle
Fresh from my clean kitchen
Of an hour ago
Looking for water
Or food.
I am not a ‘dooms-day-er’.
Just a woman in love with life
As I know it today
And yesterday.
But who’s to say
We’ll get another day
Like today?
BMS and AFMS (before MS and after MS) was just like that.
Without the radiation or the 30′ wave.
But I am different
Because I had to be.
I know the terror of losing identities we are super-glued to
And I know what it takes to make new ones.
It is an arduous
And lonely road.
But along the way there are those who will offer you water
And a safe place to rest your weary head
As we all try to wrap ourselves around this new
And unfamiliar world.
My biggest and most constant teaching
Which MS doles out moment by moment, it seems,
Is that this particular road is not meant to be taken alone.
And so…
Even when we recoil at the thought of appearing
‘Less-than-knowing-it-all’
We have to bow our heads
And say: “Can you teach me what I need to know?”
And bow again
In gratitude
As the stranger walks on
With a cup of water
For our neighbor.
Rocking
untitled, 30″ x 30″, 1998,m/m
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HAIKU
.
Someone in Japan
.
Lost their tears to a big wave.
.
I will give them mine.
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-CA
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Hush, Mummy…
detail ceramic sculpture
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Growing up being ‘mothered’ by an extreme narcissist was work.
Every part of me was in hyper-drive
Trying to figure out how to get her love
Or how to get away from her.
One lasting parting gift she left me
Is the tendency to experience a conversation in 3-D.
A hologram might be a better description.
The front side of a seemingly simple exchange
Also (in my experience) has a back side;
An up and a down as well.
I trained myself
Out of self-preservation
To ‘read’ minute pauses
And barely detectable inflections
Or a sort of baseline kind of jitter
In order to decipher the truth of a thing.
It was all to feel safe;
To have as much information as I could glean
In order that I might be able to feed her
The thing she wanted
And get the love
I needed.
I do this hyper-vigilant screening of conversation even today
When I don’t need to
Or want to
As she is passed onto other pastures.
It is a valuable skill
And I trust myself in it
Except all the times I am wrong
Which really aren’t that many, actually.
I get exhausted by this sensitivity
And yet..
It has kept me alive and swimming
With the rest of you
And for that, I am grateful.