Inside the Box of Fear
detail of painting, m/m
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My modus operandi when I am afraid
Or depressed
Or seriously stuck
Is to disappear.
Not posting here for the last week is a good example.
I made a commitment to transparency when I began this blog two years ago;
To myself, primarily..
And also to you.
I have spoken about ‘hard’ stuff many times before.
It is interesting to me that I am fully aware of the transformational possibilities held in a life’s precious
and painstakingly cultivated identities;
Getting shattered by illness, divorce, death or big, giant loss of any kind.
But when that very shattering happens so close to my own bones;
And the noise is searingly shrill and feels life-threatening,
I am silenced.
The backstory is this: (I am choosing to take you all with me as I really have little left that means more to me than truth).
My grandmother/mother left me a generous inheritance which has sustained me through the sometimes lean years of my creative pursuits.
I have lived with the solace of a financial ‘back-up’.
When I received the diagnosis of PPMS in 2000, I was down on my knees in gratitude for the safety net that money gave me.
As my health challenges progressed, all possibilities of continuing the art career I had established over 25 years evaporated.
My right hand in a constant curl prevents me from fussing around in clay and dirt as I love to do.
I have pulled money out of this trust to survive for the last 5 years steadily enough to have reached the bottom of the barrel.
Here is a part of the story I could just curl up like an armadillo in shame about:
Because of the way I have been reading my quarterly statement from the bank,
I thought there was a certain amount of funding left; not too much but still a cushion.
NOT!
I found out last week that I have enough money left to cover two months of living expenses…
I am sharing this with you because part of making a new life living with disability
Very often includes ‘working the system’
Which is a whole world unto itself.
I COULD beat myself up and just sink into feelings of:
“I should have… or: I could have.. If only..”
But the fact is that I have done the best I could in the midst of my current challenges.
I will now call up the energy needed for stepping forward
Into the shadowlands
Of resources available to me
In support of a life
In partnership with disability.
I am going to take you along with me
As I crawl out of this quicksand.
I am entering the arena of the dreaded: ASKING FOR HELP FROM THE GOVERNMENT!
Me.. capable Cath…
HOW THE HELL DID I GET HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well…. onward I go………
It is my hope that we’ll all become richer
For the adventure about to unfold..
“And Now What?”
“CRITICAL MASS”, 24″ x 24″ x 2″, 2005, wooden matches, naturally pigmented earth from Abiquiu, NM
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I have a friend I met through this blog.
He has a highly refined aesthetic gleaned from years as a graphic designer and photographer.
We hardly know one another at all,
And yet the particular landscapes we’ve both walked: MS, the art/design world, students-of-life, appreciators of Beauty,
‘Gratitude’ practitioners, personal point-of-view watchers, ‘Truth’ questioners,
Give us license to call one another a friend (I think..).
It is his quote which titles this post.
Living a life steeped in the sometimes placid and other times turbulent waters of a creative existence,
I have come to know a few tid-bits
Which translate well into my everyday doings in the world.
Change is the constant (the ONLY constant)
Of a life in partnership with MS.
One moment, I am getting dressed to go to the dentist
And the next, I have my head resting on my desk; unable to do another thing toward the end I desire;
That of putting on some lipstick to get to the dentist who will take away the pain of the pending root canal.
“And now what?”
I have to surrender to the reality of the thing
And call the (new, to me) dentist.
Tell him I am aware I have an appointment in 20 minutes
But I can’t walk because I am dealing with MS.
May I reschedule?
The irritation is there in the office manager’s voice
And I wait on the phone, prepared to have to pay for my missed appointment.
I am met with relief as she returns to the phone with a lighter lilt in her voice
And I reschedule.
In this tiny little life episode
There were a number of “And now what?” moments.
I care deeply about showing up on time
And also leading a life free of searing tooth pain.
The plans I had for this little snippet of life
Changed. And then they changed again.
I think, because I am well tuned to NUANCE
Having ‘listened’ long and well
To the promptings occurring
Within a particular art project,
I see I now use that very same skill to make decisions.
In this case, I had been non-plussed by the dentist I have used in the past
And- in the process of choosing another,
Picked the one I felt decidedly urged toward (the NUANCE thing..).
His response to my ‘situation’
When I finally sat with him, yesterday,
Was pure kindness and compassion.
He even had cool state-of-the-art machinery
And a gorgeously appointed office.
I do recognize at this point
That my choice of this new dentist was no accident.
It was my response to the question: “And now what?”
I can’t seem to help wondering
When I write a post about what seems like the smallest of thing;
Does this make MY life small?
The answer for me is decidedly NO.
I believe what I’ve talked about here,
ARE the things WE CAN TAKE WITH US when we go…
But until then..
I love and depend on this skill I have
Which is pesky in it’s refusal to be ALWAYS at my beck and call.
I like that I consider it my companion in life;
Dependable (sometimes)…
Inspiring (always)…
Attentive (maybe)…
Valued (highly).
My Radio Interview
“SWIMMING”, 5′ x 5′, 1985, pigment on wool flannel
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Here is a podcast of my recent radio interview with the fabulous Desiree Cox, MD.
This is something different than the recent talk I did in Santa Fe
But I thought you might like to have a listen.
It is an hour long and works in bits and pieces if you haven’t the time for the whole deal..
We had fun.
Resolution/Dissolution
detail of “RENAISSANCE” , 2008, 10′ x 3′, naturally pigmented earth, wood
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I have spoken here before about my resolve to ‘get healthy.’
What, actually, does it mean to be healthy?
Without symptoms?
‘Perfectly’ orchestrated bundle of muscle, ligament, organs, blood, nerves?
Health insurance card left in your wallet behind every other card? New and shiny and lonely in it’s under-use?
Conversations lively with themes of hiking and tennis and work outs at the gym?
Yesterday, I posted one of my more transparent entries in honor of Mother’s Day.
I was urged by some unseen force to do it.
The theme is, at it’s core, what I believe contributed most to my health challenges today.
Transparency also has it’s costs…
Going very public with the likes of that post; things never spoken or even whispered in my family of origin,
Was part of my resolve to get healthy.
Because, for me, health means a clear and open place in ones’ self to register the nuance of Life
In all it’s sacredness
Devoid of the theatrical costuming we dress Her with.
I am fully aware that my experience of my youth is mine and mine alone.
My siblings had their own theater going on.
The only way I know to become FREE (ie: healthy)
Is to keep reaching for the colors and cut of the cloth
I have dressed my life in, in the past,
Which often have constricted my heart
And muscles
And mind.
It is my form of fishing;
On the banks of a gently flowing river
WITH A FRIEND (not recommended to be alone),
I cast my rod (for my version of ‘truth’)
And wait for the slow, underwater disturbance
Of the wriggling thing I’ve caught. (An “AHA” moment).
I reel in the slippery bottom-dweller.
Share it with my friend, (the witnessing)
And ALWAYS…
I MEAN EACH AND EVERY TIME
I reel in something from ‘THE MYSTERY,’
I look in awe at the raw and lively thing
And release it back into the rolling waters
With a prayer of gratitude
For how it has changed and healed me.
I NOW HAVE MORE ROOM TO ‘BE.’
The metaphor is this, in other words:
*Do the work.
*Find your ‘truth.’
*Tell a friend (to get it out of the murky waters of your head.)
*PUT IT DOWN.. (so you have more room for LIFE).
This is the best medicine I know.
There’s a way to do it without it’s reduction to navel-gazing.
But when one’s life is on the line (ie: read: mine)
Decorum has to take a second seat.
And THAT, dear readers
Is the squirrly-est part of my own healing path.
The process would be forever barred from the country club;
Renegade, messy, unkempt at best..
But then again.. her I am at last..
In love with LIFE,
Certainly not always..
But enough to keep going down to the river.
.
.
PS.. A pitcher of margaritas and some purple grapes with cheese and home-made bread
make very fine accompaniments.
Gifts of the Mother
hand painted terry cloth robe, 1986
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I fell the other day.
It happened in a dirt parking lot which was rutted and sandy.
I was not hurt.
I slipped in the gravel next to my car as I was negotiating the narrows I had left between a railroad tie and the car in an attempt to give my dog some shade.
Needless to say, it was not a handicapped parking spot.
As I sat there in the dirt, I looked at Olivia who was sitting in the driver’s seat with a mixture of confusion, compassion, impatience and love on her face.
We chatted, my beloved dog and I as I sat there in the dirt.
“Well, Livvy… here I am sitting here and I can’t get up.”
Her eyes go half mast as they do when she feels love toward people.
I tried to turn myself over but my feet kept slipping underneath the car, not able to get a foothold in the dirt.
“Let’s try this again… hmmmm… if I hold on here and twist here, I might be able to do it..”
This went on for 15 minutes without a tear in sight.
Yes, I was swimming in humility.
Yes, I was frustrated.
Yes, I wanted to be ‘saved.’
But most of all it felt like a challenge far from the spiral of darkness it could easily have attached itself to.
What does this have to do with MOTHER?
I am the eldest of four.
I saw an old family movie recently where I was impossibly innocent and cute.
There was light there in my eyes.
I lost that at 5 years old when I got buck teeth and a new, blonde sister.
Something happened, then, that put me on a very gritty road I actually am not sorry about.
I was… believe me..
But not now.
Because I really am enjoying who I am these days and know she came forward BECAUSE OF choices I made in the midst of a challenging childhood.
My mother and I parted emotionally supportive ways early on.
Pretty much at birth.
She wasn’t ready to be stripped of the possibility of getting her own enormous needs met.
Forgive her? No.. not there as yet.
My sister got to ‘have’ her.
I have sometimes hated my sibling for the injustice of it all.
My sister became my mother’s confidant and ballast and empty space-filler-in-er.
They gathered in the kitchen whispering and judging.
A covert comment.. then the weird ‘cover’ of silent cooking or cleaning or: “Just LOOK at that crabapple tree in bloom.”
Needing a place of my own, I learned how to change myself around to charm, entertain, soothe and mollify my alcoholic FATHER.
She got mom; I got dad.
This arrangement served us well in the ability to survive a very dysfunctional family.
But my sister and I lost each other in the process.
I became a juvenile delinquent as I spun around, trying to finding a place in the world that felt free and mine.
I spent hours and days in the woods behind our toxic house, soothed by nature and the blessed non-humanness of it all.
I smoked cigarettes, pot, did drugs and skipped school.
I got a semblance of the attention I was so hungry for.
My mother and I got so far apart that when I was raped as a college student she did not show up at all.. a cursory “I’m so sorry” on the phone was the extent of support.
I asked her why? years later and she said: “I just didn’t know what to do or say.”
My sister and other siblings have created healthy and happy families, marriages and lives.
I am so proud of us all for surviving what we did without hurling our unhappiness outward toward whoever was there at the moment and creating good lives for ourselves.
I see that my sister knows how to be in relationship in ways I don’t.
Watching her in family and marriage inspires me and instructs as well.
This ability she has is the thing I envied for so long and can only happen as a transmission from ‘the mother.’
When I was struggling in the dirt of the parking lot after my fall, I was using all the skills I learned as an independent and rebellious forsaken child:
I know how to work my way through challenge by entertaining myself with a shift in point-of-view.
My movement toward Life includes the ability to NOT COLLAPSE and trust myself to know I can figure a way to achieve the thing.
I find myself and Life eternally interesting as I watch the ways in which people (and I) negotiate the shadow; society’s and their own.
I have learned to find solace and inspiration in the smallest of things.
We protect the things we love.
I grew up without that sense of safety that should have been a given.
I have had to learn to lick my wounds and choose now to enliven in each moment because it feels good.
This is an EARNED skill and truly one of my greatest achievements.
These abilities are the things I love and protect.
Here’s where duality comes in:
I know what LOVE feels like BECAUSE I also have been privy to it’s absence.
I can get over myself and love my sister,
And keep those away from my sphere who want what I have without putting in the work.
Because work it is
And truthfully, I’ve had enough.
I open myself now,
As a healthy, emotionally sturdy
LOVER OF LIFE;
Albeit a bit grimy on the backside.
Daffodil Hill
detail of painting on textile
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When I was in High School
There was a place on the grounds I would go called DAFFODIL HILL.
I went there to reclaim myself
During days of mind-numbing
Classes
With too many girls (girl’s school..)
I smoked pot there,
Laid down alone
Or with a boyfriend
But mostly alone.
I stretched out
And closed my eyes
To let the fragrance
Of yellowness
Take me.
Hiding in the middle
Of this riot of
Harbingers
OF SPRING!!
I let dogs
And their owners pass me by.
I kept still and held my breath
So not to be discovered.
I let English class,
Math
And History
Survive without me
And the most movement I could manage
Was to cross my legs
At the ankle
And prop my head up
Away from the damp. dark ground.
I became yellow.
And hummed the tune
I thought the bendy stems
Might enjoy.
I was happy then..
And now am still..
Remembering the liquid sunlight
Pouring on me,
Holding my hidden self
There, in the new dirt
And innocent grass
Long ago,
On Daffodil Hill.
..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’……
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.
Secret Place
“FOREST THROUGH THE TREES”, 2002, 40″ x 72″, m/m
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A friend told me yesterday that she really hesitated before calling me to ask if she could stop by as she was in the neighborhood.
I really felt for her as I have put up very distinct boundaries about disturbing me at home.
I have ALWAYS had what I call ‘a secret place’ in my life
To go to when I need to feel safe and ok just as I am.
In my youth it was a grassy field
Rimmed with huge trees
I would lie down in
And be lost to the world
And protected by the spirits of the place.
I’ve had forts in my youth
And a few as an adult.
I have my special and sacred ‘go-to’ places in New Mexico that never fail to soothe me with their particular salve.
When my friend mentioned her trepidation in even approaching me
I really understood
And had to look at the question:
‘Am I becoming a dyed-in-the-wool weirdo?’
Have I been challenged by a faltering physical body for so long
That I am more comforted by aloneness
And a sort of ‘secret life’
Than exchanging breath with the life happening beyond my driveway?
Have I made my home the secret place du jour?
There are two parts to this line of inquiry:
Yes,indeed.. I need a safe and nurturing place to heal.
And
Yes, I do believe when I really look, that I may have lost some muscles in the social interaction realm.
I guess the trade off for me
Is the fact that one of my greatest and most necessary choices in my own healing has been to lessen the cultural ‘static’
Which seems to severely affect my nervous system.
I see that pulling out of usual levels of cultural participation
Makes people around me nervous.
But I can not really worry about the results of my choices
Except to make sure they cause no harm.
I see that there is a bright and mostly shiny
Woman behind the eyes looking back at me
From the bathroom mirror.
She seems to exude health
Until she reaches for the wall to balance.
My choices seem to be serving me
And a great litmus test I use for health
Has been to watch to see that the secret place only holds my attention
For just so long
And then I must emerge
And tell all the tales
I’ve heard, there in the shadows;
The songs sung to me
The drawings in the sand.
Jennifer’s Flowers
detail of painting
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My sister sent me flowers for my birthday.
She knows me.
She knows that stargazer lilies send me.
She knows that I adore curly willow.
She knows alstromeria lilies are my thing.
Now, how many people on the planet have that all-important information
At the ready?
It soothes me that she knows these things.
We love each other deeply.
And we are very different.
She has a brilliance to her mind capacity and abilities.
Because we share the same blood line,
I actually recognize I have similar capacities in the mind department
Though I chose another path this time around.
Our parents were both intelligent people.
I really thought for years
That I was not.
In my sister’s shadow I crouched.
And yet… today I know different.
She shares the creative urge I acted on in my lifetime.
I see it in her style, her cooking, her parenting.
We both share good minds
And our access to the forest
Has been by following different paths.
Today,
Instead of feeling less intelligent
I feel smart in a different way
And cheer her successes
Wrapped in the colors
Of the life I chose for myself.
That separation I created
So long ago
Has taken alot of energy.
I am putting it down.