Unbecoming Behavior
untitled, 30″ x 30″, 1999, m/m
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The process of getting well is fraught with bumps in the road.
For me, healing is a process affecting my emotional, spiritual, mental, psychic and physical selves.
Each change I make in one area shifts the others in some way.
Sometimes I am literally flattened and I don’t know why.
The thing I DO know is the more I let go of who I thought I was, the more I become uninterested in becoming.
It has been a life of pushing toward achievement for this girl.
Like a good and true American entity, I TRIED to go for the gold.
But in my art career “IT” eluded me.
Sure.. I made money sometimes and have magazines galore with beautiful spreads on my work.
A resume’ that tells the tale of decades of TRYING.
But is that it?
Is that the gold?
Truth be told, there was always a big MISSING in the life I led of creating art in my studio alone and driving it over to the gallery and sometimes getting a check in the mail.
I seldom knew the names of who took my work home to their living room or how they felt about it or what moved them enough to shell out the cash.
BUT I WAS AN ARTIST!!
With a genuine and shiny identity in my pocket.
And who is this girl who is getting out of bed at noon because her body is in revolt today and she doesn’t know why and can’t find the energy to care?
Instead of being in the process of BECOMING I am UN- BECOMING…
That artist girl is certainly still in here but she’s resting and healing from a lifetime of YEARNING for some damn thing that seems to be closer in to her these days, even as she lies still in the un-doing of it all..
Sky
The skies here look a bit like this at dawn.
There are a few wildfires burning close by and the monsoons have made their entry with a suitcase full of cloud formations.
My dog presses close in as thunder wreaks havoc.
And I shut my eyes to smell the sweetness of dampened blacktop and fat sage.
Twice this morning I’ve written what felt like good and solid words here.
And twice their lives were cut short.
It is a sign I need simplicity and spareness as my medicine today.
I will share it with you..
Eclipse
untitled, 2003, 11″ x 11″ x 4, m/m
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Tomorrow we have a lunar eclipse to look forward to.
I am peripherally interested in astrology and those guys say: “TRUST CHANGE.”
Well, I’m pretty dang tired of change these days, truth be told.
My nights and days are full of giving myself grief over undone life things like messy closets and projects and bills and phone calls and unwashed dishes and dry cleaning needing to be picked up.
Yes, there are meadows dotted with wildflowers and bunnies scattered in the midst of my days.
Sleep used to be a respite but lately, even those realms are tainted.
Oddly, I am finishing up a book proposal and the writing of it is the solace in my life at the moment.
That and a flirty-thing going on.
Sometimes I want to throw in the towel.
But I haven’t the strength to make the toss.
Pathetic but real.
This season of change we are ALL INSIDE is horrible.
And necessary.
And anger-provoking.
And patience-making.
I hate change.
And I need it.
We all need it.
Sometimes, I feel as if my body acts as a little microcosm of the out-in-the-world frustrations of collapse and rebuilding.
I am tired.
So very tired.
But we don’t have a choice.. not a one of us.
We get up and handle the stuff shoveled our way.
Make a neat pile or toss it in a messy heap.
The key seems to be action.
No matter how large or small.
It acts like a ballot put in the voting box of LIFE, I think.
So, today, with this small act of writing my truth, I cast my vote for life.
God, give me the strength to keep moving through my day and participating at a healthy and vibrant level.
And forgive me if I can’t.
Hectic Heart
untitled, 22″ x 30″, 1992, monoprint
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It is scarily hot here.
For too long now.
Yesterday I got caught without any liquids with me and stopped into the golden arches for an iced tea.
They were a beacon of light when I saw them there.. I was beyond thirst and heading into MS heat shutdown fast.
So, I waited in the drive thru but it was lunchtime and too many others were there with me in line.
I felt myself crossing over into ‘borderline-human’ status as the heat worked on me.
I start to hate everyone and my tolerance level hit zero.
Finally, with oversized cup in hand I pull away toward the exit.
There are cars coming and going at an alarming rate; they’ve got a mini window of time for lunch and they NEED it BAD.
And so.. mayhem ensues as each is out for themselves; getting into line FAST!
I’m waiting there at the exit to try to do just that.. EXIT this damn place and get what I need: peace and liquids in me.
BUT NNNNNNNOOOOOOO…
NO ONE WILL LET ME EXIT.
I can’t get out of there.
Panic peeks around the corner with a knife in her hand, a very ugly mask and my heartbeat runs too fast.
I call up a smidgeon of humaneness and say a prayer of pure supplication: “Dear God.. Please have someone see that I have to get out of this parking lot immediately and let me go before them. Please let civility be alive and present.”
And there it was… the miracle at McDonalds.. a white (of course) Honda with dark glazed windows paused to let me leave.
Somehow, when angels appear to help, we never seem to get to identify them so a proper thank you can pass between us.
They appear, then they’re gone on their way to help another needy human.
I pulled onto a shady street and drank down my iced tea and felt the slow return of my sanity.
I finally remembered myself and was glad.
And there was peace and a quiet and grateful heart.
Woman Becoming
“WOMAN BECOMING”, 6′ x 45″, m/m
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This is likely the most pivotal piece of art I ever created.
I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to create that day and this arrived unbidden.
I was a little afraid..
The process of bringing her to form was tumultuous and other-worldly as I lost touch with time and place and just stepped out of the way.
My intention that day was to create a wedding gift for my husband to be I was to marry in the next few months.
Having set that purpose it was up to me to set all ego based wanting to the side and watch to see what wanted to come forward.
She was so insistent and fierce and vulnerable at the same time.
The piece took my breath away as it was nothing like anything I had ever created before.
My husband loved it and we both enjoyed her company for the years we remained married.
When we divorced he generously asked if I’d like her back.
I look at this photo of her and see the giant red schism running down her middle and the fact she has no discernable legs.
She was so much wiser than I at the time.. the bride- to-be enchanted by endless wooing with fine wine and status gleaned from the attentions of the company president.
I slipped so terrifyingly easily into the ’serve-your-man’ job description.
I entertained with sparkly dinner tables and took second seat as he attempted to sell his business.
I lost my legs.
Forgive me if it sounds as if I am blaming him.
That, certainly is a seductive road.
But the truth be told, the schism was ‘Cathy created” pure and anything but simple.
How weird is it that now, as I have MS as my companion, I get my legs back?
In reality, each day I seem to lose a bit more muscle strength.
They are untrustable, my legs.
But the ground I’ve covered since way back when!
Now, THAT takes my breath away!
And she was all the wiser, that girl who appeared as the unbidden wedding gift..
All raw and halved and yet-to-be-formed.
Such a gorgeous gift she was. IS.
Her voice still, to this day, sings to me. A whispered reminder.
Authority of Descent
“MAYA”, 1998, 5′ x 3′, m/m
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I remember being on vacation once and the sea tossed me hard and long as I scraped the bottom and lost track of the direction I needed to go in to breathe.
I was down there too long and suddenly I realized I no longer needed breath; I was absolutely fine. More than fine.
When I did make it up for air I thought: “Did I breathe underwater? What the hell just happened here?”
I never did answer that question.
I think because the mystery of it all was bigger than the urge to have an answer that was right.
I see now it was a dollop of grace.
One I’ve used repeatedly over the years since.
There are those of us with the draw to dive deep.
No matter what the outcome, we continually go after the pressure that builds and the work it takes to remain conscious as we explore depths unknown to but a few.
Down there we see stuff.
Feel things.
Change to meet the unfamiliar depths.
We resurface different.
Our whole being wraps itself around the challenge of uncharted territory and we push aside the loneliness of each step because we can.
My own proclivity has always been to move toward the deep.
Now, as I have the companionship of a chronic illness it takes me a bit longer to suit up but I continue to dive and be glad of it.
The weight of the illness actually helps me go deeper faster and stay there longer.
Sure, there are hardships to endure and exhaustion; overload of new information, decompression and the constant effort to reacclimate to everyday life as I rejoin the land lovers.
But I still go in. Have to go in. And see what I can effect by doing, thinking, being different.
I think it is worth the effort.
I don’t honestly know how to do it differently.
So should you ever need to know how to breathe underwater, gimme a call and I’ll tell you everything I know.
You’ll likely be disappointed as the stuff I know doesn’t come easy to the telling of it.
But if you close your eyes for a moment you likely can feel a bit of the chill of the deep.
It feels good I’m told, on a hot and humid day.
Hardwired
“THE ROAD”, 1984, 3″ x 5″, pigment on wool flannel
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This piece was done years before I ever came to Santa Fe.
And yet, it has all the elements of my life today in the high desert.
Living here as I do with a good number of Native Americans, I wonder at the presence of what have become recurrent symbols in my art over the years.
Since I can remember, circles and spirals and snakes and the grid as well as obvious layering and ladders have populated my art.
These same symbols are key in the Native world as well.
Earth-worshiping people.
Those for whom intelligence gleaned from the swamp and molecular make up of minerals or the elegant sidewinding of reptiles through barely disturbed grass are their hymns.
The circle keeps calling me.
It has been my most reliable companion over the years.
Do you think that pathetic?
The gift of no beginning, no end…. does that not level the pesky grasping of a thousand Christmases?
Yes indeed… there is some finely orchestrated plan I’m in the middle of.
Something somewhere with a monocle gripped over an eye looking over my list and nicking off trials and tests and bundles of grace and ‘”AHA!’s” as I meander down my road, broken and rebuilt so many times.
I’m so damn glad I heard the directions whispered one day way back when to leave everything I knew for sure behind and get my butt out here to New Mexico.
I plopped myself down smack in the middle of the most interesting of spirals.
It never matters if the direction I move is inward or out along it’s path.. the meal I’m served is always fine tuned to my palate.
And still I am hungry.
The Journey
untitled, 1992, 30″ x 22″, monoprint
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I surprise myself sometimes that I still have the core of faith at my center.
I still love this precious life.
And most of the time I want to stick around.
I probably would not be so keen if the whole theater of the thing wasn’t still entertaining.
These days though, I watch from my witness perch and it is too often dark out there.
Out in the world, sure, but closer to home as well.
But is this bad?
I sense it is all part of the plan and my job is to stand for what I stand for, make a good life and handle my own inner violence.
Flip flop..flip flop.. change happens so how shall we hold it?
It embarrasses me that my inner terrain is not more even.
The GREAT DAY of yesterday has slipped into another costume as days are wont to do..
Often, when sense is out of reach, I go here, to Mary Oliver’s work:
________
.
The Journey- by Mary Oliver
.
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.
Self Portrait
“SEED”, 48″ x 48″, 2004,m/m
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Most of my art tends toward self portraiture in the sense that I do my best work when I don’t know what I’m doing.
Rather, instead of DECIDING exactly what I think the piece should be I ALLOW it to emerge and in that way I always learn something about myself by letting the work teach me.
Sometimes this happens immediately as I am completing a piece or it could creep up on me years, even decades later.
Certainly, there are themes that have arisen over the years in varying colors and forms.
This is one such theme; that of striated layers with a seed-like form in various states of gestation.
So much of my work has included layering and a sort of hierarchy evident in the obvious ‘below and above’ the horizontal orientation.
What I have learned over these many years intimately entangled in a tempestuous relationship with a chronic illness is that it is all relative.
The climb and the energy output in trying to reach the summit always held such a gleam.
The physical test and the sweat outpour involved in putting one foot still higher on the ladder when the air was too damn thin.
Now, I can’t lift my leg high enough to clear just one measly rung on the thing.
But, funny enough, I am so much stronger.
Not the physical kind at the moment but the sort of strength inherent in the seed; the force that makes us burn through the rocks and weight of earth and keep doing it until we can’t.
And take a rest to gather ourselves gaining strength from the most mundane of things; reviving ourselves with the slow sensuality of water seeping through the dry ground and the impossibly rich smell of ready earth.
And we press on..
These things are my church. This is where I pray.
The small and weak and silent and threadbare..
How loud they have become to my ears.
And how very satisfying their song.
And I press on…
Slight Obstacle
untitled monoprint, 1990, 22″ x 30″
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It seems after a certain amount of time on the planet one would be quite sure that any less-than-fabulous emotion or bump in the road would likely be different an hour from now or tomorrow would find the situation a distant memory…
So then why is it when a new symptom adds itself to my list or I find myself mired in foggy territory do I KNOW THE SITUATION IS PERMANENT??????
I find it utterly ridiculous that I do not know at this point that depression lasts for two days max in my world (mostly) and symptoms are often ghost-like in their arrival and departure.
It is quite unacceptable that I lock down into these states of being leaving all thoughts of possibility and reality checking behind.
MS is scary shit, no doubt about it.
Just pause, Cath, and let the twitching eye have it’s day or the renegade toe curling likely will unfurl tomorrow.
I want so VERY much to remember when the demonic iron gates of hell go up that I am quite sure I saw a faulty join in the grid; easy enough for a girl my size to slither through.
I think I could still make it with a vagrant toe and a hyperactive eye.
Yes, I am quite sure I can.