Practicality Is The Antidote To Emotionality
UNTITLED, 1986, 5′ x 5′, pigment on wool flannel
________________________________________________
I know there are people in my life absolutely ecstatic
Over the appearance of the word: ‘PRACTICAL’
In my vocabulary.
Fact is: We, humans have leanings toward particular
Ways of being.
I have been an artist longer than I can remember.
My primary tool in this vocation has been
Access to the watery and indistinct nesting grounds
Where inspiration lives.
My current path in life demands I pick up other kinds of brushes and paint.
My desire is not to displace my emotions
In favor of something ‘better’ or more effectual.
No.
The root of the word PRACTICAL is ‘PRACTICE’.
It has to do with ACTION in the ‘real-time’ world
As opposed to the theoretical.
Living in partnership with chronic illness
Demands we give our precious emotional lives a rest
And enlist the support of the practice involved
In carving out the logistics of a new kind of life.
A very good girlfriend (an artist in the practicality realm)
Helped me, yesterday
With a fabulous tip:
She wanted me to tell her THREE THINGS
That were causing me pressure in my life this week.
I said:
1. No energy to do the dishes.
2. My dog has a barking issue.
3. The woman that grocery shops for me told me she would not be here but I forgot.
Just the action of saying the things relieved me.
But she stepped in and gifted me with some housecleaning!
And I asked another friend if she’d shop for me and she said yes.
I called a dog trainer.
PRESTO!!
Pressure vanished.
It was THRILLING, I tell you…
The alleviation of my previous interior machinations
Left me feeling
GRATEFUL, NOT ALONE, CONNECTED, RELIEVED, HAPPY, LIGHT.
I think this THREE THINGS CAUSING ME PRESSURE admission
Could be used in anyone’s life at any time.
Ask your lover, child, friend:
WHAT THREE THINGS ARE ADDING PRESSURE TO YOUR LIFE THIS WEEK?
And see if you can do something about it
Even if it is just to listen.
I’m here to tell you
This is a fine, fine paintbrush to have at the ready
As we all make new lives for ourselves.
Clemency
detail of monoprint
___________________
I have what I consider a strange habit.
I look to my eyes in the mirror probably 10 – 20 times per day.
What is the need to keep checking?
It really is not a vanity thing
But more of a temperature reading:
Does how I feel physically, emotionally and spiritually
Match up with what I see in my reflection?
My quest for authenticity
Helped me find this tool.
“I feel GOOD!” and after a brief gander at my eyes, sometimes I see the hardness there and the worry.
A lifetime of hyper-vigilance
Has taught me the difference
Between smooth and gleaming waters
And the rugged chop of an unknown sea creature
Barreling it’s way to the surface to sound.
My nervous system is stuck in overdrive
And God is the only force
Which seems to actually calm me.
I worry about getting to the next wall to hold on to.
Taking too much time to get dressed and being late for an appointment.
Unanswered phone calls. Wrapping a large wedding gift; (no wrapping paper, no card in the house, no strength to get them) and delivering it in a timely manner.
Bills unpaid.
Dishes in the sink.
Not wanting to eat when I SHOULD be eating..(I tend toward gauntness and am willing myself to eat more often and just MORE).
Are you bored yet?
I am.
I had to look up the definition of the word: CLEMENCY.
It means mercy. And leniency.
Mercy and leniency and mildness.
Yes, I know the word is usually used in association with crimes and misdemeanors..
Yet, in my book, a sin is only that which acts against our natural state of perfection and well-being.
Working my way through the ancient propensity
To live inside this ever-present nervous static
Is another exhaustion!
I know it’s there.
I am altogether sure it is not my natural state.
I am acutely aware that I needed the skill in my family of origin
And that it likely saved me.
Today, I do not need the thing
And yet.. I continually see it there behind my eyes when I look.
I can hate the static and demand it’s departure and blame it for all my woes.
But that sounds like what the general population
Does with any energy that stands in the way of what they want.
God is my last ‘go-to.’
For me, MS stands for ‘my static’
And of course, I WANT IT GONE!
These days I am practicing small gestures
Like a pause or a metaphorical hand smoothing my hair with the tenderness of a good mother.
Or drinking the air on my morning roll ’round the neighborhood with Olivia
And finding it fine as wine.
My nerves are so scarred and taut with anticipation of the worst
That they need mercy
And leniency
And forgiveness
And appreciation.
For here I AM still…
A courageous and continually curious woman in love with Life.
And that, dear readers, is a high accomplishment, indeed.
I Give Up
untitled, 1991, ceramic objects
_______________________________
This past weekend I surrendered.
The word conjurs up images of an army hoisting a feeble-looking white flag
And bearing the weight of defeat.
Perhaps, a better word for my actions might be “YIELD.”
I yielded to the fact I can no longer produce art
In the forms it has chosen to arrive
During my thirty year career as a fine artist.
My art-making has been labor intensive
And not….
But I have always had the solace of a ‘thing-in-form’
Which somehow magically appeared
At the end of a string of inspiration, action and completion.
I DID something!
I MADE something!
There is a mark here where there was none before.
I AM.
A great deal of my ‘I AM-ness’ has been derived from a long identity as an artist.
This past weekend two good friends helped me achieve
Another kind of work-in-form
Which far surpassed any fulfillment
I have achieved to date.
I packed up my remaining private collection of art (not all)
And the works fidgiting in the cavern of a storage unit.
My two ‘girlfriends/sisters/family’ helped me orchestrate a spectacular event
In which my remaining work was hung, leaned, propped against the walls
Of a gracious home.
Invitations were sent to collectors
With a real time and date
Inviting them to come by and help me release this long and lovely art-making career
I’ve utterly adored.
You can be sure
That in the hours before the appointed time
My cheeks were wet
With heavy tears
As I did the interior wiggling around
It takes to let go.
By the time we opened the gate
I was sitting there
On the lovely patio
Surrounded by a lifetime of giving birth to beauty.
I felt so beautiful, myself,
As I welcomed the art-lovers
And watched them choose parts of me
To take home and love.
In the end,
I felt no regret.. no clinging.. no ‘if only’s…’
Really, my willingness to surrender this beloved identity
Gave rise to rooms within my self
I’ve yet to choose furnishings for.
They wait patiently
Until my eyes adjust to the light.
This new space in me has a quality of infinite generosity;
It isn’t even hankering to be filled!
And I have left behind a good deal of fear.
So- I won’t have a sculpture or painting
To offer you.
It seems my very life has become the art.
I wonder if, in my smile
You can feel
The tears, the relief, the vulnerability,
The solace, the fear, the faith
It takes to step forward
Once again?
I Am A Boat
“FINE LINE” detail, 1999, m/m
_____________________________
I am a boat.
Not a Chinese junque. – (my blood is too foreign though I do wish it wasn’t).
Well.. perhaps a gleaming and slippery, “Have a martini”, 40′ ode to speed? – (I’d lose the key..).
Maybe that great outboard motorboat we used up at the lake to go bass fishing as the dawn steam rose and we, wee ones still with sleep in our eyes? – (Oh, I did love the control!)
What about a catamaran? Sliding and cutting so deftly through..intent on getting ‘there’ FAST!.. The constant thrill of capsizing the thing?- (Nope).
I could be a giant cargo ship with all the ballast I’d ever need in rough seas.. (No beauty in all that safety and way too much metal. I’m not that fond of metal, anyway).
A folded paper boat adrift on an even pond? – (Not enough substance or staying power).
I will be a canoe.
My own ship carved of a tree so I will remember dry land should I turn toward forgetting.
It will hold one.
Two or three if I so choose.
My family and friends will have helped me carve the thing.
We will have sung songs and toasted it’s doneness before they hand me two paddles and I pause to bow (to them and it) before I step in alone.
I will push off the beach and settle my frame into the curve of the tended wood.
I will not look back.
I am not sad. I will cut the glassy sheen of the lake
And lean into my direction.
I pull the water to me
And let it empty behind.
Pull.
Empty.
Pull.
Empty.
The rhythm lifts me.
And the work is not.
I am free.
Destination is uninteresting.
I just stay with the impossible beauty.
In raw weather
I huddle in the rain and wind
Sometimes, just yielding to the whim of the lake
Because it is bigger than me.
In the morning with wet and straggly hair
I peek outside my parka.
The way seems clear
Though I do not know where I am.
A loon sets me straight
And my paddle meets the waters.
I sing.
Attention is Our Currency
“GRID”, 1992, 5′ x 5′, m/m
__________________________
I had a massage the other day.
He worked on my right side, primarily.
My leg below my calf has become quite numb.
The masseuse I work with has very shiny and clean energy
So I have the gift of not having to shield myself from his ‘stuff’
And just deal with mine.
We worked the full hour on attempting to wake up my leg.
He asked me to send particular kinds of breath there.
My breath shifted from the shallows
To deep and long and wide.
My whole being felt smooth and supported.
A strange loneliness left me.
After the massage I asked him:
“Can you tell me anything that I could be doing on my own
Until I see you next?”
“When we began, your leg was pretty much empty and dark inside. After we worked together, it now registers as ‘dim’.
It scared me when he said that.
WHERE IS THE LIFE IN MY LEG?
And yet.. I participated in just a short hour’s worth of work
And felt the shift
Of light / life / love come in.
It was not a pill.
Nor was it a panacea.
We PAY attention,
Which has always been in our bank account.
Endless supplies, it seems.
We get what we pay for.
I am quite sure that my eagerness to wake up most mornings
And the blessing of an attitude of curiosity
And general gratitude
Even though I could call my life ‘tough’,
Is the threshold to HEALING;
Whatever that ‘looks’ like.
My attention is directed toward a lightness of being
Rather than the dark emptiness I sensed in my leg.
I can tell you in all honesty
That if I hung out for long enough
In that dark place
I would die.
I don’t have the luxury of messing around with other forms of currency.
Attention is ‘IT’ for me now.
I either refine my abilities in this arena
Or I will lie down
And not get up.
You see: it is all a choice.
I CHOOSE LIFE.
I CHOOSE LIFE.
I CHOOSE LIFE.
Smolder Factor
“LINE IN THE SAND”, 40″ x 30″, 2003, m/m
________________________________________
I was listening to the radio this morning
As someone talked about survival of the fittest.
I hear that phrase and am continually thrown
Into the tired inquiry:
“Am I fit?”
On the evolutionary scale, is someone like me meant to drop to the side of the road
Because I am unable to keep up in the physical realms?
Well… no.
Period.
Honestly, somebody has got to change these litmus tests we use
To decide who has got worth
And who is not worth the effort.
Today, that someone will just have to be me.
Tell me that your heart is not changed and better
For having witnessed this.
Really, I ask you:
Do you think these people have ‘fitness’
In a way most of us have never even come close to?
I am calling it: ‘THE SMOLDER FACTOR”
Because it isn’t an ‘in your face’ kind of thing at all
But it has the heat
And sort of slow, transformative quality
That gets at ‘ya
When you least expect it.
If you get in there
And really FEEL those people
Can you tell me you’d leave them
By the side of the road
Without knowing in the bottom of your stomach
You missed some sort of treasure
For which there is no name?
Vulnerability
“WHITE TREE”, 2001, 11″ x 11″ x 4″, m/m
_______________________________________
We hear the word ‘vulnerable’
And we wish we hadn’t.
In the deep recesses of our smaller selves
We value power and control
Over communion.
We ARE vulnerable creatures…
Descended from the great apes who had what it took to survive,
We are standing here, now
With only the barest snippet
Of the fur they depended on for warmth.
Because we don’t need it.
Gone are the food gathering skills
And the ‘you stay with me, kid’ uber-nurturing
As well as the intricate tribal intelligence
It took to live so closely together
In peace.
Here we all stand (albeit with a wobble in my case)
Looking so confident
And secure.
And then….
Some THING happens
That shatters the thin sheen
Of manufactured order
We banked on lasting forever.
All of a sudden..
WE ARE IN NEED!!!!
Our shiny costuming
Is dragging through the mud
And we can’t remember the word
For: “HELP!”
Standing there, mute,
By the side of the road,
We let all the cars go by
As we hide in the bushes.
We stay there,
Wet and hungry
Until we are forced to step forward.
With every ounce of pride
Finally dissolved
And replaced by humility,
Someone altogether changed
And so very lovely
Approaches the highway
And asks for a ride.
Choice (re-post)
.
.
.
Part of upcoming book: “GOOD MEDICINE”
.
.
.
“Good Medicine” continued..
‘ALEXANDRA’S INFLUENCE’ 1995, 16″ x 16″, m/m
_____________________________________________
introduction continued..
.
In three years time, chiropractors and massage therapists and psychotherapists and injections became too familiar as my body slipped into and out of working order at an alarming rate. I became an unreliable friend as I cancelled more often than followed through on plans. Eighty percent of my life energy was going toward worry, pill taking and trying to keep my wobbly balance a secret. Life was getting narrow.
My ability to tame my point-of-view concerning physical illness has been my best medicine. Somehow, I have always recognized that between the lines of a diagnosis etched in stone are possibilities no one ever talks about. These gifts are born of the shadows cast from any illness; chronic or otherwise.
I love my life. This is not pie-in-the-sky denial talking. Of course, I am not thrilled with every second of every day but on the whole, for me, life is very good. My creativity has naturally segued from labor intensive art making into writing which feels natural and satisfying. My values are shifting from ‘out there’ gratification toward cultivating my own garden. I am judicious as to who and what I invite into the new world I am creating. I understand obstacles as challenges and way-showers inviting me into pockets of life that feed me deeply. I cry more and feel washed clean. My laugh is ready and real. I sense a transparent quality about myself reflected in the eyes of others. I am more authentically Cathy than I knew I could be and I like her very much.
My intention with this book is to change the paradigm of disability in our culture; to lift the societal veils surrounding illness and reveal a very new color palate enriched by humor, beauty and an honest look at possibilities instead of the narrow prescriptions of our well-meaning medical professionals.
I can promise you a laugh or two, a tear perhaps and certainly the tools I’ve found to craft a life of possibility instead of the out of control downward spiral all too often offered those of us in partnership with a high-maintenance body.
The Generosity of Rain
“ATMOSPHERE”, 1995,30″ x 30″, m/m
_____________________________________
The smoke laying heavily on my town
From wildfires just to the West and East
Has been laden with the toxicity of the retardant the firefighters use
As well as whatever remains undisclosed
By Los Alamos Lab.
It got to the throat constricting point for me
And so I took my dog, clean underwear and my new teeth-whitening toothpaste
And we drove up to Taos for the night
In hopes of better air.
It was slightly less smoky there and there was some movement to the atmosphere which helped a lot.
The two of us hung out on a mesa and ate lunch and watched cows
As we waited to check in.
The hotel I found was pet friendly and accessible offering a great deal for the room.
Olivia and I rolled over to the room, the wheelchair laden with stuff.
I opened the door and met an acrid smell.
I tried to roll the chair into the room only to see that there was a large threshold preventing entry.
I got out of the chair and had to pull the 250 lb. thing over the bump into the room.
Olivia would not enter.
Would not.
Finally, she chanced it and I asked her to stay while I got more stuff from the car.
I had barely opened the door and she bolted out into a large and lovely, grassy courtyard
Pooping willy-nilly everywhere as the staff prepared for an outdoor wedding.
The two of us finally had a chance to settle in after all the drama.
The dog was utterly traumatized by the other creature smells left behind
Which the old hotel had tried to mask with various chemical sprays.
It felt dirty and neither one of us could settle.
She looked 100 years old to me
As she scrunched her brow and tightened her temples just like we do.
All of a sudden I realized we could not stay there.
I’d come for a bit of peace and clearer air
But it was worse here!
So we packed up and left.
After an hour.
I hadn’t the energy to go looking around for another hotel
As it is a holiday weekend and ‘pet-friendly’ is a challenge.
As the two of us meandered home along the Rio Grande river,
It began to rain.
The first rain we’ve seen in these parts since I don’t know when..
I think the last water was snow.
It rained and rained..
I almost cried from gratitude.
When the two of us returned home
The skies were crystal clear.
Scrubbed clean by the dripping skies.
I opened all my window to the pristeen evening
And we laid down for a nap.
Really tired.
Really happy.