Memorial Day
detail “TRIBE”, 2007,ceramic,steel,wood, 12″ x 30″ x 4″
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Memorial Days have come and gone in my life.
And I try to pause and recognize the immensity of loss.
But I have no threads in my life which allow me the truth of what it is to be a part of our military.
The closest I get is the abject stoicism my father displayed when we, his children, asked what it was like to be in the war.
War is a mystery to me.
Not really, as I know my own inner violence too well.
On the grander scale; acted out in real time; it just is too, too costly.
Today, I wanted a way into the hearts of those who know or have know war up close and personal.
They silenced me.
“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).
Relief
untitled, 24″ x 4″, ceramic, 1996
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The pervasive and very pagan
Jumping up and down
Celebrating death
We are experiencing now
Scares me.
My body wants to curl in on itself
To protect my own preciousness
From untrustable human beings.
I include my own self
In that assessment
As I have surprised myself
More than once.
Fact is:
Security is an inside job
Whether we like it
Or not..
And we don’t.
I laughed so hard when I saw this:
And I was so grateful
For the little tid-bit
Of room
That laughter
Gave my poor heart.
Harvesting Breath
“WOMAN and MAN”, 2001, ceramic, 14″ x 4″ x 2″
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Breath, breathing, song, snoring are all themes asking me for their attention these days.
A flock of meadowlarks is visiting my neighborhood.
They make me stop in my tracks and drop my jaw
Because they carry the antithesis of winter with them
Under each wing. Listen…
I woke yesterday in the half-light of dawn to catch my dog, Olivia
Curled at the small of my back
Snoring in utter surrender
To sleep and dreams.
Today, I noticed my voice caught up in my throat
A bit too high
And reducing me to more of a ‘child-woman’
(in the not-good’ sense).
This phenomenon usually occurs
When I am worried or scared.
I also came across this YouTube video
Of a visionary man
Who is a composer/conductor/musician by trade.
He filmed himself silently conducting a choral piece he had written
And posted it on his blog along with an invitation
To all who were moved to,
To send in a film snippet of themselves giving voice
To his creation.
The result is this compilation of 2000 voices
From around the world
Edited together
To form a virtual choir!
I watched myself
Have to ease into a slowed down version
Of my customary eagerness to do ‘stuff’ fast
And close my eyes
And breathe slowly
In order to give myself
The gift of a proper listen
To this miracle.
It was the very best thing I have done for my sweet self
In a very long time.
I wish for you, the gift of the preciousness
Of shared breath
Which is right there for the taking..
A bountiful harvest always in season.
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.
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.
Taboo… Boo Hoo
detail of sculpture, ceramic, earth, gold thread, bone
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You may have noticed that I am choosing not to post each and every day as I have in the past year and a half.
It feels better right now to give myself a bit of a break from any sense of ‘have to’.
—
New Mexico has been called the ‘land of manana (tomorrow)’ by more than a few.
We have that reputation because construction workers show up
A full week after they were supposed to
With just a slight shrug as an explanation
And mail has been known to be delivered a decade past the postmark.
What has my attention these days is something called FIVE WISHES.
It is a template for making out a living will.
I am going to talk about this for a few reasons.
#1. Nobody does.
#2. Everybody I’ve spoken to about this in the past weeks is hungry for the information
and the opportunity for a little air-time on the subject.
#3. The weirdest thing is happening.. I am finding the process FUN.
#4. It is deepening the relationships I have when I open up the subject.
#5. EVERYBODY seems to heave a sigh of relief.
#6. The energy I was using up to NOT think about these things is freed up for other stuff.
OK… before we go any further- I am NOT even close to any notion of throwing in the towel.
Living with chronic illness and especially a progressively debilitating kind
Really comes with the raven sitting on one’s shoulder
Reminding us moment by moment to feel life deeply
Because the one constant we share is change.
I happen to love life.
Not always, but my nature is to be more entertained by beauty
Than other choices I might have.
Because of that predilection to want a beautiful life
I can not turn away from Death.
So, I am finding this template of FIVE WISHES
A very do-able and interesting project
Toward sussing out
A beautiful life.
As an example: a very good friend
Has spectacular style
And she knows me better than most.
I asked her at our regular Sunday evening dinner if she would do the flowers for my memorial should I pass through the pearly gates before she gets there.
I told her what I wanted and she said yes and it was a fun and sort of funny conversation.
I feel good having had it.
It prevents the possibility of too many carnations getting near me (which I hate).
Anyway.. the conversation opened up a newer level of intimacy to be sure.
Dying before you die..
Some wise person said that.
It helps one live, I’m finding.
Shift
raku sculpture installation
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In the Santa Fe paper today I read that our BORDER’S bookstore will close due to bankruptcy.
Yeah.. Amazon is so great…
Until something like this happens.
A cornerstone of the community will be gone
And the effects will be felt far and wide.
Just the thought makes me feel lonely.
Not that I go there very often.
But I used to sit for hours with a stack of magazines from around the world
Turning page after page and letting the sights and smells and beauty and horror of far away places
Wash over me
And leave me changed.
Then I would go to my studio and make art.
This fairly regular past time was vital to my creative process.
I could be IN the world of fellow humans going about their business
But not really OF it.
This is really important for my inspiration
To have the ability to sit at a little table
And have the world leave it’s marks on me
Without going anywhere.
For me, the creative place is almost trance-like.
Everything but what is in front of me goes away.
If you think about it, the idea is kind of scary.
I live in a sort of veiled place
And the comfort of having a familiar scene happening around me
Like a student with his laptop at the table next to me
Or a mother negotiating a kid, a latte and a book
Is just the thing I need
To let myself be taken
By Creativity.
So, now that particular possibility will vanish.
And it is a loss.
Does the connective quality of FACEBOOK
Hold a candle to a good bookstore?
How far away from each other can we get?
And do we even care?
Is convenience and ‘lite connection’
Preferable to
The journey
And the elegance
Of a surreptitious eye-lock
With a stranger in the theology aisle?
Bird
“FLY GIRL”, 206, 11″ x 11″ x 4″, gravel,bone,earth
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“Faith is a bird that feels dawn breaking and sings while it is still dark.”
– Rabindranath Tagore
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This month has been a long haul for me on the road to recovery from the flu but hare I AM!!
Once again returned to the Cathy I remember.
During my enforced and all to lengthy recline
I watched a LOT of “GREY’S ANATOMY.”
Season upon season, in fact.
I lived vicarious lives as I lay there with kleenex on one side
And my dog on the other.
I judged the characters and supported others; felt superior and bonded, both.
Cried and gasped and laughed and held my breath
As they all walked their walk through their own hall of mirrors
And I could just watch
And have opinions.
It was fun for awhile
In the privacy of my own home
To let my inner critic run rampant.
It was too easy and so ordinary.
After awhile, so very, very banal.
My laughter and sneers became hollow.
I was bored with the feeling of ‘separateness’, I think.
What is the thing, I wondered, that calls us to higher ground?
That lets us know when enough is enough?
Enough ‘lite- life.’
The nudge that gets us reconnected
With just the slightest reminder that there might be gold
On the other side of an apology, say..
Or forgiveness for past wrongs?
Illness has an undertow
And fairly often I forget entirely
About the beach
I lost sight of awhile back.
But some unseen force ALWAYS
Reaches for my hand and grabs me.
And turns me around toward land.
And I have FAITH that force
Is very real and not a wish or desire.
That very ‘knowingness’ is my gold.
And I am wealthy beyond any measure.
Some gorgeous images on the theme of FAITH:
Perspective
detail of sculpture, ceramic
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I have been in touch with a consultant regarding my blog because I want to make it a truth oasis.
It has always been my intention to steer clear of dipping into the self-serving nature
Of most of the blog activity I experience out there.
She asked me what I give to my precious readers.
It is THE question because
We all spend any extra time and energy on those things we consider
Will up the quality of our lives in some way.
So…
I wondered:
WHAT IS IT that I offer here, on this site?
My sense is that some of you visit me because I tell my truth
About scary and shadowy corners
We might prefer to ignore.
If I had to narrow it down to a sentence
The biggest thing I feel I have to offer
Is my natural knowing
That a shift in one’s perspective
Changes that reality
We thought was carved in stone.
I’m not interested in denial.
Just ‘repurposing’ really…
I actually try to get up and see what is there for me
And tell you about it
Without editing too much
So what you read has the fragrance of honesty
And it stands there
Pretty naked.
I have the sense that you keep coming back to visit me
Because of what it takes to say something true.
Is that right?
Because I would like to know
If you can tell me,
I’d really like to know.
xxxx me