Daze of Summer

Her mentor is one of the most gentle people on the planet. He catches flies in his hands and sets them free outside his studio, and he flicks mosquitoes away rather than smashing them to death.

She often asked him why he is like this and he always said, "One day I will tell you."

One day she went to see him to show him her latest drawings and he said that he was busy and couldn't see them, but that he had some work he wanted her to do on the computer with some pictures she'd taken for him, that he'd set her up, he working on something next to her. As she went back to his "lair" he said, "Today might be a good day for you to understand what you have been asking so much about." She didn't really care one way or the other to hear the answer and for a moment she didn't remember the question, having assumed that he was a sensitive person who valued all things from birth, and her question was always asked in admiration. When he offered to tell her why he was so much the way he was, she misread him as being mischievous, expecting a funny story involving laughter and funny characters. He wanted her to read what he wanted her to know.

She sat down at his computer and he stood over her and muddled through various files until he found the story, "There," he smiled, "This should keep you busy for a while." He sat down behind her with his back to her while he worked on another project.

The story started off innocent and pleasant and took her to a place that existed a decade before her birth, when he was young. She could feel the hot, muggy air of the summer time, and smelled the grass and the flowers while she pictured him as a scrawny kid, much like her own kids, to a summer mixed with the ratio of 90% boredom and 10% excitement that her own summers had while growing up on the opposite coast much later.

Her mentor had never liked how she dressed as she covered herself in long skirts and hair covers, but she always blushed when he teased her and said that he always saw through her clothes and knew that she was beautiful, and when she asked him why he wrote a certain way, he explained that he wrote in a similar way to how she dressed-- when he wrote, he could reveal everything without describing, and that interested people would let their imaginations step in where he left off. His stories often left her breathless, but if one took the story apart, paragraph by paragraph, one could not say, "This is where he leads the reader on to the fascinating part." His work, both in words and in pictures, existed as a whole, interacting with the viewer's imagination and creating a newer work all together. Unlike how she dressed, his work had many more admirers, and people often came to him for advice on art, whereas few asked her for advice on dressing.

On that day, his story was not what she expected. As she met the people in his life from the time before she was born, she was jarred when he encountered his Abusers. As this was his story to tell, I will not tell you what had happened to him, other than to say that it was very horrible, and it was their threats and his forced silence for many years that got her the most. She wanted to pull him on to her lap and hug him, but as he was much older than her and quite tall, it would have been awkward had she tried. Unlike in his stories where the imagination of the reader filled in what he didn't say, he was graphic in what he described, and her imagination, which had only made his stories happier in times past, retreated, and she sat reading and rereading the horrible facts of the story without her imagination to help her.

She didn't know if he heard her gasp, and he kept typing as she absorbed what she had read. This wasn't about her, it was about him. She wondered why she was worried so much about her own reaction and how he'd perceive her. She had volunteered with Hospice and worked with victims of abuse in the past, but this wasn't something that he was sharing for her to comfort him or say anything wise. He was telling her as a friend about something terrible. After a deep breath, she asked him, "How do you heal from that?"

His voice was soft and he still wasn't looking at her, "You don't."

She tilted her head, and sharp pains circuited from her neck to her left shoulder and down her left arm and into her hands, coming back via her right arm and surrounding her shoulders and ribs and shooting back into her neck. She asked, "May I massage your neck?" He said she could, but asked why she wanted to massage his neck. She wanted to massage his neck because hers hurt, but she told him she just wanted to massage his neck, like it was normal for her to go around offering to massage people's necks. She often didn't make sense to him and this moment, in spite of its severity, still had her in it and she wasn't going to start making sense when she was brought into this part of his life. He let her massage his neck and he knew that she was putting all of her physical force into his muscles, but he hardly felt them because her hands were not strong hands.

She wondered if the abuse from 50 years ago was with him every day and every minute, but she didn't ask him that.

She wasn't ready to return to the cacophony of her own home, and she wasn't interested in editing the pictures that needed her attention. Regarding her work on the computer, he had been talking to her about retraining her eyes to see what is essential to the picture, to see and to represent the truth, while editing the picture's light and taking things out that didn't need to be there. Light had become a tangible entity to her and in the minutes following what she had read, she realized that there was more than just physical light to consider. There is a light in understanding, in knowing truths. Something can be ugly and still exist, but it doesn't have to take up the picture. She wasn't sure what she thought about the truth right then as she had cut out too much from pictures in an attempt to clean them up and therefore created idealized images, and realized that perhaps he was showing her something that was ugly, still managed to be part of someone she admired, and it didn't overshadow him. A few of her own demons were exorcised while she absorbed the lessons he was giving her: as much as the terrible event had hurt her mentor, he hadn't let it cripple him. She took out her omnipresent needlework while he worked on his project and they sat listening to Jackson Browne while drinking expensive tea from Styrofoam cups. She would go back the next week to discuss her work.

Greetings and a Commitment

As of late I have just been busy. Moving and raising children are hard work! I have been writing letters to a friend who has been away but he is returning and not needing me to keep writing and entertaining him, and I am coming back to my writing of my blog. It has been hard to write post inferno, but I am ready to resume.

About a year ago, probably a little over a year ago, I started knitting. When life has stressed me out, I have turned to it. What is it about fiber that is good for a person who is mourning? We couldn't afford presents but I was able to knit them and while I am late getting them out, they are bags in which I am putting Alaskan jams and jellies for friends and relatives. It is known that I will knit regardless and so people like my mom know that I have the yarn, and who can't use a good, roomy, farmer's market bag? Hemp is my favorite material for farmer's market bags, but I am making all kinds of things. I love that I can create something useful! My mother loves that she gets dishcloths from me on a regular basis-- and it is embarrassing, but she isn't framing my pictures and having to find space, so she either uses them or gives them to friends. In this picture here, I am finishing a little bag. I prefer pictures of my hands to my face.

I have returned to drawing. This past weekend, I was making time to draw when I got some terrible news and while no one had died, it kind of killed me. I tried to draw (which I hadn't done in almost a year) and my arms were numb. Most of this week I have been depressed over it and have decided that I want to draw regardless of my mood. So my husband came to bed early and he was greatly annoyed with me as I began sketching him. Specifically, his feet. He did not know that I was drawing his feet, but his feet are sensitive and as I drew he kept yelling, "Don't touch my feet!" I told him that I was drawing his shoulders. He got up and looked and I had, indeed, been drawing his feet. Am I that good that he could feel my stylus on his toes? (I must be a Ninja Artist!) I was really drawing on the pad, probably six feet away from him, not drawing on his body.

Winter break is almost over. My kids are busy this time and it isn't overwhelming as it has been in the past. I hardly remember anything from last year. Last year we were at the rental house and my kids tried to play the World Series with Christmas wrapping paper tubes and ornaments. My husband yelled at me for refusing to put up the tree or decorations until break began, but I didn't feel like fetching fallen or pulled off ornaments. So far, so good, no problems with ornaments or decorations being misused. If they are good this year until January 1, I will put them up a week earlier next year. It wasn't the little kids who messed with the ornaments, it was my three middle sons who were then ages 11, 10 and 9. Does having them be a whole year older make any difference in maturity? (No. My husband actually got mad at them for why I'd not put up the ornaments and told them that he shops more when he has more decorations up and to not screw themselves next year! He shopped the same as always, but they seem to be getting a clue!)

I sometimes wish winter break was shorter, but I think of when I was fighting a custody battle with my ex husband and I don't want it shorter. My daughters wanted to be home as much as they were able to be, so I won't bug anyone on the school board about this.

I will soon start sharing pictures of what I draw. I am going to start drawing for at least ten minutes each evening and take pictures. I want to draw awesome hands and feet. I did massage therapy and I think that hands and feet are amazing. We often see what artists render and they will put anything in from of hands to hide them. Feet reside in shoes much of the time. Since we don't notice them as much, they are not as easily recognized or appreciated.

We are getting ready for Christmas and I am ready for it. As we started to do last year, I am making traditional meals. The kids like traditional now where before, turkey was not the norm and we'd have other things that we liked and at regularly.

My muses are starting to dance again

For several years, drawing was to me like speaking. To better artists or people who just knew art, I probably "sounded" like a hill folk with my artwork, but drawing and painting was a form that I spoke in. I got shaken up and the place in my brain that draws and paints got cut off for a while.

I have hardly drawn 09-09. The only things that I cared about to rescue after the catastrophe were my paint brushes that my mom and dad gave me as a high school sophomore, some head scarves, and letters from a former friend. The scarves got tossed. The former friend was as shallow as a bird bath. But the paint brushes have been at my bedside from the rental house to the new house. My husband wanted a desk for our room and as I looked at them, I was drawn to a large wood table with drawers. When I say large, it is not a large table like the one that we having in our dining room that seats 14. But it is large for a desk, and is has drawers. It is plain but I started thinking about putting my water color blocks on it and setting my chalks out on it near my bedroom window that over looks a patio and a lovely yard. That was the first time that I felt like drawing again.

I have drawn since the fire, but it was forced. My drawing was OK, but it was like, "I think I will draw. . . a giraffe and a butterfly." So I got out my art supplies, put them around my bed, and, sitting on my bed, I forced a drawing. I had to get up many times and walk away from it and not let my husband sit on our bed for several hours. Something that is so intertwined with my emotions had me in an emotional tweak. I had no place to draw or paint, and thinking that I needed to because I hasn't done it in a while, I made myself execute them. (With as many issues as I have with my husband at times, he understands that I am connected to my work like this and he said he just wanted to watch TV, anyway.)

At our other house, I drew at the bar in my kitchen. I drew at that bar rather happily for as long as we lived there-- 10, 11 years? On those nights I would often dress up in a beautiful outfit and draw. I don't know what was with my fancy outfits, as I would take them off later and put on jeans and a t-shirt to finish them, but I had to get spiffy first. It was like my muses wanted some fun. (I blame my muses. While my husband isn't one to go to places, I wanted to go out and with so many young children, I couldn't. I was stimulated by nice things. Let's blame it on the muses because the muses are being muses and a mother of so many is being frivolous.)

In our rental, I had the supplies which I had asked my husband to get for me. The expense was great but I really needed to draw and paint. But I was never inspired. I did a couple of drawings, including one of a baby dragon and a Chinese princess, and I struggled to do them. It was like my muses were too crowded in there and found a corner to sleep and didn't want to get up. (Cranky muses are not nice.)

Here in our new place, it is almost like the house partially dictates where I will draw and paint. We have a much nicer island/bar for painting, but I took my supplies out and set things up and even had what I wanted to draw (more dragons!) and I couldn't do it. The muses had room to dance, yet they didn't come out. I worried that I couldn't draw again, then at the furniture store, the muses started getting excited.

I have also started knitting. Last year I started knitting and it gave me a sense of accomplishment, but while I could so it in closed spaces, it quickly became an art form and also shut off. I find that if I take a basic shape with something like say, a purse, the yarn tells me what it wants to do. As I work with yarn and I squeeze it and play with it, it gives me ideas. I don't get get an idea to say, bead it-- an idea comes to me on how to do it. I call my knitting teacher and describe what I am thinking and she comes up for the word. I look it up on YouTube and do it. I like how that works.

Latest Hobbies

A month after the fire, I couldn't sleep, so I was surfing around aimlessly on the 'net and click n' paid for a knitting class. I stared at the computer. WTF was I thinking? In high school, dateless girls knitted on Friday nights and virgin aunts of old would while away their spinster years discussing their latest knitting projects. Knitting was for women who had too much time on their hands! Certainly knitting helped a group of women in Scandinavia earn money during the Depression, but this was 2010, not 1938! I emailed the instructor and told her that I'd paid for the class but didn't know why, explaining that my mind wasn't right, and could I please get a refund. She was very sweet and said I could, but if it wasn't a scheduling conflict, why wouldn't I try it out? If I still wanted my money back, given my circumstamces, she'd be happy to consider it.

Dare I joke about a needle addiction?

I went and discovered that I have no time left as it is all spent on knitting! Instead of me getting a refund, I gave her more money so I could learn to cable and do lace, and then there were so many patterns!Spinster aunts of old retained their spinsterhood so they could knit! I should have taken up the kntting gir;s invitation to join them on Fridy nights!

Right now I am working on a Tree shawl that my teacher is helping me modify. It's a prayer shawl for my mum in London (don't confuse her with my mom in Tombstone, both who are fabulous women!)

I am also taking yoga teacher training. It is three times a week. My awesome teacher informed me that I am not trying as hard as I can and I was told that I am not allowed to say anything negative about my form. I cannot say anything she doesn't know. I am not mad in the least-- you don't pay a good teacher to tell her what you think, so you take their words seriously.

Today on Mother's Day I have been hit with allergies. My husband gave me a gift card to a local yarn store which is burning up in my purse, but I am savoring it for when I can buy a really nice hank of yarn. I am working on several shawls, all prayer shawls, of the same pattern. I am working on both ends so I will, by the end of the week, have six pair of needles with work on them. I am slow at getting this and the pattern is complicated in places, so I learn a technique, come home, work it out on each set, and return to my teacher. While it is tedious, I am retaining it and I remind myself that I like to knit so it's not terrible. (I wish I had six bodies for yoga so my evil little woman of a teacher could kill me and kill me again of different nights! PAH!) Knitting has probably staved off a depression for me-- after the fire, I wanted niceness around me. I was hiding in bed and just touching the sheets or holding a soft, plush blanket that Starshine was given-- I was never bad because I gave myself limits, but with the knitting, I have something to do and hold! I spend about 2 hours a day with it on non-yoga days.

One of those moments. . .

I feel like I shouldn't exist. (I'm not suicidal. I feel like a complete f--- up; I'd not succeed! LOL) My writing is rubbish, my artwork is trash. I am very upset. Nothing is going right. I try to set aside time to do things and it doesn't get done because of some crises with my husband or children and my husband demands that he and the kids come first. Big smile. I so much want out of my present life. He's traveling for two weeks soon-- half is work, but the other half isn't.

I feel like an idiot for having signed up for that massage school with that teacher who was so unprofessional and I had to play his game to keep going. We just got the money order to pay it off, and I have to beg my husband for money to pay off school (late fees just hit) and I feel very trapped. My husband is not happy with me for that school and mocks him, "You went to this school to learn to fluff auras and you want money for college?" I really thought I'd be able to do well. I love giving massages, I love getting them!

The kids are doing well reading and getting their work done. I shouldn't complain. It's 3:30AM-- I'm not getting my stats because it's so damned late!

I just did my Alaska science class. I dropped chemistry because it's hard and I don't need extra work. Alaska natural science is great-- I am learning about arctic ecosystems, glaciers, and water, and soon about the animal habitats. I have to do a local project and I have to be painting by then. That will be wonderful if my muse returns or if I can paint without it and just pretend to be inspired by it.

I am with a calligrapher's group and a fellow artist told us about a friend who she was designing a monogram for and asked the group for help. They got nasty, "Are you asking us to do it for free?" Art can be free or paid for-- if you want to do it, do it and if not, don't! I am doing something for the artist who they got nasty at. My work isn't nearly as good as what that group does, but for God's sake, I'm nice. I can't stand the assault that they mounted on her over it! By the time she gets it the petty argument will have been long resolved, but right now I need back pats and to be affirmed. :( One decent piece of work begets more, right?