A Day in the Trench

Today was a rocky day in the studio.  I have been having a great time setting up and painting on my own.  I have had to face the time and the fear of messing up a painting in progress, but each day has been a delight of delving into the work.  Today...today, was a test of my strength and character.

I was not in a good frame of mind to paint today, so I had a choice, I could do nothing or I could face the demons and work.  I spent a great deal of time looking and a bit of time using a brush, but I worked.  For a while, I felt that all I had accomplished was to lose the decent qualities of what I had on the canvas a already, but I did not quit.

Sometimes in life we must destroy in order to build.  Today I was the forest fire, in the New Jersey Pine Barrens, which allows the trees' seeds to burst out of their cones; without the devastating heat of the fire, new growth cannot occur.

Today was trying and painful, but there is a future.  I was tenacious and must continue so to be.

Tonight, I sit with a purring cat and a soft coated hunting dog.  Tomorrow I retrieve a birdhouse from a show (yes, a birdhouse)  and head back to the painting.  We will work it out together, that canvas and I, or I shall wrestle it to the ground like Jacob wrestling the angel.

To OZ?  To OZ!

Emptying Out

Everybody I know has a house to empty out.  Either they are moving or a parent must downsize; it is very stressful for them, all of them.  I was spared all that by a house fire (in which no one was injured.) That was stressful too, but I knew what to do with all the stuff; nothing.  When they tore down the house they tore down the stuff too.

I have watched and helped people go through lifetimes of accumulated treasure, which turns out to be worthless after the life is complete.  The things were of use to the living, and wonderfully full of hope when new, alas are merely the remnants of a completed run. They are sad reminders that stuff is as stuff does.

That having been said; I am a saver. I am trying to throw away debris in our house to avoid the day when someone goes through my junk and says "Why? Why on earth would anyone save THIS?" When my husband, who throws away anything and everything, says we don't need this, a wave of panic, rage and defensiveness runs through me.  It isn't so much of a protective act, as it is a moment or two, or a year or so, to get used to the idea of living without something. "Something" is connected to the actions from which it came, to the shared experience, to the energy and youth it absorbed; now so precious as it wanes.

I remember the day my kids discovered that we could make a tuba from a flexible hose and a funnel. I remember going to the store to get those items and constructing the tuba.  I remember playing it and dissolving into gales of laughter; again and again.  We, of course, keep the memories, but it took me about eighteen months to let go of the tuba.

I let the Wicked Witch of the West's hourglass go today too.  I built it for my daughter in 1996, for a play.  It was constructed out of two large soda bottles, red sand and a tornado tube, mounted in a wooden bracket, which I also constructed, and held in place with burlap string and wood glue.  My daughter used it for a nightstand until this year.  I kept the tornado tube, they are hard to find these days.  Ding dong, the Witch is....grown up.

The kids are grown up and the house is getting clean(er).  The kiddie books went to a hospital library, the clothes to the thrift shop, the toys as well.  Yards sales, dumpsters, charity, eat all our old days, whether recent or not. I like touchstones, but I do not want to live like a hoarder. Letting go of the stuff is freeing. Today I passed an old tree which had been hewn down; usually I feel very sad. Today, I allowed myself to realize that I have no control over the actions of others and that my memory of the landscape with the tree, will stay with me forever (hopefully). So I went on my way to create new days for me and for others.  Perhaps it is time to plant a new tree.

O To Be Amphibious

Yesterday I got rolled; by a giant wave and several of its' siblings.  I have the bruises to show it too.  I spend so much time in the water that I can barely walk when I get out and so the waves have their way with me.  I had over a cup of sand in my bathing suit and I still have sand coming out of my ears.

I love the water.  The salt stings stings my eyes like crazy, but I cannot help but open them underwater. It is green, so green and tinged ochre with the swirling sand.  Occasionally I find sea lettuce or red weed; sometimes having been startled by its' brushing up against me.  Unlike being on land, however, when this happens, I laugh.  I laugh when the waves lift me to their peaks and drop me down their backs, three, four sometimes a six foot drop into the waiting water below.  I laugh when the breakers tumble and roll me into the rough sand and pebbles.  I laugh when I dive through the huge breaking wave as it bubbles over my feet and call it nature's Jacuzzi.  I laugh all the time in the water.

I sound rather mad out there, but other people seem to get in on the humor. They too, smile and laugh as the surf rolls them, drenches them, and generally teaches them to play again.

By the time I stumble to my towel on the sand to dry off and regain my strength, I am totally relaxed, sandy as a half eaten lollipop dropped on the beach, but relaxed and happy.

There is nothing like water.  Underwater it is quiet and colorful.  The sunbeams stream through the depths and fill me with calm and hope.  I swim underwater so as to keep the stillness intact and to feel the ether flowing all around me. Were I amphibious, I might stay under for hours.

The Warmth of History

Today as I walked through the halls of a school I have known all but five years of my life, I was struck by the influence the place has had and continues to have on my life.

I started there in kindergarten and stayed through twelfth grade.  I returned through my college years to visit and to assist on field trips.  I went to a couple of fund raising parties and generally had fun with the place.

I went on to volunteer every year, serving on the Alumnae Executive Board, on which I still sit, taught, worked at the their camp, even went so far as to enroll my daughter and watched her graduate.

I have seen three new portraits of former heads of school,  rise to the walls.  I have watched in dismay as buildings were torn down and in amazement as new ones went up.  Furniture has come and gone, hell blackboards have come and gone. Many of my teachers have died, I might go so far as to say most of them and a few of my peers as well.

Last year I finally found and met with one of my most important teachers from Lower School; an art teacher of course.  She was as kind, intelligent and thoughtful as I remembered her.  Today I found I have been working with the son-in-law of my Lower School French teacher, another outstandingly kind and intelligent woman. I was delighted to hear news of her and sent her a message of gratitude and affection.

Those old crusty walls of the buildings I know like the back of my hand, are like the walls of my childhood bedroom; they know me.  Unlike my bedroom walls though, they know hundreds of students and bind us together in a common experience. The unity of that group of people, is that we, faculty, students, and the staff of every single department, worked together towards our common goal; waking our minds.  We did so very well.

Weed Welcome

Talents come in many forms.  I seem to have a natural talent for growing weeds.  Some may say this comes from my inherent laziness, and yes that plays a factor.  However a larger factor is my fascination with what grows in my yard, naturally.

My house came with lovely gardens, fully planted with, almost exclusively as it happens, poisonous plants.  I found this amusing.  Their blooms were delightful surprises all the first year we lived here.  In my intelligence I have added even more toxic plants over the years. We bloom delightfully from March through September or so, every year, the same flowers in the same places.

My weeds though, being capricious little plants, grow as they please and where they please. I encourage this. I let them grow to their full potential and some have proved quite amazing. My husband was annoyed when he was weeding one day and I told him  "NO!"  Don't pull the violets, I like them.  I put them there from the lawn."  "Why?" he asked.  "They have beautiful flowers and grow into large leafy ground cover with heart shaped leaves.  I like them"  "But they are weeds."  "Only in the lawn, dear.  I invited them here."

He and I agree on that point.  A weed is only something that is uninvited. (I know a lot of people who might qualify under that status.  An Australian friend of mine used to say "That guy is such a little weed.").  A rosebush in a corn field is a weed.

Weeds in my garden have included, wild daisies, wild snapdragons, thistles, grasses, millet, sunflowers, lots and lots of black walnut trees (silly squirrels) butterfly bushes, at least three each year,  and many others plants that I cannot name.

Amonsgt the nameless are the weeds in the photos below.  Note that these three magnificent plants are about eight feet tall.  My hubby is chomping at the bit to kill them, but I am thrilled and have pleaded for their mercy until the go fully to seed. I have to admire their exuberance.

Perhaps that is the secret of my fondness for weeds.  I admire something that grows so well where it is unwelcome.  I also love the sheer surprise.  We all have times when we feel we do not fit in.  Be like these weeds; grow tall and bloom. Surprise the world out of its' old order to introduce your unexpectedness, joy and energy. Admire a "weed, "  know the "weed, "  be the weed."

Note the car which is right behind them;
the fence is is just over four feet tall.

 

 

                                                                              

          A completely different, giant plant.

Reality Check

After returning from ten days at the beach, I have one conclusion, as follows.

Chaos:  live with it or wash away.

An Error in Judgement

My neighbors had a beautiful cat, who has, alas gone to "kitty heaven."  He had a thick luxurious coat covering his large frame and muscular body.  He loved to come over and rub up against the leg of anybody (everybody) who would pet him and speak nicely to him. Eventually he would flop over onto his side and roll over on his back, like a dog, begging to have his tummy rubbed.  Woe to those who fell for this trick! One touch and the errant finger on his upturned belly entered the domain of the sharpest claws I have ever encountered in any cat.  The claws would instantly, from all four paws, simultaneously, close upon your unsuspecting, loving hand, drawing blood and obvious feline delight from this clearly confused creature.  Not thirty seconds later, he would amiably rub up against you and try to entice again.  Once I thought,  perhaps I had hit a sore spot on his poor hunter's body. Nope, he was just a deceptive, clever, beautiful, purring feline human trap.

I fall into all kinds of human traps.  I am very gullible.  A priest once told me it was one of my finest qualities, but he was after all, a priest.  I find it one of my most annoying and embarrassing.  I trust, I believe...until I get cynical. Once a person arrives at cynical it is hard to overturn; it often takes me an hour or so.

There are exceptions of course and I can hold a real grudge forever, but my grudges are always mixed with the feelings of love or affection, hope or joy that led me to trust in the first place.  The result is that many of my feelings become mixed and confused; thus decision making becomes clouded through past experience.  Nevertheless, like staying in art despite the knowledge that it is unlikely to win me respect or success in any worldly way, I continue to find avoidance of art or of human caring an impossibility; I have tried.

In a quiz I took today on some silly online site, I was asked "What super power would you choose?" I answerable as I always choose- invisibility. However, I realize that dreams of hiding cannot save me from cat's claws or from human tsk tsks.  It can't let me avoid being tapped for help and then smacked on the nose for my way of helping either. What I require is self control; if I could just keep quiet  - oops I am blogging.