Archive for May, 2010

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New Theme, New Photos, New Frogs, New Lilies, Same Old Toe


2010
05.15

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It’s all about new, meaning change.  Confucius says this about change: They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. Isn’t that an interesting idea?  That to remain constant, change is necessary?  As most simple statements go, this one is complex and I can’t pretend I understand it completely.  On the surface, it says to me that if we don’t change, we don’t grow, and if we don’t grow, we won’t be happy and surely won’t gain wisdom.

So I’ve changed things.  As if moving, changing our entire house and focus wasn’t enough.

Blog theme

I have a new theme.  What do y’all think?  I love change, then I get tired of change, then I want change.  Probably we’re all like that, but as I get older I think change will be confusing so I’ll have to find a way to confound Confucius.   Found a wordpress theme I like, changed over with a little help from my friends (well, my son-in-law at Webjacks Design).  He’s great if you need help.

New photos

Added new photos to some of the galleries and we got it fixed so you can access the gallery from the menu on top of the blog page.  So on the drop-down menu third from left that says My Photos, just choose the gallery you want to enter.  I think I put new ones in flowers, nature and misc.  Also, second from left is a tab for My Art.  Select any of the galleries and they will load without you having to go to a separate web page.

New Frogs

We had to have the pond redone at our new house, so I can’t say these are new frogs exactly.  But they’re new for us.  We know there’s at least nine and tonight I tiptoed out and saw three splashes.  But yesterday we saw a big ole guy and he sat there so I could take his picture.  He wasn’t wearing a top hat and tails – darn.  More about that later.

New Lilies

Talking about water lilies here, and water iris.  I bought some water plants and some day we hope to see frogs sitting on the lily pads.  I suppose frogs do that – they do in stories anyhow.

In fact, if anyone’s as old as me you’ve read the Thornton Burgess nature stories.  Oh how I loved those.  I read and re-read the adventures of Grandfather Frog in the Smiling Pool.  See him?  He always wore tails and had a top hat.  I cherished that image.

It’s only a little after 10 but I am zonked.  This whole toe adventure has really taken it out of me this week.  It hasn’t hurt today so that’s progress.  Oozed blood but that’s because I poked holes in it to relieve pressure.  No pain meds today – thank goodness.  Those meds, though critical when needed, sure rob you of time.  It’s like a lost week.

So I’ll just sit here for a while listening to the frogs peeping and croaking and get to bed. Need energy tomorrow – gearing up for more change.  Or more moving, at least.  Can you believe we’re not done yet?


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Elsewhere: Cloudarado, the Final Chapter (for now)


2010
05.14

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Colorado

Never did finish up on my visit.  Took photos of a few neat places in Paonia.  One is the underside of an outside awning on an old building.

The weathered wood has such great colors and textures.  Then add the brick in the next photo.

This next property you can own for $113,000.  For Harry Potter fans out there, the first thing I thought of looking at this was The Burrow.

The Burrow of course would be taller, but still – it’s the first thing I thought of.

If you want a really fine meal or the best cinnamon roll around, go to the Flying Fork.

And what artist wouldn’t want this as a studio?  I would love to be elsewhere when I work.

Remember the start of this visit? Snow, hail, the 50 mph windstorm,  freezing fog? It ended with Steve and Jackie mowing the lawn.

And it ended with dinosaurs.  Karen knows where all the best clearance sales are and I got this at the Walmart in Delta.  It’s amazing and I asked her to buy me one.  She’ll bring it next time she visits Cali.

Jack arranged his smaller dinosaurs in preparation for carnage.

We had one last walk outdoors.  Annabelle and Jackson carried on the motto the Bakersfield Six coined last year – why walk when you can run – uphill?

Cooper, however, is very determined about something.

It wouldn’t be Cloudarado without one final display.

Amazing colors.  And now – for some amazing rays

And now, I am too tired to continue. So say goodbye to Colorado for now.  Tomorrow I’ll bring you the next installment in the Case of the Damaged Toe, the pond and the frog, and my new blog design.

Now, to sleep, hit the hay, slumber, snooze, get 40 winks (why do I only get 40), and all that other sleepy stuff.  Night all.

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Pain: It’s a Bad Toe Day. Crime committed in the alley, by me, with a ladder.


2010
05.13

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The scene of the crime

The motive:

The Weapon

The perpetrator (not even alleged)



The Victim


This crime was not committed in the Library by Professor Plum with a knife.  It was my own damn fault.  Tired of asking my husband to do everything, I was going to move a chair from the side of the house to the patio so I could sit on it.  My husband’s very big and heavy ladder was in front of the chair on its very narrow side.  As you can see, the ladder is now laying flat, straddled by the chair.  My big toe was under the ladder.

My God, how can so much pain be experienced  in a big toe?

Have you ever looked for a quote about pain? Apparently, pain is all about love.  It’s all about the experience and how little would have been gained without it.  Well, my toe has nothing to do with love, and I’d be happy not to have the experience of dropping a ladder on it.  Although as a result, I have more of my toe to love.

Yep, it’s a little swollen.  Luckily, I have some valium from a dental procedure that I didn’t use it for, and my husband has some vicodin from a dental procedure he didn’t use it for.

From an artistic standpoint, it’s been interesting.  The rim of white below the polish is new today.  Yesterday, the black areas were expanding.  It’s a study in color.  I can’t walk without pain, and even sitting, I have shooting pains.  Who knew?  And with the vicodin, I feel like throwing up and I’m woozy.  Why does anyone take this stuff recreationally?  It’s miserable.

So here I am.  Complaining about pain in my big toe, pain that will set me back about a week in my activities, keep me from things like the Arts Walk this Saturday.  And I have these observations.

First, I’m so lucky.  If this is the extent of my worries, my riches are inestimable.  My toe will get better.  As it does, I’ll be sitting in a comfortable chair in a climate-controlled house, listening to my little pond and waterfall, watching the birds, and dozing in a comfortable bed.

Second, it’s amazing what a little pain can do to a person.  I can intellectualize everything I just wrote.  Heck, intellectualize nothing – I’m experiencing it.  But tears come to my eyes, I swear and curse when I move wrong, and my entire being is fatigued.  My thinking is muddled and not just from the drugs.  It’s muddled from the pain.

Third, my thoughts jump back to number one.  I’m so lucky.  I’m not in a war, I don’t have a chronic, debilitating condition, I don’t have a disease.

Fourth, I think Rupert should win Survivor: Heroes vs Villains. He’s playing this whole season with a broken toe.

What I do have is an appreciation for people who live with debilitating conditions, in chronic pain, everyday.  Like my youngest daughter.  She had  a botched back surgery and spent years in such terrible pain that the doctors kept piling on more drugs.  She was taking oxycodone, xanax, and percoset.  It wasn’t enough.  But every day she saved her energy for when her kids got home from school, she did her best to make their lives as normal as possible, and she almost always had a smile.  Her permanent nerve damage (caused from the hardware of the surgery sitting undiscovered on a nerve for years) caused such pain that her brain began interpreting everything, all input, as pain.

We thought we were going to lose her.  Seriously, I don’t know how much longer she could have lived.  But we pushed and asked and dug for answers and finally found a program at UCLA of which one component was neurofeedback.  It quite literally saved her life.  She still has pain, but she manages it with now with minimal meds.  She has her life back.  In fact, she has become a neurofeedback clinician and now she helps others.  Her migraine clients no longer suffer from migraines and don’t need meds, clients with chronic pain are able to manage it, vets with PTSD are making breakthroughs, ADHD kids are better able to cope.  Her business here in Bakersfield is Kern Train Your Brain because that’s what neurofeedback does – teaches your neurons to fire correctly.

Well, this is a post about my toe, not about neurofeedback.  Still, I’m going to link to her site because you may know someone whom neurofeedback could help, and you can find someone in your part of the country who can help.

My toe will get better without neurofeedback obviously.  It’ll probably take longer than I think.  Meanwhile, I won’t be quite as productive, but what’s the hurry anyhow?  As I said, I live in an abundance of riches.  I can withstand a certain amount of discomfort.  Plus, I have medications to help temporarily.

However, I may lop off my toe if it goes on too long.  And if I catch Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, or Miss Scarlet anywhere near a ladder in my vicinity, they better watch out.


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Connect the Dots – an End to Strange Days


2010
05.10

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Can you do great art, or even good art, or any art, while waiting in an airport? You can do the “any art” category with sticky things from an American Girl  polka dot book and watercolor pencils.   You can connect the dots.

I had a lot of time in the Denver airport, so I fooled around with a journal page I started at my daughter’s house.  It was idle time, which lets my brain sort, file, and process.  After all the mess of moving, during which I went to the soccer tournament in Las Vegas, the art opening in Oceanside, and Colorado for 10 days, I felt rather scattered.  Travel time helped me connect the dots.

I came home feeling settled, unhurried, and interested in connecting with family and friends.  I felt like, although we still have boxes and boxes to go and lots of little details, that I can be part of real life again.  It’s been like having a cold or the flu – you know you must have felt well at one time in your life, but you can’t remember what it felt like and can’t imagine feeling like that again.  And then, one day, you are better.  You remember.

During this time I had written an email to William.  Life was feeling surreal to me, and by writing I can process.  I called it Strange Days, and I’m going to copy it in here to try to explain how disturbing this move has been.  (I changed all the “yous” to “William” so it would make more sense.)

April 15, 2010

I’m having the oddest feelings lately and it’s all connected to moving.  Having made the conscious decision to move, making sure that we chose the kind of house we think we should grow old in, every single thing I put away, every picture I hang, takes on a new meaning.

My bedroom is now in its satisfactory state of clutter.  The only thing in the room indicating it’s a bedroom at all is the bed.  That’s a pretty strange and unconventional approach to a bedroom, but for me it’s functional.  Mostly it’s an office – I have two printers and a scanner, a computer, all my photo supplies.  Large bookcase.  I have a new curio cabinet full of all my little collectibles – the enameled boxes in the shapes of animals, the little glass animals, old metal monopoly markers, my Planter’s Peanuts salt and pepper shakers, an old skate key, a metal ice cream spoon that used to come with those sundaes in the freezer case, etc.  So many of the objects are rooted in the past.

As I put the objects in the cabinet, I think, what will these objects mean to me when I’m 73, or 83, or 93?  Will they be a comfort to me and I’ll still enjoy them? I have this odd desire to render everything sterile right now. But at the same time I plan to buy cabinets so I can finally display my Star Trek action figures and my Harry Potter action figures.  Then my mind fights a battle with itself – you’re 63 and you collect action figures?  You want to display them?  Well, why not?  Why can’t I do what I want?  But is it going to matter in 10 years?  Then I wonder why I’m thinking about it at all.

I feel kind of removed from things.

I look at the wall across from where I’m sitting – I put up pictures today.  There are five objects on the wall opposite.  My Bright Eyes Buddha poster, the birch tree photo I took in Alaska, the green leaf photo William took, the map William drew in 7th grade, and the beautiful leaf and fruit he drew for me the first year I came to Lugano.  Then on other walls there are two posters Michael gave me from shows he was in, two mirrors he made for me, lizards William gave me for my birthday the third year in Lugano, a special horseshoe Michael brought me from a trip, and on and on.  Nothing is fantastic art but it’s all precious.  It’s personal.

Over my desk I have the autographed photo of Jonathan Frakes (William Riker on Star Trek), the autographed photo of BB King, the poster of the Titans signed by so many of them (from a history day project), a photo signed by all the old 5th period lunch bunch from Fruitvale, and something Jeff Johnson made for me after I organized my first film festival at the Fox.  And my two Arthur Rackham book plates from the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.

I’ve pared down the photos.  I have quite a few of me with people who’ve died.  AIDS.  Michael Barrie, Ron Aiello, Charlie O’Malley, and then Dell Allen.  Cancer.  Then photos of family, William and Michael.  William and Michael qualify as family.

I could go on describing it all but I guess the point is I’m looking at it all from the perspective of being 80 or 90.  And I can’t even imagine what that will be.  I suppose that Mom and Dad’s current state is mixed into this strange feeling.  I really hope I’m not watching my future.  And I’m not even expressing the feelings I’m having with accuracy.

I like my clutter.  I’m happy with my things.  But I wonder about the feeling of removal.  I think it might have to do with the newness of the house.  Getting familiar with the area and getting it all arranged.  It may be less than a mile from our old house, but it feels isolated.  I didn’t think it would feel like that.  Being in a small, gated community on a very quiet street without much happening feels isolating.  Yet I know it’s just because it’s all new, and it’ll be a neighborhood like any other once we’re established.  I mean, the people from next door brought over homemade cookies to welcome us.  They have seven kids!  Wow.

I think what I have to do is start going to things again – openings (missed one tonight), gatherings (missed the writer’s workshop last night), get back in public and mingle.  But maybe what I really need is for my studio to get organized and for all the paintings to be hung, etc. so we feel like we are living, not moving.

I suppose this ill-defined feeling will pass of its own accord.  Hope it doesn’t take too long.

Of course, the feeling passed.  I’m home, things look and feel like home, and we love this house.  We’re thrilled with it.  The whole process of calling this move “Operation Old Age” in light of what we’ve learned from and about my aging parents, put a new slant on the idea of moving.  Psychologically, it was working a number on me that I didn’t even recognize.

Thankfully, I’ve connected the dots and it all feels right.  I feel like me.


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For Mothers, About Mothers, on Mother’s Day


2010
05.08

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I just read a book, a memoir by Mary Karr called Lit.  Silly me, I thought the title must be a reference to literature (she is an author and poet, after all) – until I got into the book and found out Karr was just that – lit – for much of her adult life.  The book relentlessly chronicles her struggles with herself, which manifest in substance abuse.  In adulthood, that substance was alcohol.

She came by her struggles honestly, with a childhood and parents that would challenge anyone to doubt him or herself and the seemingly fragile world. That Karr can write so engagingly, un-self-consciously, and honestly about her family is a testament to her skill as a writer.  It was probably also a form of therapy.

But this isn’t a book review.  Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, so this post is about mothers.  Karr’s mother was complex and frightening.  She had a razor-sharp mind but an unconventional way of approaching parenting.  She encouraged her daughter Mary to do anything she wanted, even when it was clearly dangerous and inappropriate.  Karr’s mom was under the influence most of the time until she achieved sobriety later in life.  She came and went abruptly, leaving her daughters to wonder if they’d see her again.  She locked herself in the bathroom with a gun threatening to kill herself.  She appeared in front of her daughter with a butcher knife threatening to kill her.

Karr’s mother was so extreme that you’d say someone like her could never exist – except she did.  You never doubt the complete honesty of Karr’s writing.

You’d expect a child to shut a mom like that out of her life, but the tie between mother and child isn’t that simple.  Even if you think you’ve cut yourself off, broken the ties, buried the past or the truth – you haven’t.  Karr’s stuggle with substance abuse was as much her struggle with her mother, both her parents, integrating them somehow into her universe with understanding and love in spite of being totally (the F word would be appropriate here) screwed up by them.

Such is love.  We all struggle with our mothers one way or another.  Probably because the hardest thing to do is give someone permission to be him or herself.  When my first child was born, my mom said, “Don’t expect me to babysit and go to recitals and be that kind of grandma, because I’m not.”  I don’t remember being unduly upset, maybe because we lived across the country from each other.  I did resent it on the few occasions I really did need her help.  But I think I realized that Mom knew herself and what she was capable of.  She was a wonderful mother to us, but she’d done her time and knew her limits.

That’s what I mean by allowing someone to be herself.  It didn’t matter what I wanted or thought; what mattered was what Mom knew she could do.  It was up to me to understand that because I can’t control my mom or anyone else, I can only control my reactions.  I’m much better than I used to be about choosing the easy way out for myself – which means not stressing about something I can’t change.

Somehow Karr kept seeking that relationship, keeping her mother in her life, and gave her loving care at the end of her life.  They did achieve peace with each other and reached an understanding.

When I finished the book, I was stunned.  I wouldn’t have thought there was a way in the world that anyone could accept and love a mother like that.  Underneath it all is the realization of what Mother means – and unless we come to terms with our mothers and let them be who they are, we won’t really have peace.  We need our mothers, figuratively as well as in reality.

I’m so lucky.  My mom is am amazing woman.  Now, as she’s in and out of dementia, but always diminished, I have to fight sometimes to remember this is MOM.

Tomorrow when I give her her Mother’s Day card and gift, she’ll be confused.  She’ll read the card several times, not quite realizing that she just saw it.  She’ll know it’s a good thing to receive cards and loving thoughts, but she may not remember it’s hers.  In fact, I’m not giving a gift – just a card and a plant.  Gifts confuse Mom now.  She can’t remember why she has them and keeps trying to give them back to the proper person, not knowing she is the proper person.  The plant’s in a really cool basket, but she’ll take it out and then try to give the basket to someone, asking each child and grandchild in turn as they visit, “Is this yours?”

I’m hanging on to Mom as long as I can.  The urgency of that thought, and this entire post, was prompted by a quote in Lit.  Karr starts each chapter with a quote from a poet or author, and this one by Nabakov clobbered me with the need to understand it:

They are passing, posthaste, posthaste, the gliding years…The years are passing, my dear, and presently no one will know what you and I know.

I don’t want Mom to pass without anyone knowing what she knows.  She’s not going to tell me anymore, however. I have to know by keeping Mom present as fully as possible.  Soon it’ll be my turn to recite those lines.  I hope my children will have given me the gift of accepting me for who I am (I believe they already do), as their children will do for them.  And so it continues, that line of mother and child, mother and child, that can’t be broken no matter how hard we or our moms may try.  We cannot sever the links nor, ultimately, the love.

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Abbo’s Art Show


2010
05.05

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Talk about Creative Every Day.  The students at Paonia Elementary are creative every day and have lots of art to show for it.

Last night, here in Paonia, Colorado, I went to an art show opening.

It was the culmination of a year’s work at Paonia Elementary School, which has about 250 students. I was so lucky to be here – and quite impressed with what I saw.

We arrive.  Jackson must have run ahead.

Each grade had five different projects exhibited.  The art teacher integrates art projects with the history and social studies curriculum.  Annabelle’s first project, a Treasure Map, was related to geography and working with maps.  Materials used were watercolor and crayons.

Annabelle and Jackson are looking at the maps.  Here’s Abbo’s:

The projects were impressive.

Interpretations of Van Gogh and below, Starry Night.

I didn’t take photos of all the art nor all the grade signs, but you can imagine what it was like traipsing after the little ones while trying to study the exhibits.  I loved these scrolls.

If I knew this story, I’m sure the art would make sense.

These were a study of murals and Diego Rivera.

Annabelle, her friend Rikku, Jackson and Cooper enjoy the totems.  Here’s Annabelle’s.

Karen and the kids examine the Parthenon.

This showcase featured the Statue of Liberty.  Each student made a ceramic statue and the art teacher took pictures of each child in a liberty costume.

Look how cute Abbo looked.  Here’s her statue.

Wonderful masks, and one grade even studied gargoyles.

Time out to play on this little area between the kindergarten classroom and the preschool.

Time for more art.  This class did embossing.

There was so much more.  Wish I could show it all.  How marvelous to think of all the creative energy and young minds exploring art, history, and different media.  Great little school.  Great program.

We all reap blessings from these beautiful children and still-innocent minds.


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Fingerpainting the forest: Be wary of going too far


2010
05.03

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I finger painted again today.  I had a plan, but as plans often do, this one went in its own direction.  The bands of blue started growing roots, the whole page was too big to fit on a journal page, so I started cutting and pasting.  I came up with The Forest.

This forest has a clearing.  It seems to sync nicely with the Creative Every Day theme of intuition.  When we listen to our intuition, we are in the clear.  When we don’t, or try to talk ourselves out of what we intuit to be true, we end up in the woods.  When we let what we want to do override what we know we ought to do, we stray deeper into the woods.

I think of Into the Woods, the incredible Stephen Sondheim musical.  It’s a story that involved many characters from familiar fairy tales – Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, Cinderella, etc.  They fall prey to greed, lust, and other human foibles, knowing that what they are doing is wrong, and they get pulled deeper into the woods.

The trouble is, if you don’t listen to your intuition, which in a way is telling you right or wrong, you get pulled so deeply into the woods that you can’t get out.  Some of the characters in the musical didn’t make it out.  Some made it out deeply scarred.

There have been times I’ve overridden my intuition, trying to talk myself out of it, and I’ve always been wrong.  I should have listened.  After several false moves, I have learned this lesson.  I wish we all could learn it without straying first too far into the woods.

I have more art journal pages on my web site susanreep.com and in the journal folder on Flickr.


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Don’t wait until you’re 63 to have kids, plus art journal entries


2010
05.01

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Intuition

Creative Every Day, a blog I follow, has a monthly theme.  May’s theme is Intuition.  Intuition, da da dum; intuition, da da dum.  From Fiddler on the Roof - “Tradition.” Always a song.

Here’s what I have to say about that (intuition).  I’ve been taking care of three grandkids for a couple of days and two nights – ages 2, 4, and 6.  It doesn’t take intuition to realize you shouldn’t wait until you’re 63 to have kids.

I’m doing fine but I realize that much longer and I’ll collapse.  We have kept up quite a pace but it’s better to be busy with small kids than leave them with too much time.  Especially when you aren’t the mom and don’t have a regular schedule.  Don’t need intuition to know that either.

So last night, after I did my post, we had a quick but intense hailstorm.  We ran out to experience it but didn’t take the time for shoes.  Shiver me timbers; it was cold.

Jackson also enjoyed the hail.

Those poor little tulips, that withstood snow a few days ago, now had to withstand hail.

We came in and put on a movie, but  Cooper was so tired from no nap that I put her to bed.  She was just collapsing on the sofa.

Saturday

Dawn’s cold but clear on Saturday morn,

A walk is called for.

Flakes come out of nowhere, but so what?

We soldier on briskly, even the smallest one.

Still smiling, I’ve mastered the art of cell self-portraiture.

Returning home, bobbling bobble heads beckon,

The frenzy of flying paint is ferocious.

Do you think we used too much?

How do you control three little ones at once?

Gramser has to rest.

Gramser has batteries to recharge.

Gramser is glad she had kids early.

The precious innocence of little ones is heartbreaking.

Afternoon

Go out to play.  Cooper’s napping.

With the imagination of small ones,

Umbrellas start marching out of the closet

One by one.

Of course, an umbrella fort.

Will it be strong enough to withstand stalking beasts?

Jackson all of a sudden becomes Christopher Robin.

Except his umbrella’s pink, not yellow.

Didn’t Christopher Robin have a yellow umbrella?

Cooper’s up.  Time for another activity.

We decorate the first letters of our names.

Thank God, or someone, for Michael’s craft stores.

I forgot to buy an S for Susan.  That’s me.

No matter, I’ll make a journal page with feathers.

Hard to herd two bags of feathers.

I knew it would be hard.

Bought them anyway.

Somehow we got through dinner and baths.

Dessert and snacks.

Laundry and dishes.

Floors and toys.

I am done for the day.

New Journal Pages

Desperate to be creative,

I create journal pages from my finger painting.

I don’t even care what it means

Or if it means anything

Or if it’s good or bad.

I wanted to do something.

Today I used the rest of the finger painting.

Today I used feathers.

Hope is the thing with feathers.

So says Emily Dickinson.

I’ve journaled that before.


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