#SOL17: A Process, A Serial Stalker, and Art

from my art journal. (Feb. 2017)

A theme may seem to have been put aside, but it keeps returning—the same thing modulated, somewhat changed in form. —Muriel Rukeyser 

I.

The weeks leading to the anniversary of Rob's death were more difficult than the actual day. By mid-February, a serial killer stalked my dreams. No matter what time I went to sleep--no matter how long I slept, I kept dreaming similar scenes over and over again. In most of the dreams I was investigating a series of murders. It seemed as if I was a detective. At the end of the dream--what I could remember--I sensed that a killer was stalking me as I tracked him and the fear this generated woke me from my sleep.

I did not know what this dream might mean, but I began to step up my writing.
I wrote most every day.
A lot. Often.

Within a few days of writing, my sleep became easy again, victimless. It remains so.


II.

A few weeks passed without a reoccurrence of the nightmare, but I was still curious. One afternoon, I googled, "What does it mean if you dream about a serial killer stalking you?"  The second explanation offered seemed more probable.

"...a serial killer may reflect a problem that is influencing a lot of other areas of your life. It may also point to reckless belief system "killing off" plans or hopes you had. Positively, a serial killer may represent a serious attempt to deal with a lot of problems at once." (from here).

III.

Is grief a problem?
Is the shock of Rob's illness and death a problem?

Grief as a natural expression of sorrow, not a medical malady. Working through grief is in many ways a matter of living in the present--standing where your feet are. I do wonder though about shock and the toll taken during the last 19 months. When I recount what happened most people express genuine disbelief, followed quickly by concern.

The events from diagnosis to death were so extreme,so fast, so relentless. Yes, I suspect the shock and resulting stress have been traumatic. I am not one to dwell in pity and find that being active these last 13 months has helped. Caring for Devon, writing this blog, reading what you and others have to say, keeping an art journal, talking out sorrow with close friends in a bereavement group, attending grief counseling, and walking ( a lot) have all helped. So too has been remembering how much I love my work I do and working full time again. Connecting with teachers and children is restorative.


IV.

Rob used to say that the only way out of something is through it.
This has been a year where walking through the grief, pain, sorrow, loneliness, anger, and loss has been deliberate and necessary.

#SOL16: Sublime

from my art journal, 10.22.16 (gesso, found papers, acrylic paint, Tombow markers, tissue paper, ink)

I.

The weather has finally turned sending the too-hot and humid summer-like weather we had this past week in the Northeast US, packing.  Good riddance. The first fall-feeling day is here. Gale winds, raw cold, and buckets of rain ("Buckets of tears/Got all them buckets comin' out of my ears/Buckets of moonbeams in my hand...")

And it is absolutely glorious to walk in the fall of rain, feel the wind so strong tug at the umbrella that I must hold at an angle--less the wind with a sharp snap will turn it inside out. This afternoon I have the path to myself. No one else seems to have ventured forth and surely I can see the appeal of curling up with a good book in an oversized chair with some mint tea. I painted most of the morning, making the journal page at the top of this post and after lunch I found myself heading to that chair with some tea and a book. It was after all, raining.

So? I thought.  I transferred the hot tea to an old Starbucks cup, threw on a sweatshirt, and let myself outside after saying goodbye to Devon.  To me, nothing affirms life like a storm.


II.

I am rounding the last mile when the audio cuts out and my phone begins to ring. The display reads, Patty. My oldest friend in the world is phoning. We have known each other since we were each 4-years-old. I answer right away--using one hand to hold the umbrella and cup of tea and the other to put the phone closer to my mouth. We haven't spoken in a few months and I am eager to catch up. Between old friends there is no settling in to the conversation. No awkward pauses. No wondering what to say. There is just talk and lots of it--as if we talked every day. And well, I guess for so many years we did.

Pat tells me that creating helps ease grief.  Her husband John retired early and has taken up writing. "He says he needs two years.  One year to write and the next to reflect on that writing."

"How wise," I tell her, "to give himself that second year."

Pat's an art therapist. She recommends movement and creating as means to ease grief. She laughs telling me it was in the low 30s this morning in Michigan and raining too and she went out for a run anyway.  After about 20 minutes of which only the last 5 were dedicated to the election (Pat says with a chuckle that in Michigan all of the millennials and she voted for Sanders), she rings off as she is heading to a client.


III.

Later, after night has fallen and the wind has quieted a bit, I am reading an old copy of Flow Magazine.  I see there is an article about loss and begin reading. Dealing with loss says René Diekstra,

"is the ability to create something from our pain. This can be simple, like keeping a diary, contacting a fellow-sufferer or looking at a painting. Re-forging our pain can frequently lead to something sublime. The main question we must ask ourselves is: What can I do with my pain besides suffer from it?" (from Flow Magazine,  Issue 12).

What can I do? As much as there are days when I desire to stay active, I realize that I am even more partial to solitude. I enjoy writing and making art and both of these tend to be done alone. Painting all morning fueled me, allowed me to feel content and even, joyful.  It is the small acts that heal. Talking with an old friend. Walking in the rain. Watching what begins to emerge as I paint and become.

#SOL16: On Writing and Teaching Writing

Art Conversations (M.A. Reilly, 2008)

I. 

Recently I wrote in the comments section of a blog, "I like to think every letter of every word written and the spaces between these words are a record of healing." 

And I do.

For the last six years that I have kept this blog, I never imagined how much I would grow to need it--to need you--my imagined reader. Back in 2009 when I first posted, I did so out of obligation. I was taking a weekend course at Bard College and everyone enrolled had to make a blog.  So I started this blog, posted, and did not write again for another 8 months. But even as I did not write, I knew in the back of my mind that there was this space waiting for me to fill.

Since then I have written more than 1500 posts and have published 1400 of those. Since Rob's diagnosis, I have written more than 200 posts, more than 100,000 words and I recognize that each utterance and the spaces between have been healing steps. 

Who knew I would ever need this like my very breath?

II. 

I think a lot about the intersections between writing and healing. And today, I am less sure that writing instruction at school is worthy of our children's time and attention. These commercial units of study that are so popular feel so contrived. So jammed up with tasks to do that thinking, yes thinking, feels somehow left out. Completion should never be mistaken for grand conversations. When I read the prepared units I think that learning is so outlined and calendered that one might wonder where there was room to pause. To think. To talk. To err.

I grow weary just thinking about the rush to teach so many different genres each year to children of all ages. Surely in this drive to pack it all in we may be missing what is most fundamental: 

Invention. 

Yes, invention is at the heart of writing. William Carlos Williams admonished us years ago when he wrote, "Shame on our poets/they have caught the prevalent fever:/impressed/by the 'laboratory,'/they have forgot/the flower!/which goes beyond all/laboratories!/They have quit the job/of invention. The/imagination has fallen asleep/in a poppy-cup."

When I think of learning, not necessarily teaching, writing seems more possible, more ready to wear, less stuffy. I want the young people I work with to make meaning because they must. I want them to do it daily and to do it with intention when possible. I want them to learn the art of contradiction, the wonder that comes when the poem writes itself, the frustration that happens when the page remains empty. I want them to live wide awake lives and take notice. I want them to privilege accuracy because the words and marks they place on a page matter so, as do their readers.

I want the young people I teach to learn writing by walking/wheeling/moving/chatting. The world beyond the school house beckons and we ought to help our young people build bridges with words and intentions to it--to gather the shorelines in their fists. I imagine writing instruction has more to do with painting--with mess making--with building stuff, than with strict guidelines about any particular genre. I shudder when imagining teaching a class to write poetry at the same time. No, not that. Never that. 

I would surely fail as a writing teacher today, likely I would be dismissed. But, I would fail brilliantly. Chuck those units of study out the nearest window or better yet use them as substrates to bloom beautiful works. At best, I would hope to occasion the interest in my students to see what might be waiting around the bend. To listen to what is not said. To consider the possibilities before them and say what must be said and honor, yes honor, the silence such saying might evoke.  We could sit awhile. Perhaps take tea. There is time for this. 

John Cage knew. I have nothing to say and I am saying it--may well be the first creative act after breathing.

#SOL 16: Moving through Grief

from my art journal, 6.19.16 - The Wisest Know Nothing
(stabilo pencil, gesso, acrylic paint, newspaper)

Grieving is largely days of normalcy punctuated by deep sorrow which gives way to feeling sad. Sometimes the triggers are known, like yesterday was Father's day, and sometimes the triggers are not. When grief sets in, I feel like I have been lying most days, faking this life I am making without Rob. Pretending that the loss is manageable when the loss feels so huge. This is what yesterday was like. This depth of sorrow feels as if I might die and no one can fill what has been lost, make me whole again. No one, except myself. And so, I also knew that the feelings would dissipate and I would feel differently again. I knew this because I have been through this pain before and I have marked it, named it. I knew even when I was sobbing that I would feel more normal than not, just not at the moment.

So what do I do when sorrow is deep?  I feel sorry for myself for awhile and I don't will away the tears.  But I don't allow feeling sorry for too long. It simply isn't helpful. In fact, feeling sorry for myself fuels the hurt. When I remember this and can identify what I'm doing as feeling sorry for myself, I get moving and doing instead.

Yesterday I meditated before anyone was awake in the house and then Jane and I hiked before she left to return home.  I prepped a few pages in my art journals with gesso and I wrote and posted on this blog. Writing helps me to name what I don't know I'm actually thinking. Naming is powerful.

Later in the day I suggested to Devon that we go visit my brothers and Dev drove us north for our visit and got a little highway driving under his belt (he did very well). Being with my brothers is bittersweet as it is still strange to see them and not have Rob there.  Yet, we talked and as we did the grip that was tightening around my stomach eased. When we got home I made dinner and Dev and I ate and talked as we do most nights. I did laundry, watered plants, cleaned the kitchen, and I felt really sad throughout most of it.  Now and then I came across something of Rob's and cried a bit. Later in the night, I returned to painting with the idea of painting what I was feeling. The result I have posted here: The Wisest Know Nothing.  Like writing, making art also helps to ease the pain.

When I was ready to sleep and had turned off lights, I felt a bright blue light cover me.  Yes, cover me. I thought at first this must be because I had moved from light to darkness but I know not to doubt what I do not know. Watching Rob die and listening to what he had to say as he edged closer and closer to death has taught me that mysteries abound and that we cannot know all there is--all the possibilities simply through our five senses.  During the night I recall waking and for the first time, feeling as if Rob was lying next to me. This was so comforting.

Today feels more normal than sorrowful. I woke, meditated and wrote. For today, this is enough.

#SOL16: Out Rowing

from my art journal, 5.30.16 (gesso, archival ink, acrylic paint, stabilo pencil)

I.

I could not know how difficult the change of season would be. Summer arrived in the Northeast last week--calendars be damned--and it found me gathering all of Rob's clothing, save the few pieces I simply could not bear to part with, and donating the lot. Next week I may pack some boxes of books and find a place to donate these too. The first part of acting is thinking.

Throughout the spring, I have relentlessly planted and today I noticed how brilliantly red the geraniums that grace the front stoop are and how lush the lavender and cilantro have grown. Since Rob's death, I have kept an art journal. I paint most days and I find it eases a restlessness I find hard to name.

Yesterday, my brother replaced the railings on the back deck that had warped this last winter and every day for the last 90, rain or not, I have walked. All this setting to rights, all this order-making is a slim attempt to tidy this mess.

Each morning, I collect the New York Times from the driveway. Each evening I sweep the front stoop and with it--bits of my heart.


II.

The things we accumulate across an abbreviated life are mostly just things--they are rarely stories. Stories are what happen between and among people.

I once had a man I loved and he died. He did so unexpectedly. He did so early. 

Stories happen when the weight of loss grows so heavy that we unmoor what anchors us most and finally find the breath we need to speak.

This is me speaking. Can you hear me? I once had a man I loved.

Grief is the repetition of loss.


III.

Some mornings as I walk I watch the men steer their rowboats to the best places on the lake for fishing. I watch as they row each day. Unperturbed by measures of success, they row.

I walk by the shore and I find myself thinking of Anne Sexton who years ago before she took her very life wrote about the awful rowing to God--the blisters on the hands that heal and break. And I think, Yes, that's how I feel many days: Healed and broken. Healed and broken. 

To bear this loss against the current is to know that grief has a weight that cannot be calculated. To bear this loss with grace is to know that weight and to still keep rowing.

Maps, Stories and a Time in the Desert

A Map, a Flag, a Way Saying Good-bye.

I promised to show you a map you say but this is a mural
then yes let it be these are small distinctions
where do we see it from is the question    

                                            - Adrienne Rich



I.

The last time I was in the desert, I was 12. I waited by an uneven-legged table set up along a dry and dusty road just off of Interstate 40 while one of my brothers walked the dog.  It was hot. It was July and with the few coins in my pocket, I bought a small totem pole from a Navajo girl who stood behind that table.  She looked to be just about my age.

The totem was stone and was painted with primary colors that had been dulled, sun-baked. We exchanged some coins and I left with the painted totem in hand, sun-warmed, climbing back into the Ford Country Squire with the fake wood paneling on its sides.

Even then, I knew all about consumption.

II.

Today I have been painting and I have broken two nails and I couldn't be more pleased. Under one nail is red paint and along the curve of my thumb are splotches of yellow acrylic.

My hands make things.

And I think it may be this--the making of things that has me recalling the girl from the desert. Or perhaps not.  Perhaps it is nothing more than our shared girlhood that has me pulling this recollection from forty years past.

Our finger nails were dirty, chewed. We had not the elegant hands we might have hoped to grow into.

I wonder if she's still living on that road just a mile from the Interstate. I wonder if she's still living. In the 1970s the life expectancy of Navajo were two-thirds the national average (from here).

Does she remember the pale girl with the long braid who bought the totem pole?


III.

Memories are like maps, oddly collaged, shift the paper and the perspective alters, the story changes. I wonder what it is that has me recalling this moment over and over again.