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the loss of civility…

Tuesday, May 21st, 2019

bloomin’ peony

Yesterday I was reminded why I quit the lecture circuit. I really enjoyed speaking to guilds and groups for the years I did it; until I didn’t. I remember exactly what group I spoke to when I decided to stop. I told people I was no longer giving lectures because of the wear & tear on my body. In reality it was the wear & tear on my nerves that did me in.

I was reminded yesterday as I bore witness to what happened to me, happening to another speaker. I was present to hear a 90 min lecture on trash & recycling, given by an employee of the garbage hauler. Her job is to educate communities and companies about sorting their trash, compost & recycling, to ease the demand on the public landfill, which is filling at an alarming rate.

The landfill was rapidly filling before the rash of wildfires and floods, where hundreds of homes were destroyed; and their contents dumped there. Since I have become obsessed with plastic in our oceans and on our beaches, I wanted to hear what this woman had to say.

She started by saying she would take questions after her presentation. She had not said two sentences when someone interrupted her with a question, then another, then another, then side conversations. She reminded the group of seniors that she would take questions after the presentation. She started in again. A guy interrupted asking if she really thought anyone was going to read this brochure of garbage policies? Then continued to rail her about how stupid it is for a corporation making millions of dollars to hope that educating people about garbage is just that, garbage.

And what about the Mexicans, another woman shouted. They don’t sort their trash, she said, adding she was not racist.

The speaker continued, slightly rattled. Another interruption, and another, and another. One woman pointed out that she could improve her presentation with a handout, to which the speaker told the woman she was holding the handout! It just went on and on and on.

I found myself getting upset by all the interruptions, and also by the speaker, unable to ‘control’ the room. My thoughts migrated from trash talk to anger over the lack of civility in the room. Perhaps a whip and a chair was necessary?

What really annoyed me was how do two generations (the “greatest” and the boomers) who were raised to be so friggin’ polite, courteous and considerate behave like a bunch of spoiled children in a public forum? Since when has a lecture become a public discussion group? A lot of the questions people peppered the speaker with were answered in her presentation, had they only listened.

Some might blame our current administration, which granted has done nothing to encourage public civility. But my last lecture was 7 years ago when this behavior first began to annoy me.

The last time I gave a lecture was in a college town to a group of quilters about photo editing. Everyone in the room was an expert on the subject and they interrupted me constantly. I began to question why they even came to hear me when they were all experts? I decided right there at the podium, that I was never going to do this again. And I blamed it predominantly on this being a college environment. Little did I know…

Yesterday I learned it is not just the millennials, it is pervasive in our society. Perhaps the old folks have lost their ability to communicate as much as the kids never learned it in the first place. We have lost our ability to communicate with civility. What a sad situation.

The conclusion I came to from yesterday’s meeting is I will continue to conserve, recycle and use as little plastic as possible. I will not become an activist though. It just makes me too angry. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days arguing in public with people who just don’t listen.

I’d rather go into a quiet room, turn on some music and make art.

 

Posted in aging, documentation, narrative, teaching, time management, wisdom | 12 Comments »

catching up…

Saturday, May 11th, 2019

detail, Weathered Wood

I have lost all inspiration to make new work since Marion died…well actually before then. The muse slowed down earlier this year. Immediately after her death I was occupied with returning files and quilts to her family, and then started in on my own to-do list, which had grown to mammoth proportions.

I received the shipment of catalogs for our exhibit Defining Moments: Stitched Perspectives on Becoming A Woman, and put that up on my website. The 48 pg catalog will also be available at exhibit venues.

Earlier in the year I had finished and blocked two hand-stitched pieces, so I bought gallery-wrap canvas and mounted those to the frame. I have gotten quite skilled at using the electric stapler and the Phillips screwdriver. What I found most frustrating is the available sizes of wrapped canvas.

Reflections of the Seine

The local art supply store had a generous 16″ x 16″, but no 14″ x 14″ which I really wanted for my stitched pieces of morning walks. So I went to the big box chain and they had neither 14″ nor 16″ squares but they had lots of 11″ x 14″ rectangles. So I came home and googled it and basically learned that 14″ x 14″ does not exist but if I want to custom order it, I can do so for a mere $85 each.

catalog cover, Defining Moments: Stitched Perspectives on Becoming A Woman

I suppose I could make my own, but I am at that age where time is far more important than money; but not so much so that I am going to pay $85 for a canvas gallery wrap! As if framing hand-stitched work is not straying far enough from my usual work, making frames for such is pushing it just too far, as far as I am concerned. I am trying to use up my supplies, not add a whole lot more. Just like I decided not to ferment my own veggies, I don’t need another hobby.

So I got these done, documented and up on my website. I have finished 5-6 entries for upcoming exhibits, need to prep a piece to ship this week, and continue to whittle down the list.

Then perhaps… I will be so moved (or not) as to actually start the new series, which has been researched and waiting in the wings for a year now.

 

Posted in aging, Defining Moments, documentation, new work, time management, website, wisdom | No Comments »

reclaiming my voice…

Friday, April 26th, 2019

Musings before I sleep…

Twenty-one years ago I chose to be the primary caregiver for a good friend dying of glioblastoma (brain cancer). One of the things that left me dumbfounded was how so many of his good friends simply disappeared, when they heard of his diagnosis. I could not comprehend how they really could have been good friends at all, but simply considered it their loss. When I spoke to hospice friends, they reassured me that some people just don’t know what to say to someone who is dying, or grieving, so they say nothing.

Fast forward to 2018 and my fourth good friend was dying of cancer. I challenged myself to call her every week to ten days to check in, to see how she was feeling, how chemo was kicking her butt, how much weight she had lost, where the radiation zapped her now, etc. I admit it wasn’t always easy, but it was important. Our conversations vacillated between reality, humor and sorrow.

In due course, I sort of lost my language. I felt like my mouth opened but the words didn’t come out, or if they did they made no sense. I said dumb shit like telling her son Mel that he looked just like the quilt she made about him, instead of vice versa. Or referring to her sister Sharon, as Carol. (no, that’s me!)

Two months ago, I wrote her a card to tell her how much she meant to me, and how much she had impacted my life. I struggled through it, feeling like I had the vocabulary of a small child. I felt numb. I just couldn’t find my words. They had locked away somewhere. Finally, I just mailed it in disgust. She never said anything about it, nor did I. I just felt relief that I had said something, even if it was elementary. We ended each phone call with I love you, so at least that part was communicated.

Today my language returned. I was able to write a loving tribute to her. Upon reflection I realize that like those friends of twenty years ago, I simply did not know what to say. Yet I pushed through it, stumbled around and squeezed something out.

My wisdom is this. If you need to say something to someone, put on your big girl panties (or big boy shorts) and just do it. Time is a-wastin.

Welcome home, my voice.

Posted in aging, wisdom | 8 Comments »

with gratitude…

Thursday, April 25th, 2019

Tall Girlfriends, 36″ x 29″, 2017, by Marion Coleman

Yesterday my dear friend Marion Coleman died. While I have known the end was near for months, I have been unable to articulate my sorrow until now. Marion was my fourth close friend to fight and lose the vicious battle, that is cancer. The one thing I have learned, other than cancer sucks, is how important it is to gather the goodness each one brought into my life, and to cherish it. By carrying their richness, they live on, in my heart.

I met Marion in 2003 at a SAQA regional meeting. It was the first meeting for both of us, and in Sacramento which means we both had made an effort to be there. I thought to myself, who is that exquisite tall black woman?! She shared later she had spotted me that same day. I continued my observation for about a year, until I asked her to mentor me on my Tall Girl project. I knew it was going to be a difficult story to tell, and that I might need someone to prod me, and had witnessed her to be an articulate, smart, gifted, get-things-done woman!

She asked me to write a business plan to define my goals for the project. She was the calm voice of reason when I needed it; and instrumental in my finding the way through the jungle of my repressed stories. She encouraged me by saying how much my story would help others, and challenging me to always aim higher. As a result I was able to secure six venues for the exhibit, including the National Quilt Museum. We talked then about doing a collaborative project of our own. We, women of two very different worlds had a lot of similarities which needed airing and sharing. It is our job as elders to tell these stories she would say.

In 2014 we met over lunch in Berkeley to discuss the particulars of that project we had spoken of years earlier. The time was ripe to finally start. It was to be an autobiographical project examining the contrasts and parallels of our lives as two tall aging women; one African American, one Caucasian. She had grown up in the Jim Crow south and I, in her words, in an affluent white suburb of San Francisco. One would think we had nothing in common, and yet we shared an incredible number of similarities, both as kids and as adults. Meaty subject matter, this one!

We were both approaching our 7th decade, which brought its own unique set of challenges. Since she was a year older than I, we set my 70thas the deadline, which bought us another year! She chose our working title for the series, Defining Moments: Stitched Perspectives on Becoming A Woman. She said we needed to each design a solid 25 museum-size pieces. Sure, twenty-five large pieces in three years’ time… I can do that! (what? are you nuts?!) And so, we began.

Early on, I learned that we had very individual ways of working. I, of the spreadsheet tribe, mapped out all my ideas and designed the work in chronological order. She was deadline driven, and made the work as it came to her, in between other projects, designing public art, solo exhibits, curating Neighborhoods Coming Together, and mentoring youth. Some of her work went in and out of the series, and yet it all came together in the end. Because all of her work was narrative, it fit together like pieces of a puzzle.

People kept asking me… how many has she completed? Is she going to finish? What if she doesn’t get them done? And so on. I never lost faith. I just recognized she had a different style of working than I did, and that it would all sort out, as it did.

Defining Moments 25: Homage

Our 25th piece was to be a true collaboration and we tossed out all sorts of ideas via Skype. (We both disliked the 90 minute drive in traffic which stood between us.) When it became too painful for her to work, she was unable to finish the project, let alone our grand finale, #25. I designed my own #25 Homage, in honor of her, my friend, my mentor, my project partner. She told me the piece made her cry.

In the end she had stitched thirteen pieces and we still have a robust exhibit, which makes its debut in July at Visions Art Museum in San Diego for a 3-month run.  Even as she lay gravely ill, she graciously allowed me to take possession of her work so that our committed exhibits will still be seen.

catalog cover, Defining Moments: Stitched Perspectives on Becoming A Woman

In the last month I have been designing the catalog for our exhibit. I called her frequently with questions: details that if one were dying would not seem terribly important. Yet she was always so kind and patient, even thanking me for pulling it all together for our exhibit. How does one even wrap their head around that? It is just who she was, the epitome of grace and kindness. I just feel it so important that her work continues to be shown.

Marion was the most generous-of-spirit woman, and particularly artist, I have ever met. There is so much professional jealousy in this field (although how professional is it to be jealous?)  She believed when one succeeds, we all succeed. There is enough for everyone. She always shared calls for entry for exhibits, public art, grants, internships, fellowships, etc. She taught me so much as an artist, as a woman. I will always reach higher and push through the fear because of her.

She made me laugh when talking about grants though. She would say I should apply for this grant or that grant. I HATED the idea and would say, no, if I need money I will just go to the bank (a white privilege response if there was ever one). She would say…Girl, they are just giving away money and you need to get you some! Finally, I relented and applied for a couple of grants and actually got one! Oh, happy day. They were just giving it away, just like she said!!!

Five years ago, I asked her about her end goal for her art, and she said she wished to be recognized as a NEA Heritage Fellow. Well, talk about manifestation! Last September she was recognized as a 2018 NEA Heritage Fellow, one of NINE in the entire country. Beyond this extraordinary achievement, was the timing, when she was so gravely ill. She gathered together her nearest and dearest and flew to DC, and on to NY to accept this great honor, bestowed on her. It gave me such joy for her end goal to be met, and for her to live to experience it.

I haven’t spoken much publicly of her illness these past 15 months, out of respect. It was her story to tell. But, now, be prepared for shameless self-promotion of Defining Moments and the ongoing exhibition of the exquisite artwork of my dear friend, Marion Coleman. She lives on through her art.

My deepest sympathies to her kids Mel, Lisa, Eric and Tina; to her sister Sharon for taking such extraordinary care of her these past four months. And to her two grand-girls, siblings and stepmother. And to all the people whose lives she touched. She was loved and admired by so many.  How blessed we all were to know her.

She and Nyls are together again. RIP dear one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in aging, Defining Moments, documentation, exhibitions, tall girl, time management, wisdom | 14 Comments »

on compassion…

Monday, April 22nd, 2019

termites ate this wood for lunch before it became a tabletop in a restaurant…

I have always been a very compassionate person. I was just born that way, and having had a lifetime of physical challenges has only reinforced my empathy for others. Yesterday it was sorely tested, leaving me today questioning how much compassion is good for one’s soul? When have we maxed out on compassion and gone into full on survival mode? And what does that mean for survival of our species?

Yesterday was Easter and a beautiful, albeit windy spring day in San Francisco. We met our kid and took rapid transit, aka BART into the city to see an art exhibit and have brunch. We often park at her house in the East Bay and take BART to the city and to the airports. It is always an interesting social experiment but yesterday it was full-on crazy train. Hubs thought it was because it was the weekend that it was more crazy, but our daughter reassured us that this is her daily commute; and is it little wonder she is angry by the time she arrives at work each day?

On the return trip we had to take three flights of stairs into the subway because the elevator reeked of urine. The escalators were turned off, for some unknown reason. The trains are less frequent on weekends, so we boarded a full train. No one stood up to let this aged body have a seat. I spotted a stuffed monkey suspended over an otherwise empty seat, so I headed for it not quite reaching as the train sped off. I flew backwards with the forward-moving train, landing on my back, spewing swear words at the possibly 5 yr old girl, dressed in her Easter finery, at whose feet I landed.

No one offered to help me up. My kid asked three tech-obsessed men to help me up which they reluctantly did. Still no one offered me a seat. My kid asked another ‘gentleman’ for his seat. Grumble, huff and he stood up.

Still the stuffed monkey retained his seat. Finally she asked whose monkey this is and if it belonged to no one, she was throwing it off the train? A man in a Stanford sweatshirt, lurched forward, grabbed his monkey, and shoved it into a duffel with other stuffed animals. OK. It was going to be that kind of day.

It got worse. A guy shouted at her, wondering why I did not hold on, when I fell? Maybe he could educate me about it, as folks often do after I fall. An obese male shoved food into his mouth from baggies, throwing the wrappings on the floor. As we got off to change trains, he dropped something on the track, halting in the doorway & blocking the exit. My daughter asked him to move and he let off a string of obscenities at her echoing throughout the station. I wanted to say no one talks to my daughter like that, but I was hardly in a position to defend anyone; plus she is nearly 40 and can defend herself, and did so by yelling back at him!

We got on the transfer train. A homeless guy with three huge bags of cans kept shaking them, and putting the filthy bags on the seat, where a person could otherwise sit. Another homeless woman took up a full seat, the floor and blocked the door with her few possessions. A dude walked through the car hawking CDs. Five young athletic men got on at a stop, turned up the loud music, began acrobatic moves along the horizontal and vertical bars of the train in motion, imploring folks to smile. They were very gifted, and had obviously honed their skill on moving train cars. They pandered for tips before departing at the next station.

At this point I was wondering what else, who else would wander onto this rolling mental asylum? At what stop had my compassion left the train? I only wanted off and immediately. I swore I would never ride again, but that is hardly the solution to traffic woes and reducing my carbon footprint.

Things I have thought about today…how does one show compassion for those less fortunate, mentally and physically without losing their own mind? There is just so much neediness. No wonder we isolate ourselves, in our homes, in our communities, in our cars, in our country.

Today I hurt, a lot, in parts I didn’t know I had. I will heal, I will get over it. I don’t know if I will ever adjust though to the sad state of our society. I really do not want to become one of them…you know, those people, the ones who refuse to see or feel, or care.

I suppose there is a quilt in that.

 

Posted in aging, wisdom | 6 Comments »

editing within an inch of my life…

Tuesday, April 2nd, 2019

threads begging to be stitched

I recently received a request to be interviewed and featured on a blog titled Create Whimsy. I read the interviews of several colleagues and decided it was a good idea, so I have been answering the interview questions, then editing the file within an inch of my life.

I also needed to take some photos of my studio. With a southern exposure window there it is nearly impossible to get a good image in the daytime. I waited until evening, then noticed the shelves were messy, as if an artist had actually been working in there! So last night I spent tidying the shelves! Finally this afternoon I sent the whole shebang off. Who knew it would take me so long?!

got fabric?

What really came to me in the process of editing my interview was my personal battle of being seen vs. being unseen. When I was younger, much younger actually, I felt so unseen that I could not talk about myself enough. Some people might still think that is the case!

As I have matured and big brother has stepped into my life, I feel the need to be much more private. It may be an aging thing, but I am resistant to say too much about myself, online. So while I want to answer the questions appropriately and have the interview at least be interesting, I am not excited about laying it all out there. Decades ago I never would have thought this a possibility.

But then decades ago we did not have people be able to look into every detail of our lives. We did not have big brother buying groceries for us, as evidenced by the new credit card which only has to be waved near the machine. We did not have companies prodding we buy knee pads or sprain bandages as soon as we simply mention to our spouse that the treadmill stress test partially injured the soft tissue of the foot. I suppose if I examined it too closely, I would turn off all devices and pick up an abacus. Hey I eat like a cave-woman, why not be one?

One of the questions that tripped me up was what I have learned about myself from making my art? I’ve learned that I have the ability to change the narrative, to contemplate other ways of thinking, being, doing, speaking, reacting. And as a result of this effort, I learn more every day, about the world and my place in it. Yet how detailed did I want my response to be? I tweaked the answer to that question for a long time. All of this assumes though that anyone cares enough to even read the interview!

Meanwhile, I have been working away on all sorts of things. The dreaded big purple bed quilt went off to the quilter, and returned last week on the rainiest of rainy days. It now awaits a binding, which has been prepared, and will potentially be stitched on this weekend.

I also finished the catalog for the upcoming Defining Moments exhibit, and just received the 2nd proof in the mail. It is nearly soup, I believe, which is a relief as our first exhibit is coming along this summer.

I whipped out a fast piece on climate change that has been rolling around in my cranium for awhile, which I will show at a later date. I tossed and turned over the title for a new series, and think I have finally figured out a good name for that. Stay tuned.

Now that my studio shelves are clean, it’s time to mess them up a bit!

Posted in aging, documentation, narrative, photography, plastic oceans, time management, wisdom | No Comments »

for my next number…

Thursday, February 28th, 2019

Defining Moments catalog cover

Finally I have finished the dreaded replacement queen bed quilt and it’s off to be stitched.

So for my next creative endeavor, I am designing the catalog for Defining Moments, the joint project of Marion Coleman and I. Our first exhibit opens in July at Visions Art Museum in San Diego, so this is top of my to-do list.

I am using the same Blurb software with which I designed the Tall Girl Series book, but alas a decade has passed, software has been upgraded and I am ten years older! So far I have managed to find answers to all my questions and watched a couple You Tube videos to remind me how to do some PhotoShop tricks. All in all, it is fun but a huge time suck. Although I should take a break every hour, I am lucky if I do every 2-3 hours.

My biggest fear is if I fall too far down the left brain rabbit hole, will I find my way back to stitching, easy enough? I guess if that fear is realized I can always clean out the basement or start looking at fixtures for the bathroom remodel which is also on the list.

I don’t know what people are talking about that I should play more! Is this not play? Let’s put it this way. I am seldom bored.

Onward…

finished quilt top

finished quilt back…pesky blocks return

Posted in aging, Defining Moments, documentation, exhibitions, publication, time management, wisdom | 2 Comments »

on ‘adulting’….

Sunday, January 20th, 2019

three rows (doubled) new bed quilt

As I forge on constructing a replacement quilt for our queen bed, I have been thinking about ‘adulting.’ I often wonder about words or expressions that suddenly take on meaning to other generations. One of those is the word adulting, which I gather applies to any task one does that implies responsibility & discipline, which btw ‘spell check’ does not yet recognize, so how hip can it really be?!

I’ve lived entire life adulting! As a child I adulted my younger sisters to make sure they stayed out of trouble, danger, or fun. I adulted and got a meaningless job out of college because I knew not what I wanted, other than to not study! I adulted as a young married when I learned to budget and live within my means. I adulted as a mother and wife, as I worked two jobs, did endless chores and always placed creative opportunities for joy last on my to-do list.

With an early retirement, I tried adulting less. After all is that not what retirement is, a 2ndchildhood? A chance to play? When I first learned to dye and paint cloth, it was the first time ever I felt totally free of adulting. Hours would pass and all I felt was pure joy and play. Gratefully, that joy and zest has stayed with me for now 20 years of adulting-free creativity.

So along comes the bed quilt project. As our much-loved bed quilt has faded, ripped, and been repaired it became abundantly obvious to me, last year that I needed to replace it. I mulled over colorways and researched design. Initially I was jazzed by the modern quilts, i.e. minimalist. Just love them! Can I do it? How hard is it really for a gal who hates following directions? Doesn’t minimal mean easy?! I asked those who have designed them. I saved many images of quilts I absolutely loved.

Alas time had come to stop thinking and start doing. When I wasn’t looking, my adulting-self stepped in, put creativity in her corner and began to remake the same old design, but in a different color-way. It has been a battle of fits and starts since. Cranky much?

Last night it occurred to me that while I chose this new color palette I am not overjoyed with it! I love so much the garden colors of the old quilt I am replacing. This seems so loud (said me, never!)  In a moment of extreme madness or ingenuity, not sure which, it occurred to me that I could make the quilt reversible! I could make the back in blocks like the front, but in the green family instead of the purple family.

My mind began to tinker with design once more, as I was trying to drift off to sleep. Would I even consider making another 80 blocks for the back side, in garden greens? Will I ever finish this? 

This morning I had an epiphany! I could make the back as I had initially planned the front, to be minimalist. After all I have two remaining blocks from the original garden quilt. I could make just 7-8 more, sew them in a long stripe and then sew that to the backing fabric. Voila!

leftover garden green blocks

I may have at last hit upon the minimalist design I sought initially. It only took me 320 inner blocks, several bad movies, many sleepless nights, and lots of chocolate. If only my adulting had just stayed out of the equation in the first place, and let the muse play!

I am over adulting…the millennials can keep it.

 

 

Posted in aging, documentation, new work, patterns, procrastination, shapes, surface design, textures, Uncategorized, wisdom | 4 Comments »

year end wisdom

Monday, December 31st, 2018

At the end of each year I make a list of goals and intentions, primarily for my artwork. This year I also made another list, in Notes on my phone. This bonus list contained all the things I NEED to do in the new year, or if not then, when? It was a list of mostly digital items I have paid for but not utilized. The Yoga in the Chair for Aging Bodies class, the Sketchbook Skool class, the Craftsy class on perspective, 73 books on the Kindle, daily stair climbing, getting back to the agility exercises on Wii Fit, stuff like that. I felt quite pleased with myself that I recalled all these items to complete my list and then emailed it to myself. When it arrived in my inbox the pleasure of that memory had subsided and instead the list arrived with feelings of guilt & dread! Until I was reminded by my most beloved sage of wisdom, that perhaps making the list was all that needed to happen with it!

Wow, now isn’t that a concept! As I age and immerse myself in the wisdom of elder women, more and more I see that worry is a waste of time and guilt a waste of energy. What might have seemed really important to me at one time, no longer is. What might have seemed like something I should learn is really not something that is going to enhance my life, if I have to force myself to do it. Why clutter my days with stuff I really don’t want to do?

People often tell me what a prolific artist I am. My answer has always been that I love what I do. Granted I have slowed down in the past few years. In 2018 I made 7 pieces of art. In 2017 I made 10. In 2009 I made 29; of which many were small pieces. That being the year I finished the Tall Girl Series, likely opened the door to extreme creativity by unleashing repressed memory.

oooh that color!

It figures that this clarity comes on the heels of slogging through a bed quilt! All of 2018 I’ve thought about how I really should sew a replacement queen quilt for our bed. Now that the current one is falling apart, I finally decided December would be the time to do this. I cut out most of the pieces for the blocks and then nothing happened.

Yesterday hubs said, don’t worry, there is no rush for this bed quilt. But there is, as these blocks are clogging up my creativity, my design table, my design wall.  I am determined this will be the last I really don’t want to do this thing EVER. Or perhaps I am just being optimistic. After all, doesn’t each new year carry a dose of optimism?

So add to my 2019 list of  intentions, stop paying for stuff I really don’t want to do! It is just as easy to not want to do something for free. Instead redirect the funds and energy to support someone who is passionate about their own pursuits, like perhaps our first female president!

Happy New Year!

 

Posted in aging, procrastination, time management, wisdom | 7 Comments »

a thank you card…

Sunday, November 18th, 2018

along the Seine

Twenty years ago today my longtime employer died of brain cancer. For the previous 20 months I had been his primary caregiver, mostly I believe now because I had restored my battle-weary self worth working for him for 16 years. He was like the brother I never had and how could I abandon him in his time of need? Plus as the mother of a teen and wife of an independent thinker, I truly needed to feel important to someone. I also did not know what to do with my days without my addiction to work and serving others.

Many gifts came to me out of my sense of obligation to his care. Most were intangible. Slowly I shifted my focus to what really mattered. I noticed the little things in life, those which continue to capture my attention today as I walk. The lichen on the tree branches in the fog, the hundreds of varieties of roses that bloom many months of the year, not just in summer. The cracks in the sidewalk. None of the things that had  monopolized my days prior to his illness seemed to matter anymore. I always say cancer is the great prioritizer as one quickly learns what is important and what is not. Nothing to me was as important as accompanying my friend through his journey with cancer. It was my personal grieving process unfolding before my eyes.

I pretty much wore myself out taking care of him. People kept telling me to take care of myself, and I truly thought I was. I stopped going to the gym. I lost strength in my own aging body, put on 30 lbs, and grew my hair long. By the time he died, I was an exhausted, aging haggard woman. And how surprised I was to learn it would take me just as long as his illness, to recover from the experience.

I decided to take six months off to figure out what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Two months in, as I lay on the floor doing my morning stretches (where I often do my best thinking) it occurred to me that there was nothing I wanted badly enough to go back to work. In that moment I began on the path that has led me to where I am today. My father who had just retired himself, did not congratulate me on this spontaneous decision to retire at 50 but instead warned me that I better make sure I did not outlive my money.

As a seamstress since youth, and having spent my adult years as weaver, knitter, needle-pointer it only seemed natural to take classes in various forms of textile art and design. So I jumped in with both feet. One year I took eight classes at various retreats, which also sparked a love of travel. I never really considered being a professional artist. I was just dabbling and I just loved getting lost in my world of color and ‘play.’

I spent a few years distilling all I had learned until 2004 when I finally found my own voice and began the five year autobiographical project that became the Tall Girl Series.  At that point my work began to evolve from ‘pretty’ abstract work to narrative. The rest as they say is history.

Here I sit today paying homage. I have been ‘retired’ twenty years already! That is longer than I worked for the good doctor. I have felt many times in those 20 years immense gratitude to this man whose premature death enabled me to reinvent myself as an artist. Otherwise I would have likely sat in that front office chair, managing his practice, being his parking lot therapist, West Coast mother and surrogate sister, up until he retired which would probably have been when I was 60. For so many years I had longed to bail out of that job, but was enticed by the kid’s tuition paying salary and benefits.

The biggest benefit was unforeseen. The benefit of time. The benefit of finding and reinventing myself through right brain activity, not so much the left in which I had been programmed to function since childhood.

So I say today, of all days, thank you David. Thank you for allowing me the freedom to grow into the woman and artist I was destined to be. I am sorry that you had to die at 56 but I feel nothing but gratitude for the privilege of retirement at 50.

RIP.

 

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