It is time for me to arrive back to my journey, no matter where it leads or from where I already have emanated from in my previous 73 years.
July 4, 2022, turns out to be my time for revived personal independence and freedom. I again, after the lockdown, to write about my world , my mirror, in this Blogg. This does also include the many people I come in contact with on my travels and who I am grateful to for enlightening my foggy view at times. I fell in love with this wallpaper image I found and did not know why at first. This has been true for me as an artist to notice the attractions in my world around me without judgement.
I create artwork from these attractions, a form of love. My timeless episodes of painting, sculpting, or writing always helps me, like a mirror, find my place of healing. I believe now it comes from the soul, always and forever. My soul speaks through my art, and I am so grateful to have been shown and encouraged as a young child. My few years of teaching art, 2012-2019, to all ages, was a gift to me. To watch others, trust their personal creations and become enthusiastic. {meaning full of the spirit within}
This photo of a road heading into a fog seems obvious it represents our futures, yet I also saw it include the road already traveled.
My last couple of years has spurred on my desire to heal from my traumas, PTSD, and hopefully find
a renewed zeal for my future, of which I can see clearer each day the final horizon looming.
The current healing therapy has been very intense and so much more advanced from my early days of the 70's. I feel blessed to have lived long enough to take advantage of these new treatments, yet my time here is limited. This foggy photo has reminded me it will be okay to let some of my past be forgiven and let it go from my view or memory or even understanding.
The clear, in focus and divided road in the forefront of the image represents the HERE and NOW. This is where we stand each moment. We can choose to move forward with a willingness to embrace what comes in to view. A person, place, or event that will teach me what my heart yearns for. Life has been clearly a time for learning and most of all for making mistakes. A humbling experience yet the door we need to point us in the next direction, classroom so to speak. Most difficult for me has been the many meetings of persons on my highway. I have no doubt each has collided with me for a reason, for a chance to love and be loved perhaps? My many pets have at times been the most loyal with the gift of a being to express my love to too. Most important of all is To Love over being Loved. Note either way for me has been full of great joy and greater sorrow...................
This has happened may times, too many to count now.
I say thank you too All.
The foggy area engulfing the trees, road, view and even direction is also a blessing in disguise. Yes, because the foggy cold damp air is misleading. My periodic boughts of depression have made me so fearful at times. After so many in my lifetime I named a dear pet "Blue Sky". There is always somewhere a place above my dim view to catch the sun and continue to play out my future.
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A Footnote
On July 4, 2022 from 6-7pm Port Angeles' 4th parade passed by my window along that 2-lane street out my window. Early that morning I ran out to move my car off the main street parking spot to make room for the events to follow. It was the first one since Pandemic surge. I moved into the Lee Plaza Apartments a couple of weeks prior and was so impressed by the hour-long train of "Small town America" that passed before me. As I sat curbside right in front of Lee's doorway., I saw the bands, the politicians, animals, pets, floats, and of course the many bright red Fire trucks.
I was able to break away from my grieving for a short time, that I had moved from a home I loved so much. Anderson Island was a place I planted myself and I was blooming in so many ways. A small community where I could find a place for me to express myself to others. Art community, church fellowship and asked to be an honorary family member by my neighbor, to be another daughter, on her deathbed. " Her sunshine", I felt I was no longer invisible, instead like a bright light in her life. Her final conversation with me was a reminder of many others. Her feeling I was there so she could do this passage. "I cannot do this without you, "sunshine." and a declaration that I was to get on with my life and be happy.
I was to light up the way? yet I knew it was her faith and her knowing her rebirth was soon to come.
she was my sunshine too.
September 5, 2018, 8:30 am
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I am looking for inspiration and blessings each day I wake up now each morning. I found this beautiful Jewish Blessing written in 100 B.C.E. by the Qumran community outside Jerusalem. This is from a Hebrew translation of the Dead Sea scrolls.
A BLESSING of LUCID FIRE and SECRET GRACE
May the being of the Universe
breathe into you the light of blessing and ripeness,
I will begin with my beginnings as a child of 5 [1954] waiting with anticipation for that morning of awe and wonder......... Christmas. The night before on the eve of Christmas we would travel to my father's family across town, Grandmother's home along with auntie Adele and youngest cousin Ronveig. The only cousin named after a relative in Trondheim Norway. Always reminding all of us of the strong heritage we came from. It included all the food and goodies my Grandma Lena would prepare days before. I was the first grand-daughter born and very interested in the food. To this day I am the only family member to know her recipes and to continue to prepare as an adult.... the Yulekaka bread and much more.. My aunt a retired Opera performer, that included Madame Butterfly in Oslo, would rehearse carols with all her nieces lined up in party dresses to sing accompanied by piano. A spark, I am sure of inspiration for my third sister who became a singer performer and choir director..
My memories also include the side of the holiday that would be at times terrifying. Scandinavian culture includes the drinking of alcohol. I would watch each year in anxious anticipation the stupor and slurring of words as my father would fall into the drunkenness. I was so afraid of the arguing that would follow with my mother, grandmother, and uncles. And most alarming to me was who would drive us home. All I wanted was to be safe. In the following Christmas eves, I would hang out with Grandma in the kitchen throughout the night and learn her recipes. A joyful time for me.
Lena, she knew how hard it was for the children to wait for the full smorgasbord to be displayed. Yulekaka cardamon bread, gravlax salmon, red pickled cabbage, fiskeball soup, and the notorious gefillte cod fisk. A tray was made for children only. I would eventually have this as my contribution to the table. Openface sandwiches on french bread smothered in butter, a thin slice of swiss cheese, and a long thin dill pickle on top. I would put this platter on the table and then I would find my safe place and crawl under the tablecloth hanging low. Sometimes Ronveig joined me, the youngest grandchild, to play hide and seek. What may have been perceived by adults as play, for me it was a way to NOT see my father stumble across the room and remind me what was coming,. The families' other holiday tradition. of high emotions and turmoil between relatives attempting to deflate their feelings of anger and old hurts.
It was as a teenager that the eve of Christmas parties ended as my family could not continue with the upheavals and further pain resulting.. I can still remember at 71, one of my childhood dreams that would rarely come true. Living in Portland Oregon as a child I seldom saw it snow in December. Of course, snow would be a desire for a young child, to run and play with a snowman in the front yard. Mine was the wish that when dad would fall to the ground between the car and our front door, I would visualize snow falling and covering him like a warm blanket so the neighbors would not see him there. An embarrassment no child should have to endure and leave a hard to forget the memory.
Story of Mama Red
This story begins many months before Christmas.[1984] with the birth of MA MA Red's third litter of beautiful red setter pups. It was springtime in Bralorne, British Columbia. My neighbor Sherry has waited through the winter for their arrival. Ten little bundles arrived and it was quickly discovered 6 of her 8 teats were infected and could not sustain 10 bodies. WE lived in a mountain town, 5 hours from a vet. A call was made to decide on the next decision that was needed, with the vet's advice at the clinic. He could send antibiotics for her in the mail, but the pups would not survive till then. The most humane course was to drown them, all ten?
Sherry could not do it by herself and asked for my help and support. I will not forget this new mother frantically pacing as we loaded the young ones into a drawstring bag and headed to the raging river overflowing from winter snowmelt, behind the house.
I was to be the one to carry the bag to the water's edge and drop it into the frigid waters. I would finally walk back to the house after the whimpering faded away to silence. A burial spot was chosen and Sherry watched in grief as I dug the hole. I was about to fill it in when I heard a muffled cry from the bag. I was in disbelief as it grew louder. I opened the bag, it was not in my plan to see them, and there was a ball of bodies all clinging to each other. I pulled it apart to find in the very center a male pup breathing and whimpering away,.....louder and louder. I put him in my warm jacket pocket and headed back to the house. Mama Red waited anxiously at the door. knowing of my pup in my coat? Her two healthy teats were more than enough to keep this little one alive and healthy.
A name was needed right away and how determined he was to survive was the inspiration We found a german name of "Deter". and so it was. A week later we drove to the Vet to have both mother and pup examined. Both were thriving. A blessing for us all.
Even though this is not at Christmas time... The final story for me and Ma Ma Red happened on the following December Christmas morning. I was invited to join and meet Sherry's family for Christmas celebrations. It was a 5-hour drive out of the mountains to the high plateaus along the Al-Can highway heading north to Alaska. Deter was adopted at 6 months by a friend in town and would not be with us. After a late party Christmas eve, I was the first to awaken early and bundled myself up and headed out the back door to walk the red setter. The frigid brisk air was filled with bright sunlight. I could have used sunglasses as I squinted. I watched as she headed down the driveway instead of up the incline behind the house. Some critter caught her site hound eyes. I ran to chase her as I watched her cross the highway, very quiet on a Christmas morn. I called her to come back. she was enthralled by the burrows in the hard winter ground and animal scents.
Then I heard coming from the northern direction, a big rig heading down the road towards us. I immediately stopped calling her name. She was not obedience trained and was so unpredictable in her behavior. I stood motionless in prayer that she would stay on that side of the road till it passed us by. Just as if in slow motion I saw her raise her head, have eye contact with me, seemingly not aware of the truck barreling towards us. And in my worst nightmare, she dashed towards me and collided with the truck.. It did not stop and kept going as I looked upon her lying in the middle of the road.
I walked over and she was gone, out of pain I lifted her and it felt like a 7-year-old child as I carried her to the back porch 30 yards away. I laid her down and cried until I had the courage to awaken Sherry with the grim Christmas morning news. A bearer of very sad tidings.
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My Apartment Window in Lockdown 2020
A Covid-19 2020 Christmas To Remember
My Christmas prayer is to embrace my memories with compassion for myself and to acknowledge God's mercy. I hold Christ's birth as God's greatest gift to the world and his creation. The gift to myself this season of isolation for everyone's safety is to remember how deeply I discovered, we all need each other. Even my relationship with myself has spiraled down to the depths not felt for many years. Just as his gift to us is "relationship with Him", we manifest that each day through our personal relationships with family, friends, neighbors, strangers, and the creatures we depend on.
A three-day harvest in Plymouth was held in the fall. It would take some natives 2 days to walk to the festivities. This is the story told to me in our elementary school textbooks. It tells of natives and colonists sitting down peacefully for a meal of thankfulness for the season's bounty.
This event was followed by attacks, killings of hundreds of natives, and colonists as an expansion upon native lands increased. for decades and eventually, for centuries, killings, genocide, continued until land confined reservations were mandatory for the "first Americans".
Abraham Lincoln designated an official Thanksgiving Holiday in the fall of 1867. It was to celebrate the end of the civil war and all our nation could be thankful for.
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The native Americans in this country consider this holiday a "Memorial Day" for the many who fought and lost their lives to save their land and the freedom to live on their chosen ancestral lands. this sounds very much the same as our Memorial Day ceremonies all across the nation in May of each year.
How each family celebrates this holiday can be very similar, a turkey, pies, cranberries, and each culture with added treats. My family is chosen and is whoever lives nearby.
Thanksgiving for apartment neighbors 2019 in Port Angeles.
Expanded this year to neighbors on the streets of my neighborhood 2020
"Doc and Bunny my partners in serving our neighbors"
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This year in a pandemic we are asked to not travel as 60% of citizens usually do to be with family. This year there was only a 20% reduction in travel. We will see the cost for these holiday reunions in the next month to come in total new cases and sadly the new family deaths. Family members that will not attend the 2021 holiday. How can I see the blessings amongst my friends and families when gratefulness is so needed?
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" I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain.
I wanna know have you ever seen the rain,
comin' down on a sunny day'?
This song by Creedence Clearwater "struck a chord" in me when I wanted to understand why this holiday was so different for me this year. It is easy to point to the pandemic as the source of so much disruption in our routines, traditions, or life as we demand and long for it to be.
This world is now full of frequent storms, fires, and natural disasters. These disasters have come on the eve of this holiday too. Many have no home or family injured or dead. I see nature teaching me, as God wants me to understand and experience, I am not the master of my world. I am the caretaker of this world given to me to enjoy, not destroy. I am grateful for all those that continue to strive for climate change solutions. for the generations to come.
" Someone told me long ago
there's a calm before the storm
I know its been coming for some time
When it's over, so they say
It'll rain a sunny day
I know shining down like water"
***
So, what has love got to do with it?
***
Can I find a way to be grateful, thankful for the rain? Yes, when I know the sun will come up again and even in the sky, both can be seen together as the song says, "shining down like water". A grateful thankful heart comes from love. Can I find a way to be thankful this year, when the rain is relentlessly falling all around me.? I have lost one friend, 92 years old, Adele, to this virus. She was one of the first to die in a nursing home in my state of Washington. The sunny bright spot for me is that I was fortunate to meet her and know some of her stories. Hers was a long life.. Our common friend and my brother, Jerry, 88, is still going strong as ever though many miles from my home.
Jerry as a world traveler
I have the thought that this chaos may actually be a calm before the next storm in my country.. Hunger [ 1 in 6 families 60 million], political divisions, racial equality demands with unrest, and economic inequality [ more trillionaires being created] are festering like an old wound being scratched and reinjured and bleeding again.
Our President-Elect Biden in his Thanksgiving address to the nation on November 25th pleaded that we bring "LOVE" to the political arena... To come together and heal and see the opposition. in our partisan politics, and find our common values moving forward. This is a sunny day to hear these words from our newly yet contested winner. Now it will be each American to follow through [ or not ] and work for the changes needed to slow this coming, [, already here? ] STORM.
"Yesterday and days before
Sun is cold and rain is hard
I know been that way
for all my time
til forever, on it goes."
In this country we live with motos of "The American Dream", " And Equal Justice for All,", " Right to Pursue Happiness", and religious freedom. These can be understood as a luminous sun on the horizon, yet felt by many here as only a dawning reality. The struggles many citizens have in the USA can be felt as a rainy drizzle or a torrent and flooding storm based on their skin color..
My faith has been my guiding light in these dark days. Masks, distancing, and finding ways I can reach out to others at the same time. My blog is one of the ways technology has opened some "lockdown" doors. I look more to music and reading the WORD to find my way. Sometimes it feels like I can find the "light switch " for comfort from my fears and stressful moments. On the pages of the Bible, or in a songs' lyrics, or a smile on a stranger's face or a friendly text or the wagging of a pet's tail.....
Matthew 11:28-30
"Come to me all you who are weary and burdened,
I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, For I am gentle and humble of heart, and
My dear friend Molly Walton drew her last breath on December 14, 2019. A long-awaited day after her diagnosis in early 2013 of terminal breast cancer. Ours was a roller coaster of a ride relationship with her hoarding lifestyle and my restless nomadic search for a home to settle down. Molly lost contact and the affection of a teenage daughter in divorce many years before and this trauma led to an empty heart and home. She proceeded to fill every square inch of it for the following years with all she touched and collected. The empty house, like her heart, was being filled up and each item cherished. My story was the loss of my home of 15 years in Vermont in the housing crisis of 2009. Ten years and seven moves later, with two homeless periods, while waiting for housing to open up , I was always in transition.
She gave her love to me with time during phone calls, any hour and place. She gave me a sense of continuity....of being loved by someone no matter where I lived....a wonderful gift. I absorbed any items I could of her "collectibles" to give her some peace around the slow liquidation process being imposed by her family. Most items I would not be able to use but would pass on and even throw away. One of my moves took me to another state and I would come to visit and need to stay overnight. I was the only person I knew of that Molly let stay at her place or would want to. She would clear a place for me to walk, to an area of boxes covering a stool,so I could sit down. Then a chair and ottoman were uncovered, so I could make a bed for the night in the living room. It was filled halfway to the ceiling at times with boxes she was going through. As an artist, I kept encouraging her to make art with me. She kept dreaming of art projects she wanted to finish. In all the years I knew her, we spent only two hours painting together.
Cancer for Molly was a blessing. I know, how can this be? Blessings are love in action. It brought her daughter back into her life. Molly became full of courage, of heart, to contact her and bring the news and reach out.. to love again. Time was short now. In the seven years that followed two grandchildren were born. First a daughter, next to a son. As the daughter turned five she was identical to Molly at the same age. Molly's life was fulfilled as it should be. Seeing herself live on in the image of a beautiful granddaughter.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Mathew 5:4
My last visit with her was in the home caring for her in her last days. I was in turmoil over the failure on my part to have a residence for her to come to in these last two weeks. This had been our plan. I had recently lost a house that was suitable and moved to a small apartment in another town. As a trained hospice caregiver I wanted to "walk her home". When I arrived after a four-hour drive, she was conscious but not aware it was me in the room. I was broken-hearted by the lack of care she was receiving. The room was cold, windows open, Furniture pushed up to her bed so she would not fall out. I could only reach her feet and sit in the doorway I prayed for us both to be at peace and asked that Jesus take her hand and walk her home for me. Then the only way I can explain or express it is a feeling of peace and then LOVE filled the room. The next thing that happened was my photo, Molly kept on the window sill flew across the room towards her bed. There was only what Molly and I were to each other. A blessing.
