living a small, slow life in a small, slow town and loving every minute of it...please join my journal about aging, overcoming c-PTSD, living with chronic illness, and being creative in spite of it all.
With the recent drop in temps, I asked my son if he is working outside this week. “Outside what? My comfort zone?” “Comfort zone? What’s a comfort zone?” I replied. When was the last time you felt comfortable? I don’t mean in your clothes or bed, of course…I mean with your life. To quote one of my favorite artists, life is so life-y right now. We are reminded not to let our guard down daily, at least in these here United States. We know we are teetering on the precipice of hell; too many are already living in it daily. Don’t look down.
My personal hell revolves around my personal grief right now. I must do the last few chores to prepare the house and yard for winter. Everything was put on hold when the cat became ill. The deck still has its’ outdoor rugs and umbrella. The outdoor iron furniture scoots around in the wind like plastic toys. As the leaves fall the wind becomes a screaming locomotive on top of this sand dune. Bring it on. I’m so angry. I just want to scream back.
For over a decade now I have harped on about how it will ultimately be the artists who save us. They warn us, then they fight for us, then they lead us through our redemption. That’s their job. That and creating beauty from nothing. In case you thought they had a comfort zone, think again.
Unknowingly, but not coincidentally, Florence Welsh wrote me a song. She is the voice of our times. Comfort zone this.
“Here I don’t have to be quiet. Here I don’t have to be kind, extraordinary and normal all at the same time.” – Florence Welsh
Please bear with me; I can’t talk right now. I’m silenced by grief. But I can listen to the mystic Carolyn Myss, because she speaks truth. Truth to power: meaning, to you and me. I’ve had some extraordinary awarenesses come to me as I sit vigil with my dying cat. I cannot articulate them yet.
I cannot yet explain what a powerful influence this little being has bought to my life. It would not make sense to you. None of this makes sense. But my animal body knows the truth of it. I know what I know. I know the enormous, unlimited love he has served my life with, the truth he carried here to bless me with. The healing he facilitated daily. When he could not protect me he called a black bear to patrol in his stead. We have lost his body and by no means his spirit.
What I can share at this time is the truth school of Carolyn Myss. Carolyn Myss is The Hanged Man. The Hanged Man archetype is the embodiment of God knowledge, to the degree that the human body can tolerate it’s force without dis-integrating. Think Dr. Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact – she did not disintegrate traveling through space and time. She returned changed, with knowledge that would serve all of mankind. No one believes her. She must find a way to communicate her knowing. Carolyn Myss is that person – she found a way to get the information across to us “mere mortals.” I don’t where I would be without her, or without the feline revolutionary I knew as Chewy.
Today, because there isn’t much else I can do, I am going to keep listening to this on a loop, praying to God that I just might grok some of it. That maybe, just maybe, I can become better at distinguishing between the lies of tribal conditioning and the Truth of God, of Life. Join me, and just for today, let your credibility be stretched beyond belief. Be honest about what you know, even if you sound crazy to most. Because you can no longer deny truth. Your body recognizes it. And turning honest limits your choices.
Bitch, please…I grew up in Detroit. For those of you who are not familiar, or accept the cultural collective’s jokes and voodoo euphemisms of Detroit, you’re missing out. Detroit is the heart and soul of America. It is fu@king awesome. Go. Stay in the New Center area and spend a couple days at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Drive around and take in some of the most spectacular historical architecture in the United States. You won’t see it all in that time, but enough to enjoy yourself enormously and appreciate it’s beauty and world-class culture.
Then take yourself “up north.” This is where I have lived the past 40 years. Let me tell you a bit about how I came here, and why I stay.
My father grew up on a farm outside of Traverse City, where my Irish ancestors had immigrated and settled during the potato famine. About to enter high school, his father moved the family to Detroit during the automobile boom. And so I grew up in the suburbs of Detroit and often visited my great-grandparents and aunts and uncles on Long Lake, west of Traverse City, in the summer months. By the time I was in my early twenties I would spend as much time as possible here, staying with my great Aunt Edith, my grandfather’s sister, in the old farmhouse out on Cedar Run Road. My young son had baths in the big iron sink after I pumped water from the well and heated it – on the stove I’d built a fire in. I would put on one of my great grandmother’s old house dresses, crank up the Victrola, and dance around the living room…romantically imagining I lived in a simpler time…way back when. Until Aunt Edith became impatient with my immature fantasies and reminded me that we had no trash pick up or mail delivery – and I needed to get my arse in gear. Those errands were not going to do themselves.
I have about a million and thirty stories I could tell that depend on the geography of both places, and all around the Great Lakes. There is nowhere else like Michigan on earth. And while it is great, not all of my childhood was great. I came from a big dysfunctional family that often settled differences with fist fights and spent years stubbornly not speaking to one another, depending on the current offensive issue. This blog is full of many – by no means all, of those stories, from day one, back in 2012. That was when I began to write as though my life depended on it, not knowing how true that was.
The move from Detroit to Traverse City was purposefully to get my child away from my family, and their drug and alcohol-induced violence. To be safe. To start over. It was the naive plan of a young woman suffering from PTSD, not yet aware of her ADHD, her mental and emotional limitations. It didn’t work. Not only did I not escape my own demons, but my family members were inspired by my new life and followed me. Over the course of the next few years they all moved north, too.
We live here now. Now I actually live about 50 miles west of Traverse, near the shore of Lake Michigan. My son grew up here. We have both traveled some; enough to know this is home. But home has come to mean an internal space for me as I age. It’s funny, the name of this blog…a painterly home. I thought it would be about interior design. Little did I know it would be about interior design – as in, my spiritual interior. There are so many more stories to unpack and share. I’m grateful beyond words for this journal and your readership. It continues to save my life on a weekly basis.
Today I am grieving as my sweet familiar, Chewy, is dying. I’m not ready to lose him. Many of you know that I had two elderly dogs I cherished when Chewbacca the cat came to live with us. I was asked if I could please help out a friend and foster him for a couple of months about 8 years ago. What a blessing he has been. He fit right in with the dogs, becoming immediately inseparable from my little beagle, Odie. I’ve written other posts about them, of course (see Sept. 9, 2025, Chew de Monk). I never would have chosen these silly names for these magnificent beings. But they were already displaced and going through enough adjustment to impose any others unnecessarily. For starters, Chewy became known as a catdog. He did not know that he wasn’t a dog. Since we lost Odie in 2020, Chewy has seldom left my side. Like the dogs, he feels it is his duty to be constantly underfoot. He follows me from room to room. He insists on touching while we sleep, just as he did with Odie; he extends one of his back legs and pushes it against my thigh. I will aver that he understands English perfectly. All of it. Only an hour or so ago I mentioned out loud that I would give him a bit more liquid and medicine in the syringe again, hoping he can rally. He begrudgingly pulled himself up and walked the few steps to his water fountain and took the first drink he has had in two or three days.
Yesterday doesn’t count. We spent the day at the emergency clinic while he got IV liquids, a warm enema, pain and diabetes meds, in an attempt to save him. We came home last night exhausted. He has barely moved and still isn’t eating. I haven’t given up. I keep telling him that I won’t ever give up on him, and that if he can pull through this I will do everything in my power to improve the quality of his life. I’ve promised new toys. I also told him that if he is too tired he is free to go. I will miss him every day for the rest of my life, and I will remember daily all the joy he brought. Rejoice at the thought of he and Odie together again. Still in a magnificently beautiful place, with all the loves that I don’t know how to live without.
“I’m restless. Things are calling me away. My hair is being pulled by the stars again.” – Anais Nin
If you would please be patient, I’ve been a bit manic this week. Got a bee buzzin’ in my bonnet. Change is afoot, and I’m not sure what it’s about yet…it’s a feeling, a sense. When I’m not busy painting the house and all the furniture in it, I’ve been reading and working through the exercises in The Prism, just out from Laura Day. It is changing me; it couldn’t not. And my world is beginning to shift like a glitch in the matrix. Reality is a little wobbly. I have had these experiences every so often throughout my life – enough to trust that I’m in exactly the right place at the right time. I’m safe, protected. Spirit has got my attention.
Awake in the early morning hours as usual, I was sitting up in bed reading just before dawn. A strange woman walked right through my dimly lit kitchen, clearly visible through my bedroom door. I looked straight at her, knowing she wasn’t “real,” or at least solid (I’d have heard her come in.) I must have startled her. She saw me, stopped, and backed up. Like, “oops, she can see me…” I laughed out loud. I have no idea who she was or why she was there. Just passin’ through, I guess. She certainly got my attention.
At the moment I’m not so solid either. My body feels a bit like it’s being pulled in two directions at once. You know the feeling…vertigo comes and goes, you don’t sleep soundly. Heavy foods don’t appeal, but you need some extra protein. So pay attention to self care, be mindful of your diet; keep it clean. No sugar. And do activities that are grounding. Health is a priority right now.
The weird phenomena I’m noticing may be the position of the planets, the effect of 3I/ATLAS, or something in bloom in my garden. I don’t need to understand it. I need to use it to redirect my life, which is obviously going through an adjustment. Don’t resist the adjustment, rather make it a healing. Pay attention – pay attention to intuition. Laura Day is right about it; it is a superpower.
Have you also noticed how differently the wild animals are behaving lately? They are trying to communicate with us. They’re asking for help. They’re also offering. The birds and squirrels are leaving me gifts outside this fall. And trying to get in. Are they offering rent?! One squirrel keeps trying to leap in the window, bouncing off the screen. I’m tempted to rent her a room. Perhaps she came to tell me that Jane Goodall has passed away. A crow came and perched two feet outside my window, looked straight in at me, and talked right at me moments after my friend and neighbor Hal died. I knew exactly what it was saying. He was their friend, too. They know when something has shifted in our world.
And I keep waking with song worms playing in my head. They’re often songs I have not heard in half a century. I’d completely forgotten them. I suddenly smell cigarettes; I’ve never smoked. I hear faint crying when no one is around. A breeze gently rustles the trees outside and my grandmother’s plate falls off the wall at that same instant. I can’t explain any of this; again, I don’t really care to. I do trust it. Let’s just summarize by saying the veil is thin. I’m not quite sure what that means either.
I’m going to look at a house for sale today. I’m in no position to move. But I noticed the little house last week AFTER having dreamt about it. No idea what that is about. But I do know enough about intuition and how it works to ACT ON IT when you get it, because you never know where it will lead.
My dear Mother used to play the guitar and sing. This was one of her favorite songs; it woke me this morning. What is she trying to tell me? What is this song about? Well, it’s time for a change. It’s about equity. Remember equity? Justice? Compassion? These are all values my Mother taught me. They are certainly being pressed into use these days. At any rate, she’s singing to me. She’s reminding me that I have a hammer, I have a bell, and I have a song to sing. I DO clearly know what that means. It means I am a powerful, creative being. I have agency. Everything I think and everything I do effects my life and the world around me.
Remember, you heard it here first: Ultimately, it will be the artists who save us. It always has been. It always will be.
Oh my goodness, it is the perfect fall morning. The sun is just beginning to dissipate the fog and whiffs of smoke-like dew slide across the valley to my east. Everything glistens. I love this time of year. I’ve taken a little break from writing because I’ve had a friend visiting from out of town. She usually spends much of the summer here, just a mile down the road from me, in her little cottage on the lake. But this year she has not been able to come all summer. Because life has been hard. We are at a certain age. We lose our parents and their siblings, the aunts and uncles of our childhood. We lose siblings. We lose friends. We have health challenges.
I myself am going through another health challenge – physical and mental. As part of a routine check-up my doctor noticed I was a little out of breath. Well, I flunked the pulmonary function test she ordered. Now I will go through pulmonary rehab, which is a good thing. I will gladly work for any improvement in lung capacity I can get.
Louise Hay, who wrote You Can Heal Your Body decades ago and provided a list of all the emotional causes behind common physical symptoms, tells me that lung issues are grief. Yeah yeah yeah…I’ve had asthma and lung problems much of my life, almost as long as I’ve lived with my invisible friend Grief.
And for a combination of reasons, I am conscious of the grief I am feeling now, again. It isn’t new; we’re familiar. We know how to be sad. In fact, I welcome sadness these days. It seems an appropriate response to much of what is going on around and within me. And it means that I am feeling (and not repressing) the truth I am acutely aware of. I don’t want to live with any denial if I can help it; that leads to depression. And depression is harder to manage in winter. The light of summer is fading fast. Hello darkness, my old friend…
…I’ve come to talk with you again. I told my friend that I look forward to winter, and I do, increasingly as I age. I love the quiet. The complete and enveloping quiet you can only know in the middle of a dark, snowy afternoon. With my friend I have talked and cried and laughed and cried some more this week. We have covered a lot of ground. She will leave in a few days. Hopefully life will be a bit kinder to her and we can meet again next summer. It triggers a lot of fear – will life be kinder again? Is that realistic as we get older?
The summer residents and tourists crowd my area – the trails, the beaches, the roads, from May through October. They come from all around the world. We will wait in line at every restaurant and at the post office, the library and the gas station. Life is less convenient six months of the year, but I won’t complain. They’re the reason we have our choice of good restaurants in a rural village. Strangers often share a table in a restaurant during the crowded months, and that is how I met my friend. She and her daughter, visiting from their home in Kansas, were waiting in line in a tiny restaurant.
I was out for breakfast that morning with a family member, and invited the two women to sit with us. We briefly introduced ourselves and slightly scooted away, not wanting to be intrusive. But these friendly people started a conversation. They had flown in the night before and come to the little obscure restaurant for coffee and warmth, as they hadn’t time to grocery shop yet and were quite cold. I asked them if they needed anything (blankets? hats and gloves?) and my new acquaintance, obviously around my age, answered, “just emotional support.” Instant new best friend! Upon leaving I handed her a piece of scrap paper with my phone number, address, and an invitation to lunch at my home the next day, quipping, “and here’s hoping none of us are ax murderers!” Her daughter shot back, “we’re about to find out.” Invitation accepted.
This morning she and I went back to that little restaurant. Meandering across the narrows we saw a pair of great blue herons wading. Two sandhill cranes flew overhead and called out to let us know…to let us know…we are here…we are alive. We see you. I sent them silent prayers for a safe journey . After breakfast we went to a gorgeous show of local art and photographs at Oliver Art Center. I needed that little shot of inspiration to remind me to make some art. Lack of creativity is surely part of why I’m sad….maybe a big part. Could my lack of inspire-ation have something to do with pulmonary stress? Breathe out…breathe in…
“Some people don’t get to live soft lives. We get handed chaos, grief, betrayal, and we have to learn how to bloom anyway. We become the ones who know how to carry others when their world falls apart because we remember what it was like when no one showed up for us. We’re not here because it was easy. We’re here because we didn’t give up.” – unknown
Do you have enough? That is a different computation for each individual; surely we know this much. I am struggling financially in the later years of my life, now moreso than ever. My friends are concerned and petition me to sell my house, invest that equity for some security in the event, or inevitability, of illness. Of the need for long term care. And no, I am not showing signs of dementia – not yet, anyway! My recent doctor’s exam revealed that I am much stronger than most women my age. I’ll take it. I’ve slowed down, and once you do that it’s difficult to get back to your previous pace. I’ve come to terms with that, as I have with my financial limitations.
In a recent post I talked about denial, but I don’t believe that is this. I think, I meditate, I read and study upon my circumstances; I cannot muster a sense of poverty. The bank account, the numbers, say I’m poor by whatever standards economists measure. I don’t feel poor. In fact, quite the opposite. I feel abundant, blessed, overwhelmingly grateful. My body does not seem to harbor any fear. At least not at this time. That could change, certainly…let’s not plan for it. Let’s not project fear, or False Evidence Appearing Real. Let’s not make shit up.
Just this week I heard Elizabeth Gilbert quote an acronym I’m adopting as my new motto: PAUSE: Perhaps An Unseen Solution Exists. Or as the Mad Hatter (or was it Alice?) would advise: always leave room for magic. Carolyn Myss, one of the most respected Christian mystics of our time, would say: always leave room for God. This attitude toward life has been serving me well thus far for over 70 years now. Maybe there is something to it.
Would I like more? You betcha I would. More money to live on and share, more security, less stress. More room to paint and more paints. More flowers in the yard….”more.” “Of what, Eeyore?” asked Pooh. “Everything…” But do I have enough? I do, indeed.
Am I willing to give up my peace of mind and embrace fear? Nah. It’s not my style. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, this morning I found this to share with you. A beautiful artist and writer walks us through her home, built for “every open soul that finds it’s way here.” This 12 minute video has so motivated me. I’m up on the step ladder, singing to the music playing, painting my living room and rearranging all the furniture this weekend, while soup simmers on the stove. It is making me so darn happy. My home, my sanctuary, my altar, my endless source of beauty and inspiration.
May our open souls always find their way, regardless of our circumstances. May we always know we are loved. And may we always know we have enough. Thank you for being here.
Chewy, aka Catlips, woke me with a loud howl at 4am, as he often does these days. And seemingly for no apparent reason. But once I had visited the loo and made sure the cat was alright, I sat to drink some water. You know that’s a medical thing, right? Always drink water when you wake. Neurologists tell us that trick would prevent many strokes, which occur most of the time during the night and upon waking, and are directly linked to dehydration. So, water upon waking is an easy habit to adopt.
Waking in the middle of the night is my normal anyway, and that’s not a new phenomena; it’s been lifelong. Probably a genetic thing from centuries of ancestors who would naturally have had the biphasic sleep patterns of farmers. Sleeping eight consecutive hours was unthinkable before the industrial revolution, when the factory shift workers needed to train their bodies to work under artificial lighting. It’s a conditioned pattern that served the wealthy white industrial magnates, and there is nothing natural about it. It was designed to keep you enslaved, and it works efficiently.
That established, when I wake I am not necessarily anxious to get back to sleep – now that I don’t work early in the morning. Nor do I make early plans or appointments if I can help it. I usually fall back to sleep and wake – still early, but again, shortly after daylight. Last night as I did some breathing exercises and then picked up the novel I was reading, I felt an ominous presence lurking around my bedroom door. I asked it to leave (in my mind), and felt confusion. So I did some healing rituals, such as lighting a sage candle, and snapping my fingers rhythmically while chanting. I stated adamantly that “if you are not of the light of Christ, be gone.” Learned that in childhood, too, and it works. The energy dissipated and I relaxed. So did the cat.
The cat and I have been together nigh on 7 or 8 years now. He did not come to me as a kitten, but already several years old. He’d been born of a feral cat a friend took in. He was stillborn and she peeled him from the sack, gave him CPR and mouth to mouth and revived him. According to his original vet he incurred some brain damage, a twisted colon and breathing difficulties. I had two elderly dogs when I agreed to foster him temporarily from his second owner, and the rest, as they say…
So he came already sporting the name Chewbacca, presumably because he didn’t meow so much as stutter. I certainly was not going to change his name. He had already been displaced twice. That, in and of itself, is enough trauma for any small creature, I think. I also think the name Chewy does not suit him at all, but names are assigned before we know someone well in the best of circumstances. So no blame, just observation. My darling Chewy is a regal character. And to my mind, angelic. He deserves a sophisticated nomer. His nickname is Catlips when he is being silly, and Chew de Monk when he is being zen.
Upon introducing him to my dogs, I explained to them that he was a) a guest who temporarily needed our kind assistance, and b) to be respected as such. Both of my dogs were rescue dogs, both sweet natured and well behaved. Hariat had come from a Pembroke Welsh Corgi rescue organization. All we knew of her was that she was 5 years old, certified purebred by the AKA, that she had been a working dog on a farm, and that her owner had entered hospice. She came with the name Ariat, named after a line of equestrian gear. At the time we got her my husband and elderly father were struggling to understand or pronounce her name. They were utterly confounded. I asked her how she would feel if I added an H to her name, and henceforth she became Hariat. Hariat was one of the dear canine loves of my life. She immediately had bonded with my older corgi, Oliver, as if they’d always been friends.
After losing Oliver only a few years later, we grieved together for about a year. And then Odie came into our lives. Also not a suitable name for such an extraordinary dog, but we kept it. Odie was an old miniature beagle at the county animal shelter who needed medical care and love. We went to meet him. Hariat nodded her approval. They were fast friends, though not like she and Oliver. Grief had changed her. When Hariat and Odie and I accepted Chewy into our home I wasn’t sure what to expect. For starters, I did not know if either of my dogs had ever known or lived with a cat. Fortunately, Chewy did not know he was a cat. He fit right in as if he’d always been here. He and Odie had some kind of instant bond and were inseparable from day one. Seems obvious they spoke a common language I am not smart enough to understand.
We lost Hariat and Odie about seven months apart during the pandemic. Hariat had brain lesions that were causing frequent seizures. Odie stopped eating one day and the x-rays showed his colon full of cancer. They were each about 15 years old, to the best of my knowledge. I was devastated. So was Chewy. To this day Chewy sleeps on Odie’s blanket, sits on his bed steps, and drinks from the large water bowl they used to put their faces in together. Whenever I take the bowl to the sink for washing and refreshing Chewy follows, anxious, and makes certain I put it right back where it came from. He doesn’t do that with his other bowl or his fountain.
I won’t be adopting another animal any time soon for a number of reasons. But mostly it’s because Chewy is an old man now and deserves devotion and showered attention. He gives far more than he gets. Only since we have been here alone has it become apparent that he watches over me at night. Once in awhile a wayward spirit wanders in and he howls to alert me.
Animals are so much more than we have ever given them credit for in our lives, let alone our culture. My goodness they are intelligent, sentient and worthy of the best care we can possibly provide. What a magnificent blessing they gift us with in so many ways.
Sound asleep, my sister would rock back and forth on her hands and knees and bang her forehead against the wall. It would wake me, and I would get up and go into her room and softly coax her back to laying down, tuck her in again, and go back to bed. My brother would regularly sleep walk while talking out loud. He would pace through the entire second floor where all of us five kids slept. It would wake me, and I would get up and gently walk him back to his bed and tuck him in. I was scared he would fall down the long staircase some night without my hearing him, but fortunately that never happened.
My parents bedroom was on the first floor at the opposite end of the house. They were either at a party, the bar, or passed out drunk. They never heard a thing. None of my four siblings ever remembered any of these instances that so terrified me. Did they think I made it up?
My brother died two years ago of an apparent heart attack in his sleep, at the age of 62. He had overcome alcoholism, drug addiction, and quit smoking – all cold turkey with no support. He was a remarkable person, but he was never able to quit a gambling addiction. And so he lived in abject poverty, working right up to his death and living in a rented room in the home of a coworker.
My sister knows for certain that his heart attack was caused by the Covid vaccine. She blames those good-for-nothing evil Democrats. Thank god we have RFK now to save us all, and a president who knows what is truly going on here – the spiritual war we are fighting for the redemption of mankind’s soul. In case you don’t know me, yes – I am being irreverently facetious. Also believe me when I say I really don’t get it.
I have three siblings still living. We barely keep in touch; we’re about down to reporting the obituaries of our mutual friends and relatives. We exchange emojis on holidays…you know, Happy 4th of July and all. As if we didn’t share the first 20 years of our daily lives. Suffice it to say we have nothing in common. Oh, we all five grew up in the same house. We all five had the same two parents. We went to the same schools, had many of the same teachers. We shared every holiday, the same music, all the vacations, the same four grandparents, we ate the same food. But we had very different childhoods. How does this happen?
Seriously, can someone please explain this to me?! Gabor Mate can theorize about it and I understand what he is saying, but my own experience just doesn’t jive. Hard as I try, I cannot reconcile our continued disparate realities.
I miss my family. I still miss us. I have no one to share the stories and the memories with. Meanwhile, my cells don’t seem to run dry of the endless tears. I’m old enough now to know they will come forever. And just wise enough to welcome them. Some days my grief will not be consoled, and still I am nothing but grateful for it all.
From their point of view, this separation in our worlds is entirely down to me. I’m the different one; the one who questions everything. The one who needs answers when obviously, there is no problem except my mental illness. This is on me; they do not suffer these imaginary indulgences. They figured it out long ago. They found Jesus. They are healed. How I envy them their conviction.
On the rare occasion when we do talk, I am guarded. If I slip and say the wrong thing I will be corrected, maybe even ghosted for a time. I am too much for them. Given time to reflect on the error of my ways, I realize I am wrong. To them. They love me, but they do not like me. They have no desire to connect, to understand me, to know me. And I have finally given up the need to be understood and accepted by them; I’m sure they’d say the same. That only took way too long.
Of us five children I am the eldest by 3 years. The four of them were born in close succession, four within six years. I was the first child, the first grandchild on both sides, and for over 3 years I enjoyed being the center of their attention and the apple of their eye. My siblings, like my father before them, will tell you that is why I am a narcissist.
Not in any effort to defend myself here (it’s my platform, after all…) I would aver that I prefer an evidence based model of reality. Or as I say to them, I choose my crazy. I value science and therefore neuroscience and psychology; I see no discrepancy between science and religion. My God is a quantum physicist and still, miraculously, maintains a sense of humor. My siblings refer to this rebellious misguidance as my “Jesus is just alright with me” spirituality, referring to the days when we all enjoyed a good spliff and some Doobie Brothers on Dad’s dime.
Here’s the thing, I guess…the evidence says to me that they live in vapid denial. There is no worse thief on the earth plane than denial. It has stolen our lives. It has taken everything from us. Everything except my hard-earned sanity.
Of the 7 of us in my family of origin, I am the only one who has not suffered the ravages of chemical addiction. Since my early 20’s I have not drank or smoked or used drugs. I tried them. You were a square and no fun and a snob in my family if you wouldn’t partake. I’d resist, hence my nickname, Little Goody Two Shoes. I remember a Sunday night during high school when my father ordered me to do a line and fill in at the Euchre table as they were down a player. I protested, explaining that I had a History final the next day, and he gave me his I’ll-knock-you-into-next-week look. “You can make it up!” Yes, sir.
Pardon me if I call that evidence. There are more stories like that than I will ever have time to tell. None of them were living their best life, but not for me to say. They all six struggled with homelessness, depression, addiction, all of their lives. A couple of them were grifters, committing fraud, and somehow narrowly dodging the law. I was called to provide bail and an alibi more than once. I learned to hide my valuable possessions. I wish I’d learned sooner to hide my heart.
The other side of this insane equation is that I also got so so so much from them. Each and every one of them were extraordinary people. They all were born with high IQ’s, enormous creative talent. Funny! Wow, I wish I had the quick wit of my mom, my brother, and my son. How does anyone think that fast?! They’d have gotten on well with Robin Williams! Had they been any less intelligent and charming they might have ended up in prison, but in fact they all had so much going for them. Yet they lived in poverty and pain. Denial does that, theirs or yours. Makes you a refugee in your own life.
My physician asked me to take the A.C.E. test a few years ago. You can take it here and compile your own evidence. I scored an 8.
First journal? Scrapbook? We were kids when we started, eh? With a diary in grade school. So, for me that was the 1950’s. Although I was drawing as soon as I could hold a pencil (per my mother), magazine tear sheets wouldn’t come into being until I was in high school in the 60’s. But once I discovered magazines a whole new world opened up, quite literally. The world became a much smaller place once it was delivered to the mailbox.
It began with Seventeen. Barbie grew up and dressed in Betsy Johnson. But it wasn’t long before art and shelter magazines like Metamorphosis and Architectural Digest and Rolling Stone broadened my horizons. And then The Sun.
Suddenly my life was too small. I couldn’t wait to leave the boring suburbs for real life in the city. Little did I know…I wouldn’t get too far too fast, probably a good thing. Family kept me close and I set aside the acceptance letters to RISD and Parsons and New York School of Design for Wayne State and Center for Creative Studies, known then as Arts and Crafts. It was across the street from the fabulous and inspiring DIA, to this day one of the best art museums in the country. It was my familiar stomping ground as I would often skip high school (I still got A’s & B’s) to spend the day roaming the galleries, dreaming and sketching. Other days you’d find me on the 13th floor of the J.L. Hudson Company, moving from vignette to vignette in the furniture and design department, imagining what I would do with that room.
It had never occurred to me that I would be anything but an artist or a writer. It wasn’t what I did; it was who I was. Fast forward five+ decades and I look back, longingly some days. At the life I sidestepped somehow, too young married and mothering and clambering for survival. The demons were lurking in the shadows, fighting amongst themselves for attention. They were not to be ignored. In retrospect, I wouldn’t trade any of it – but that realization happened just the other day. It’s a process, like me. I’ll have to keep you posted as to when I solidify.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch (has that euphemism become old?!) some things have not changed much. I’m still obsessed with art and music and design. As I said, it is who I am. I was born this way. That’s why I keep insisting that you cannot miss your purpose. You don’t need to search for it; God hardwired it in. You can miss the option of different vocations – but your purpose is not a job. It’s who you are. It’s your calling. And spirit – your spirit – will nudge you toward happiness and fulfillment ceaselessly. Every day every day every day. You will realize yourself one way or another, sooner or later. And you will relax into being. You are whole. And holy. Right here, right now. Try to enjoy yourself already.
Okay, I admit, I am easily entertained. Although I’ve become increasingly pickier with age. Want my money, my time, my attention? That bar is high these days; it will remain so. My standards have been raised. Some people have the gall to tell me that my standards are too high. Others might say they had nowhere to go but up. However, I don’t much care what some might say anymore…
My criteria for acceptable entertainment (as well as information) has been refined, taste aside. I expect high quality in everything I take in, whether that be news, movies, television, music…or our relationship. And by quality, I mean on every level. My senses are going to be bombarded with the culture of sensationalism every day, so bring it. If I am going to watch, I want high quality cinematography. Listening? Crisp high quality sound while I’m weeding out the crap. No more perfumey candles to smell or scratchy fabrics against my skin. I’ve had to improve the quality of the food I eat if I want to be healthy – and isn’t that work these days?! Read the labels, research – and then pay more to have them leave the chemicals and the seed oils out. Even my cat deserves nothing less than the best quality food I can possibly afford.
Now in my 70’s, I’ve survived more than most people can imagine. A lifetime of narcissistic abuse and neglect, sexual abuse, physical abuse, financial abuse. I have walked through hell. I’ve watched – and felt – almost every person I’ve ever loved suffer through cancer and addiction. Now I watch my beloved child struggle from decades of absent adults, never present enough to protect him from the same ravages. My gorgeous, brilliant nieces and nephews – and their children now; living out the 4th generation of trauma. To say I have paid my dues is an understatement. The only thing I’m sorry for are all the years I wasted making compromises. Repeat after me: “All my debts are paid, seen and unseen.” And be absolutely certain of it.
Now – just now!, am I really getting to the good stuff of life. Droppin’ off the shame. I’m not made for that. Neither are you. So, no more apologies. No more begging to belong. We are everything we are meant to be.
“Be kind to me, or treat me mean. I’ll make the most of it; I’m an extraordinary machine.” – Fiona Apple
A Painterly Home 