A friend was visiting and we sat, facing each other, on Mom’s Cosmic Healing Sofa to chat and draw cards. Her feet were extended, so I began to massage them out of old habit…she noticed that I had painted my toenails – a color she called “baby poop brown.” “What’s up with that color?,” wrinkling her nose at me. So I insisted she remove her socks and reveal her toes. Bright turquoise blue with glitter! Okay, I concede. Way better.
It reminded me of this house. Because I like everything about this house except the baby poop brown walls of the hallway and snug. Who thought that was a good idea?! Yes, it’s earthy. Literally – the color of dirt. But it’s dark and dingy and depressing. But then, it is also the background of the Josef Frank fabric on the headboard, so…I guess I’ll have to consider it…hmmmm. Nope.
Don’t get me wrong, I love dark walls. But not brown. Or blue. Black, green, aubergine, yes. Even grey sometimes, like in Mouse cottage, one of my long time favorites (shown below). But as background to balance strong color in fabric and artwork. Give me black walls smothered in greenery and accents of orange any day of the week. These two homes are examples for me of magical spaces. Who doesn’t want to live and work in magical space?!
While I wait impatiently for the results of Tuesday’s CT scan, I am exploring beauty and whimsical delight. I am, thankfully, feeling much better today. Maybe I just needed a good radioactive clean-out! Or a day of fasting. I used to fast one day a week (water, broth, juice) and I think I shall begin again. Give my guts the rest they so nobly deserve. After all, they have been serving me well for over 7 decades. I’d like them to last a few more.
“Well, well, well…if it isn’t the consequences of mah own actions.” – Beverly Leslie, Will and Grace
In keeping with the “it’s always something” theme, the latest ultrasound shows that I have severe pancreatitis. There will be more tests now before a definitive diagnosis and treatment are discussed. The doctor’s office says I’ll have to stop drinking! That’s easy; I haven’t had an alcoholic drink now in several years. That would have been a glass of wine with dinner in a restaurant, and maybe once or twice a year – if that. The last time I was drunk was at a New Year’s Eve party the year I was 21. Over fifty years ago. And only because my husband and “friends” kept secretly spiking my Coke, because, well, that would be fun, eh?!
Anyone close to me will tell you that I have an aversion to alcohol. I think it’s evil. No, that’s not true. I know it is. I’ve certainly seen it play out that way among my family and friends. From a physiological perspective, I know it causes horrible consequences in the body – never mind wreaking havoc on the mind and the spirit. It burns holes in your astral body like flame to cellophane. It’s effects are far more harmful and long lasting than any study in our culture will ever admit; that industry is too big to fail.
It has ruined the physical and mental health of almost every single person I have ever loved. And that’s a lot of persons. Either directly or indirectly, it has cost me dearly. Never having been a drinker, I have been dealing with the effects of other people’s alcoholism since around the age of ten. That’s the earliest I can remember being the adult in my household.
My parents out to dinner, my four younger siblings in bed, I would set up the coffee percolator ready to go, make a plate of cheese and meats, cover it with Saran wrap and put it in the refrigerator before I went to bed. When the garage door opened around two-thirty a.m. I would immediately wake up, run down to the kitchen and plug in the percolator. I’d take the tray of snacks out of the refrigerator. I’d greet them as they stumbled into the house and begin triage, insisting they ate protein and drank coffee before tucking them into bed and loosening their clothes. I was my own kind of pusher.
I hated alcohol before I had graduated high school. I already hated what it was doing to everyone I loved. I desperately tried to save each of my younger siblings from it’s harm for decades. I’m still intervening. The addiction has now been passed down to the third generation, to my son and my niece and nephews. I’ve divorced two abusive alcoholic husbands, but not for lack of trying everything in my power to save those marriages. I’ve lost several friends to the disease, some to death and some to severe injury and jail. It has broken my heart over and over and over again all of my life. There isn’t a day I don’t feel loss and grief because of alcohol. The people I know who don’t drink are few and far between. There is no good that is ever going to come from a drinking habit.
Suffice it to say that my inflamed pancreas is not caused by alcohol. I’ve adjusted my diet for years without knowing exactly what I was dealing with. I’ve quit eating sweets or anything rich or spicy. There isn’t much I digest well anymore. As of today my diet will become even blander. Am I a lot of fun, or what?!
No, my illness is caused by anger and grief. No two ways about it. I may never understand the direct link between the pancreas and it’s psychic or emotional counterparts. In You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, she says pancreatitis is manifest rejection. Anger and frustration because life seems to have lost it’s sweetness. Well…that would certainly make sense. I’ve craved sweets all my life, trying to fill that void.
It is no coincidence this symptom flared up now. I have talked about just finishing a 6 week in-depth conversation with a group of extraordinary women, the Wayfinding Road. I’m learning to love myself – in fact, I’ve never understood what that meant. I’m discovering it now. And so what is not love must surface to be seen, and felt, and released. That is how healing works. Yes, I will do anything and everything the doctors advise. And I will spend time each day in meditation. I will pay particulate attention to the sweetness of life. I will open my heart and I will soften. And soften. And soften.
And in case I haven’t said this yet today – thank you for being here. You are precious beyond measure.
“STOP letting your mental health be damaged by systems that were never designed to protect it!” – Sheila Hammond
If someone asks you if you’ve heard the latest news, and you think, “Dear God, please let it be aliens,” you are not broken. Sheila Hammond has made the YouTube channel I wish I’d thought of. She is funny, and she is tellin’ it like it is! She’s done offering her sanity to systems that profit off her exhaustion. Amen, sister. Amen.
You can care about the world and you can set boundaries. You can opt out of chaos without opting out of your values. You can disengage without being in denial. You can scream into the void…and log off for a nap. Personally, I am done with risking participation in anything likely to jerk me around emotionally. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
In recent posts I have written about losing friends and family members because I won’t attend the protest march (what you resist persists) or join the group or contribute to the cause or watch the news. Don’t get me wrong, I respect them immeasurably. Their heart is in the right place. If I feel compelled to do so, I do know how. As far as I know I still have an FBI record from being arrested in the protests in Detroit during the 60’s and 70’s. Meanwhile that isn’t how I’m most effective. That does not mean I am sitting here doing nothing – but it is amazing the changes you can implement silently from your sofa once you get focused.
It’s scary at first to realize your personal power. However, you have to pull your spirit back into your body and listen. In order to overcome the addiction of culture you have learn to stop the performance art you called life for the past decades, otherwise you won’t know your authentic voice when it speaks. And it does. I hope you’ll join the me in the religion of NOPE. Because as Sheila says, sanity is trying to stage a comeback.
“I command my spirit into my body in full at this time.” – Carolyn Myss, Anatomy of the Spirit
“When I’m an old lady I want to be one of those women that has a house full of plants, weird rocks and crystals. That just looks after her animals, paints and minds her own business with her crazy hair.” – unk
Well I don’t know who said that, but I am that woman now! It’s the second week of July already. I’m getting around to spring cleaning. Better late than never I suppose. For starters, it’s been a little-shop-of-horrors-like around here for a couple of years now. I seem to have a green thumb (I am an old witch, after all.) I take home little forlorn plants from the grocery store clearance for $3. and two years later there is nowhere to sit in the same room. One small monstera I brought home (it had tipped over and lost half it’s dirt) is now eight feet wide and ten feet high. Seven years ago I bought a foot-high Norfolk Island Pine (indoor only in my climate) to use as a tiny Christmas tree and it’s almost hitting the ceiling now. My son helped me move the plants out to the back deck the other day. They aren’t coming back in. I need to find homes for them. Removing them has opened up every room and it feels so spacious in here I could dance. No really – I could actually dance in here.
This is a small house. Originally built as a summer cottage by a University of Michigan professor, the idiot I bought it from tore out most of it’s original features and knocked out walls to create an open floor plan. If you don’t know how I feel about that you might read some of my older posts. Suffice it to say that open floor plans are an abomination of the human spirit. They suck the dignity out of relationships by unnaturally forcing everyone in the household to share the same noises and smells. It feels like living inside a shoe box. Open floors plans are for worms…just sayin’…
But I live in an open floor plan, because, well, it was the right house in the right place. The plants apparently like this arrangement. They have taken over, spreading from the studio to the kitchen and the living area to the dining area. And down the stairs and across the ceiling. This ends now. I’m taking back my home! I love nature, and I will always have a few plants. But this has become ridiculous. I’m ducking and penguin-ing myself around them.
For my next trick, I’m deep cleaning all those creepy corners I haven’t been able to reach or crawl into. Getting all the spider webs and tumbleweeds of cat hair out. Eeeeewwwwww…and I have taken down the curtains and washed them. Everything has sticky dust. And I wonder why I’m so sick all the time?! Twelve loads of laundry later and the place is looking like new.
So here’s the thing. I’ve read a bazillion books on decluttering and feng shui-ing your space back into order. Psychology journals about how decluttering helps your mental health. And I’ve always done it throughout the years…in little increments. It has never felt like this. Maybe because I’ve been ill? It’s true that I’ve never let my home get this dirty and cluttered before. But something about this is coinciding with a huge shift in awareness.
A few months ago I participated in a Beta test group for a program designed to help older women traversing life changes. I’ve mentioned it here briefly, and I will provide a link for you at the bottom of this post. It’s called the Wayfinding Road. I don’t know what any of us were expecting, but this process with this group of remarkable women has been beyond helpful. The small group I was working with included a recent widow, a woman retiring and moving across the country, a woman whose husband was ill, one who had left the country and relocated to Europe, one who is a political refugee in exile. All manner of circumstances – one uncompromising commitment: a life of continued growth. We quickly realized we had much in common despite a wide variety of life experiences. Soon after the 6 week program began I started having dreams with these women in them. And my dreams were fantastic, adventurous and profoundly healing. I was wealthy beyond measure. Something supernatural was happening. We discovered we were all having experiences we could not explain. We started calling it “magic” for lack of a better explanation.
I have never met any one of these women in person. I have interacted with them only online and via email. If one of them called tomorrow and said “I need your help,” I’d be on a plane. They taught me how to love myself. I’m done with depression and shame and guilt. They taught me how to stop performing my life and begin to live it, deeply. They are well educated, articulate. Some of them speak more than one or two languages. They are all extraordinary. The 2nd time we met I confessed to feeling unworthy of their friendship – but I knew I had 2 choices: drop out or show up. I showed up and they lifted me higher.
I hear them talking to me in meditation, telling me precisely what action to take to heal myself. This morning’s meditation told me that my chronic pain and illness serves only to remind me that I took on the responsibility for my family, and that it is long past time to let them go. Not only can I not be responsible for them, but this addiction to saving them is not helping anyone. I gave it up today and got out of bed pain free.
My life has begun to change now in the last few months. Not in any way I had planned. It’s still going on; it’s a process. I don’t know what this means or where it will lead me. Watch this space. But wow…change is afoot.
Lynnelle Wilson is the creator of Wayfinding Road. Contact her through YouTube or Substack:
As it happened, my phone that is way smarter than me created a “video memory” all by itself, and sent it to me this morning. It was titled “Arizona and Illinois.” It was a short video account of the road trip I took this spring, a few short months ago. A good friend was moving back from Arizona to Michigan, and I had offered to “help.” In retrospect, I don’t think I was much help, but we did make the move. I flew out 2 days before the movers were scheduled. We finished the little bit of last minute packing. And when the movers pulled away we got into her car and left Tucson for Traverse City.
Two seventy-something single women driving across the country in a white SUV…what could possibly go wrong?! Haaaaa…actually, everything went quite well. We had to drive through the northern Arizona mountains in a blizzard…but other than that…She was driving when we hit the blizzard, so she drove us right through it. I’ve always said that if you can drive in Michigan winters you can drive in anything. Well, that, and learning to drive in Detroit in the 1960’s. Believe me – I can drive anything anywhere. But I digress…
A few things struck me about this phone-created photo montage. The first thing I noticed was my face looked weird. My face has been looking weird for awhile. Pinched is how I would describe it; almost a grimace. Puffy. Swollen and pinched – as if I were in pain. Because guess what?
You know, your body adjusts to pain. It does it’s very best to compensate and keep you upright. And you think you’re dealing with it when you aren’t. I don’t look like myself in those photos. I was in pain. I was also sick. I had motion sickness on the airplane on the way out to Tucson. That came on suddenly and completely shocked me. I’ve traveled all my life on boats and planes and I’ve never had motion sickness. I love flying.
Once on the ground I seemed fine, but I wasn’t really. I was just distracted; there was a job to be done. I am sure I was moving slow and I know I took a lot of breaks, hence my thought that I could not have really been much help. But we managed.
We had to push through the blizzard in the mountains and so decided to spend a couple of nights in Santa Fe and decompress, maybe get some rest. I love Santa Fe, but I seemed to have been adversely affected by the altitude on this visit. It was my birthday that weekend and I was being treated to dinner at Coyote Cafe. But I had to return to the hotel room immediately afterward and crash. Not only was I not much help, but now I was also not much fun. There is a possibility that I was actually a royal pain the butt. It’s been known to happen.
Fast forward almost 3 months and it hits me: I was going to use that trip as a jump start to my new-found health and creative life. Oops. I seem to have forgotten that. The slide show also reminded me of a piece of art I saw in Santa Fe that I intended to come home and use as inspiration for a painting of my own. What is Santa Fe for if not inspiration?! I forgot it altogether.
It would seem that I quickly forgot all the changes I wanted to make upon my return home. I slipped right back into my clunky old life, my poor health habits, and my outdated ways of thinking. But I know better. The old ways haven’t worked for a long, long time. And hence yesterday’s post about basic self care. Self care isn’t indulgent. Without it I have nothing to share; I can’t even show up as the friend I want to be.
For some odd reason, this July 4th holiday has been a wakeup call for me. It isn’t that I didn’t know that it’s the middle of the summer…and sorta the middle of the year…but this year it hit me hard: it’s half over! I’ve never made resolutions at the beginning of a year, but I did have some ideas of how I wanted to make changes in my life. I do have goals for myself, not the least of which is improved health.
My health has not improved. It had been a struggle. I wake most days in quite a bit of pain. Headache, nausea, stiffness and pain in my back and hips primarily. But it moves around. It seems to “settle” in the joints I slept on. I’ve been referred now to a rheumatologist. But there are things I can – and will – do to help myself naturally. Some of them are as simple as getting into a warm shower immediately upon waking. Well, after feeding the cat, of course. It actually helps a lot. But I had gotten out of this habit, drinking coffee and checking emails and watching YouTube videos instead. And putting off a shower until after I had done housework or yard work. And taken some Tylenol. Tylenol is not a good habit.
It isn’t working. Let me rephrase that: I am not working. My body is not cooperating with my plans and my commitment to said plans gets delayed…and delayed. My life is on hold until I feel better. Insert rolling eye emoji here…
Pain is a formidable opponent. So is depression. And they often hang out in the same circles. It’s time for some new companions. Like determination and curiosity…and hope. Where to start when you really just want to go back to bed? Start small. But start. Change a habit, maybe two. Return to the basics of self care. As much as I hate to admit it, I have to go right back to basic basics. I have no long term practice of self care. In fact, I’ve had to figure out what that buzzword even means. I was never taught.
So, I will get right up and into a warm shower every morning. Then I will make my bed. I will drink a glass of water before coffee. In fact, one big change is leaving out the cream and drinking my coffee black. It sucks all the joy out of life, but I can do it for a time. If I don’t put milk in my coffee, it is easy to give up dairy. That comes with some dietary changes, again small, but significant. I’ve pretty much given up sugar already and cut way back on carbs. I don’t buy bread anymore; I do eat some gluten-free pasta.
I’ve been writing intermittently. Waiting for inspiration to strike; it isn’t coming. I will go back to writing daily. Daily. Morning pages for starters. I know this works. WHY don’t I do what I know works??!!!! And then, we WALK. Julia Cameron stresses it constantly. Christ, she’s written books about it. Just fu*#ing WALK already! I had an ah-ha this morning as I headed out the back door – I feel guilty about going for a walk, as though it’s self-indulgent if I’m leaving behind housework and a messy yard. That’s where my energy should go. And there I go, shoulding on myself. There is NOTHING self-indulgent about going for a walk. It’s basic self care.
Well, it’s been Crisis Intervention 101 here again. S’always sumpin, innit? But we’re through it intact and life is calming down. And cooling down, finally. Although we are still at 98% humidity. Normal for Michigan this time of year. As we say here, we only have two seasons – winter and July. July just began a week early. The crowd of tourists are all back in town. So I avoid town. They do serve to remind me to get out and enjoy the beauty around me.
This is the draw, and I’m so close to the shore that I can see the tip-top of a 400′ sand bluff from the bottom of the driveway (above the trees). It’s about 1/4 mile to the lake as the crow flies, or a mile downhill to the beach. I love my views, downhill in 3 directions. I have one immediate neighbor to the north, but this is a weekend summer home for them. Because I don’t have many windows on the north wall, I often realize they’ve been and gone only because they set out their trash bin at the street for Monday morning, and I gladly roll it back up the drive for them. They do many nice things for me, like mowing the back 40. I may struggle financially, but I am wealthy beyond measure surrounded in this beauty.
If I’m honest, it is a constant worry that I no longer seem to have the physical strength or financial means to maintain my home or property. We are both tired and worn. So often I will look at the real estate online to see what I might find that would be easier to grow old in. But every time I become overwhelmed with sadness. I love my home; I just want to take proper care of it. I love where I live. The ashes of my sweet pups are buried in the garden, their final romping place. My elderly kitty is the mighty king of his domain and I’d love him to live out his days here. It’s quiet and peaceful and safe. And the roof has started to leak…
I’ve often wondered why home means so much to me. Other people I know seem far less attached emotionally to the place where they dwell. In my dreams I am frequently in my childhood home on the Detroit River, long expanse of lawn lined with 3-story-high willows swaying in the breeze. Hundreds of peony shrubs perfuming the air, sunrise over the river. In a surreal way I felt somehow more connected to the natural surroundings than the people I lived with. There’s more than a few therapy sessions needed to unpack that realization!
And in hindsight I confess that I stayed far too long in an abusive marriage because I didn’t want to give up my home. Home. It’s really all I have ever longed for…a home of my own. Heaven for beginners.
So, since I have recently been through yet another health crisis (tired of reading about it? WOW, am I ever tired of talking about it!) I have been researching natural healing modalities. And spiritual healing for my symptoms, particularly auto-immune diseases that affect the eyes. And my YouTube feed, ever trying to find something to sell, has suddenly evolved to include spiritual healing channels. Another AI generated video caught my attention today. It doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the eyes…but my spirit has been trying to teach me to “fall apart at the SEEMS” for years now.
One of the secondary issues with spending far too much time incapacitated is that my tailbone hurts. My back is stiff and the aches and pains seem to make a rotation throughout my joints. For the most part I ignore them. They are not the source of my dis-ease, and I want to get to the source – because I want a cure. But my tailbone is painful. I have to carry my little donut cushion around with me if I want to sit.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I think medicine is full of miracles, too. I am still going to see a rheumatologist and may end up taking the heavy hitters, the biologic injections. Meanwhile, I will begin here, with all the natural self care steps, and continue my quest for healing on all levels.
When my son was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma as a teen, I wanted him to do all that medicine had to offer. One of the reasons that Hodgkin’s has a high success rate is because they treat it so aggressively. Surgery if possible (which he had) followed by maximum chemo and radiation. They bombard the body with all the poison it can possibly handle. He still lives with some of the negative side effects – but he’s LIVING.
At the time, my sisters fundamentalist church offered him a healing prayer session. He took it, of course. We were asked to attend a service on Sunday and to stay after to meet with a group of practiced prayer healers. Standing at the front of the sanctuary they encircled him, laying hands all over his upper body and praying quietly. But apparently one of the prayer leaders had left the room immediately after service. And suddenly he walked back in, walked quickly up to Steven as the group allowed him in, aggressively banged his palms onto Steven’s chest and let out a roar. Steven said he felt the cancer leave out through his back. And that was the moment he knew he was cured. He KNEW. He still went through all the grueling treatments. Because healing is not an either/or, half-assed attempt at life. It’s all or nothing.
Petrichor and lilacs…and smoke. The rain let up yesterday evening, and today we have had to close up the house. Despite delightfully cool temperatures, the air is thick with the smoke from the Canadian wildfires. I have gone from loving the smell of the rain and blooming lilacs to an air quality advisory. Now the weather report includes the “smoke map.” The stars are no longer visible in the night sky.
“Sensitive groups, such as those with respiratory issues, are advised to take precautions.” Like what?! Stop breathing?! Suddenly (or not) the world has become a scary place. I don’t say that lightly; it is not lost on me that it long has been for many people. Let alone nature. God help us.
It is five a.m. as I write this. Later this morning my air conditioners will be installed and run – not to cool the house (the current outside temperature is fifty degrees) – but to filter the air. Many people here live without air conditioning as it isn’t frequently needed. Or, I should say, wasn’t. Again, the privilege not being lost on me. It’s the wildlife I’m most concerned with. Especially the birds. Especially the migrating birds, heading north this time of year to summer in Canada. Where do they go now? I fear that I sound ridiculously naive, and perhaps I am…perhaps I am…
And so, fear triggers in me a reminder to pull back. Pull my energy back into my body and focus on the present moment. Remember that each breath is a sacred gift. If again I sound naive, so be it. I am reminded by Tiokisin Ghosthorse that it is not so much my lungs that I should be concerned with. It’s my heart. My heart hurts.
My son says, “It is always a Michigan June in heaven.” It’s been a chilly spring. The heat is running this morning in the first week of June. We had dramatic thunderstorms last night and it’s still raining. But I keep a window cracked so I can smell the rain soaked earth. And the lilacs are blooming.
The lilac shrub out back is half the size of the house. I suspect it was planted around the time the house was built, which was 1955. It was traditional at that time to plant lilacs next to the driveway to welcome guests. The driveway has since been moved and the lilacs have flourished. They are spectacular.
I am in bed this morning with a vase full of them on the nightstand, coffee and my laptop, writing to you. Finally, having again been chronically ill for the last few weeks. I am better, but not well. This time I cannot avoid the doctor’s argument that I need to travel to see a specialist. I can cope with pain, but my eyesight is at stake. And let’s face it – the most qualified and well intended medical professionals still don’t have much to offer. The rheumatologist recommends I take a biologic. It is a treatment for symptoms; I want a cure. I’m stubborn like that.
But this morning I lay here breathing in the smell of rain and lilacs. The well fed fat cat is trilling and rolling around upside down on the floor. My son is here making blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast. Don’t tell me this isn’t heaven.
A Painterly Home 