But before we get to the interior design stuff…yes, I know I’ve been promising…I’ll make good…but meanwhile – have you noticed something? Is it just me, or does it seem like life has suddenly gotten very real here on earth? There is Pope Francis, who even those of us not Catholic – or even religious – can actually relate to…like he’s a real down to-earth-in-touch-with-what’s-going-on-out-here person…
And then, there’s Commander Chris Hadfield singing to us:
Check out his video series, and his book, An Astronaut’s Guide to Life on Earth…We might be getting the hang of this! And maybe just in the nick of time…our hearts are opening…and we are waking up to the beauty all around and within each one of us.
Happy. New. Year. Yes, Thank you…don’t mind if I do….
One year ago I started this blog. I thought it would be a blog about interior design…I just didn’t realize it would be about MY interior – literally. I was in crisis – physically, mentally, and certainly emotionally. I don’t care to review that…I am more than ready to move on. But this has served to help in my healing process in more ways than I could have imagined then. And now – now I am so looking forward to this new year, to see what it holds, to experience the changes that have only just begun to manifest…Thank you for joining me.
Oh how very, very blessed I am feeling today…a quiet day cooking at home with my son, Steven. We put Playing for Change on the radio as we snack on deviled eggs and prepare our Thanksgiving feast: Roast turkey, baked sweet potatoes, wild rice, steamed broccoli and carrots, a big, bold salad full of olives and avocado, cranberry sauce, and on and on…almost too much. We talk about how fortunate we are. Steven is ten years a survivor of Hodgkins Lymphoma. Most members of our family have survived cancer; we have all survived generations of physical, sexual and mental abuse, and most every addiction known. Steven gets to count today as one successful day without a cigarette.
We are alone today because our family is widespread across the Midwest and south to Florida, with friends around the country…I am estranged from a sister, but spoke to my niece at their house. They are eating well despite the hardships. My father, alive eight years out from a terminal diagnosis, is having too much food with my brother. The same is true for my other siblings…
Today my heart is overwhelmed with gratitude. I hope yours is, too. My dogs get gravy on their food tonight. I shovel snow to get out to fill the suet cages and watch the patient woodpeckers fly in. I pray for grace for all those displaced and hungry who aren’t enjoying our bounty. I am thankful to all of the soldiers willing to put their own lives aside for this privilege, even as I pray that we soon find another way to coexist on this shrinking planet.
For Steven. Thanks, Babe. I love you.
“Lay down your arms, and come without defense into the quiet place where Heaven’s peace holds all things still at last. Lay down all thoughts of danger and of fear. Lay down the cruel sword of judgement you hold against your own throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness.” -A Course in Miracles
It is eight o’clock in the morning, and I have been up for two and a half hours. Pretty typical these days, and I find that I love the wee small hours. I am loving my sweet little life right now…quiet and serene…just me and my dogs and my imaginings. Upon waking I slip on jeans, boots (yes, we have ice and snow here now), a coat and head straight out the door with the dogs. The wind blows and the crystals sting me in the face as I head into the dark, flashlight in hand.
Last night I showed pictures of my new home-to-be to a friend. When she saw the beautiful park across the street with willow trees hanging over the river, I explained that this is where we will walk every day. She said, “Perhaps that’s the name of your new house, A Walk in the Park!”
Being a creature of contrast, I was immediately reminded that the house I am selling and leaving has never had a name. All of my life I have named my homes…until this one. I have lived here almost ten years. Then I remembered that I TRIED to name it for about the first year here, but nothing ever fit. Anything I thought of seemed contrived – because it was. This was never my home. This was the house my husband wanted, and where we housed any number of transitioning friends and relatives over the years, including foster children, and my Dad – but I have never been happy here. And yet there were many good times, of course; important always to remember that THESE are the good old days.
This was Curmudgeon Cottage…or maybe Castle. It was the old man’s hangout, recliners and big screen TV’s everywhere, cigar smoke, grease on the stove, yelling so you could be heard house. Yuk. My next home will be A Walk in the Park…I wish you the same blessing.
If I could reach the stars…I’d pull one down for you…and shine it in your heart…so you could see the Truth…
This morning’s meditation whispered that I am hard-headed and soft-hearted, to the point of my own detriment…I guess it’s better than being hard-hearted and soft in the head…although I do think that is often how others see me.
That is certainly how my family thinks of me. My big, violent, addicted family…I recently saw a bumper sticker – on a pickup truck of course- that said I “heart” (it showed a big red heart) my violent alcoholic family…I need ME one of them!
Those of you who know me or follow this blog know that I have been housing my elderly father for seven years now, since he came home from the hospital with Hospice and three weeks to live. Then my brother moved in after his home was foreclosed upon. They were heart broken and world weary…and haven’t we all been there?
But I attempted to heal them- again- as I had in previous years…along with the other four members of my biological family…and my husband…and child…and stepchildren and countless close friends. They’re dropping out of my life like flies around here lately, and my healthier friends assure me this is progress. It is true that I seem to have lost my codependence recently. Perhaps the healing HAS begun. (See Post of May 27th, 2013)
But the truth is that I am broken-hearted for them. They just cannot overcome their addictions and self destructive behaviors. They can’t seem to help themselves, and their lives become increasingly difficult. I can’t live with them any longer; I have let it go on too long as it is…but if I could find the words or any meaningful action that would effect them, I certainly would…
I see their innocence, their inherent beauty; the lost potential of people born privileged by strong bodies and brilliant minds. Only I know the abuses and cancers they have already endured and overcome. I respectfully hold the secrets they cannot voice in hopes they will one day find themselves worthy of telling their own stories. Meanwhile, they still gamble and fall off the wagon and pick violent fights and kick and thrash against life, and stubbornly live on the edge of destruction. I just can’t have it in my life or my home any longer.
So they are moving out come August 1st, and while I will not revisit this decision, I am sick with guilt and sorrow. I will continue to pray for us constantly, for restoration of our health and to our right minds, and I will keep on dreaming for them even if it breaks my heart…
Hearts are resplendently resilient…what would you dare to dream even if it broke your heart?!
Shortly after the first of the year I began attending a class, a women artist’s support group really, based on Julia Cameron’s brilliant book, The Artist’s Way. When the twelve week program came to an end none of us wanted to stop, so we continue to study with the sequel, Walking In This World.
Any of us women – along with millions worldwide who have studied and worked through these lessons – will tell you, it is life-changing. In my case, it has been life saving.
We meet once a week. We discuss the chapter and our experiences as we work through the tasks, how we are effected by the insights. We offer ideas, support. And although we are careful not to problem solve for each other, problems do seem to resolve themselves mysteriously throughout the following week…it’s uncanny.
Of course, what we are really doing is showing up, being present, learning how to relate differently than the ways that let us down in the past. Somehow we know this is a great privilege, to be here together at this time, and that growing up is a lifelong process.
Susan Steadman, oil on canvas by Lisa Perrine Brown
As we gathered for class last night I complimented Lisa – extraordinary woman and artist – on her choice to paint the living room ceiling of her Victorian home a luscious peacock blue. “Ceilings should always be a color”, I said…and then realized that most of mine are white. It is the first of my homes where I have not painted the ceilings. It is the first home I have never really made my own. My name is on the mortgage, but I’ve never “taken ownership”…it is a house to me. It has never really been my home.
Yesterday, cleaning out a basement shelf, I came upon a box I had never UNpacked since moving in 9 years ago. It was labeled “studio” and contained art supplies. What a metaphor! I had unwittingly packed up my own heart, taped it securely shut, and stored it neatly away on a faraway shelf…
Lucky for me, the heart waits through our slumber to awaken again like a child on Christmas morning. Every morning, Christmas, in our true home, our true heart…where the ceilings glow and the walls shine like diamonds.
So…continuing with the story of how I morphed into Mary Poppins…or, maybe, as my Mom used to tell me: “Learn to spell guru, and then you’ll never need one: G.U.R.U”…
She would take me shopping for Betsey Johnson dresses for my back-to-school wardrobe, then paint a paisley or flower on my face to match my dress before sending me off to school in the morning…the headmaster would send me home for lunch to wash it off, and she would take hold of my shoulders, rotate me, push me back out the door and get that headmaster on the phone!
And another thing she used to tell me:
For a woman with very limited resources, she knew how to get her point across.
She would have LOVED the other Mary Poppins, the Lady…
“I’m good at being uncomfortable so I can’t stop changin’ all the time…but he’s no good at being uncomfortable, SO, he can’t stop stayin’ exactly the same…”
Oh, she’s brilliant:
“Curious, you’re lookin’ down your nose at me…Courteous to try and help, but let me set your mind at ease…”
There is something to be said for being comfortable with being uncomfortable. “I can’t help it, the road just rolls out BEHIND me”…hahahha! Your assistance is to no avail…and, by the way, I don’t want the bail…
Yesterday, I alluded to the nicknames Resourceress and Mary Poppins. They are both actually nicknames that two different friends have given to me over the years.
Now, as it happens, I have always been a huge Mary Poppins fan…my Pinterest board titled “the real Mary Poppins” is a reference to my personal belief that we wise and creative women are all good “witches”, or alchemists, spiritual midwives, healers…in fact, I believe that not for the intelligence of creative women throughout history…well…I doubt the race would have survived THIS long. After all, it seems pretty obvious that men are trying their very best to wipe us off the face of…another day…
Mary Poppins was magical…a good witch, even though Disney didn’t blatantly portray her as one. We recognize each other, don’t we…and I like myself for admiring her more than the other Disney heroines…!
Anyway…it is the metaphor – strong, strong, metaphor that she can PULL ANYTHING SHE NEEDS OUT OF HER BAG!!! that insinuates her as every woman…as any mother could certainly attest. But mother or not, few women in our culture have not had to make something out of nothing, pull off a seemingly impossible feat in the stress of the day, and dress up the mundane while entertaining the “children” of all ages. Take the lead, git ‘er done…and don’t break a sweat, or a heel, doing it!
My Mother – an angel like Lincoln’s (the man knew…) – set a great example of grace under pressure. Damn she had a hard life. Good, but I sure wouldn’t want to trade places. Her mother’s was harder…and I know that you see it in your own heritage.
They truly were “resourceresses”…a word that I think my friend, the artist Richard Schemm, made up. He likes to make up words, but also, he has extraordinary women to appreciate in his life. He will tell you: we resource. It’s what we do.
Once I drove from northern Michigan to northern California. I was staying with friends in San Fransisco, but never having been to their NEW home, they decided to meet me at the highway and lead me from there through the complicated streets…so, we stopped for dinner at one of the chain restaurants that congregate near the exits. We ate, and preparing to leave, Debi said, “I have to stop on the way to the house to buy one of those phone jacks that adapt a single jack to a double”…I reached into my purse and pulled one out. She smiled knowingly, and called me Mary Poppins. It just so happened to be the very last thing that I grabbed – along with the phone- as I was walking out on my deadbeat husband, heading off into the distant unknown…
I just watched an episode of Renovation Raiders on HGTV…and cried. My Mother, Doris, was THE original “renovation raider.” She was a homemaker with five – count ’em – FIVE children within eight years in age. When she got an idea to remodel, add on space, or redecorate…she did it herself, and pulled off the install within hours. She would plan everything out, from moving walls, electrical work, whatever the project called for, to the nth degree.
This was the 1950’s, folks – there was no such thing as a HOME IMPROVEMENT store!!! If you needed an electrical outlet, a window or door, flooring, drywall, etc…you went to the lumber yard and ORDERED it…and often waited weeks for it all to arrive…talk about planning!
My parents were by no means traditional in their roles, but my Dad did control the purse strings, and any home project had to pass his budget approval. This meant that she often pulled off miraculous makeovers with pennies she squirreled together out of her grocery pocketbook…
She once decided to turn an extra bedroom, located next to the kitchen, into a dining room by opening up the wall between the two rooms. Drywall, move electrical outlets, install a chandelier…Piece of cake! What no one (least of all my father!) knew at the time: she had simultaneously planned to knock out the back EXTERIOR (brick!) wall of the new dining room, remove the existing window and install a sliding door-wall out to the patio!
So, she secretly enlisted the help of her sister, had all the material delivery scheduled the morning OF the remodel…and waited for all five kids to leave for school, and my dad to leave for work… and we came home that afternoon to a beautiful new dining room and a yard full of cheering neighbors!
She’d put on her folk or country music (she also played the guitar and sang) and get to work…here’s her favorite song:
A Painterly Home 