Wednesday, December 31, 2008

KUUMBA / CREATIVITY






















December 31 is the sixth day of Kwanzaa and the sixth day of Christmas. Kuumba, which means "creativity," is the word for the sixth day of Kwanzaa.

Girl: Creativity means thinking of new ways to do things.

First Boy: Creativity means thinking of new ways to live in peace.

Second Boy: Creativity means finding new ways to love one another.

(from the movie "Harambee," directed by Fracaswell Hyman. ""Harambee" means "let's pull together" in Kiswahili.)

The pastel drawing, originally called "Woman Dancing By Herself," was done by me in the early 1980's. Today I think I'll call it "Let's Pull Together."

Today is the 10th day following the Winter Solstice, the last day of 2008, with more a little more light, if not sunshine, each day here in the Pacific Northwest. This photo looking to the northeast was taken in the afternoon a few days ago. Most of the snow on the ground has melted, but Scudder Pond is still frozen.

Yesterday after sunset, R's sister and brother-in-law and their two dogs arrived here after driving up from the San Francisco Bay Area. Today, last year, I received the letter from her letting me know that R had had a brain stem stroke. Last April, R's brother-in-law's 95-year-old father was in the ICU and hospice in the VA hospital at the same time R was. They died within a few days of each other. We celebrate their lives by living our lives in gratitude. I'm waiting for sunrise so I can show D and P where I've been living for almost 35 years. I hope they can visit again during a time when the sun is shining, and it's not so dark and cold! This extremely cold weather, with snow these past few weeks, is unusual. If my memory serves me well, I recall many New Year's Days when the weather was sunny and relatively mild. I love the winters when it doesn't snow at all.

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

A TIME OF GREAT HOPE






















The theme for the fifth day of Kwanzaa is Nia, which means "Purpose." Today is the fifth day of the twelve days of Christmas. Hanukkah has ended.

Barack Obama's American University Speech on January 28, 2008, began with:

"Today isn’t just about politics for me. It’s personal. I was too young to remember John Kennedy and I was just a child when Robert Kennedy ran for President. But in the stories I heard growing up, I saw how my grandparents and mother spoke about them, and about that period in our nation’s life—as A TIME OF GREAT HOPE and achievement. And I think my own sense of what’s possible in this country comes in part from what they said America was like in the days of John and Robert Kennedy."

If you have time, listen to the entire speech:



If not, listen from approximately 8:41 to 9:24:

"And it lives on in those Americans -- young and old, rich and poor, black and white, Latino and Asian and Native American, gay and straight -- who are tired of a politics that divides us and want to recapture the sense of common PURPOSE that we had when John Kennedy was President of the United States of America."

"Boy with Amaryllis and Orion" is a drawing by me, using the trackpad on my iBookG4, on the day before Martin Luther King Day in January of 2008. I had just received a letter from R, who had been in the stroke rehab unit of a VA hospital in California ever since coming out of a coma caused by a brain stem stroke in September 2007. The letter to me was written in R's behalf by his nurse, Yolanda. He signed it in a shaky hand, but drew a perfect rose for me. He was an artist, too. In the drawing above, I pictured him as a young boy with his life before him, standing alone at night looking out the window at Orion. I knew that boy was still a part of him.

I didn't know he had had a stroke until December 31, 2007, when his sister wrote me a letter after I had sent her a holiday card. I had been out of touch with R since 2003, due to his drug and alcohol problems aggravated by PTSD. His sister hadn't had my home address, phone number or email address.

For anyone new to my blog, I met R on the beach at Half Moon Bay, California, when we were 17 years old. In 1969, R was was drafted into the U.S. Army, almost a year after Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated, in the first few months after Richard M. Nixon was elected President of the United States.

R spent 1970 in Vietnam as a helicopter mechanic stationed in Da Nang. He was against the war. He almost didn't go to Vietnam, calling me from Oakland Army Base the day before he left, asking me to pick him up and take him to a draft resistance center for conscientious objectors. He talked with a woman who was a draft counselor, as I sat out in a hallway. The door opened, and he thanked her. We walked back out to my car. He looked out the car window as he said to me while we drove away from the draft resistance center on that winter morning in January of 1970, "If I go ahead with this, I am going to meet the defeat of her challenge." He didn't believe he would be able to obtain conscientious objector status because he was a high school drop-out who didn't go to church and didn't believe in God and had set no precedence as a conscientious objector in his life up to then. I was willing to go to Canada with him. He didn't want to go to Canada or to prison. He made the decision to go to Vietnam. We lived together from the day of his return from Vietnam on December 8, 1970, until early in May of 1971 when we separated, remaining friends.

In the letter the nurse wrote in January of 2008, R said that he wanted to see me again but he encouraged me to continue with the college classes I had just started. R saw the above drawing, along with the others in that series of drawings that was inspired by him. In April, I was able to drive to California to spend four days with him in the intensive care unit the week before he died. He was unable to speak, but his last "words" to me were the thumbs up sign. It's a long story, 42 years long. I'm working on a book of art work and poetry from those years.

I just remembered something R said to me in 2002, while he was undergoing chemotherapy for lung cancer. There was something he had done that he believed was absolutely unforgivable, something that he believed he could never tell anyone. I encouraged him to talk with someone at the VA hospital. He said he wasn't going to tell anyone. He couldn't forgive himself. He said, "I was young then. . . "

Monday, December 29, 2008

UJAMAA

Today is the fourth day of Kwanzaa (Ujamaa = Cooperative Economics), the fourth day of the twelve days of Christmas and the 8th day of Hanukkah.





















"We may have all come on different ships, but we're in the same boat now."

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968)

















Photos:
Bellingham Food Co-op, downtown on Forest Street (photo from their web site).
Artist's rendition of the Cordata store, which will open in 2009 (photo from their web site).
Yesterday's winter light in the afternoon (my photo).

Sunday, December 28, 2008

WITNESSES

















Today is the third day of Kwanzaa (Ujima = Collective work and responsibility), the third day of the twelve days of Christmas and the 7th day of Hanukkah.

"For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out."

(James Baldwin)

Saturday, December 27, 2008

"IF NOT NOW, WHEN?"






















Today is the second day of Kwanzaa (Kujichagulia = Self-Determination), the second day of the twelve days of Christmas and the 6th day of Hanukkah.

FOR WARMTH

I hold my face in my two hands

No, I am not crying.

I hold my face in my two hands

to keep the loneliness warm--

two hands protecting

two hands nourishing,

two hands preventing

my soul from leaving me

in anger.

(This was written after I heard about the bombing of Ben Tre and the comment made by an American military man, "We had to destroy the town in order to save it." -- Thich Nhat Hanh)

Friday, December 26, 2008

THIS MUST BE THE DAY






















Today is the first day of Kwanzaa (Umoja = Unity), the first of the twelve days of Christmas and the 5th day of Hanukkah. The 6th day of Hanukkah begins at sunset.

Some mornings look better in black, white and grey.

"This must be the day that all of my dreams come true."
(Bob Dylan)

And just after sunset:

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

UNEXPECTED GIFT






















Yesterday morning I discovered a handwritten letter to me from R in the sketchbook his sister had sent last summer. R had used the sketchbook to communicate after he had the brain stem stroke in September 2007 which left him unable to speak. When the sketchbook arrived, I had looked carefully at all the pages, many of which were blank. Somehow I overlooked one page. In January of 2008, I had received two letters from him -- both handwritten by a nurse who had edited and embellished his thoughts with her thoughts. As I had read those letters, I could hear her voice more than his. In the letter I found yesterday, I can hear his voice clearly once again. A generous and moving gift from R.

After I found his letter, most of yesterday was spent with renewed energy for working on my book of drawings and paintings and poetry influenced by his presence in my life. Just before sunset at 4:17, I glanced up to see extraordinary golden light on the cottonwoods to the northeast and on the foothills beyond. If you click on the image, you'll see the bald eagles' nest, too. I remembered R's mother telling me that R's first word when he was a baby was "Light."

Monday, December 22, 2008

ADRIAN MITCHELL (1932-2008)

Here.

"It is love." (Adrian Mitchell)

With gratitude to solitary walker for his post and links.

DECEMBER 22, 2008

"Exuberance is beauty."
(William Blake)

Sunday, December 21, 2008

TRADITIONS / RED-WINGED BLACKBIRDS






















When our mother was alive, she always sent wreaths she ordered from Starcross Community to my two sisters and me. My wreath always arrived on December 1, and I would hang it on the outside wall next to my front door until Valentine's Day. In 1994, the year she died unexpectedly on December 3, no wreath had arrived. I've wondered why she didn't send a wreath that year. Did she know she was going to die? For the next year, I continued her tradition by ordering a wreath. When our mother met our father, she was a church secretary in an Episcopal church. Our father had been raised as a Lutheran in Minnesota. By the time our mother died, she was celebrating the Jewish holidays in secret, not wanting to upset our father. In the years after her death, I have developed my own traditions.

When the Starcross wreath arrives, I place it outside next to my front door, where the evergreen fragrance lingers, and the wreath remains amazingly green. I get out a box marked Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Bodhi Day, Winter Solstice and Eid al-Adha. I upwrap the figures of Mary and Joseph that our mother gave to me and place them facing a menorah on my living room table. I didn't have the menorah until two years ago. The menorah remains there until the end of Hanukkah.

On Bodhi Day, December 8, I think about the Buddha and remember the day RTN came home from Vietnam in 1970. This year, December 8 was also Eid al-Adha.

On December 20, 21, 22, or 23, I celebrate the Winter Solstice, a beloved turning point.

On Christmas Eve, I watch the videos of "A Charlie Brown Christmas" as well as "A Child's Christmas in Wales," narrated by Denholm Elliott. Either just after midnight on the beginning of Christmas Day or when I wake up on Christmas morning, depending on my work schedule, I unwrap the baby Jesus figure and place it close to Mary and Joseph.

From December 26 through January 1, I watch one section at a time of the video of "Harambee!," written and directed by Fracaswell Hyman.

On January 1, I celebrate New Year's Day. I love New Year's Day. For many years that was the only day of the holiday season when I felt a sense of celebration.

On Epiphany, January 6, I bring out figures of the Three Wise Men, which I didn't have until three years ago. January 6 is the birthday of my nephew, whom I haven't seen since my father died in March of 2003. I celebrate the life of my nephew!

At the end of January 6, I put everything back in the box until the next December.

Last year, between December 1 and January 6, I also listened to the videos of "Muhammed: Legacy of a Prophet" (PBS), "Faithful to Continuance: Legacy of the Plateau People" (a celebration of art and artists produced and directed by Mimbres Fever), "Ram Dass: Fierce Grace" (a film by Mickey Lemile), and "Pema Chodren & Alice Walker in Conversation on the Meaning of Suffering and the Mystery of Joy" (published by Sounds True, Inc.). For me, the traditions are all alive and evolving together.

Come to think of it, the first tradition, before the opening of the traditions box, is celebrating Thanksgiving in peaceful solitude on the 4th Thursday in November.

For most of my adult life, I dreaded this time of year. I'm grateful to have found a way to see it differently.

There was more snow last night, and it just started snowing again. Oboe is curled up, sleeping. It's cold and quiet outside at this moment, except for the Red-Winged Blackbirds singing from the tops of the cattails.


















Saturday, December 20, 2008

Friday, December 19, 2008

GOOD DAY SUNSHINE

Here.

















The little birds made a pretty circle of footprints around the candle lantern.

Thursday, December 18, 2008

BEFORE SUNRISE / STILL SNOWING HERE

















Click on image to see lights across Scudder Pond.

See Jigokudani Snow Monkeys webcam.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

LANDSCAPE WITH RISING SUN



Vincent van Gogh, quoted on my Zen Calendar a couple of days ago:

I am an artist . . . It's self-evident that what that word implies is looking for something all the time without ever finding it in full. It is the opposite of saying, "I know all about it. I've already found it." As far as I'm concerned, the word means, "I am looking. I am hunting for it, I am deeply involved."

Here is "Landscape with Rising Sun," by Vincent van Gogh:















and "Vincent van Gogh Painting Sunflowers," by Paul Gauguin:

WE WERE SO MUCH OLDER THEN, WE'RE YOUNGER THAN THAT NOW

Monday, December 15, 2008

ALL the FISHES come HOME to ROOST










by Rachel Manija Brown

Although I didn't spend part of my childhood in Ahmednagar, India, with parents who were devoted to Meher Baba, Rachel Manija Brown's experiences, disturbing as well as heartening, are eerily familiar to me in an uncanny way. Her book opens with a dedication page that brought me tears of relief. A few pages later, reading the following quote, I knew I'd found what I was hoping for when I first heard about this memoir by a woman who loves books as much as I do:

"If you have skeletons in the closet,
you may as well make them dance."

-- George Bernard Shaw

Memorable and moving, too, are her words about finding relief from loneliness while exploring the natural world:

"I was lonely at school, at home, in the town, and in the Baba places. But I wasn't lonely in the country. I wasn't even alone. I was surrounded by life."

I'm reminded of Bob Dylan singing:

"Oh the fishes will laugh
As they swim out of the path
And the seagulls they'll be smiling . . ."

Rachel Manija Brown laughs with the fishes and smiles with the seagulls. And that's not all. She thrives.

Friday, December 12, 2008

POSSIBILITY















ENCOUNTER (VAYISHLACH), by Rachel Barenblat (click here to listen)

When Esau saw him he came running.
They embraced and wept, each grateful
to see the profile he knew better than his own.

You didn't need to send gifts, Esau said
but Jacob introduced his wives and children,
his prosperity, and Esau acquiesced.

For one impossible moment Jacob reached out.
To see your face, he said, is like seeing
the face of God: brother, it is so good!

But when Esau replied, let us journey together
from this day forward as we have never done
and I will proceed at your pace, Jacob demurred.

The children are frail, and the flocks:
you go on ahead, he said, and I will follow
but he did not follow.

Once Esau headed out toward Seir
Jacob went the other way, to Shechem, where
his sons would slaughter an entire village.

And again the possibility
of inhabiting a different kind of story
vanished into the unforgiving air.





















("Evolution of Forgiveness," a gouache and watercolor painting by am from the late 1980's)

(Photo of am in Plain, Washington, in October of 2007 -- contemplating "the possibility of inhabiting a different kind of story")

THE WILD ONE (REVISITED)

(NOTE: The following is a re-run from December 2007)






















LOVE POEM FROM JOHNNY WHO WAS NOT THE WILD ONE AFTER ALL

I read books
They don’t read me

I love horses
They don’t ride me

I paint paintings
They don’t paint me

I love motorcycles
They don’t steer me

I watch movies
They don’t watch me

I love ukuleles
They don’t play me

I sing songs
They don’t sing
Me, me and only me.

Let me tell you
There once was a really wild one
She read me all the way through

I love books
But they can’t read me

Yesterday I went downtown, somewhat apprehensively, to see Todd Hayne's film, "I'm Not There" at The Pickford. There was a sign on the ticket window with an apology. The film hadn't arrived in time for the 12:50 showing. I drove downtown again for the 3:40 show, where there were plenty of empty seats.

I was surprised at the level at which I was "moved" by what is certainly a peculiar and challenging movie. As I am writing this and listening to the soundtrack from "I'm Not There," Marcus Carl Franklin starts singing "When The Ship Comes In":

". . . A song will lift
As the mainsail shifts
And the boat drifts on to the shoreline.
And the sun will respect
Every face on the deck,
The hour that the ship comes in . . . "

The 37-song soundtrack introduces me to the music of a distinctive assortment of younger voices singing Bob Dylan songs, including a teenage actor from the film, Marcus Carl Franklin, as well the older voices of Richie Havens, Willie Nelson and Rambling Jack Elliott.

And I have no trouble at all understanding how a person could find nothing good at all to say about Todd Hayne's film or Bob Dylan and his music.

I'm one of those who never stopped listening to Bob Dylan, for good or for worse, because I felt a kinship with him that has survived since I was 14 years old. I began by idolizing him and grew to appreciate what I see as his qualities of being a vulnerable, unpredictable and creative human being. How could I not love the person who, as a young man wrote:

" . . . I'm just average, common too
I'm just like him, the same as you
I'm everybody's brother and son
I ain't different from anyone
It ain't no use a-talking to me
It's just the same as talking to you . . . "
(from "I Shall Be Free, No. 10")

and as a 65-year-old man wrote:

". . . They say prayer has the power to heal
So pray for me, mother
In the human heart an evil spirit can dwell
I am a-tryin' to love my neighbor and do good unto others
But oh, mother, things ain't going well . . . "

(from "Ain't Talkin")

Particularly moving for me were the parts of "I'm Not There" concerned with Bob Dylan as a husband and father:







In case of any confusion, the above photo is of Bob Dylan and one of his children. In "I'm Not There," Heath Ledger played the part of Jude Quinn / Bob Dylan and looked very much like Bob Dylan in the above photo.

No man can see Bob Dylan through a woman's eyes, just as no woman can see Bob Dylan through a man's eyes.

Perhaps that is the genius of Cate Blanchett playing the role of Jude Quinn / Bob Dylan in a way that is as unforgettable to me as Bob Dylan himself.

(Black and white image, "I Love Movies," a "contour" drawing by am in December 2007, while listening to the soundtrack for "I'm Not There", downloaded from iTunes at the end of October 2007. I was drawing with my right index finger on an iBookG4 trackpad, using the Appleworks "Painting" program. Image and poem resulted from revisiting the 1953 movie, "The Wild One," starring Marlon Brando as Johnny Strabler and Mary Murphy as Kathie Bleeker, who appeared to me to be the truly wild one who gained Johnny's respect because she stood up to him. Somewhere, a long time ago, I read that Bob Dylan said that movies should "move" a person. It is likely that he was 12 years old when he was first "moved" by the "The Wild One." I drew the black and white image while looking at a fairly recent photo of Bob Dylan. As Mr. Dylan once said, "Wowee! Pretty scary!" It is likely that I wrote "Love Poem From Johnny Who Wasn't The Wild One After All" in 2006)

December 12, 2008, just after dawn:

A flock of Canada Geese going in a southwesterly direction just passed overhead. Almost every morning when I wake up before dawn, I light the candle lantern on my porch. It's dark and rainy this morning. 35 degrees. Snow is predicted in the coming days. If you click on the image, you will see the rain suspended on the railing.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

LITTLE CYPRESS TREE WITH A WILD PLACE IN ITS HEART
















"Going to the woods and the wild place has little to do with recreation, and much to do with creation."
(Wendell Berry)

Six Needs of Mourning:

1. Accept the reality of the death.
2. Let yourself feel the pain of the loss.
3. Remember the person who died.
4. Develop a new self-identity.
5. Search for meaning.
6. Let others help you -- now and always.

(p. 88, from UNDERSTANDING YOUR GRIEF, Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D.)

(I found the little cypress tree here.)

(The cypress is associated with the god of the underworld. The cypress is an evergreen, cone-bearing tree whose branches are often meant to represent grief or mourning.

On December 11, 1970, three days after RTN returned from Vietnam, an exhibit of drawings and paintings by Vincent van Gogh opened at the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Sometime between December 11 and January 31, RTN and I waited in line in the winter sun to see that exhibit which must have included The Starry Night, with its cypress tree in the foreground. I am eternally grateful to RTN for bringing me to see that exhibit. I remember standing in front of one of the self-portraits and thinking, "We are all standing where Vincent van Gogh once stood." There WERE good days after he returned from Vietnam. That was one of them. It was on that day that we sat together on a bench between the museum and the Steinhart Aquarium and looked up to see a crow skip by in the way happy children do. We looked at each other and began to laugh in delight. Each time our eyes met we laughed harder.

On Joy and sorrow, by Kahlil Gibran (the Prophet)

Then a woman said, speak to us of Joy and Sorrow. And he answered:
Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.
And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.
Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep on your bed
.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

LOOKING UP AT FISH






















The true end of a war is the rebirth of life;
the right to die peacefully in your own bed.
The true end of war is the end of fear;
the true end of war is the return of laughter.
(Alfredo Molano)

It must have been in 2006 when I was in the midst of a yoga pose and began to shake with unexpected laughter. With the war in Iraq far from over, my inner war was showing the first signs of a true end.

Looking up this morning at the clouds and the blue sky:























("Kids Wish," drawn by am, using a IBookG4 trackpad and Appleworks "painting" program, in August of 2006)

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

NATARAJASANA






















"The essence of finding meaning in the future is not to forget my past, as I have been told, but instead to embrace my past. For it is in listening to the music of the past that I can sing in the present and dance into the future."
(from UNDERSTANDING YOUR GRIEF, by Alan Woldfelt, Ph.D., p. 92)

Last night I dreamed that R came home from the war. With him was a friend he had served with in Vietnam. His friend was from the American Southeast and had a face shaped like the moon. He looked like one of the prisoners from "O, Brother Where Art Thou?" R's friend laughed easily. R was quiet and serious. I was staying with friends in a house near a river. R and I hugged and kissed each other. R said, "You were always here for me. Thank you." That was the last time I saw him in the dream. As I sat by the river with my friends, I began to understand that R was telling me that his death was near, that he was not afraid and didn't want me to be afraid either. Just before I woke up, I stretched my legs out so that I could feel the river's current. I thought, "Where is R? I want him to see this beautiful river." It seemed that he wasn't far away.

Last year in December, I posted the above photo of me in a variation of the Yoga pose called Natarajasana or the King of the Dancers pose. Today I'm going to use some of my credits at Yoga Northwest and sign up for a Restorative Yoga class which meets on Sunday evenings. I miss practicing yoga with a teacher and with other people.

On Thanksgiving, my "ClustrMap" was archived, and all the red dots were removed. Here is a list of visitors since then. I'm curious to know how people from all over the world happen to visit my blog.








United States (US) 122
United Kingdom (GB) 11
Canada (CA) 10
Turkey (TR) 2
Australia (AU) 2
India (IN) 2
Germany (DE) 2
Lithuania (LT) 1
Russian Federation (RU) 1
Sweden (SE) 1
Denmark (DK) 1
Sri Lanka (LK) 1
Europe (EU) 1
Philippines (PH) 1
Saudi Arabia (SA) 1
China (CN) 1
Switzerland (CH) 1
Czech Republic (CZ) 1

Next to my front door, before dawn this morning:






















Remembering John Lennon (1940-1980) today:

Instant Karma

"We all shine on, like the moon and the stars and the sun."

Stand By Me

Monday, December 8, 2008

STILL TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS NOT BROKEN






















Today is the 2nd birthday of my blog.

Two months after I adopted Oboe from an animal shelter (an auspicious turning point because I had lived alone, without even a cat, for more than 22 years), I was inspired by the blog of Rebecca MacKinnon to start a blog of my own. I had been reading blogs since sometime in 2004, the year I bought my first computer, an iBookG4. Rebecca's blog was the first one I read. Her blogroll led to many of the blogs I still read. Rebecca's parents had visited my family in 1970 when Rebecca was a baby, and RTN was in Vietnam. I took a picture of them in the sunshine in our family's backyard, using the Minolta camera that RTN had sent me from Vietnam.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that RTN returned from Vietnam in 1970. He had told me not to tell his mother which day he was coming home, asking me to come alone when I picked him up at the airport. He called me from the San Francisco Airport at 3 o'clock in the morning. About a half hour later when I arrived in the luggage area, no one was there.

In my memory, the airport is dark and silent and empty. I walk to the right, toward the escalators. As I approach them, I see him riding down. When I look at this memory of seeing him for the first time that day, I can't see him clearly because it is dark. Something is wrong, although this is the moment for which we have been waiting for nearly 12 months. We embrace at the foot of the escalator. He tells me that he took amphetamines for the flight home. He is wide awake. He is exhausted. He looks around for a trash can. Finding one, he stuffs his Army uniform into it. We are together again and absolutely alone. Something is terribly wrong. The day is a blur of jarring moments. There is no memory of the next day or the next week. I don't know how long I am without memory.

My next memory is of waking up in the dark in our bed, hearing him yelling to another soldier. In his sleep, he turns to me and punches me in the face, giving me a black eye. He wakes up to find me crying, and he is bereft of any relief he may have had at being home again.

Bereave (bi rev'), v.t., -reaved or -reft, -reaving. 1. to deprive ruthlessly or by force (usually fol. by "of"): The war bereaved them of their home. 2. to deprive or make desolate, esp. by death (usually fol. by "of"): Illness bereaved them of their mother. 3. to take away by violence.

We lived together from December 8 until sometime during the following May. It was night again. We were talking about a possible separation. Living together was not working. He wasn't ready to be living with me. I cried easily. He couldn't deal with that. I couldn't deal with his anger and daily drug use. Especially problematic for me was his amphetamine use, which made him paranoid and prone to rage. As we talked, something in him snapped. He hit me hard in the arm and pushed me to the floor. He yelled, "I don't want you to have any happy memories of me!!" As he continued to hit me, I found my voice in midst of my shock and yelled as loud as I could, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YOU CAN'T HIT ME!!!!!!! He stopped immediately, bereft of any peace he may have found until that moment of hitting me. He said he was sorry. He was. On the next day, we made the decision to stop living together.

There was little support for soldiers coming home or for those who loved them. "The war bereaved them of their home." I am not convinced that our outcome would have been different, even with support. War is ruthless.

On December 8, 2006, I had been out of touch with RTN since 2003. PTSD, along with drug and alcohol abuse, had left him close to homeless, but he rented space with friends and family for various periods of time between 2003 and 2008. In the last six months of his life, his home was a VA hospital where he received supportive care from a team of compassionate men and women until the moment of his death on April 20, 2008. He did write a letter to me in late September of 2005. The letter was disturbing, appearing to have been written by a drunk person or a person with brain damage. I showed the letter to several mental health professionals who, feeling concerned about my well-being as well as his well-being, strongly recommended that I not respond to the letter. I contacted his sister, who confirmed that he was not doing well, moving from place to place in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

On December 8 in 2006, a thoughtful person suggested that I do something new on the anniversary of his return from Vietnam, so that in 2007 I would have a first anniversary of something new in my life. I took the suggestion to heart and created this blog which I named "Old Girl of the North Country." In September of 2001, when RTN was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer and was living with his parents while undergoing chemotherapy, his mother told me that she had found a piece of paper with my name on it and the lyrics for Bob Dylan's song titled "Girl of the North Country." My intention was to post a 40-year retrospective of my art work, from 1966 to 2006, and to sort out my experiences as RTN's "Girl of the North Country" and "Old Girl of the North Country."

This morning before dawn, these lyrics come to mind again:

"And I recall the promise they made
With a faith I can but admire
That she’d be the one he adored
and he’d be her hearts desire
It didn’t come true in the end
they went their separate ways
He couldn’t change what he was
she wasn’t ready to wait
They couldn’t live in the daylight
they let the night close in
and the holy ground took care of everything
I remember the loving time
and nothing else really counts."
(from "The Loving Time," lyrics by Noel Brazil, sung by Mary Black)

Talking about what happened and what we are like now is part of the grieving and healing process. RTN painted during his last days. In writing this down and posting on this blog, I am healing. Many of us are engaged in healing during these winter days and nights.

May all soldiers and veterans and those who love them find the love and support they need today and always.

May all beings find the love and support they need today and always.

Thanks so much to all who have stopped by to read and comment since I began this blog in December of 2006!






















(The above photo of Oboe in the winter sun was taken a few days ago. "Talking About What is Not Broken" was painted by am in the late 1980's)

?

?

I wrote a long post. When I click on "Publish Post," it doesn't post. That's weird.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

DECEMBER 1970 AND 2007 (REVISITED)






















(NOTE: The image and post are a re-run from December 2007. My left baby finger is in a splint, so I'm typing slowly for the time being.)

(1 hour and 15 minutes, 4:30 to 5:45 a.m., drawn using Appleworks6 "Painting" program, while listening to "Chants of India," which plays for approximately 1 hour and is a work of love by Ravi Shankar and George Harrison, as well as listening for the last fifteen minutes to "Dead To The World," by Patti Smith)

(Click on drawing for better image)

"Of course you will say that I ought to be practical and try to paint the way they want me to paint. Well, I'll tell you a secret. I have tried and I have tried very hard, but I can't do it. I just can't do it! And that is why I'm just a little crazy." (Rembrandt Van Rijn 1606-69)

December 2008, looking southeast from my porch:

Saturday, December 6, 2008

BEFORE, DURING AND AFTER THE WAR (REVISITED)






















(The following post is a re-run from December 2007, before I knew that RTN had had a brain stem stroke in September 2007 and had been recovering from that in a VA hospital. The drawing was done using the Appleworks "Paint" program and my right index finger on the track pad of my iBookG4. I love that it gives the effect of a woodcut or linocut. I have not done any drawing or painting since January of 2008, but have been working on a book of my art work since sometime during the summer of 2008.)



"Now I know, at least a little bit, why I am so resistant to drawing and painting. Once I start, I find it difficult to stop.

This morning, when I woke up at 4 a.m. which has been my chosen waking time recently, it occurred to me that, as with my yoga practice and my blog/writing practice, if I don't make time in the morning to draw, the chances of doing a daily drawing practice diminish as the day progresses. So, a complication arises. I want to do yoga, writing and drawing, but once I start drawing I don't want to stop to do writing and yoga. Actually, it's not that I don't want to do writing and yoga, it's that I need to figure out how to stop drawing in time to do writing and yoga before I enter the responsibilities of the day.

My drawing today is based on a recurring dream that was dreamed once again last night just after I first fell asleep. Ever since sometime in 1970, when my boyfriend was in Vietnam and I was living in my parents' home, I have had a recurring dream that has taken many forms over the years. In the original dream, I was startled awake by a Viet Cong who was lunging towards me, trying to kill me. It took a few seconds for me to realize that I was dreaming, because the vision of someone beside my bed was so vivid. My heart was beating in that frightened way that sounds as if everyone in the house can hear it. It took some time before I was able to return to sleep. I was afraid that my boyfriend had died in Vietnam.

It was only in the first dream that the person was a Viet Cong. In the recurring dreams, the shadowy figure by my bed has taken many forms, usually as a man, but also as an unidentifiable woman, as my mother, as my father, as a quiet curious child I don't know, as a dog, as a wolf, as a fox, as a cat. Usually the figure is threatening my life, but occasionally it has not been threatening. On the occasions when the figure is not threatening, I still wonder what it is doing in my bedroom. Always there is the loud racing heartbeat. Over the years, the fear became mixed with anger at the dream appearance of someone uninvited, no matter now benign they might be.

At one time I had hoped that I would never have this dream again, believing that when I stopped having the dream it would mean that something in my psyche was healed, but gradually I came to see this dream as an unusual gift. I am struck by the fact that it occurred again on the night before I planned to start drawing again and that this time there were two people, a man and a woman.

Although the dream was of the frightening kind, when I tried to draw it a shift occurred, and it became "Before, During And After The War."

Now it's almost 7 a.m. The sun won't rise this morning until nearly 8:30. Time to do my yoga practice. Not sure how I will be able to do yoga, writing and drawing once I start my 8 a.m. classes in January, but anything is possible."

(A year later, I am waking up at 6 a.m. I dropped my classes a few weeks after learning about RTN's stroke. I was unable to focus on studying. Although I haven't been doing my regular Yoga practice, I have been walking 1-1/2 hours daily. As I was walking yesterday, it occurred to me that what I am doing might be called "Walking Yoga." On December 1, I had the recurring dream twice. This time it was a basketball player falling flat on his face near my bed (?). He wasn't threatening me, but my heart pounded in fear, as it does in all recurring dreams of this nature. Mixed with my fear was concern for him. On December 2, I broke my left baby finger. As a result of that and a flare-up of ocular rosacea, I'm not working on the refresher course in medical transcription for the time being. Typing slowly, I can spend my time working on my book until my baby finger heals and the ocular rosacea is under control again with the help of a good ophthalmologist. It took me about three hours to complete this post and comment on another blog. The image that follows is another photo taken before dawn. The upper left hand corner of the image was a luminous blue. Wish you could see it as I saw it. If you tip your computer screen forward, that corner looks more blue.)

Friday, December 5, 2008

WEDDING AND MARRIAGE






















I found the wedding video of Joi and Mizuka at One Word, Zhoen's blog. Listen to her and D's podcasts by clicking on "One Word Aloud" at the top of her blog. I've been reading her blog for some time now, but just heard her voice and D's music in the last few days.

If my parents were still alive, yesterday would have been their 60th wedding anniversary.

What I remember most clearly about RTN in these last few days is his laughter, especially the day in 1970 when we quietly laughed so hard each time we looked at each other that we had to leave the church, the only time we were in a church together. When we were safely outside, we laughed for a long time in the California sunlight.

("Wedding and Marriage," painted in gouache and watercolor by am sometime soon after December 14, 1999, when I talked on the phone with RTN who was recovering from surgery for throat cancer. We had met on the beach at Half Moon Bay, California, on December 14, 1966. There was no wedding and no marriage, but there were 42 years of friendship)

Thursday, December 4, 2008

STILL TALKING ABOUT WHAT IS NOT BROKEN






















Today is the 2nd birthday of my blog.

Two months after I adopted Oboe from an animal shelter (an auspicious turning point because I had lived alone, without even a cat, for more than 22 years), I was inspired by the blog of Rebecca MacKinnon to start a blog of my own. I had been reading blogs since sometime in 2004, the year I bought my first computer, an iBookG4. Rebecca's blog was the first one I read. Her blogroll led to many of the blogs I still read. Rebecca's parents had visited my family in 1970 when Rebecca was a baby, and R was in Vietnam. I took a picture of them in the sunshine in our family's backyard, using the Minolta camera that R had sent me from Vietnam.

Today is also the anniversary of the day that R returned from Vietnam in 1970. He had told me not to tell his mother which day he was coming home, asking me to come alone when I picked him up at the airport. He called me from the San Francisco Airport at 3 o'clock in the morning. About a half hour later when I arrived in the luggage area, no one was there.

In my memory, the airport is dark and silent and empty. I walk to the right, toward the escalators. As I approach them, I see him riding down. When I look at this memory of seeing him for the first time that day, I can't see him clearly because it is dark. Something is wrong, although this is the moment for which we have been waiting for nearly 12 months. We embrace at the foot of the escalator. He tells me that he took amphetamines for the flight home. He is wide awake. He is exhausted. He looks around for a trash can. Finding one, he stuffs his Army uniform into it. We are together again and absolutely alone. Something is terribly wrong. The day is a blur of jarring moments. There is no memory of the next day or the next week. I don't know how long I am without memory.

My next memory is of waking up in the dark in our bed, hearing him yelling to another soldier. In his sleep, he turns to me and punches me in the face, giving me a black eye. He wakes up to find me crying, and he is bereft of any relief he may have had at being home again.

Bereave (bi rev'), v.t., -reaved or -reft, -reaving. 1. to deprive ruthlessly or by force (usually fol. by "of"): The war bereaved them of their home. 2. to deprive or make desolate, esp. by death (usually fol. by "of"): Illness bereaved them of their mother. 3. to take away by violence.

We lived together from December 8 until sometime during the following May. It was night again. We were talking about a possible separation. Living together was not working. He wasn't ready to be living with me. I cried easily. He couldn't deal with that. I couldn't deal with his anger and daily drug use. Especially problematic for me was his amphetamine use, which made him paranoid and prone to rage. As we talked, something in him snapped. He hit me hard in the arm and pushed me to the floor. He yelled, "I don't want you to have any happy memories of me!!" As he continued to hit me, I found my voice in midst of my shock and yelled as loud as I could, "NOOOOOOOOOO!!!! YOU CAN'T HIT ME!!!!!!! He stopped immediately, bereft of any peace he may have found until that moment of hitting me. He said he was sorry. He was. On the next day, we made the decision to stop living together.

There was little support for soldiers coming home or for those who loved them. "The war bereaved them of their home." I am not convinced that our outcome would have been different, even with support. War is ruthless.

On December 8, 2006, I had been out of touch with R since 2003. PTSD, along with drug and alcohol abuse, had left him close to homeless, but he rented space with friends and family for various periods of time between 2003 and 2008. In the last six months of his life, his home was a VA hospital where he received supportive care from a team of compassionate men and women until the moment of his death on April 20, 2008. He did write a letter to me in late September of 2005. The letter was disturbing, appearing to have been written by a drunk person or a person with brain damage. I showed the letter to several mental health professionals who, feeling concerned about my well-being as well as his well-being, strongly recommended that I not respond to the letter. I contacted his sister, who confirmed that he was not doing well, moving from place to place in and around the San Francisco Bay Area.

On December 8 in 2006, a thoughtful person suggested that I do something new on the anniversary of his return from Vietnam, so that in 2007 I would have a first anniversary of something new in my life. I took the suggestion to heart and created this blog which I named "Old Girl of the North Country."

In September of 2001, when R was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer and was living with his parents while undergoing chemotherapy, his mother told me that she had found a piece of paper with my name on it and the lyrics for Bob Dylan's song titled "Girl of the North Country." My intention was to post a 40-year retrospective of my art work, from 1966 to 2006, and to sort out my experiences as R's "Girl of the North Country" and "Old Girl of the North Country."

This morning before dawn, these lyrics come to mind again:

"And I recall the promise they made
With a faith I can but admire
That she’d be the one he adored
and he’d be her hearts desire
It didn’t come true in the end
they went their separate ways
He couldn’t change what he was
she wasn’t ready to wait
They couldn’t live in the daylight
they let the night close in
and the holy ground took care of everything
I remember the loving time
and nothing else really counts."
(from "The Loving Time," lyrics by Noel Brazil, sung by Mary Black)

Talking about what happened and what we are like now is part of the grieving and healing process. R painted during his last days. In writing this down and posting on this blog, I am healing. Many of us are engaged in healing during these winter days and nights.

May all soldiers and veterans and those who love them find the love and support they need today and always.

May all beings find the love and support they need today and always.

Thanks so much to all who have stopped by to read and/or comment since I began this blog in December of 2006!






















(The above photo of Oboe in the winter sun was taken a few days ago. "Talking About What is Not Broken" was painted by am in the late 1980's)

LIGHT BEFORE DAWN






















Click on image to enhance the light before dawn

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Google/Blogger comment problem?

Seems that something is wrong with the comment function on Blogger today.

While trying to find out what's happening I found this. If you have time, watch to the end. Tar is a student at the Michigan School for the Deaf.

ODETTA / MOTHERLESS CHILD

















Poet Maya Angelou once said "If only one could be sure that every 50 years a voice and a soul like Odetta's would come along, the centuries would pass so quickly and painlessly we would hardly recognize time." (click below for rest of article and Odetta singing last July.

December 31, 1930 - December 2, 2008

Listen

I am grateful to have heard Odetta in concert when she came to Bellingham in the 1980s. Unforgettable.

Update: Interview with Odetta

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

ANDANTE -- A WALKING PACE












From A Winter Walk:

"Countless people on many differing spiritual paths, and on none at all, have made a pilgrimage of winter."
(Tolbert McCarroll, p. 10)

My tradition since December of 2006 is to read a chapter each day, beginning December 1 and finishing on New Year's Day.

Monday, December 1, 2008

1 dec 2008








This morning I received a Grant of Permission from the Princeton University Press Permissions Department. This allows me to use hexagram names from the Richard Wilhelm translation of the THE I CHING, OR BOOK OF CHANGES (THIRD EDITION) with forty-two of my drawings, paintings and a sculpture in my book 42 YEARS: A BOOK OF CHANGES.

The catch is that the permission is void if more than 10% of the forthcoming work is composed of material copyrighted by Princeton University Press. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have 45,000+ words in my book, and there is no problem. As of now, my book has approximately 400 of my words, 44 pictures of my art work, 1 photograph taken using a self-timer, and 209 words taken from Richard Wilhelm. Looks as if my task now is to do some more writing!

One step at a time.

"On action alone be thy interest, never on its fruits."
(Bhagavad Gita)

Something to think about:

From Alan's conversation log -- Question: Where have you been my blue-eyed son? Answer: I've been here the whole time, talking to people; Question: How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man? Answer: I'm not so really great at all with that complicated mathematics stuff; Question: How many seas must a white dove sail before she sleeps in the sand? Answer: More than you can imagine.

Sunday, November 30, 2008

GRIZZLY BEAR DREAM

Have not been feeling well. Slept most of yesterday. Woke up early this morning with a mild headache. My eyes have been bothering me. May have figured out what the problem is and hope to feel better soon. Will be seeing an ophthalmologist early on Tuesday morning.

Have had a series of vivid dreams, including one where I was walking in a California landscape (rural San Mateo County) and saw a grizzly bear crossing the path, not far ahead of me. The bear was moving from left to right, unlike the bear in the California flag. I googled for images of grizzly bears, but none looked so much like the one in my dream as the one in the California flag. In the dream I felt terror and began to run away from the bear, although the bear wasn't threatening me. It was only crossing the path in front of me. My running away caused the bear to begin chasing me. I escaped the bear by running into a house that was some kind of institution. Later in the dream I was at a lake. A tank-like makeshift boat pulled up to the the shore and then continued to the right along the shore. The front of the boat was like that of a diesel truck. The back of the boat appeared to be Scotch-taped. Something happened inside the "institution." I spent the rest of the dream there but cannot remember anything of what happened there.

From UNATTENDED SORROW, by Stephen Levine:

As a teacher of mine once said, "The mind creates the abyss and the heart crosses it." Love is the bridge.
(p. 63)

Thursday, November 27, 2008

talking about what is not broken / thanksgiving 2008

















Variations on a Theme by Rilke

(The Book of Hours, Book I, Poem 1, Stanza 1)


A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me -- a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic -- or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.

(Denise Levertov)

















("Emily Dickinson with Paintbrush" -- pastel drawing on paper by am from the early 1980s)

(handwritten thank you and update note from RTN while in the stroke rehab unit of the VA hospital in January 2008. Many thanks to his sister for sending it to me)

Here are some notes about a song first recorded in March of 1966:

"I think I was on the road . . . I think I wrote it in Kansas City or something, on Thanksgiving, yeah I'm pretty sure I did . . . I was invited over to somebody's house for Thanksgiving dinner but I didn't go, didn't feel like doing anything, I wasn't hungry, I stayed in my hotel room and wrote this."

Listen

Then go see Bev's beautiful clip of a Water Ouzel and a waterfall.

And "Thankful" on Loren's blog.

Sunday, November 23, 2008

CARROT DREAM

Last night I dreamed that I finally found a job -- harvesting carrots that were drifting in with the tide on a steep ocean beach in the winter sunshine. Some of the carrots were the size of telephone poles. Not a problem. I worked hard. I worked alone, feeling strong and healthy and useful. Grateful to be employed.

As I was going up the hill on my way home from my daily walk in Whatcom Falls Park this morning, I remembered the dream. It cheered me up.

I've felt off balance since Veteran's Day and have been experiencing two physical symptoms that show that I am feeling deep distress -- my skin itches and I have a stiff neck. My hands have been getting numb at night again, most likely the result of having been trying to increase my typing speed in hopes of being employed as a medical transcriptionist. Folly?

I'm feeling discouraged and at the same time encouraged by my funny hopeful dream.

"How can I be useful, of what service can I be? There is something inside me, what can it be?"
(Vincent van Gogh, 1853-1890)

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Blue Scholars -- Back Home




















http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En8DwCeKa6M

"Bring 'em back home,
for my brotha's and my sista's who been gone too long we say;
Bring 'Em Back home, and I don't want to have to keep singin' this song,
We say; Bring 'em back home, for my brotha's and my sista's who been gone too long we say;
Bring 'em back home, and I dont want to have to keep singin' this song."

(with thanks to my nephew)