Seven years of healing through blogging

December 8 was the seventh anniversary of my blog.  Some of you know the history of my blog.  For those who don't, I'll tell that story again. Look here for my first posts in December 2006.  My blog's first name was "Old Girl of the North Country."  After being haunted by memories dating back to December 8, 1970, when my Richard returned from almost a year in Vietnam, it was suggested that I do something new on that day, something to give me another way of looking at December 8.  I decided to create a blog where I could present a 40-year retrospective -- my art work up to 2006.  My hope was that by looking carefully at my art work and sharing it, there would be insight and healing and that perhaps I would be inspired to paint again.  I had no idea if anyone would ever read my blog.

In September 2001, Richard's mother had told me that Richard had written down the lyrics for "Girl of the North Country" and had written my name next to them.  He was living with his parents during a time he was undergoing chemotherapy for what was thought to be terminal lung cancer.  By 2006,  Richard's cancer had been in remission for four years.  For my own physical and emotional safety, I was not in touch with him but thought of myself as his Old Girl of the North Country.

Although blogging has brought unforeseen healing to me, including a change in the name of my blog, I have had an usually difficult time this December, with unexpected edginess and anger and grief surfacing.  I hadn't been able to come up with a idea for a post after December 5 and the death of Nelson Mandela, until today when I saw the Doonesbury strip with Alex and Toggle and their twin babies.

Alex and Toggle are dear to my heart.  Their life is unfolding in a way very unlike the way my life with Richard unfolded, and I am grateful to witness other possibilities for veterans and their loved ones than those Richard and I experienced:

During Richard's first nights home he had nightmares, and to his immense dismay and to my bewilderment he punched me in the eye in the midst of one of his nightmares, as I lay sleeping beside him.  In 2008, Richard died in a VA hospital from complications related to Agent Orange exposure, tobacco abuse, drug addiction, alcoholism, and cancer.   I was able to be with him in the ICU during the last days of his life.

Toggle met Alex about a year after Richard died.  Toggle reminds me of what I loved about Richard.

Richard gave me a copy of "All Things Must Pass" for Christmas in 1970.  This morning I had just happened to listen to "Wah-Wah" and was listening to the rest of the songs when I went to the Doonesbury website to see the comic strip for today.

Waah!  
Waah!

...

Waah!

"Is that ... harmony?"

I love the smile on Toggle's face.

Thank you for reading my blog.  Thank you for your blogs.  Blogging is a way of my life for me now. I haven't gotten back into painting, but I am beginning to do some weaving and am playing the autoharp, dulcimer and ukulele and am happy to be spending time taking care of babies in a volunteer position.  I have plans to take classes and take care of babies as a job in the future.  I wonder if Alex would hire me.

PTSD (All Over Again) / Alex and Toggle

Listen

We're all in this together.

We can send love and encouragement as well as experience, strength and hope, to the newest generation affected by American wars, represented in part by Alex and Toggle in Doonesbury in the last several days.

HERE COMES THE SUN / HOMEWARD BOUND

Listen.

Yesterday's sunlight at Scudder Pond.

"WHEN YOU LEARN A SONG, YOU'VE GOT A FRIEND FOR LIFE"

Listen.

80 degrees in the dappled light.

"SOMETHING GOOD THIS WAY COMES"

Grasshopper jump in the road
Grasshopper jump in the road
Kids they're all running home
The kids
They're all running home

'Cause they know
Something good this way comes
Yeah
Something good this way comes

(from "Something Good This Way Comes," by Jacob Dylan)

The interview is from 2008.

VOICE THAT FINDS ITS WAY

FOR MY YOUNG FRIENDS WHO ARE AFRAID
There is a country to cross you will
find in the corner of your eye, in
the quick slip of your foot - air far
down, a snap that might have caught.
And maybe for you, for me, a high, passing
voice that finds its way by being
afraid. That country is there, for us,
carried as it is crossed. What you fear
will not go away: it will take you into
yourself and bless you and keep you.
That's the world, and we all live there.
- William Stafford

Many thanks to Whiskey River for this poem.

("Self-Portrait with Imaginary Brothers" painted by am in gouache and watercolor just before the First Gulf War)

THUNDERSTORM

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
(Walt Whitman)

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

And listen to this.

A RITUAL FOR CHANGING TIDES

Goodbye Sadness

Hello Happiness, wherever you are,
I hope you hear my song.
(Yoko Ono)

AIEE! / IN THE LIGHT OF DAY

He loved me. I loved him. He punched me in the face during a nightmare after he returned from Vietnam in 1971. He was never the same after that night. He could never trust himself not to hurt me. He didn't get help until the last months of his life in 2008. Gary Trudeau is telling our story and the story of countless couples throughout the history of war. I'm shaken but grateful to see this in the light of day.

I woke up early in the morning of July 19 after a nightmare that had its source in 1971. I'm not going to elaborate on the nightmare, but a thought I had at the end of the nightmare was:

"We ALL need help. We are not getting it."

The nightmare had turned thoughtful. On the other side of fear was insight and love and community.

I still need to ask for help as I go on with my life, knowing that I am not alone and never was.

What Gary Trudeau is inadvertently bringing to light is that although there is help for veterans, girlfriends of troubled veterans may not find the help they need or even know that they need help, too.