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.

All alone all together / 1971 -- 21 years old

"Untitled Scene"
Gouache and watercolor

The poem was written during the five months that followed Richard's return from Vietnam, before we separated. Richard bought me a copy of "All Things Must Pass" for Christmas in 1970.













































Before sunrise:

















From "All Things Must Pass":

FOG AT 7 A.M. / 32 DEGREES

Yesterday I completed the emptying of my storage unit. I feel as if I have moved away from a place where I lived longer than I needed to. It's a good feeling. Still have to sort through the last of the possessions that I brought home yesterday, most of which are books, some of which belonged to my mother and father. As I was carrying them into my home I thought, "If I didn't have all these books, it would be much easier to move." I'll be wearing a dust mask as I sort through them, letting go of those that I can't read again anyway because of my sensitivity to book mold. Most of the books were in my storage unit for that reason, but I wasn't ready to let them go completely. I remember how difficult it was to let go of my father's moldy papers from his college days because letting them go felt like a betrayal of him.

A few days ago, while sorting, I found these handknit socks which were a gift from the mother of a former classmate who came from Turkey to study at our local community college in the early 1980s. I love them. They keep my feet warm on this chilly foggy morning.






















Update: A clear sunny day at 11:30 a.m. after the fog burned off. It's 55 degrees out on the porch now. I forgot to say that the fog this morning was filled with the sound of the Canada Geese who arrive here this time of year. The swallows usually arrive within the next week. This is the week my daffodil bulbs will begin to bloom.

I am finding that I am able to let go of approximately half of the books which were in the storage unit. That half will go to "The Friends of the Library" who will sell them, and the money will go to the public library. My delight in the other half of the books is still strong, and I've made room for them.

OBOE AND STARRY NIGHT / COEXIST

Thanks so much to everyone who has left comments in the last few days. My heart and mind are occupied with my friend, Richard, who is in the VA Hospital in Palo Alto, California, as I maneuver my way through my first days back at school since 1984. I am finding it difficult to focus on studying but will be studying the Anatomy and Physiology text and workbook later today.

Yesterday, before my first class at 8 a.m., I drew "Oboe and Starry Night" on my iBookG4 using the Appleworks6 Painting program and the keyboard trackpad. This morning I spent my yoga drawing time trying to create a customized palette for "painting" in Appleworks6. I learned some useful things about making custom palettes but after saving the palette I had designed, I was unable to open the file. Not to worry. I'll give it another try. I enjoyed the process.

This morning I don't have classes but am planning to call the Palo Alto VA hospital pastoral care office to talk with a chaplain (to help center me in my heart) and then leave another message at the nursing station for my friend who is unable to speak after having a stroke. Then I will give his sister a call. Yesterday I sent him a care package with a card. Not sure what I can do from here except continue to love him and wait for a message from him. My family and friends, near and far, have been helpful during this time.

When my friend was at the VA hospital in the past, I learned that there are a variety of chaplains, including a Zen Buddhist chaplain on call. I didn't think to ask if there was a Taoist chaplain, but this time I think that might be the one I would like to talk with. During the time my friend had been given a terminal diagnosis of lung cancer in 2001, he appreciated that a friend gave him a medallion which was the Yin/Yang symbol with a Christian cross superimposed on it. If there were a medallion like the "COEXIST" bumper sticker that I see occasionally, that's the one I would want because it incorporates symbols from many spiritual traditions, and if there were a symbol for atheists and agnostics, I'd like that on the medallion, too.

In the past, I talked with a Protestant chaplain from the VA who happened to be a woman and who just happened to be there when I called and who was kind, compassionate, open-minded and couldn't have been more helpful to me at that time.

This morning, while trying to create a customized paint palette and while writing this post, I have been listening to "All Things Must Pass". That was Richard's Christmas present to me in 1970, seventeen days after he had returned from Da Nang, Vietnam, arriving at San Francisco Airport at 2 o'clock in the morning. He had heard the album in Vietnam and had liked the song "My Sweet Lord," thinking that George Harrison was singing "my sweet Laura." As I remember, I gave him some things I had made while he was in Vietnam. Richard liked the picture on the cover of the boxed double album which showed George Harrison sitting on a wooden stool, looking intently into the camera, surrounded by smiling dwarf or elf or leprechaun lawn ornaments, in the midst of a vast lawn with trees at the edge.

That morning we drove from Redwood City over to Half Moon Bay where his family lived on a hill with a view of the ocean. At that time, six of his nine siblings were still living at home. I remember the houseful of people and the Christmas tree . . .

See what I mean about having trouble focusing on the present? I have to keep reeling myself back to the present. As Janis Joplin said, it's all the same day. Seamless. Vast. George Harrison's songs on "All Things Must Pass" speak to me today in a very different way from the way they spoke to me in 1970. I wonder how many young men came home from the war this December. I don't think that coming home from war has changed throughout history.

I am finding that writing, drawing, doing yoga are helpful when I am feeling unsure of what to do next.

Okay. My question for myself is, "What do I need to do NOW?"