Brussels Meditation

1.  "Woman Trying To Remember What She is Trying To Forget." Gouache and watercolor on paper by am, from 1986.

2.  "Mandala #18:  Hallelujah." Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils on Bristol board by am, finished on March 24, 2016, at 6:20 a.m.

Watch. Listen

".... I want our hearts to be open. I mean it." (from The Empathy Exams, Leslie Jamison)

He said, "I am in your life to destroy the little trust you have in men."

A few years before saying that, he gave me a carved painted wooden fish napkin holder as a gift.  He also gave me a rusted tool associated with a Model-A Ford (1927-1931).  He had found the tool in the detached garage of his family's home which had been built in the late 1800s or early 1900s.  I collected rusted tools at the time, inspired by R who also collected rusted old tools and made mobiles out of them.  At one time, I had an old rusted cultivator on my porch.  Before that unhappy man abruptly walked out of my life several months later (and yet reappeared at odd times for several unsettling years), I made these two paintings, thinking about him as well as the Vietnam veteran I loved who later died of complications of alcoholism, and vaguely of my father who was a painful source of bewilderment to me, at first unconsciously and then consciously.

Those two paintings are from my Calendar Series from the late 1980s:

44th Month:  Imaginary Brother With Fish With Open Heart.
46th Month:  Land Fish With Open Hearts Confronting Stranded Tool

Early this morning, I finished reading a series of essays on empathy that has given me everything good writing can give.  Much gratitude to Sabine for drawing my attention to The Empathy Exams, by Leslie Jamison.  It goes hand in hand with The Man Who Loved Dogs, by Leonardo Padura and All The Light We Cannot See and Why We Took The Car.  Not easy reading.  With each book, there was a moment where I thought that I could not continue reading, and I stopped.  And then thought twice.  Toni Morrison's Beloved falls in that category of books.  I couldn't bear to read it until I could.

I am here today to say that the man who perceived himself as a powerful destroyer failed.  When I heard his words, I thought, "You are no longer in my life."  Since he disappeared with his closed heart, I have met many men with open hearts.  They are like brothers to me.  I trust them.  I want all our hearts to be open, including the man who gave me the carved fish and the rusted tool and the cryptic message that freed me.  I mean it.

"Woman With Her Hands Full"

Many of you have seen this pastel, gouache, and watercolor image several times since 2006 when my blog was called "Old Girl of the North Country."  Today I am remembering again that I painted it around the time I began working as a medical transcriptionist in 1984. Now, more than thirty years later, it is on my wall where I can see it if I look up from my laptop as I work as a self-employed medical transcription editor.

All the questions and answers

In the last analysis, it is our conception of death which decides our answers to all the questions that life puts to us.

-- quote from Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-1961)

All I know from my limited experience is that many of the questions that life's diverse teachers have put to me are kōans, beginning with these questions from one of my earliest teachers:





Some answers in the wind, from the album, "The Wind," 2003, Warren Zevon (January 27, 1947 - September 7, 2003):



Now and then when I get an idea for a picture, I think, how ordinary. Why paint that old rock?  Why not go for a walk instead? (am's italics). But then I realize that to someone else it may not seem so ordinary.

When I think of death, I only regret that I will not be able to see this beautiful country anymore ... unless the Indians are right and my spirit will walk here after I'm gone.

-- quotes from Georgia O'Keeffe (November 15, 1887 - March 6, 1986)

Q:  Is this worth posting on my blog? Why write this down? Why not go for a walk instead?
A:  Something moves me to spend this time working on this blog post. What can it be?

("Person with Questions,"watercolor, gouache, and pastel on paper, early 1984, by am)

Drawing and painting in the early 1980s while listening to Steve Goodman

The interview below takes some time to listen to. It is worth the time. Reminds me that a sense of humor goes well with creativity and is a source of well-being that defies failing physical health.

Steve Goodman is an inspiration. His albums were were among those I used to listen to while I was drawing and painting. There was always music playing while I was doing creative work back then.

From the Wiki article:

"Basically, Steve was exactly who he appeared to be: an ambitious, well-adjusted man from a loving, middle-class Jewish home in the Chicago suburbs, whose life and talent were directed by the physical pain and time constraints of a fatal disease which he kept at bay, at times, seemingly by willpower alone . . . Steve wanted to live as normal a life as possible, only he had to live it as fast as he could . . . He extracted meaning from the mundane." (the words of his wife, Nancy)

Steve Goodman died from leukemia in Seattle in 1984 at age 36. He nicknamed himself "Cool Hand Leuk."



(The gouache and watercolor and chalk pastel drawing is "Mona Lisa and the Clown and the Cool Rain of the Law," by am)

THANKSGIVING 2007

("Woman With Her Hands Full," drawn and painted by Old Girl Of The North Country in 1986)

BOB'S KOANS / LIKE A ROLLING KOAN

How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?

(from "Like a Rolling Stone," Bob Dylan, 1965)

Yesterday when I walked into the grocery store, I heard the 1965 recording of Bob Dylan singing "Like a Rolling Stone." Although I've heard that song countless times since I was 15 years old, I heard it again as if for the first time.

The "sound" of the song (not the scornful taunting words) has always had a kind of celebratory quality for me. At 15 years old, I didn't feel anger directed at me as a young woman. Instead, inexplicably, I felt a sense of being included -- that someone cared enough to ask me how I FELT.

On hearing that song with its koan-like questions as a 15 year old young woman, I experienced the parodoxical feeling that although I often felt I was "without a home," I certainly wasn't alone anymore.

There was something in Bob Dylan's voice and range of songs covering the spectrum of emotions that gave me peace of mind for years after that, well into my 40s. I never stopped listening to him, but gradually the "peace of mind" feeling was replaced with a "trouble in mind" feeling. In recent years, I've had to learn to find "peace of mind" within myself but have never felt entirely alone since first hearing what to me is a beloved, bewildering and distinctly expressive voice.

Hearing that voice yesterday gave me a "trouble in mind" feeling.

("Woman With Her Hands Full," gouache, watercolor and pastel on paper by am, 1984)