Although I thought about blogging about the cancer as I went through it, I was in such bad shape from the radiation therapy that I was unable to do so. What I'd like to do at this point is to go backwards and share some it with you from the notes in my calendar. My reason for sharing it is that I looked all over the Internet for anecdotal information about colon cancer as I struggled through Chemo and Radiation Therapy and found very little. So I will share that as well as talking about what's happening in the studio right now, and over the next blog entries, I'll bounce back and forth from present to past, if you'll grant me that luxury.
As I write this I am finishing up a new studio here at the house where I'll be working on a new group of ceramic sculptures in the style that Gene and I created in the late eighties and throughout the nineties. Rest assured that I have invested in a state of the art ceramic studio ventilation system so that I don't wind up sick and poisoned from ceramic dust as my Gene did! Everything is in place except for hooking up the kilns to electricity---I feel like that TV ad from many years ago saying to the Studio "Open, open, open!"
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I feel like I have gotten a lot of stuff done. Finally. Three new sculptures off to the foundry. Garage sale things to my friend's house for the big sale in the morning. Trimmed my Springer Spaniel's feathers for the warm weather. And....I planted the garden.
With everything that has happened in our country this year, and with our new First Lady setting an example for all of us, I got my first vegetable garden planted at this house. I have always grown vegetables at previous homes. Just not here, yet.
I love the notion of gowning my own food for mere pennies and a little effort. The sensation of picking lettuce warm from the sun and washing my own dirt from it before putting it into the salad bowl is almost erotic. It's like that first sip of hot coffee or the smell of the back of a baby's neck. The second sip never measures up to the first.
I'll keep you posted.
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"And yet, as always, the springtime sun brings forth new life,
and we may rejoice because of this new life and contribute
to its unfolding. And Mozart remains as beautiful and tender
as he always was and always will be. There is, after all,
something eternal that lies beyond the hand of fate and of
all human delusions. For us there remains the privilege
of experiencing beauty and truth in their purest forms."
Albert Einstein.
Spring in Santa Fe. Aspen tree pussy willows, daffodils, forsythia...and mice.
Sammy has been at work again. While I was on the phone a little while ago, I noticed a splotch of blood on the tile floor and up onto the leg of the rattan chair. Which means that my big white and gray cat, Sammy brought in more mice so that he and his sister Siri could play soccer last week while I was in England.
Time for me to recreate CSI.
Obviously my house sitter disposed of the bodies, just not the evidence. It's hard to hide the blood, you know. Meanwhile, I have scoured my kitchen because there's one d.b. (dead body) that got away and it's under the cabinet under the kitchen sink and I really don't want to rip out the cabinet to get to a decomposing mouse carcass. I guess I'll just light a scented candle, hold my nose while doing dishes, and let the little pest mummify--it'll only take a couple of weeks, right?
Think I'll spend my time in the studio!
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When it comes to a philosophy of life, I think that my addiction to music is critical! And although my kids tease me about my re-discovery of rock and roll, I am at a point in my life when I really don't care if they chuckle about my pleasure over new albums by Counting Crows, Bob Dylan, Melissa Ethridge, KT Tunstall, Jack Johnson, David Gray, John Mayer etc. and the list goes on. They find my joy over the downloadable ninety-nine cent single humorous, to say the least! Big deal if I feel the same way I did in junior high school when a 45 rpm single cost ninety-nine cents--how cool if my favorite gift these days is a gift certificate to I-Tunes! I find it a thrill to be able to enjoy music the way that I did then!
Seriously though, I have worked hard over the last several years (many of which have been challenging to say the least) to find a way to balance my joy of life with the heartaches I have had.
The way I look at it, bad stuff will come to each of us--we can't avoid adversity. Many people think that joy is fleeting and elusive, but I don't agree. In my opinion, joy is a constant mixed with bad times here and there, and you simply have to know how to recognize it. And rather than thinking about how challenging life can be, I prefer to think about how wonderful it all is. Each new experience, each new friend, each new love brings a wealth of sensations. I think many people become numb with the challenges of life and lose their childlike ability to see these things as gifts--how many people do I know who prefer to take a nap than struggle with life?
I try to find a way to be honest with everyone--including with myself. It is important to tell people how great, funny, handsome, beautiful they are, because if I don't tell them, no one else may either! And what if I don't say anything and they get hit by a bus before I tell them?!
The world has enough pessimistic people and I do not want to be them. I find myself reminding me that no one wants to hear the bad things happening in my life--everyone has plenty of their own. I find myself trying to make people laugh with me (or perhaps at me) as I falter through the ups and downs of my life.
And I have always told my daughters to fake being beautiful so that the world believes that you really are. Years ago on my first trip to Italy, I observed that all women, even those that were not beautiful, moved through a crowd on the streets as if they were the most beautiful women on the planet. I took that lesson to heart--if you walk through life, head held high with an illusion of beauty, soon, everyone believes in your beauty, even you!
Which, by the way, after the March/April trip to England for the birth of my newest grandchild, and my discussion in one of my earlier blogs of my ex-husband's comical antics, it is important to share here that he and I are now spending time together on a regular basis. Isn't it cool after twenty-five years to discover that a man who used to be a spouse can now be a friend? He and I share two daughters and their husbands and a grandson, some good memories and some bad ones. Back to that statement I made earlier about the joys and heartaches of life. Pretty valuable treasures to share. Twenty-five degrees of separation? Oh, the ironies of life!
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Aspens almost fully leafed out beyond my studio window. Spring winds tossing New Mexico around. Softball sized hail in the southern part of the state last night. High fire danger across the state today.
Last Friday night Ventana Fine Art, the gallery representing me here in Santa Fe, was on fire with their 25th anniversary show and celebration. Decided to have a little fun and pair my leather slacks with my new Harley Davidson jacket and a ruffled blouse. Amazing how many people I met through that crazy outfit! Just like the old days when Gene and I always put together a "costume" for our shows.
With May comes the start of the Santa Fe season. Busy days ahead.
On Thursday evening I will attend the "Notable New Mexican 2008" gala dinner to honor Glenna Goodacre at the University of New Mexico Ballroom. I am one of the guest artists invited. I am donating my big bear fountain, "The Gift" to the new University of New Mexico Cancer Treatment Center in Gene's memory.
Friday evening, May 9, 2008, is the opening reception for my son Josh at Gallery 822 in Santa Fe. My daughter, Jami, also has an opening reception at Raindance Gallery in Durango, CO on Friday evening.
Next week the University of North Texas alumni association will visit Santa Fe and I will attend the dinner on Friday night. Three of my kids graduated from UNT and the fourth began her college education there. Other visiting artists for the weekend include Bill Worrell, Jesus Moroles and Aaron White, flutist.
Which brings me full circle to the beginning of this entry--when I spoke to the Alumni Director at UNT today, she said that the new Harley Davidson logo was designed by someone at UNT! Knew there was a reason for wearing the jacket--besides just being cool! Can I call that school spirit?
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"Imagine. Know what it's like to hurry home, hoping to lean on the one you love, only to find an empty room. Waiting and waiting. I know that empty room. Yes I do."
Jean Cocteau "Le Bel Indifferent"
The thing about loss and grief is that there is no prescribed method for doing it. I have recently been involved in a conversation about death and loss, which is something I have experienced--my technique for dealing with the death of Tobey has been simply to live. The only way I could manage to heal was to take it one day at a time. I live through one more day, and then one more day, and so on, until a year goes by and I have lived without him for a year. The initial agony I experienced at the beginning when Gene first died did pass.
Gene's life threatening lung illness was first diagnosed in 1994 and he fought to stay alive for eleven years. Perhaps the foreknowledge of a loved one's mortality helps in coping with their eventual death...I don't really know. However, after he died, I know that more times than I care to count, I found myself sobbing--my grief renewed by a lyric in a song or the discovery of a note he stuck into a book, or a particularly amazing sunset that pulled me outside to sit on the pinon stump in front of my house. Each time I pulled myself up with the question of whether I cried because I was feeling sorry for myself or whether I missed him and was sad because he died too early. Sometimes I must acknowledge that I have felt sorry for myself. And I have had to determine how to take a positive step to overcome that feeling. The most important thing that I have learned however, is more than anything else I have ever experienced, Gene's death demonstrated to me that I know very little about life, the world, and people. And what a cool thing it is to discover that!
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My grandson was born at 10:45 pm on his late grandfather's birthday, 4/2/08; 8 lbs 13 oz; 21 inches.
My daughter was in labor all day long, but through the morning we all sat around the apartment, laughing and talking as she danced most of the morning to Jack Johnson's new album! Very cute with her big belly, doing slow rock dancing! I have a couple of photos. This baby also loved Flamenco music while in utero, and so at one point after lunch, his father put on flamenco. Her contractions were coming at about six minutes apart most of the afternoon, but until early evening, she was in great spirits. They finally called a taxi at 8:00 in the evening to go to the birthing center. With a complete stroke of luck, she got the birthing pool and had the baby in the pool after only 2:45 hours!
It is always a humbling moment to behold a tiny newborn baby and contemplate who that individual may become. With interesting parents like baby Hector Arthur's, the possibilities are limitless.
I flew back home on a full, TINY plane from Birmingham with an oversize, teenage boy behind me who pounded the video monitor on the back of my seat probably playing video games, so there was no sleeping, although I was not ready to sleep anyway. Sat with a very nice man who, it turns out, was in the original group who redesigned the Birmingham Bull Ring Shopping Center, reconstructed St. Martin's Church and figured out a way to make the grade from the Bull Ring work with the elevation of St. Martin's--a twenty foot grade difference. Very interesting. Talked about the uproar over the Selfridge's Department Store design too--it looks like something out of Star Wars. Fascinating. He is now in a line of clothing stores in the UK and is on an exploratory trip to the US with a colleague who is black, and while his colleague was flirting with the pretty black flight attendant, this man shared with me the black man's concern about traveling in the US to Atlanta, which led to an interesting conversation about race in the UK and immigration both in the UK and Europe, where the problems with immigration rival those in America. There does not seem to be the same concern about different races, certainly not about black people in the UK that there is here in the US. Great conversation.
Long lines at customs, had to sprint to a different terminal and through security again to make the next flight. Managed to make it. Bad turbulence due to storms from Newark to Houston, so they went to 40,000 feet, which didn't help much--no sleeping on that flight, and slowed down, putting us into Houston late. Had to take the train to another terminal there, but with the American Airlines cancellation of almost 1000 flights due to some mechanical inspections that had not been done--the overflow of extra stranded passengers helped to make my ABQ flight from Houston a little late, so I was able to run again to make it. Even had time to grab a boxed chicken Caesar salad on the way through the terminal. Turbulence on that flight too, but not as bad. Half an hour late into ABQ but my Mom was there waiting. Suitcase made it too. Got home to SNOW on the ground!
But traveling is so much fun! Like childbirth, you soon forget the agony of this trip and are on to the next one!
Anyway, as Judy Garland said, and as I always say when I walk into my house, kissing the floor in gratitude over being home, with a crazy Springer Spaniel slobbering my contacts out, "There's no place like home, there's no place like home!" As I got the coffee ready and set the timer for the morning, my travel alarm went off telling me that it was 5:15 am in England and reminding me that I had been up for 24 hours!
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