More like uncharted territory.
Much has gone on since the positive change in my health status. It's been strange coming "unstuck", but I'm working on it.
I have been scrambling to make ready for another solo show at Phoenix and Dragon in Roswell. It's been two years since the last one and I warned the owner that I had no new work.
She was happy to have a retrospective. There is room for 12 to 15 pieces depending on the sizes. So I decided to haul everything out of hiding/storage just to have a look and see what I was thinking.
Some stuff left me cold and will be finding new homes in strange places (a public art experiment that I'm still thinking about).
Others took my breath away.
Instead of moaning "Who was this person of exuberance?" I can now say that I had a great run at it for a while. And you can just never tell, so I'm not junking the Janome anytime soon.
The show, "Reclamation & Rebirth" opens Sunday, Sept. 13 with a small reception from 4:30 to 600pm in the gallery at the Phoenix & Dragon bookstore and will run through the end of September.
I've not been scared these past few weeks of not knowing. More like frozen halfway between panic that there is too much left to do, and relief that none of it will be my problem anymore.
The selfish anxiety has been how the potential illness and possible treatments would affect my thinking, my art. Thinking beyond that to matters of mortality has not been an issue. I'm cool with all that. Packed even.
Now that there are no excuses, I find that the road is wide open. In fact, there is no road. I've always enjoyed maps. Making them up as I go.
Thanks to everyone who was concerned, said prayers, did dances and made promises on my behalf. I'll do my best.
I went to the post office yesterday and was astonished to find the entire population of Wingdale, Milledgeville and another other nuthouse you care to name seething around in the lobby as if they'd been notified that gold bars were being distributed over the counter for free. Most of them were unhappy about the scam. Before gunplay ensued, I booked, putting the business off until today.
This morning I walked into the Lilburn office and there was one lonely staff person - the greeter guy who works the lobby making sure you know what you are doing before you hit the counter. I thanked him for my very own personal post office and two ladies came to the counter at my announcement.
"She's got another bundle of rags." One of them said. They always want to look so I never seal up the packages until they are done. Transaction and conversations underway simultaneously and, from the recesses of my bag, my phone goes off, LOUD (otherwise I can't hear it.)
My ringtone for everyone is "Some Kind of Wonderful" by Grand Funk Railroad. I don't answer because I'm face to face with other humans and I like the music so I let it play and they all like it too. Spontaneous hoe down ensues, everyone bopping and stepping for thirty seconds. I'll get back to whoever.
Business concluded, I stepped outside to call back the mystery number. It was the neurologists office. The news was all good. Aliens in my brain had decamped, packing out their trash and leaving no traces. It must have been too hot and chaotic in there for them. Absent any new or recurring symptoms, I am no longer a candidate for skull drilling, experimental brain rays or a pine box.
I went back inside, about a dozen folk all milling about now, doing the post office boogie on simmer. I raised my arm to get everyone's attention.
"Ladies and Gentlemen! That phone call that we all danced to a minute ago? That was my doctor. I do NOT have a brain tumor, brain cooties, cancer or aliens." It's been a long time since I was on any kind of stage. Applause is some kinda wonderful.
A week ago I was offered a solo show at a local gallery where I have shown before. I love the space, but remain a bit alarmed at the amount of work it's going to take to open on 9/13/15.
I just finished stitching a sleeve onto this piece which has never been exhibited anywhere because I could never hang it for pictures. It's been hoarded along with a handful of others.
Time for being lazy and fearful is up.
It's not deeply creased, but I don't want to use an iron on it. Suggestions? (update - it's been hanging outside undercover in the shade and is almost wrinkle free) thanks for the input.
This was from one of the last shows, '12 or '13, I can't pin the date down. I intend on hanging this once "Ocean Homes" in the very same spot. Too pretty not to.
"Later she would say that the furniture in the room of her head had been moved. The room was much larger now and the open windows filled with light as if the sun shone from all points of the compass at once and fresh air breathed through her head like the wind in the willows."
The pool is coming around. It will take hours of intensive labor from inside the pool to finish the job once it clarifies a little more so I can see what I'm doing. Such a chore.
I left all the doors and windows open wide when I went to bed last night. It's sixty-one degrees out now and it feels like the first day of third grade in Goldens Bridge, NY, 1956. The year I first signed all my writing in script. No more printing.
Jake just told me that Charlie slept through the night a second night in a row. I had forgotten what a huge milestone that was for me and Jim who must have walked a thousand miles up and down the hallway in that first year, humming to the little sack of energy that he spawned. I slept sitting up in a rocking chair for most of that same year until Colin, quite suddenly, got the hang of what the darkness was for.
I think that is when babies start to dream and have enough self-awareness to know that they are ok in that dream. Safe at home and in love and comfort no matter what dreams may come.
