Odysseys

Sunset at White Sands National Monument

Synchronicity in action: an old friend sent me a book called Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer's Odyssey to Navigate Life's Perils and Pitfalls, an absorbing read written by Zen teacher Norman Fischer; a week later, I found myself in the car with another old friend en route to White Sands listening to her recite Tennyson's Ulysses (the Roman name of Odysseus).

To have friends that read books, recite poetry, travel distances long and short on foot, by car, by boat and otherwise through time, space, intellect and emotion -- this is evidence of being favored by the gods, Greek or otherwise. Journeys epic and mundane are all about the company.

Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts, 
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.  

--excerpt from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's Ulysses 

The Wild Life of Wildlife

A number of type-A city people have asked, since I moved to rural New Mexico, well, just what do you do out there?

While I am writing, both creatively and finishing an 80-page report for a client, and painting, and fixing and cleaning and watering and mowing and watering some more, and exploring (and getting lost), a fair amount of time and mental energy has centered on critter encounters. 

Since arriving in New Mexico, I have met:

• black widow spiders in the garage, relocated courtesy of NMSU; 

Coyote at dusk

• coyotes eyeing me at dusk who finally decided I was too big to be prey (I stood up very straight), but did try to lure away my dog Rita; 

• snorting javelinas charging by after the dogs while I was out for a run; 

• bats circling above my bed at 3am that I proceeded to catch in a fishing net and escort outside, leading to a massive caulking event of any and all cracks inside the house;

The Rattlesnake

• an irate skunk that sprayed my dog Lucky (Lucky got a bath with baking soda, hydrogen peroxide and hand soap that largely removed the  stunning odor); 

• a 5- or 6- foot rattlesnake that was more than a little irritated when I turned on the water faucet right next to him to water some trees -- we were both surprised by the other's appearance; I had to hose him down to get him to move away from the faucet so I could turn the water off; 

Tarantula

• crickets that like to nestle in the skylight so that their shrill voices will echo and carry even farther; alarmingly speedy house spiders; two varieties of roaches; innumerable flies; lumbering mosquitoes laden down with my blood; and, 

• a tarantula out for a sunset stroll.  

I moved to 106 desert acres. This crowd of critters is standard fare for this part of New Mexico. In the lively world out there, it's not all nose-twitching bunnies and hopping toads, although plenty of those frolic through the sand too.

***
By far the most dangerous predator on my land, however, is me.  

Armed with eco-friendly peppermint bug spray, flyswatters, fishing nets, a loud yell, and (unused) baseball bats, I am somewhat more imposing to the animal kingdom than my small stature might otherwise suggest to humans.

More to the point, however, as caretaker of the property, I also have access to the three guns that come with the land. With that, suddenly the humans are wary too.

With a rattlesnake or black widow bite, you have a couple of hours where, if you seek treatment, you'll likely be fine. Bats are freaky swooping overhead, but not lethal. Tarantulas can kill mice, but not people.

A shotgun blast can kill a person from across the room in a matter of seconds with one pull of a trigger finger (that gun balanced in the clasp of an evolutionarily-advanced opposable thumb).

Animals do kill their own kind, often to remove competition for a mate or resources for food. Chimpanzees, for instance, murder to expand territory. It's not sunshine and rainbows in the animal kingdom with everyone holding paws and singing in 5-part harmony.

But Homo sapiens take killing to a whole new level. Combining their big brains and big guns, unmitigated rage or righteousness or misfiring neurochemistry or greed or panic or pathological hatred or some combinations thereof, we can and do destroy to a terrifyingly extreme degree.

***
I saw that impressive rattlesnake again yesterday, slithering near the old compost bin by the other house where I suspect he lives.  

I still scan the ceiling for bats if I wake up abruptly in the middle of the night. After five non-violent bat removals, I'm still a little jumpy, even though, yes, I know, they are harmless except for the tiny percentage that is rabid.

My arachnophobia, however, appears to be fading. Now when I go in the garage, while I look for the tell-tale sturdy webs of black widows, and check before putting my hand anywhere where I can't see all of the area, from garage handles to boxes, I don't think much about my eight-legged friends. 

When I saw the tarantula outside that a month ago would have made me shriek, I only paused to observe.  When it didn't move in any aggressive way, I opted to take its picture and move on.

My first thought: I'm bigger; I could take him out if I had to.

Living in the rural southwest, I am up closer against my own survival instinct, and the level of ruthlessness I can live with in acting on that. 

***
The last bat I relocated, found clinging to a window screen, clearly exhausted, just wanted to be outside again.  I removed the screen, carried it away from the house and shook him out, with stern words for him to tell his buddies to stay outside. I am territorial. Just ask the roaches (now absent from the kitchen).  

That first meeting with the rattlesnake sent my heart rate up, and left me babbling at "Mr. Snakey." Now I am more likely to wear shoes sturdier than flip-flops now when walking the land, but through that exchange, I also realized he mostly just wanted to be left alone. His rattle made a lot of big noise to say, "back off!"

Living on my own, I don't have nearly as much luxury for dissolving into complete hysterics (although friends who have listened to me rant on the phone about bats and snakes may feel otherwise). In the moment, however, with a flapping bat or rattling snake, I best figure out a way right-quick way to manage critter relationships myself. The water hose worked fine with the rattler.  

Kind neighbors have helped when, for instance, I got the tractor stuck in the sand. I joined the search when one of their dogs went on walkabout. We have community, but largely, independence is the way here on the ranch. Each individual finds different balances between survival and cruelty, risk and security, paranoia and foolhardy obliviousness.   

If his Snakiness makes still another appearance, I could call the neighbor that shoots snakes, but more likely, I'd call the other neighbor that relocates them instead, or most likely, I'll do as I did yesterday and simply steer clear and let him slither on his way.  We have a lot of space here to share. 

***

I've killed a lot of crickets, mosquitoes, house spiders, roaches, gnats, flies, ticks, and a few odd unspecified creepy transparent multi-legged insect of unknown variety. Swatting and swearing, I've lectured the cats on their pathetic hunting expertise. 

The cats yawn and purr, roll over in the sun, dreaming of delicately chewing the heads off of mice and grounding swooping swallows.  

A lot of people have asked me, aren't you scared out there?  And the answer is yes, sometimes I am.  

And sometimes I'm exhilarated by the quiet and the beauty of the land, grateful for the opportunity I have to see clouds roll across the sky for the monsoon season.  

I do know where the ammunition is stored if one day I find a rattlesnake curled up in the Laz-Z-Boy in my living room.   

For good reason though, I am most scared of the violence of my own species.

Petting Lucky at the ranch shortly before rain rolled through
Photo credit: John W. Hicks

Tommy's Birthday

My brother Tommy

A friend of mine who lost his sister to cancer warned me that there were certain times of year, around her birthday and the date of her death, where he would just feel off, sunk in a glumness that he couldn't pinpoint, and then he would realize: Oh. Somewhere in his subconscious calendar, he was tracking the movement of time away from her. 

And so January creeps forward here. It's been busy with new projects and a sick cat and social outings and one thing or another, life the way it is, but today I realized: Oh. My brother Tommy's birthday is on Tuesday. That's the dark noise flittering around in the background. 

It's the third of his birthdays to pass since he died at age 45 in August 2009, and time has, as advertised, smoothed some of the sharp edges. 

The initial rawness was, in some ways, shocking in and of itself.  Because of my brother's severe autism, he lived in residential schools and group homes from when he was 7 and I was 2 years old.  I have no memory of him at home beyond vacations -- Christmas, Easter, summer break.  Sometimes, Mom and Dad would drive out to his school in Delaware, my sister and I packing the backseat full of Barbies to entertain us through the drive there and back. Susie is older and remembers him at home, but I don't. 

Tommy lived the last 24 years of his life in a small group home in Maine with some of the kindest people I've ever met working with him there. He made friends and went bowling and to baseball games, rode regularly with the therapeutic riding program he loved and kept the yard free of dandelions with a ruthless vigilance.

Tommy wasn't part of day-to-day life in my memory, so as much as I didn't expect his sudden death at only 45, I also didn't expect how much the finality of his absence would unravel me for a time.

For most of my childhood, Tommy injected a level of chaos into most family holidays. To be honest, the spitting and the bedwetting and the less-than-ideal table manners weren't all that much fun. But he was family and I felt that bond. We both took the same destructive glee in ripping into Christmas presents.  And he more glee in tidying up (I'm more of a slob; Tommy liked things in their place, although that order could remain mysterious to the rest of us).  

He didn't make much eye contact, but I do remember moments, hiding out with him, where I'd just sit next to him and talk when no one else was in the room. Mostly, he would rock back and forth and I couldn't tell if he was listening.  But every once in a while, usually when I made some crack about a relative, he'd shoot me a look as if to say, "Yeah, I know. They're all a little nuts."

This is what siblings do, exchange sidelong, knowing glances about the quirkiness of family.

We looked alike, and in some pictures, I see family expressions, the mix of Mom and Dad that came down to both of us.

And then we were not alike. I spoke; he didn't.  He hummed and rocked and flapped, the classic self-soothing mannerisms of autism.  

Autism diagnosis has exploded in the last 30 years.  But when I was a kid, half of my childhood cohort thought my brother was artistic, painting portraits in some garret.  No, I'd explain.  He was different. Really different.

When we were growing up, the now dismissed Refrigerator Mother theory put forward by Bruno Bettelheim and Leo Kanner was just falling out of fashion. They suggested that emotionally frigid mothers who turned away from their children inspired the emotional distance of autism.

Autism is now largely considered to be a genetic issue.  But in the 50s and 60s, all those mothers who had kids like Tommy were, on top of having to deal with the difficulties of having kids like Tommy, told his autism was their fault. I don't have kind feelings toward Bruno Bettelheim.

There weren't any autism walks or ribbons of awareness when Tommy and I were growing up. The resources available for him and my parents were frequently lumped together with children with related, but different issues needing different care. My parents spent innumerable hours investigating every new treatment that showed promise, from the B vitamin megadosing to hours working with Tommy on picture and word recognition. He went to day schools and, when he was older, bigger, and more energetic, to residential schools.  My parents navigated labyrinths of legal and funding options and did everything they could to make sure Tommy had every opportunity to be healthy and happy.  


I am thrilled that autistic people and their families today don't have explain nearly as much, that there are more and better options, that there are approaches that can help autistic people and their families connect more with each other. And I also wish more of those options, instead of Bruno Bettelheim, had been around for my family.   

One huge impact on my brother's life was the introduction of facilitated communication (FC).

Transcript, FC conversation, 7/25/1996 - p. 1

Until that point, we were all told Tommy likely didn't understand much of what was going on around him. 

Facilitated communication is assisted letterboard typing, a treatment that grew out of work with people with cerebral palsy. It was not without controversy.  There were claims of it being a Ouija board, with the facilitator (deliberately or not) influencing the letters plucked out one by one by the client.

But then there were also autistic people that eventually no longer needed facilitators, who began to type out words on their own. No Ouija boards there. 

So in our 20s, Tommy and I finally got to have a conversation.

I believe FC worked for Tommy, that it was his voice speaking, not a facilitator's. Although he always had a facilitator with a hand on his arm back near his elbow, I think Tommy directed the chosen destination of his pointing finger on that letterboard.

Transcript, FC conversation, 7/25/1996 - p. 2

What I can absolutely guarantee is that Tommy was happier when people treated him as if he could understand, when he was given choices, when he was asked questions and given opportunity to respond. 

He mellowed in his 30s and 40s (as we all do) and settled into a peaceful rural life in Maine, seeing my mother regularly after she moved nearby, seeing my father on his many trips north, participating in the therapeutic riding program in the summers, clearing those pesky dandelions out of the yard, working with the staff on treatment goals, including FC, to make his life more comfortable, and enjoying outings with his housemates. 

Tommy brought difficult issues with him; there is no way around that. 

But Tommy could also be refreshingly fun in his own particular way, in part because social conventions didn't apply for him. 

Transcript, FC conversation, 7/25/1996 - p. 3

An example: at a family bbq at my aunt and uncle's house in the late 70s or so, Tommy arrived back at the table from a trip to the restroom quite happily naked. He was a nudist at heart, I think, and destroyed, bit by bit, thread by thread, countless shirts over his lifetime. I have a fond memory of watching one of his shoes go by my window when we were in the car. But on this occasion at my relatives' Pennsylvania home, he'd just ditched his whole wardrobe. It was hot; he was a clothing optional kind of guy. 

My mother (not endorsing the clothing optional approach) went to find his clothes, assuming he'd left them upstairs. 

And she could find no sign of them -- not in the bathroom, not in the closets, not in any of the bedrooms, not on the stairs, not anywhere. None of us could find them anywhere. We considered and rejected the flushability of his clothes (with mild plumber alarm) but it just didn't seem possible.  His clothes had just vanished, Tommy's personal magic trick.

Transcript, FC conversation, 7/25/1996 - p. 4

His dip into nudism was foiled that day, as Mom of course had other clothes in supply, but he definitely had his moment of making an entrance and creating a mystery. 

Some days later, my aunt dropped something on the bathroom floor and when she leaned down to retrieve it, happened to see a bit of cloth hanging down behind the radiator.  And pulling on that, she then discovered, wedged with great precision, Tommy's abandoned clothes.  

Tommy, like any kid, had crafty moments, and he really, really didn't want to wear those clothes on a hot July day. Even before FC, Tommy managed to get many of his points across. 

Most of all, Tommy had some fun amid family and friends that loved him.  I will hope to remember that above all on his birthday. 

"Cinthia makes me laugh. I am laughing with you. A good thing to laugh."
          -- Tommy, during an FC conversation when I visited Maine in 1996.  

Thomas Daniel Daffron
January 17, 1964 - August 30, 2009
Photo taken mid-August 2009

Leaving Behind Forward Thinking

Resolutions for the new year. Setting intentions in yoga class. Visualizing a magical future in the coaching world.  It's all about seeing what you want and going for it, grabbing the future by a throttle hold and beating it into submission. 

Certainly, if you can't imagine it, you won't have any ability to achieve it. I thrill to imagination and creating new ways of seeing the world.   

Hazel practicing contentment

But I also believe in being content in transition --  in gently leaning back into limbo and letting in the experience of not knowing what is going to happen, no matter what I'm busy visualizing in joy or panic. 

To thoroughly see what is happening around you, you have to detach from the idea that you can control everything around you. 

And let's be clear: you don't have control. You may be a bootstrap CEO worth millions, but large swaths of the world just don't give a crap about you.  They aren't going to do what you want no matter what you order or imagine or visualize. You can't make people think what you want.  Mind control is still science fiction. 

Don't take it personally. You're just a speck. A dust mote. 

That's OK.

We all look lovely shining in sunbeams anyway. 

Maybe the perfect future you have in mind is that gosh-darned perfect.  But maybe your lock-step pursuit of it blinds you to side routes along the way, potentially grander or happier avenues if you just took a breath, looked around, explored, imagined, and then reimagined.

Your goals can change. Your imagination may refine an image as you collect more information. You may change and want different things. 

What I wanted to be when I was four (a baton-twirler) didn't fit the twelve year old version of me, and even if it had, and I'd spent a decade twirling my heart out, I'd likely not still be marching along with a parade now. 

Persistence pays off.  But so does flexibility. 

Do I think you or I should spend forever at a crossroad, refusing to choose a direction, sit down in paralyzed indecision?  Nope.  Fear of the unknown, of motion, of change - as much as I and everyone else may on occasion be subject to them, I'm opposed to them.

But I think there is a point where when we put all our happiness out there in the future, we downgrade the value of where we are now,  the work (or the dumb luck, or grace, or whatever combination thereof) we've done to stand on this ground. 

I don't want to stand around perpetually discontent with here and now.

All the visualizing, yearning and wanting, leaves me anxious and tired some days.  It leaves me thinking that I am lacking, because I'm missing some perfect [fill in the blank]. 

And I'm not. 

Right here.  Right now.  It's good.

So my cheeky one word resolution, to bask -- to take pleasure in the little wonders of this point in time, this step on a journey to somewhere, a small, critical, anonymous, unimportant step, but a step -- is less cheeky than I thought. 

Basking breeds contentment.  Not complacency or blindness, but contentment. And that is definitely something to yearn for and lean into right now.

Happy Not A Holiday, Nondescript January 2nd.

Thanksgiving Gratitude List 2011

I complain. And whine. And grumble. A lot. Too often I see the glass chipped and half-empty. To counteract that tendency, last year I drew up a list of 25 things for which I'm grateful.  Cataloging the many ways in which I am rich is becoming a yearly tradition, a welcome antidote to all the fretting about silly junk. 

Here is the list for this year. I tried not to peek at last year's until I finished this year's, but the similarities are striking. I'm still incredibly lucky. 

So without further ado, and in no particular order, Thanksgiving Gratitude List 2011.

1. 

   Model horses rock!
   photo credit: Thomas A Daffron, Jr. (my grandfather)

   My sister: She's my best friend, not because she is my sister, but because she is courageous and funny, smart, kind, and honest. She puts up with my endless rambling and whining and reliably responds with wit and a healthy dose of reality. And – bonus! – she makes really yummy cookies and chocolate zucchini bread among many other tasties.
2. My parents: In very different ways, they are both remarkable people. I am clear in the love we have for each other. The older I get, the luckier I know I am.
3. My cats: As oldsters, they're largely fluffy doorstops snoring in one chair or another, and they do nothing to decrease the cricket population in my apartment. But they purr when I pick them up, come when I call them (yes, even though they're cats), and never tire of the excitement of dinnertime. In the winter particularly, they cleave to me for warmth and affection, and viceversa. They still groove on catnip and playtime and their hedonistic lifestyle of dozing in the sunshine.
4. Painting: Expert technique is still far, far out of reach. But what I do have is a corner of my living room set up for the right side of my brain to play. Five minutes or an hour of messing with color and shape calms me while letting me explore, a stellar combination.
5. Writing: Since I started keeping character sketches of friends and family as a preteen, through the many years of journals, stories, poems, novels, essays, and blog posts, writing is how I organize my thoughts, express my hopes and fears, and clarify my values. It's where I find forgiveness for myself and others, where I play, and where I mourn.
6. Running: Breathe in, breathe out. The steady beat of Vibrams Five Fingers (my running shoe of choice – ask me, and I'll tell you more than you ever wanted to know about how much I like them) on a quiet path. Running strengthens me while it relaxes me.
7. Hiking: Sweating through summer haze or sloshing through fall rain, hiking makes me look around at how gorgeous and how simple and how awe-inspiring the natural world can be -- if I just pay attention.

8. 

   Leo hard at work on a craft project

   Driving: I know, it's not environmentally conscious to go for a Sunday drive. But the joy of windows down, radio up, and singing loud is hard to beat, as is the curiosity of seeing what's just up around that corner or on the other side of the country.  
9. My Aunt Kathy: My aunt spent much of this year helping my mother during her treatment for cancer. She also dealt with my moments of panic and insanity the bubbled up through some of the tougher times. Kathy remained endlessly patient, gracious, practical, and efficient. She is one of the kindest people I know. And she likes a good bowl of popcorn and a road trip, so we have many common interests.
10. Friends Old & New: It's been a bumpy year with family stress and financial bummers, but through that, I've had a steady stream of support from people I treasure. I've spoken unspeakable things to phenomenal people who have in turn shared their struggles and successes with me. I recognize that being close with the people I am over many years of friendship, being with people that bring out my best side, is a tremendous gift. I look forward to growing even closer and supporting those friendships to the best of my ability in the coming years. 
11. My Freelance Writing/Virtual Assistant Business: My commute is about 10 feet to turn on my computer. I never set my alarm clock. I run errands in the middle of the afternoon. While it's true that my retirement is nil and health care nonexistent, I believe this business will, in time, provide me with a wee bit more financial security to go with the freedom and intellectual stimulation of doing what I want to do.

12. 

    St. Pete Beach, FL

    Time: Time trumps money, I concluded this summer when I turned down a (relatively-speaking) lucrative, but time- and soul-sucking job. To have opportunity to choose that was liberating however much I still panic when the rent comes due and still kick myself for not being a more normal, socially acceptable person. For me though, happiness requires enough quiet daydream time (preferably with a cat purring in the window) to relax into it, and I'm thrilled that I have the luxury to choose that life and still be able to eat.
13. Letting Go: Sometimes you can care deeply for people and still find yourself arguing with venom over pointless crap, banging your head against one wall or another. There is value for everyone in letting go of anger and those connections that feed into unhealthy patterns and instead putting energy into more peaceful places of growth.      
14. Free & Cheap & Fun & Creative Stuff: Necessity is the mother of invention, and because it would be unreasonably frivolous even for me to go out and buy endless electronic gizmos I don't need, I've become better at realizing what I do need (food, shelter), what I don't (a Ferrari), and creatively re-purposing what I've got to fill the gray zones in between the extremes. I found goodies at thrift stores that speak to my sense of humor, scanned free piles for ugly mobile parts, recycled canvases to create my new (sometimes lumpy) paintings, and removed a lot of waste from my consumer diet, from deleting pricier junk food to making better use of the library.
15. Light: Given my increased focus on the visual arts, painting, photography, and crooked suncatchers, I'm more aware of the magic of light, the angles of highlight and shadow, the splintering by prisms, the benevolence bestowed by its alchemy.     
16. Family: The more I see how family can go radically wrong, collapse in anger, neglect, fury, abandonment, despair, violence, the more amazed I am by the collective kindness, intelligence, loyalty, and humor of my immediate and extended family.
17. Health: Having spent time pacing hospitals hallways this year, I hold an even higher value on the dumb luck of my own good health.
18. Kids: No, you haven't missed anything exciting -- I don't have kids. But I enjoy spending time with my friends' kids and smile when I see happy crews running amok at playgrounds or parades or wherever.  I love the creativity and chaos and unbridled fun that kids generate by keeping the world wondrously new and immediate.   
19. Radiator Heat, Indoor Plumbing, Electric Lights, Maintained Roads, Public Safety: All those bills and taxes go some place to keep a sprawling, radically complicated system chugging along. Sometimes it clunks more than purrs – vitriolic government rhetoric, the poor distribution of wealth, blackouts, shutdowns, riots, dishonesty, greed, natural and man-made disasters. But every day, most days, millions of cogs in the wheels turn smoothly without breaking the machinery, a consistency I take for granted.
20. Possibility: Emily Dickinson wrote, “I dwell in possibility,” and while she was talking more specifically about the life of a poet, for me, imagination and change provide great hope, vehicles for shifting to a new approach.
21. Memory: Some moments and some people are, for good or bad, gone forever. There is much that I would choose to forget, but much, much more that I am so glad that I can remember, re-live, and enjoy again.
22. Learning: Learning takes place in many environments, so while I have had lots of formal education (and that has given me a lot of tangible opportunities as a result), I'm mostly talking about the capacity to learn in any environment, be it an ivory tower or muddy cave.
23. Aging: Am I happy about the gray hair frizzing over my head or the wrinkles by my eyes? No, not so much. But I'm grateful for the time accrued and perspective. As my father is fond of saying, getting old beats the alternative.
24. Being Sentimental & Cheesy & Mushy: Sure, there is something just a little schmaltzy about gratitude. But I'm grateful for it nonetheless, as I bask here in my riches. So there.
25. Food! Thanksgiving turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade chocolate chip cookies, horribly bad for you French fries, popcorn, a perfectly done steak with horseradish sauce, spinach salad with walnuts and strong cheese, cheese, chocolate, did I mention cheese?, strawberry smoothies, pomegranates and, of course, ice cream. I've had lean financial moments, but I've never truly faced hunger and have enjoyed many a gourmet meal. That's not the case for millions of people around the world.  

So that's my list this year. I encourage you to make your own if you want to feel super rich.

On Thanksgiving morning, I'm running the So Others Might Eat Trot For Hunger 5K. If you feel like contributing to a good cause that serves the homeless and poor of the Washington, DC area, you may do so here:


http://support.some.org/site/TR/Events/teamraiser?px=1376226&pg=personal&fr_id=1110

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Artful Roses

Some days, art lets you down.

Some days, you get up to gray skies and reread the brilliant story you were working on yesterday to find it flat, hackneyed, lifeless, riddled with structural flaws and bland language.

Some days, you examine the portrait that you'd spent hours tweaking the night before to find it looks like a misshapen cartoon with fang-like teeth and slightly crossed eyes. 

Some days, the critical voices swarm in and ask you, "What's the point?"and (with increasing energy as the due dates for bills approach) "Does this make you any money?"

Today is a day where I have to remind myself that art is a process and a craft.  Transforming a blank page or canvas takes time, work, and skill, with a more than happy dash of dumb luck or divine inspiration. 

Developing skill takes time, and the only way to nourish those nascent talents is to keep plugging away. The roses don't bloom the day after the seeds are planted. 

The reason I delve into the arts is because of what I learn along the way. Let me repeat that: explorations in art are about learning. 

Sure, ending up with a lovely product that people ooh and aah over and pay a trillion dollars to hang on their wall would be swell. I'd love to paint in the rose garden of my mansion by the pool. 

But I paint and write as a means to explore ideas, images, techniques, craft, beauty, memory, emotion, imagination, character, story, and all the other elements churned up in the process.
As a culture, we're encouraged to be humble, to only acknowledge our flaws, to highlight all that is wrong with the world, from one disaster to disaster. 

But as I'm busily criticizing everything that is radically off with my art (and life, for that matter), and being accountable for that, learning from those missteps, I try to also put some energy toward recognizing everything that I did right.

The choices, artistic and otherwise, that worked, shouldn't be the neglected good children. They deserve their gold stars as much as the failures deserve demerits, time wearing the dunce cap, and other corrective actions.  

Maybe the good was accidental -- the shaky brushstroke that made the eyes look real, the turn of phrase that evoked more than originally intended, the good decisions made for petty reasons. Celebrate the good anyway, and learn how to reproduce it deliberately. 

Bottom line, life and art are about showing up.  Keep squeezing paints onto the palette.  Keep getting lost in words.  Explore the process of art, rather than the product, and you won't be let down. You will instead be gifted with the perspective of the journey. 

The process allows you to learn more and more and make the choices that push you closer to being the person and artist you want to be. Plus, your artwork will get better because you will keep showing up at the blank page or the blank canvas and creating anew.

This might not net you the swimming pool, but the perfume of progress smells sweeter than chlorine. 

Up from the ashes grow the roses of success.

The Artful Mistakes theme song.

Touching Spiders

Today, I touched a spider. On purpose.

Specifically, I touched this spider:

Captain Daddy Long-Legs

He was a big Daddy, maybe 2-inches across with his impressive legs, lolling there on a sunny concrete ledge.

The reason I touched the spider is, in part, because of the ending of hysterical blog post over on Hyperbole and a Half.  Go ahead and read it right now.  I'll wait. 

[singing, humming, filing nails]

All done?  Great. 

So now you know that about the scariest thing she could think of to do was to touch a spider.

Solidarity, sister, I say.

Spiders have scared the snickers out of me since I was a little kid.  My mother spent a lot of time removing them from one corner of my room where they tended to lurk.  I took their presence personally, figuring that they knew they made me quiver, and so picked on me. Like dogs, they could sense my fear, and hunted me down. 

Bad Memory #1: After using a plastic bathroom cup to rinse my mouth out after brushing my teeth, I spit the foam out in the sink, and then saw a very large, hairy, wet, and downright angry looking spider trying to crawl back out of the sink. 

I still don't know if he got the dental swirl, but let's just say, I never used that cup again.  To this day, I cup my hands together to rinse my mouth when brushing my teeth.  There is no big cup in which big spiders may lounge about in in my bathroom.

Bad Memory #2: As a teenager, I remember waking up standing next to my light switch at the door to my room, the room ablaze, trying to piece together just how I got there.  Then it came to me, the image of spiders half a foot in diameter dangling down from the ceiling, webbing their way toward me. 

The only way I could talk myself back into sleeping was by realizing that, without my contact lenses, I couldn't see a spider that size that far away. 

I didn't find that comforting, since that didn't mean that gigantic spiders weren't up there, just that I couldn't see them.  I slept stifling myself with a spider-guard sheet tucked around my head.

Spiders, no matter how good they may be for your garden and removing other pests, freaked me out.  As a grownup, they still send me galloping off and announcing their presence in a high pitched voice when I encounter one. Spider! Spider! Spider!  That's usually followed by swatting at them with a shoe. 

However today, having just read about spiders and fear and invincibility, when I saw that big spider that appeared to be dead and possibly permanently affixed to the cement, well, I had to stop to take a picture at least. 

The first step to dealing with fear is to examine it closely. 

On observation, I noted that the radioactive mutant spider had 7 legs.  That meant that bad boy had a run in with something and lost a leg. 

Another uncomfortable childhood memory involves 2nd grade boys pulling the legs off daddy long legs until they could only push themselves around with one leg.  Then they pulled that last leg off and left the legless immobile body shaking there.

That's about when I realized human cruelty is real and arbitrary and starts very young. 

And I don't even like spiders.  But I digress.

Back to Big Daddy and his photo opportunity.  I took his picture and then figured, oh, what the heck.  Touch the spider. He's not even alive, so he's not, for instance, going to skitter up my arm and spit venom in my eye.

I tapped one leg.

And Big Daddy scampered right off on his lucky seven legs, not at all dead.

I scampered way off in the other direction down the path, totally grossed out and quietly thrilled. 

I touched a spider today.  On purpose.

Bridges

Last week, I learned that the friend of a friend had taken his own life. 

In the middle of rush hour traffic, he stopped his car on a bridge, and according to an eyewitness account, without hesitation, climbed the rail and jumped. 

The news traveled quickly from his city out west to me in the east. Without the secrecy and shame that so often imprisons the mere mention of suicide, his friends relayed news of his death honestly. As I checked in with people I knew cared for him to offer my condolences, I was told he was depressed to an extent that he vibrated with that agony. He was ill and it finally killed him.   

My direct connection to the man on the bridge was slim. I borrowed his couch for a few months when I lived in his city and when I left town, he reclaimed it. He was kind enough to donate and move furniture for a newcomer. Maybe I chatted with him at one gathering or another, but I don't have any specific memories of that. I remembered his name and his face enough to know I'd met him and napped on that pink couch.

I can't speak to the details of his life. The people that knew and loved him and are grieving his absence can speak to the enormity of his loss, and surely have been over this sad week.

I find that I continue to think about him on that bridge.

I keep imagining the one moment when he was sitting in his car on the bridge -- maybe having planned well in advance, maybe discovering the idea in that moment -- and when the idea flipped into motion. I think about his hand reaching for the car key and then the door handle of the car.

However many times he had contained the impulse for an ending, that day on the bridge, he acted on it.  He did not choose any of the multitude of other things that might, or might not, have eased his pain. In all likelihood, he could no longer see any of those options.  All the possibilities for him narrowed down to this one moment, this one space, this one action to take. 

I see the small steps when he could have changed his mind. He could have turned off the car -- and then restarted it and driven to safety on to the other side of the bridge. Two steps from the car, he could have turned around to get back in. He could have paused and looked down at the water, and then walking away, abandoning his car but his feet steady on pavement, walking away, and feeling the wind move his hair, listening to cars honk behind him.

None of those things happened.  He didn't hesitate, the witness said. 

I wish that I could tell him to wait.  I wish that he could have still been able to hear all the people on that bridge, in that city, out west and here out east, that would have said to him: wait. 

Easy for me to say, you say, you didn't live the way he had to, trapped in his own head, deafened by the roar of depression. 

True, I don't know what horrors played over in his mind. 

But I do know what have been in mine.

Anyone who has read through this blog has perhaps surmised by now that depression is something with which I have a more than passing familiarity.

That I am now, and have been for quite some time, in a good space, gives me the weird amnesia of wondering how it could ever have been otherwise. 

And yet, I know for a fact from hospital records from 24 years ago that I have made similar decisions to those of the man on the bridge.   

My luck, and continuing life, turned on choosing a less immediate method and strange happenchance.  I took pills and had I not spent the four days in the hospital that I did drinking a foul-tasting medicine, those pills would have left my liver irretrievably damaged.

But in my dorm that day, some anonymous, probably drunken soul, pulled the fire alarm, as had been happening off and on for weeks, much to the annoyance of the fire department who had to haul out to check for nonexistant fires. That blaring alarm roused me from my stupor, led to my discovery by a girl down the hall who wanted to borrow shoes, and set off a whole different course of events. 

I think about that man on the bridge, knowing as I do from his friends how terribly long he had felt, not just bad, not gosh,-a-rough-day bad, but a despair that hurt so much that it felt like a physical injury, a wound that constantly reopened to fresh pain.  I know that he was not an 18 year old, but decades older, and had been carrying the weight of his despair for much longer.

While we like to package up suicide as something to do with teen angst or with the physcial diminishment of old age, the statistics speak otherwise. Those age 40 to 59 are most likely kill themselves. Women are three times more likely than men to attempt.  Men, however, are four times as likely to be successful in those attempts. 

Nearly 1,000,000 people a year attempt suicide.  And yet we continue to speak of it in hushed tones, wrap it up in a package of shame. 

I don't know the life circumstances of the man on the bridge, but I can guarantee that he tried many ways to find a path out of his depression and as each approach floundered, his hope dimmed further.  I know it got harder for him to try, to believe anything could change for him.  I know about downward spirals that suck you in, turning you faster and faster in tighter and smaller circles.

I want to tell the man on the bridge, or anyone who feels as he did and I have, to wait. 

Something you haven't seen yet, something you haven't felt in a long time, may bring you back.

You may, for no reason at all, wake up and feel good one day.  Maybe there is a therapist or a drug or a religion or a book or a friend or an exercise or a trip or a lover or a dog or a clear glacial lake that will give you back that wonder, that awe, that lost, distant gratitude.

Maybe it won't last -- but then again, maybe it will.  Maybe it will start a spiral in the other direction, opening you out to the world.

Sylvia Plath, before her death by suicide, wrote in the poem "Black Rook in Rainy Weather":

A certain minor light may still/ Leap incandescent / Out of kitchen table or chair / As if a celestial burning took / Possession of the most obtuse objects now and then - / Thus hallowing an interval /Otherwise inconsequent / By bestowing largesse, honor / One might say love.

The man on the bridge could no longer wait for that incandescent light and now he is gone.  I hope he is enveloped in a peace he couldn't find here.

He leaves behind a crew of friends in shock, friends he once believed he could never do this to.  Obituaries use the term "survived by" and that seems apt; the living are still scrabbling, still finding hope and meaning and joy, still waiting for the good to come around, can still see the good when it arrives.

These friends have to deal with his death in the complicated aftermath of suicide, a tragedy that, even though the death is the culmination of a losing battle with illness, feels preventable in a way that cancer doesn't.

While the stigma of mental illness has lessened to some degree in the last twenty years, suicidal thoughts, gestures, attempts and deaths still tend to get hidden away, spoken of obliquely. Old uncle Alvin was "just cleaning his gun" when it went off.  Aunt Bessie had a case of the nerves and had to go away for a little while. Little Lacey tripped at the top of the mountaintop.

A decade ago, it took a friend of mine months to piece together that his friend in another country had actually killed himself and that his family chose instead to spin it as an accident, his pills magically morphing into a much more socially acceptable car accident.

I wonder about the wisdom of making my history public here. Suicide attempts give you a record, and so from a mental health perspective, I'm a felon, no matter how reformed I am, no matter how I paid my debt to society and myself, no matter the dumb luck that let me survive and flourish. I'm marked by my own statistical tattoo that having attempted, I am more likely than those who have not to eventually die by suicide. 

I think about the nature of secrecy though, and the more I do, the more I think that's what leads us, any of us, when our lives spin out of control, to be standing on a bridge, isolated by our thoughts. 

The man on the bridge is out of reach.  You can't undo death.

For me, and for anyone alive and reading this, all the possibilities are still out there. For this, I am immensely grateful.

I wish the man on the bridge could have experienced that.

Incandescent Light

Misty

Great Falls, Virginia

As I sped along the beltway over the American Legion Bridge on Saturday morning, I drove through layers of fog rolling up from the water. The mist moved in waving columns like smoke, bringing with it a reminder that beneath city concrete, running waters and swirling temperatures create their own languid, chaotic beauty.

The watery fog burned off quickly enough, leaving a blue sky autumn day, perfect. I hiked through Scott's Run Nature Preserve with my friend. While she had appointments to keep with the smallest member of her family, I stretched the day out in the sun. I drove down the windy roads of Great Falls and parked by the Potomac at River Bend Park.  I found my way south on the trails there, wending my way into Great Falls Park.


As I walked by the river, the sun caught the angles of the water, flashed beams of light upwards through leaves turning them a spring-like green.  I relished this deception, the strength of light undermining a view of the true season.

Sunlit leaves

October is an in-between time, a transition. A week of rain can be followed by cloudless skies and skin-warming sun. Chilly, foggy mornings blossom to the blue sky of midday.

But we know what is coming.

Trees lack the bushy overload of leaves as some have already yellowed and fallen, crackle brown underfoot. While the shapes of those trees have not yet deflated to the bald skeletons of later season, the thinning exposes gaps of distance between the branches. We can see deeper into the woods where winter is waiting for us.

Our bodies feel the shift. Having rounded the fall equinox, the light disappears quickly now. We sleep more heavily for longer and eat heartily to prepare for the hibernation. For the last few weeks, I have looked up at my apartment windows in the evening and been surprised to find them already dark. In the mornings, I fire up my blue light box to trick testy circadian rhythms into believing the days haven't shrunk so short, a sleight of hand that gets them, and me, through the dark season. 

As a middle-aged woman walking by the river on a middle-aged day -- healthy, active still, blue sky, sunshine -- the chill and mist of the morning stuck to me. It's hard to know when a course correction is called for and when the seasons are simply changing as they must. It's hard not to wonder if I squandered spring, although pointless given my inability to change what has already passed.

I want to make the most of October, both the perfect days and those of endless drizzle. 

So I go to the river.

I grew up by the Potomac. I played in a creek by my childhood home that probably, through some circuitous route, drains into the same watershed.


Kennedy Center at dusk

In elementary school, I have a distinct memory of bouncing a super ball off the balcony of the Kennedy Center and watching it sail over a wall. I imagine it bobbing and floating down that river and out to sea, inadvertent toy pollution.

In high school, I sat with my legs dangling off walls, chain smoking cigarettes in Georgetown while looking out over that river at a time when the pollution level left it just shy of Cuyahoga levels of flammability.

A decade later, I trained for a marathon running on the C & O Canal towpath.

I've lived in ten other states, but many visits back here led me back to a walk by Riley's Lock. I always circle back to water. 

Why is that important?

I don't know.

Fog, Sugarloaf Mountain

The river feels like useful detail of some unclear larger story, and so I make note of it. 

Ruminations on fog and rivers, water in movement, hint at transforming and yet somehow staying, at core, essentially the same.

The fog still appears if the ingredients mix well, obscuring and illuminating the view with its caprice. Waters flow. Winter is coming, and when it does, I'll still delight in the caress of sunshine warming my skin. 

Bear!

Bear!

This weekend, while on a peaceful hike in Shenandoah, I saw another hiker scrambling back up the path, eyes wide. He slowed down when he saw me, and explained in a breathless North Carolina accent, "Bear! There's a bear just around the bend. I'm not kidding!"

Given that I didn't see a large animal streaking after him, it did cross my mind that this was a practical joke, of a how-to-freak-out-hikers variety. But fear poured off him in large waves, a fear I doubted anyone could mimic so well. 

Long ago, an old boyfriend, while we were hiking out west, spent an enormous amount of time pondering where bears might be lurking. He researched the finest bear sprays, worried and wondered and worried some more, and then purchased the top of the line version for no small fee.

On our way to Banff on the Canadian border, his bear spray was confiscated. Apparently the high-powered American version isn't legal in Canada.

From then on, something shifted. Our hiking became less fraught with possible horrors. If we ran into a bear, there was no secret weapon talisman to pull out to ward off angry nature. Having been disarmed, he was able to let go of his defense against the unknown and instead focus on the startling color of glacial lakes. 

When the sweaty North Carolina man stood in front of me, breathing heavy and pushing his glasses back up his face and babbling about bears, one part of me thought: finally. Wouldn't my ex be thrilled and vindicated that my hiking habit had at last up and got me mauled?

But no mauling transpired. And while listening to the hiker continue to ramble, curiosity got the better of me, and I started creeping forward, just to lay eyes on that bear. 

Other hikers arrived on the path behind us, and heard the tale from North Carolina: "I heard this noise, and I was thinking it was a noise too big for a squirrel, and I looked over to the tree, and the bear was there, climbing!" 

I noted he left out the part about hightailing it back up the path at a dead run. He gave me a sidelong glance of, hey, don't mention that unmanly moment, and certainly, I don't disagree with his fear. I'm not sure I would have run quite so quickly, but that's only because it seems like a recipe for becoming Yogi's snack food, running like prey. A real, live, unexpected bear (not just the ominous floating worry of possible bears) would set off an adrenaline cascade for me too.

Emboldened by larger numbers, the crowd of us turned the bend in the path and, lo and behold: a black bear.  Peacefully rooting around in the trees, pulling down a little bark here and there, she seemed not all that concerned by us.  It's a big forest, after all, and we were puny looking, why would she worry? 

One hiker got much, much closer to take a photo, and while he moved slowly all along, he came back with that same wide-eyed look. "I thought she was going to charge me for a minute," he said.

The things we do for a good photo.

We stood there on the path, waiting for the bear to leave, wondering why the normally shy creature didn't move along. Black bears, unlike brown bears (such as grizzlies), are seldom aggressive to humans. 

Barely visible bear cub in tree.

Finally, we looked up. Up in the trees, snoozing in comfort and out of harm's way, were two cubs. 

Mama bear would not be moving along. And we all stepped back a pace or two, all knowing the adage about not coming between a bear and her cubs. 

Still, we stayed. Other hikers came by, and our bear stayed calm even though they got closer than I would have been comfortable with. In bear world, we were gnats, a nuisance, and our job was to stay out of swatting distance.

We didn't want to leave. To be in the presence of a large animal simply going about her day, this is a moment to take a breath and marvel.  

The only other encounter I'd had with a bear was on a camping trip with that same old bear-phobic beau. We were standing by the car, and suddenly, we were both inside the car, piecing together that there had been a loud, loud noise, and so we'd moved fast to seek shelter. I never saw the bear then, and for all I know, it was just a large, clumsy raccoon who smelled the strawberries we had in the tent (large camping faux pas there), and then thought better of it when we turned on the headlights.

My friend may have developed his bear fear then, or maybe he'd had it all along, the fear of Something being out there, the big Badness in the woods. 

I've had my moments too, hiking alone in remote areas.  Once, I worked myself up enough several miles into a long hike that I decided to sing loudly (and off-key) to warn any creatures of my arrival. This made for a blushing moment when other hikers rounded the corner -- it turned out the area was not so remote. The wonderful thing about singing, however, is that it's substantially more difficult to feel fear while singing at the same time, a little lesson I keep in my back pocket when I need to keep imaginary bears at bay.

There in front of me in the woods, a big fear in furry form shuffled about. And it turned out, mostly my thoughts were on awe and gratitude.

Dark Hollow Waterfall

I'm not much of one for signs, usually, but I'd had an interesting morning that day of decisions, so risk and direction were on my mind long before the bear crossed my path.

The bear reminded me that there is no way to know what lies ahead. I can hope I am reading the maps correctly, but who knows when I will encounter the unexpected.  And when the unexpected arrives, maybe it will be far more inspiring than I had imagined. 

Sure, the bear that day could have turned and bitten me, could have chased after North Carolina or another hiker that stepped too close. She is wild and unpredictable. But that isn't what happened, and being up against a real occasion of an imagined fear was, in the end, not really scary. As with most fears, upon close examination, they melt away so as long as I view them clearly and calmly and treat them with respect.

Mostly, Mama Bear didn't much care what we did, so long as we didn't mess with her or her cubs. 

We all walk a line between risk and stagnation. In some ways, it is safest to stay home and hide behind drawn shades.  But then you never see the bear or experience anything else except the four walls of your cage. There is a much bigger risk in failing to risk, the risk of a life squandered to fear.

I don't suggest foolhardy behavior -- don't try giving  a bear a bear hug -- but do go for a walk in the woods. Sing if you need to. 

For me, seeing the bear will always be worth it, even if the next one does maul me. 

Plus, just think how amused my ex would be at the memorial service.

Sunset, Jeremys Run Overlook

 

Dark History of Mackworth Island

Rocky shoreline
Mackworth Island

Yesterday, I started out writing a nice chatty piece about how I spent a pleasant Maine day strolling around Mackworth Island in Falmouth. But as I was poking around on the internet, searching out minor details on its history, I found instead stories that tied the bucolic location to a history of despair and abuse.

Neglecting to acknowledge that information now seems an insult to the children, now grown, that suffered there. 

The Governor Baxter School for the Deaf is located on the Mackworth Island, and includes buildings and land donated by former governor of Maine, Percival Baxter, an innocuous fact that shows up in all the literature.

What is less common knowledge now is that for some twenty or more years, starting in the 1950s, abuse ran rampant through that school. On that picaresque, and isolated island, children were victimized.

In 1981, a state investigation led to the resignation of Principal Robert Kelly, School Superintendent Joseph Youngs, and Dean of Students Jan Repass. Allegations of physical and sexual abuse were substantiated by the report, but no one was charged. While Youngs died in 1990, Kelly continued to draw a pension.

In 2001, Governor Angus King officially apologized on behalf of the state for the abuse at the school, and the state's colossal screw-up in failing to investigate earlier even when teachers had submitted concerns on suspected abuse. The Baxter Compensation Authority was established to compensate former students for their suffering. The statute of limitations applied for the students willing to testify and so no one ever faced criminal charges. 

Maybe you're saying, oh well, a state institution, everyone is always claiming abuse, how bad could it have been?  Dust the sand off your ostrich neck and read this article, written in 2004 by the Rick Wormwood, the brother of a Governor Baxter School student. He, along with other former students and family members, returned to the island when a decaying house, scene of some particularly heinous incidents, was burned down by the fire department: Why I Hate Mackworth Island by Rick Wormwood. 

The Boston Globe covered the event as well, here:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2004/04/25/school_demolishes_symbol_of_abuse/

No one likes to talk about childhood abuse, sexual or physical.  It's easier to pretend it's something that happens to a tiny handful of people, but the flat out truth is, that's crap. Damaged people often push the limits of what they think they can get away with for for as long as possible for whatever pathological reasons they may have (often, and most sadly, a legacy of their own abuse, as also happened on Mackworth Island). In most cases, abusers keep on until they are confronted and find help, are imprisoned, or die. 

Because such chat is not polite dinner conversation, because so often people refuse to believe ("he's a pillar of the community!") or refuse to take any action ("not my problem") or both, suffering continues. 

My childhood was free from that kind of horror, but I have spoken with enough people not similarly blessed to know how lucky I am. As the sister of a disabled brother who spent time at special schools in the care of others, I hope that all was as it seemed, and the stellar care my family and I witnessed him receiving from incredibly kind and patient people was the entirety of his experience.  His schools remain incident free with good reputations.

But every day, there are more stories of nursing homes and psychiatric hospitals and other facilities being investigated. Years ago, the fancy boarding school I attended in New Hampshire drew scandal to its high-powered ranks when a drama teacher was arrested for possession of child pornography, but more recent allegations are easy to find. Consider the title of this GAO report from 2007: Residential Treatment Programs: Concerns on Abuse and Death in Certain Programs for Troubled Youth. 

Vulnerable populations of people, children, the elderly, those without sufficient voice, those that can be bullied and manipulated, continue to be prey to the damaged and ruthless among us. That makes me angrier than I can say.

That rage is neither surprising, revelatory, or unusual by any means. But the vividness of it speaks to more hopeful human characteristics, those of human compassion and the desire to protect the disadvantaged rather than (as is so popular now in the age of suck-it-up) cull weakness from the herd. 

What gives me hope is that the truth does now, much more so than in the past, rise up to the surface. Through state investigations or through families or through the courage of survivors, when the leaden curtain of secrecy is lifted, there is the potential for change. Change means more safety for more children and the adults they will become. Change means the opportunity for acknowledgement, honesty, and healing. 

-------------

Below, the original piece I wrote with some scenic photos:

Faithful Furry Friends and Fairy Houses on Mackworth Island

Stone pier

Mackworth Island, just a few minutes south of Portland, sports some fabulous views on the 1.25 mile trail around the island. A causeway connects the island to Falmouth.  Trail parking is limited, so I was shooed away from the gatehouse on my first attempt to visit as the lot was full.  Next time, my luck improved.  

Beach with view of islands in the distance

Mackworth Island is home to the Baxter School for the Deaf. Percival Baxter, former Governor of Maine, donated his summer house to the school in the late 1940s.

The present-day island contain a few strange stops, including a pet cemetery. Baxter buried his beloved Irish Setters and one horse there.  

Grave markers in the pet cemetery

Plaque with list of Irish Setters

Many children (or many fairies) have also built little houses out of twigs and shells in an area designated as the Mackworth Island Community Village.  The sign reminds visitors that "You may build houses small and hidden for the fairies, but please do not use living or artificial materials." 

Fairy houses

One of the fairies sent me a snake, which almost scared the toenails off of me before I snapped its picture.

Snake!