messing around

front door

The house was scraped today, and the storm windows were removed to be repaired and painted.  I wrote a sonnet about a one eyed hag named Lorelei; it wasn't very good.  The girls and I went to Duck Trap and no one was there at first because it was raining but then some guys showed up to get baked in the woods.  Mike Sheehanovich delivered a 32 foot ladder to me and we talked for a while; he told me that his brain is the size of a walnut.

It's not.  It's more like a peach, with a few walnuts on the side, falling this way and that.  I mean that in a good way.  He's quite clever.  Funny too.  

Once though I told him to do a head stand on a green tarp in his driveway and he did it.  He did a great job and he was all dressed in his carpenter's work clothes with sturdy boots and belt.  A few days later he had forgotten the whole event.

 

Duck Trap

My board game

Some of the squares on my board game.

peony

This is the welcome home peony; it's blooming right at this very minute at the end of the driveway.  I'm not so sure about everything tonight and the peony reminds me of sweetness, sweet old ladies named Flora,

and rows of cottages by the ocean all named after flowers, and how one time I tried to dye my grumpy Tibetan dog's hair a rainbow of colors by rubbing petals on him.

I picked some of the cilantro for dinner tonight.  I ate already.  Charlie will be here for dinner once he's done driving the schooner, Surprise -- I think.

pink bachelor button

This is the longest day of the year.

My grandparents were married 72 years ago today.  I took a skiff ride to Rockport with Charlie and Fiona 3 years ago.  Something had happened that I didn't know about yet but would soon find out.  What a summer that was.

I woke up with Fiona and Sunny in the house this morning.  In case you don't remember, Sunny is Charlie's daughter.  She's lanky and talented with funny accents.  At times, the girls are crabby and competitive with each other but mostly, if it's just the three of us, we are perfectly content.  We've had our own little private family for 7 years, just us girls.

That little group is definitely where I feel the most at home.

We each had things to do today though -- separate from each other.

I worked on my game, and finally saw this little pink bachelor button bloom on the back porch; I have been waiting for days.  I painted ferns on the center of my board game and wrote out a bunch of the cards, for instance: have children with your wife AND with one of your slaves.  Invent things and become president.  (That was one of about 50 cards.)

I also drove my dad out to Hope's Edge Farm to pick up our first 1/2 share of the season.  Today we got: chard, rhubarb, thyme, radishes, lettuce and chives.  I took some pictures of the lambs when I was there.  We had a nice time at the farm and chatted and also spent some time being perfectly quiet.

Now it's time to read and to write little poems in my book.  

Cape Cod reading list: The Diary of Anne Frank and Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman

Fiona:

I always get Harriet Tubman and Anne Frank confused.

Whirlwind

The whirlwind of summer has begun.

Relatives flock to Maine but we are still busy pulling weeds and tutoring high school students, teaching yoga, making our own board games for art shows, taking classes and reading books about Vladimir Nabokov and Clementine Hunter.  My book about Clementine arrived by mail today!  I will read it tonight instead of the books for my classes.  Soon we will go to Cape Cod.

That's when summer is screaming its loudest at me.  I can barely keep up with the 4th of July Cape week with Charlie's family.  I LOVE seeing his extended family and getting to be a part of their traditions.  There are fireworks on the beach and birthday parties galore and lots of singing and visits with the elderly (my favorite part by far) and parades and walks around Provincetown, swimming, boating, hiking, kid management and the exciting business of being a blended family for that short period of time.

I love it.  But it is actually too much for me.

I would be happy visiting the elderly.  I like the cape in November and April, maybe even better than in July.  

Off to read about the lovely Clementine.

I am such a slow reader that she will be able to make the trip to the cape with me, which will be a comfort.

Clementine Hunter

This is a painting by Clementine Hunter named: Hunting For Blackbirds.  I'm getting a book about her life.  My heart is palpitating just thinking about these paintings.  I read in 

The New York Times that she started painting in her 50s.  My brain feels like it's on fire when I read things like that... and when I see paintings like this one.  

Words are a chore for me sometimes -- to say what I mean.  I say something and then everything changes.  The words aren't right anymore --I've changed my mind, the world has changed, something essential has vanished -- you name it.

Clementine didn't want to go to school.  She picked cotton and as far as I know she was illiterate.  (I will have more to say once I read the book about her life.)  She said that painting is harder than picking cotton.  I know this is true and I have never picked any cotton.

I will go and draw now ... and try to make the words a little more like paintings.

Here is a very short video about an artist:

"Picking cotton is easier than painting pictures...."http://nyti.ms/198XomX

a whack in the head

Years ago I was struck by a car that ran a red light in Boston.  All I knew to say to the people who found me in the road was that I lived near St. Mary's.
St. Mary's is a nice, old Catholic church in Brookline ... and not very far from Beth Israel Hospital, where I ended up.
I had been walking back to the T stop near the Heath School where I'd been student teaching.  I don't remember anything about my student teaching or anything from the few months before the accident, except one dance class I took -- maybe because that memory was stored in my body somewhere and not in my language-centered brain.  I actually don't even remember that class very well; I just remember one dance that I did -- the feeling of it and the movements; I could probably do it right now, 15 years later.  There was a woman with severe osteoporosis in that class; she was bent over and had a large hump on her back.  I was so pleased with myself -- that my body worked beautifully.  I do remember that very clearly.

I had two breaks -- one at the top of my spine and one at the bottom of my spine.  I wasn't paralyzed or anything close to it.  I was in a lot of pain and I had injuries on my right arm, hand and leg too.  It was months before I could use my hand again but it didn't seem like much attention was paid to any of those  injuries.  I had physical therapy (a lot of it) but the majority of the concern was focused on the head injury.  I had bleeding and swelling in my brain.  There were nerves in my head that were damaged -- the greater occipital nerve being the biggest issue, I think.  My head would spin, my depth perception was way off, and I didn't see well peripherally.  I don't remember all of the details.  The major loss for me was my ability to read and write -- and speak.  I could physically speak;  I could form words, I just couldn't  remember which words to use.  And I couldn't read at all.
So that was it for graduate school (until now).
I remember being very still.
There was a 7 foot tall, red haired psychologist who administered a bunch of tests and told me that I was severely impaired.   I can't remember the names of my doctors, but there was one woman, a neurologist, and she argued with a lot of people and it seemed like she was trying to get help lined up for me.  She thought my primary care doctor was a joke.  He was a homeopath and she had no use for that kind of thing, at least when there was a head injury involved.   She got me set up at Spaulding rehab in Boston.  I had therapy all day everyday.  I liked the physical therapy because I wanted so badly to feel better; my body hurt and I wanted to cry.  At Spaulding I saw people who had serious head injuries.  They couldn't walk or talk anymore; it wasn't just a matter of not being able to read The New Yorker, which is what it basically boiled down to with me when I compared myself to the devastatingly injured.  Most of my therapy focused on getting my brain to do its job again.  They said I'd have a year to get back what I was going to get back.  I did a thousand logic puzzles and word searches, and reading exercises.

I looked normal.
Everything had changed for me but I looked just about the same.  There was probably a bit of a faraway look in my eyes, but other than that, my exterior wouldn't indicate any major shift.
I did not have much to say though.
It's still hard to describe.
In some ways, in the beginning, I was afraid to speak, then I had anxiety about forgetting what I was talking about in the middle of a conversation and embarrassing myself, but once I started to get better I just didn't see the point in talking so much, or even writing so much.  I had been an English major in college.  I loved reading and writing.  I had been going to graduate school to teach and use creative arts in the classroom.  I really was expected to speak out there in the world.
I had always liked to draw but in the years after the accident I started to draw more and more.  I could write.  I could read... and speak.  I was retested (IQ etc.), out in Los Angeles a year or so later when I was teaching art to elementary school kids, and my scores were high.  I tested well this time, but I could only switch my brain into high gear like that for short periods of time; I couldn't live like that.
I spent (and still do spend) a lot of time by myself.
There was that woman in the dance class I had just before the accident, the one with the hump and osteoporosis; I think of her.  I was cocky. I was lost in my own dance and my own body -- not really feeling what was happening all around me.
I did come close to dying, I guess.  I know that because of what happened to me but I don't think I was ever on my way out -- really.  I had to learn a few things.  And I needed to have my body knocked down a peg or two.
So I do speak now, but mostly to do what I can to serve a purpose.  I talk quite a bit to Charlie and Fiona ... and to my mom.  They might tell you that I talk their ears off sometimes.  But I'm pretty quiet in general, and I need to live in a quiet place and I need to live simply.  Keeping things simple let's me have the space to draw and make things.  Lines and color and faces and all that stuff of human life -- it's fascinating to me.  I'm watching everything.  I learned to turn language off, which I think is a useful skill.  I can let go of words and thoughts and just be.  I also work with kids who learn most efficiently in non traditional ways, which is the best kind of work in the world for me and lord knows I understand them.

I have a teacher who wisely advised me to keep certain things to myself.  I mostly do.
But here is something that falls into the edge-of-death/keep-to-yourself category: I will write it out because it's the only way to wrap this little story up.
After the accident I didn't like being in cars.
It would take 5 years before I would drive a car.
When I was young I had nightmares (many involving cars) but I don't anymore.
There was one dream I had several months ago -- one where I felt a lot of anxiety.  I was driving a car that was going very fast and the vehicle was nearly impossible to control.  It took everything in me to keep this car on the road ... and this went on and on, exhaustingly.  Finally, I glanced to the side and noticed cars that had gone off the road; they were resting in green grass and all of the people were fine.
I relaxed.  I knew I didn't have to keep this car under control anymore.
My car didn't glide off into the grass like the others had but barreled full speed toward the side of a mountain.  I was completely at peace.  It collided and I exploded into a billion pieces and expanded out into the cosmos -- just plain old awareness.
That is basically what getting whacked in the head did for me -- it made me know that I am fine and will always be fine no matter what; it's not about the body or the IQ test or if I can speak in perfect paragraphs (I can't).  One day I'll go, but that will just be the body, and hopefully in the time I've got here with this quirky little vehicle of arms and legs and brain and eyeballs, I'll make the most it and learn as much as I can and help out as much as is humanly possible.

love birds, green team, go Riley!

Blurry pastel still life of a shopping bag and a puppet holding a wool owl.


Fiona is on THE GREEN TEAM.  It's field day at Riley School; she'll be at school for 31 hours straight -- making up team songs, racing kayaks in the pond, eating marshmallows, playing man-hunt, staying up all night, closing her hair up in the tent zipper (if this year is anything like the others), and coming home tomorrow afternoon looking like an exhausted, happy dirt ball.

I'm going to be on the yellow team today.  (This is my cozy sweatshirt.)

butterfly sleeve

I finished my drawing early this morning.  Fiona was drawing with me.  She was working on pictures of Lil Wayne.  She'll have to start her own blog because I can't post those drawings here; they're too scary.