Tag: art heals

…continuing the conversation (two years later)

1:41pm 31 october, 2022

(in searching for something I can’t remember now, I found this. I never published it. I remember the pain as clearly as if it just happened.)

However, I am no longer this person. Not exactly.

8:18a 17th june, 2020

enduring days of abject depression, sending me into disintegration out of the clear blue. With summer comes dysphoria and rage and fury. Depression so deep that it wakes me up at night, gasping for breath at the depth of pain; the length of the blade through my chest.

I know that I have been coasting fairly easily (really? are you really going to say it’s been fairly easy?) on a swell of euphoric mania, tempered by cannabis and isolation. this depression though, this abyssal plunge into despair, this parsing of whether I feel suicidality or suicidal: do I just want to not be? Or to do something about it? (it’s suicidality, it nearly almost always is.)

The days since I found the “Gary đź–¤’s Lysa” CD in the attic have been upending for me. My entire, well, my entire everything is upended. My disallowing of fantastical and supernatural beliefs has been integral to my sanity. Being able to depend on science and logic and reason has been super fucking important. And I’m supposed to just, what. Forget all that? I’m reminded of a joke that I’m mostly forgetting but it comes down to the idea of believing that there are signs when they’re shoved in your face. How on Earth do I do this? As someone who is as interested in codes and ciphers and symbols and yes, signs, as I am, as Gary was. But as a communication tool used by the living, the sentient, because what else could it possibly be?

What else could it possibly be?

Four days ago but not last night I started taking edibles before bed so that I could sleep through the night and not be woken up by my own sadness. It worked, I got about six hours each night. I was still a depressed wreck the next day everyday. I couldn’t be counted on to not completely break down. Yesterday was so hard, so painful. I knew that on top of everything that is already happening, it is now the beginning of summer and while springtime is for suicidal thoughts, summertime is for the homicidal ones. (I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.)

I used every tool in my toolbox yesterday morning, to try and feel better. Nothing worked. There was nothing wrong with my tools, it’s just that my brain needed more power, more help than these tools were capable of fixing. it was getting close to getting to be too late to go to the pottery, and I had to decide whether I could trust myself to get there safely, and get home safely. Whether I could count on myself to make the hour’s drive safely. I had to weigh the pros and cons of getting in a car and driving for an hour in order to get to my happy place. I decided that I needed to go more than I could stand not going, and so I would pour all my concentration, my focus into getting there safely.

The first flashes of dysphoric mania broke through my depression in a terrifying way. I realized how outsized my reaction was, and while I didn’t do anything to encourage it, I also didn’t do anything to stop it. I let it just sort of die down, looked at it, and realized that I needed to stop it. I was consumed with rage. While driving. This did not bode well for arriving safely.

I concentrated on relaxing my shoulders, taking my tongue from where it was stuck to the roof of my mouth and relaxing that, trying so hard to remember Kellen’s voice in my ears, giving me permission to be nowhere else but listening to her voice.

To my credit, I did not yell at myself for trying to do these things. I did not make fun of myself for trying to do these things. I did not give voice to any doubt that I would be able to do these things. I tried as best I could to just relax and drive and space out as much as I thought safe to. keeping the reward of a safe place in mind as I drove the familiar route.

I got there, smiling wanly at the familiar markers, seeing the two hand-painted rainbow signs way up in Trump country, always heartening. Anxious that I would once again get to the pottery and see cars belonging to people I didn’t want to see, knowing that this was a possibility, steeling myself for it. Managing my expectations. I turned up the drive.

No one here but us chickens.

10:42a 18th June, 2020

I couldn’t do it all in one day, get it all written. I am grateful that I had enough time to write what I did, but then I had to get ready for work and go to work and deal with work.
Too many hours, too many people. Too much of everything.
Back to the story.

The relief I felt at not seeing BT’s car, well, to say that I could finally lower my fear would be an understatement. All of the anticipation of having to possibly deal with her and avoid her and her narcissistic bullshit, because every single time that I had come up here needing solace, needing peace, she was here. In my way.
She wasn’t there.

I had planned on going up there to work, to make new work. With no plan to sell anything or any kind of brain power to work on that but it isn’t ever about the selling. It’s about the making.

(I am regretting not working on this last night when it was still somewhat fresh. I am foggy on the details of the day now. Perhaps that isn’t important.)

I know that Lynn and I had raised voices, and that I was in distress, and I couldn’t understand why she couldn’t see how much I was struggling. I know how much she loves me, I know how much she wants for me to be as sane and as happy as I can be. I also knew that nothing would be solved by not telling her how much I was hurting. So I did. I said that I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. And she said okay. and if we could have hugged we would have hugged. But we couldn’t hug, so we sat six feet apart and smiled through the sadness.

We talked more about things we both agree on, talked about upcoming firings, talked about new friendships we were making and how grateful we were for each other. We made plans for the next time we would see each other, Sunday. I left, with nothing made but progress.

I put my Phoenix playlist on shuffle, one that I started making when I first started coming into my badassery for real.

The opening notes, soft, haunting voices. The Night We Met.

I am not the only traveler
Who has not repaid his debt
I’ve been searching for a trail to follow, again
Take me back to the night we met
And then I can tell myself
What the hell I’m supposed to do
And then I can tell myself
Not to ride along with you
I had all and then most of you
Some and now none of you
Take me back to the night we met
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do
Haunted by the ghost of you
Oh, take me back to the night we met…

The night we met in person for the first time, the night we spent together eating, talking, walking, falling in love. Walking past the Salvation Army building with its new sign, lit but covered, ghostly and creepy.

He took photos.

This suggested one person to me
Jan.

As I was listening, I began to nod. Yes.

And then?

Driving guitar. Insistent drums.
Hurricane Jane.

Go ahead call me a hurricane
Got no regrets I accept that name
Sound the alarm big storm comin’ run for cover get gone
My screams make the wind
My tears become the rain
My body rolls like the waves
And my heart is the eye of the storm
Kali, Goddess of Destruction got nothin’ on me
I’m Queen Calamity

I pulled the car over. Off the road, blinkers on. Okay, I get it.

I pull over so I can text Jan.
To tell her that I need her help, her counsel. Not right that second, I didn’t want to needlessly worry her, but that right that second was when I figured it out so I’m telling her.
She got back to me somewhere on my way home, made plans to meet and chill. This afternoon.

Seeking the counsel of a retired priest.

I wish I could say that I am eased, now, having made plans. I’m not.
If anything, I’m more amped up and tightly wound than I was. I am hyper aware of exactly how rigid my shoulders are, how every terrible thought is barging its way into my head. How a photo of the partner I haven’t seen in months is breaking my heart with how the look on his face echoes my own. How all I want to do is tell him it will all be better.

But I don’t know that it will. What I do know is that it can always get worse, and often does.

making friends

Today is probably the very last day this year for picking Queen Anne’s Lace from the side of the road. I kept my eyes open on this rainy, grey day, keeping up with 69mph traffic but still trying to spot my prize. There had to be enough room to pull over, traffic had to be far enough away from me that I wouldn’t panic, and finally, I saw it. The telltale long legs with flat, white faces tilted to the sky. I know this is the last shot I’ve got.

I signal, slow down, stop. Hazards on. Jump out of the car, run around to the passenger side, gingerly step across a water-filled ditch and grab her. Enough lovely ladies, small and delicate, and finished ones as well, right on the stalk, root and all. I do a quick once over to look for winged passengers, open the door, and unceremoniously toss her inside.
I get to the studio, fill a plastic goblet with rainwater, plunk her in the bowl to wait.

I took a long time getting other things done at the studio, nothing towards this little wild carrot waiting outside, patiently, for me to be ready. Checking the light, the time, She Who Leads The Committee in my head murmurs, hmm, it’s getting late, maybe you shouldn’t bother. It’s getting dark. It’s raining. I deflect; i worked hard to get this last one, this last one! There will be no more especially if I do nothing with this one. No.

So I make a little more space in front of me, no, not really enough space but it’s okay, and I garrote a thick, creamy slice of porcelain from the perhaps ten pounds I have left. I tear off a handful of it as if a handful of warm bread from a fresh loaf. I am looking at the flowers and I know exactly what I want to do with every single one of them.

Every single one of them has a place.

ancient artifacts

black clay medallion, going into the salt

I look at this
it looks like a cookie
i wanna eat it
I look at this and I think you might have liked it.
Like really liked it.
It has that stone boulder-type look that you loved
you made your file folders and icons all have it
It has that riveted, homemade robot-type look to it
that wonky, wabi-sabi ancient technology look.
something you could have unearthed on a dig
or found in our backyard, sticking half-up out of the dirt.
You can see my fingerprints in it, for now.
You can see the literal hand of the artist.
The linen cloth I use to protect both surfaces
above and beneath.

I had to come forward this far.
this far.
Three years.
I had to come forward this far
to make something I truly think you would like.

I think so much that you would like it.

but why am I trying so desperately to please my dead husband?

Home. 10 November, 2019.

…a braver man I never met.

Gary is finally home.

It doesn’t hold all of his cremains that I have left.
It doesn’t have to. It holds enough.
I’ll scatter the rest in places he liked.

I think I can finally go, now.

clockwise from top left: day 1, raw. step 2, bone dry. step 3, bisque fired. step 4, applying wax resist. step 5, glazing before the salt fire.

17 September, 2019

bisque-fired black clay cinerary, going into the salt kiln on Halloween.

Sunday brings your birthday, and with it, more work on the cinerary I’ve finally been able to make for you. I thought I’d be able to make it and fire it that first year — I thought a lot of things that first year.

I thought I’d be able to get this place cleaned up and out.
I thought I’d be able to handle getting our taxes done.
I thought I’d be able to apply for your social security death benefit.
I thought I thought I thought…

I knew nothing of the overwhelming and all-consuming grief that would completely take over my life: not all of it, no, but it is insidious, its tendrils curling into every single aspect of my life, twisting around the things that keep me going, threatening to cut off air, blood, sanity.

I am not the same person I was a year ago.
I am not the same person I was two years ago.
I have become more patient and less tolerant.
More open and less willing to bend.
More sure, more confident. Quieter, calmer.
I react differently to things now.
I am able to let go, to let things slip away when they matter not.
It is taking me by surprise; I wonder how you would react to this girl?
This girl who has finally had to grow up?

It’s you, you know, you’re the reason. The catalyst.

I only wish you could see me now.
I think you would be proud.
I know I am.

On this day, two years ago. 15 September, 2019. Genesis.

This was the day of my Beginning.

Two days later, at the show, I took the name The Salty Widow. I was having a discussion with a fellow artist about the previous week, its toll. I was musing about the words of it, the word widow and how strange that was? That I am now, and will always be a Widow. That it is indeed a strange word, and I will not be afraid of it.

That I will own it.

Today, I took a huge step towards my next evolution. Education. I am doing it.

Love is. 10:40a, 13 September, 2019.

Today I know how much I am loved. I have no doubt. I will never ever not know. I know what it feels like to be loved, and seen, and heard. I know what it feels like to be understood.

My evolution is ongoing. The path I started down two years ago is ever-twisting, ever changing. Forward, ever forward.

I’d brought this little bit of printing I’d done to hang up in Gary’s hospital room. To remind him that he is loved. I brought it home, taped it to the shelf on his side of the bedroom. To remind me.

7 april, 2019. 10:16pm

today i wanted to be dead.

i didn’t want to kill myself,
i didn’t want to die.
i wanted to be dead.
i wanted to not be anymore.

i was dysphoric and abyssally depressed and griefstruck and i
had to pull the car off the road because i could not see the road through my tears.

music blasting, car rocking from the drafts of the other cars speeding by, shoulders shaking. screaming into the sky. i can’t. i can’t. i can’t do this anymore. why? why? why?

weeping. wailing. shrieking. howling in pain.
desperately calling up mental images to save me, of those i love, of those i do not want to live without. replaying their voices, their words, their murmurs of love, of promises. bring me back. keep me here. keep me safe.

i am having a very hard time wanting to be alive right now.

this too, shall pass. and it is all for the good.

i didn’t want to kill myself,

i wanted to not be anymore.

i got back on the road, got to where i’d set out to be, inexpertly rolled a joint, smoked half of it, got to work. two and a half hours later, my rage was exhausted, driven out by the tediousness of the work, for when your work, your passion requires exquisite concentration you really can think of nothing else. or at least, only the good things. and as i listened to delicious music and smoked delectable herb and mesmerized myself thinking about delightful people and mindbending experiences, this beautiful thing came to life in my hands.


stage 1 — porcelain greenware