the week ends

where i think i am is rarely where i am. what i think people think is rarely what they think.

this is not necessarily bad, it's just perplexing to me since i tend to trust my feelings. the certainty is that, in lots of ways, my feet are most definitely not under me yet. it's coming, though, i know it. i mean, my ideas are waking me up at night. it's been ages since that happened and that's what i need to be certain of. the rest is just the rest.

now my decision is whether to retreat or forge ahead. in this week of downs and ups, the only real choice is to forge ahead. so that is what i'll do.

There are very few human beings who receive the truth, complete and staggering, by instant illumination. Most of them acquire it fragment by fragment, on a small scale, by successive developments, cellularly, like a laborious mosaic.
- Anais Nin; 1903-1977

words to live by

My advice is, follow my advice: Never forget that only you can ever fully appreciate your own true beauty. Others may try, but they so often fall short.
- Miss Piggy

heeeheeeeeeee!

memory

have you ever thought about a memory so much that it actually evaporates? nah, me neither. but i've sure worked some of them over.

i once read that we have a finite number of recalls for a particular event. don't know that i believe that, though. since memory is inherently subject to our present perceptions, doesn't it just clock around slightly and become something else? isn't it really ever-changing?

so, by my calculations (paired with deep critical thinking), we only ever remember a thing once in that way. i like that.

i have memories of trying to make memories. i did this quite a lot over a number of years starting in childhood. i'd be in the most innocuous setting - the line at the grocery or sitting at a traffic light on a day bright equally to both the day before and the one that followed - and decide to will the moment to memory. maybe i felt peaceful or happy, maybe i wanted to remember how singularly unremarkable it was. i forget why. what i recall is the effort to keep it, not what i was hoping would be kept.

so it seems i evolve, (hopefully) grow, change. my memories evolve right along with me. it's kinda sweet.

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
- Pablo Picasso

discuss

we have a brand new museum of contemporary art here in hot springs. it has a brand shiny new visitor.

the presence of the golden grenade has the local veteran groups up in arms (so to speak). they say a dove with an olive branch in its beak or, perhaps, an eagle would be more fitting. they say this celebrates war.

i say it does not. i say let's talk about it.

my friend and i drove down bathhouse row last evening. this new addition shone brightly in the late day sun - it's hard to miss. we talked about what might possibly offend us and discovered we probably have stomachs stronger than most. even so, the presence of the sculpture had us wondering why discussing war seems synonymous with being anti-war or worse - anti-country.

i do worry that some view war as a forgone conclusion - as the price of freedom. my problem with this is that freedom is less free when our desire, our effort to talk about the price is berated or bullied. or covered up by the wings of a big eagle.

i understand the cost to those who fight on the front lines is dear. i have never been there and cannot imagine what that's like. i respect the sacrifice and urge those who have made it to understand how i love my country and how my dearest wish is for nobody to have to do what they have done.

i've heard silence is the voice of complicity. i say discuss.

old friends (well, one, at least)

i got a call early this morning from a dear friend whom i haven't seen in three years. she and her family are on a road trip to california from virginia. her children are among the more rambunctious of the species so we knew there would be no deep bonding. even so, we decided it would be a shame for us to be within a 20 mile radius of one another and not get a single hug in.

we met up at a mcdonald's in malvern. her boy, age 4, climbed every fixture in the place and her girl, age 6, after immediately exploring the depths of my purse, settled in to play tic tac toe with herself. to her credit, she won every single game. they are open, spirited, adorable.

my friend and i had done a number of road trips together. we felt the same about getting up early and exploring the cities we were visiting, cameras in hand. watching places wake up. talking with her, i realized how much i've missed her. and how happy i am to see her - if only for a short time. she, too, is a printmaker and has a wonderful press set up in her basement. she's had it for several years and has yet to use it.

i told her i'm staging a raid. i'm going to commandeer a weekend and we, together, are going to print ourselves into a stupor. think i'll invent some harnesses for the kids while i'm at it... or better yet - maybe we can recruit them as printing assistants... woohoo - checking flights now!!

who am i today?

It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.
- Oscar Wilde

my guess is that i straddle the line at any given moment - as many of us do. today, though, i'll opt for charming. :-)

upward

so here i was, ass that i can be, concerned my finally getting a lawyer was akin to an act of aggression. in my divorce.

huh?

luckily, a 10-minute text-versation with the ex in question made it very clear i am not the aggressor here. whew - that was close.

i don't like to fight. i really thought things could be easy and quiet in this situation and am disappointed they may not be. having said that, a little part of me is suddenly gleeful my lawyer usually litigates personal injury cases....

laughing

i love how life changes. even within the span of hours. i awoke on the wrong side of what might, after all, be a contentious divorce. i will go to sleep with the silliness and laughter of my new acquaintances ringing in my ears. or maybe that was the wasabi bloody mary. whatever - ringing is ringing. i love ringing.

emancipation

the bonsai tree lived 15 years before it was perched on the table at my wedding reception. there were bonsais on all of the tables - that's what i used for centerpieces. they were beautiful but, though i also gave bonsai care books to those who 'won' the trees, one by one, across the nation, the bonsais committed suicide. our older, larger tree made it. for a while.

when i decided to leave i planned to take it with me. tom had never cared about any of it but, strangely, he wanted to keep that tree. it had done pretty well over the two years of our marriage and i'd always found it interesting that the tree thrived where we as a couple did not.

i left, treeless. tom met mom in atlanta a couple of months later to bring her a few things i'd forgotten in my haste (my cool oval wall clock, primarily). he brought the tree with him. it was now a collection of spiky branches and dried leaves. in all these months, it has never recovered. it seems the tree really did symbolize the life-blood of the marriage - that i was the life-blood of the marriage and, in my absence, it ceased to exist. i'd long felt i was doing it all alone. hmm. wonder how that sounds. actually, i don't care how that sounds.

the days and weeks preceding this moment have been filled with insightful, at times revelatory conversation with some of the people i've newly met. it has been invigorating in some ways, draining in others. though these conversations were never about what i'm in the midst of, they have worked to crystallize events that have been brewing as i approach the one-year mark; the mark at which i can legally file for divorce. this has been a tough week as i am suddenly running up against resistance from tom. i didn't expect that. i find myself thinking about aloneness and moving forward. about opportunity as i try and shake this weight from my ankle. it is an absolutely physical sensation and i think the fact that it's only one ankle is promising.

i am floating amongst strangers these days, not really lighting anyplace and without my customary sources of back-up. i've heard physical distance shouldn't impede closeness, that i should be able to lean on people far away. i find this to be untrue. this is a reflection on me, no one else. and so, i am blogging about it. what a strange time.


ps - i just threw away that damned bonsai. ahhh, the weight begins to lift...

new people

this morning i had the privilege of hosting a visitor to our fair spa city. we went to see bathtub races in the rain and had a pretty tasty round of pancakes. we talked about the state of hope and the danger of despair.

this person is not someone who will be in my day-to-day life. i will, most likely, never see her again after this weekend. what i learn though, as i reflect on our conversation, is that there really are people who feel the way i do. who feel as much as i do. somehow, that's pretty fucking valuable as i slog through the mess and exhilaration of making new connections.

last night, i was involved in a long conversation with a man who is trying to get to the essence of being human. i listened carefully. i wanted to understand his goal in trying to break things down to such an extent. i wondered out loud where happiness comes in, where connection comes in. he seems almost bent on isolation and viewing history - of people, of places - as the only lens through which to interpret the present. i think there's danger in that. if we, each of us, lay our histories bare, bring our personal atrocities into the daylight, we can only be alone. it can easily become unbearable.

i am deeply cynical. i try to laugh it off but recognize it comes with a cost. i can see through people at about ten paces and have to work very hard to love them (and myself) anyway. it's a constant choice. insomuch as we are animals, we are human animals. we choose. when i act in a way that's kind, i hopefully enrich another and, by default, myself. is that ignoble?

back to breakfast. i am grateful for this visit - i so appreciate positivity and kindness in the same place. it gives me something to aspire to. i know we are animals. i know we sometimes make terrible mistakes in pursuit of personal satisfactions.

i use the word 'hope' quite a lot. i hope good outcomes for others, i hope joy. mainly, i hope i can continue to be hopeful, even through the lens of history.

if all else fails, i can run rings around a bathtub fetchingly dressed as a cow.

vertigo

we work. we think. we envision. at times we work with purpose and suddenly find ourselves re-working with newer purpose, pushing up against deadlines and thinking fast on our feet. these are heady times with results uncertain - not knowing what the next push or pull will be. it's dancing on the end of a diving board and hoping like hell the pool is water-filled. vertigo at its best.

we, many of us, work and work and work without joy or direction. we look up one day and wonder - who put those walls there? who on earth thought a green formica desk was a good idea? what does the word 'benefits' really mean?

we know the first kind of work. we've lived it before, we've wildly applauded it for others. we are in the second kind at the moment, hoping like hell for vertigo.

so THAT'S what she's been up to...

the woman was impeccably, expensively dressed. she was gorgeous. in fact, i was compelled to compliment her. and then, she spoke.

"thank you so much! you know, this morning i had picked something else to wear but decided to ask the Virgin Mary what she preferred. she guided me and this is what she had me choose - you are the second person to comment. the Blessed Mother never steers me wrong. she always knows what looks best on me."

what about humanity? world hunger? genocide in darfur?

apparently, when she's not appearing on a pancake griddle near you, the Virgin Mary is doling out fashion advice to women of means in little rock. most surprising, i would never have guessed that the Virgin would choose purple over pink. i always thought she liked blue...

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.
- Henry David Thoreau

the portable gardener

last year was the first time in my memory that i lived in a place with distinct seasons. i decided to play around with growing flowers from seeds and so seeded and tended a tray of 72 little peat pellet sprouts. i had maybe 7 different varieties of flowers started. having never attempted this before i was, naturally, certain all would live and flourish.

the little patch of ground off the back porch of the house was where i planned to plant my garden. it was filled with rocks and loose sand - a treacherous place for little plants. as i worked through the spring and changes were imminent, i ditched the little plot of land in favor of two large clay azalea pots. my cousin thought that was a telling strategy. i crowded my seedlings together in those pots with no thought of plant etiquette - what needs how much and should never or else.... this approach often works for me. things were growing and they didn't look like weeds. it was progress.

on june 15th i packed the dogs, the computer and the two pots into my car for the 12-hour drive to arkansas. it happened to be a glorious day.

summer had begun and slugs were on the march. i'd never dealt with this before. the snapdragons and zinnias feebly bloomed and i tried in vain to figure out what the hell else was in those pots, what had actually made it. they were starting to look like weeds now.

since i don't know a perennial from shinola, i had no idea what, if anything, would survive the winter. a few leafy things did and, magically, the last weeks have brought great excitement to the clay pots. there is strong healthy green. there are shoots, there are buds. what does this mean? no idea. but it's progress.

if i'm not mistaken, i have an echinacea about to bloom. i hadn't known it made the trek and survived the upheaval. i like that it's a healing plant. i can't wait to see it.

arkansas native... and father of 6?

today i heard 'rhinestone cowboy' and, as always, fought my compulsion to sing

like a rhinestone cowboy
who was busy with three boys of his own
they were four men living all together
and they were all alone

i can't be the only one who thinks of this. am i?

hey you...

think of the nicest compliment you ever received.

got it? good.

now, stay with that thought all day.

see ya...

stop start

nine months isn't long to live in a place. that's how long i was in greenville, sc. time doesn't always matter, though - some things just work regardless. what worked was the work, what worked was the people. i did interior design - something i always loved and thought i could do, but had never done before. but seriously, when has that ever been a real issue?

it was a small firm - three (four including our manager) designers. one, i later discovered, was in a wedding with my sister in gainesville, fl, years ago. they share a close friend. weird crazy. the other, our token guy, now lives in nyc. i really must visit. then there's our manager. she is from paris and has lived in the states (including arkansas) since the 60's. you would never know it. john was convinced for the first week that my name was hazer because of how coco introduced me. "zees eez our new designer - hazer" he still calls me that.

what i didn't know, walking into the situation, is that the owners were close to retirement. i started in october, the outlook turned bleak in november. this was not to be a long-term gig for reasons i couldn't anticipate. what i also didn't know is that this little group of people, as it happens, is a long-term gig. lucky me.

i had had the privilege of working with some wonderful clients. i worked on a 100-year old house in historic spartanburg, i worked on a log home with a two-story wall of windows overlooking a lake (in the fall, no less - it was almost too beautiful to bear), i worked on a mountainside home just over the north carolina border. somehow, i got the special ones.

my favorite was in greenville proper. this family, an obstetrician and her husband, asked me to de-90's their brick home. i had designed drapes and window treatments for her and was in the process of re-imagining the entry way without the giant brass octopus of a chandelier. we had a comprehensive plan for the rest of the living areas. from design to installation, window treatments can take upwards of 8 weeks to complete - especially when you use a very good, very busy workroom. many things can happen in eight weeks. businesses can go under, marriages can unravel, friends can emerge in the unlikeliest circumstances. it all happened.

when i left at the end of march (saw what was happening, didn't want to get dragged under), i decided to start my own design business. the good doctor told me that she would follow me to my new business, that she would be my first client. i am ever grateful for her confidence in me. i spent the month of april temping with a local builder and starting new things. john had also left for a new start-up firm in greenville. we still visited and discussed our plans for a call-in radio show. listeners would email floorplans and pictures of their spaces and we would give them on-the-spot fixes for their design problems. "design diagnosis" was to be the name of our show. we were also in development on our confederate barbie doll. i still think of her longingly...

bzzzzzzzzzzzt. so here i am. john moved to new york and now sustains a commuter marriage - his wife is still in greenville. coco and kristin started their own design firm once the other closed for good last june. i'm expecting their new letterhead in the mail any day now. they are so excited as they trudge through this dire economy, even knowing this might be a skinny year. my doctor client is now their client. she's in very good hands. i sent my good wishes to her via kristin yesterday morning. her husband has lost his job. still, they have moved forward with the plans - my plans and theirs - to reimagine their space. kristin says, a year in, they are still thrilled with what i'd done and that they ask about me regularly. coco told them at the beginning that, working with them, i would make their house a home. i always thought that was a high compliment. i started it and my friends will see it through.

i'm toying with the idea of doing design work here. still sussing the market to see what's established and where i can fit in. ok then - ready, set, start...

surprise

i am seldom surprised. i am usually surprising. others, that is. hehehe.... mom has accused me of being an exceptional liar in pursuit of the great gotcha. i view that as a good thing. is the end result joy? was anyone hurt in the process? yes/no/done.

could it be that nobody surprises me because i see too much? is it a dying art? has all imagination gone from our lives?

the exception to this was last year on my birthday, courtesy of my cousin in far-off florida. i had posted a facebook status that read something like "heather really does want world peace. and some pie". i got a call at mom's shop from a local bakery. "will you be there for the next 20 minutes? we're delivering lunch to you." really??? cool. turns out they didn't have pie as such but they had a kick-ass quiche which is, technically, pie. it was perfect - the planets aligned, the world breathed deeply. surprise.

first day

i heard from a former student last night. he asked if i was going to graduation in miami on the 19th. when i told him i wasn't going to make it he had one word for me - LAME. caps are his. actually, i think he's right.

i was unaware the impact those kids i taught for those couple of years would have on me. i thought it was supposed to be the other way around. this guy got into a bit of trouble once - a freshman lapse of judgment in the eternal, unforgiving landscape of the world-wide web. we talked for hours about actions and consequences and how we cannot let the lapses define us. he's a talented kid. maybe in a different way from others in his family but he's certainly no less able to change the world. i'm thinking he might.

my hope for him is that, on the first day of his future, he can see the promise i see. i wish my lame self could be there for that.

five things i fear

the big facebook deal is to list five. favorite countries, famous people you've met, hot actors, things in your cosmetics bag (i didn't do that one because spackle wasn't one of the choices) - you get the idea. i've done a few of them, just for kicks. one i've studiously avoided is the five things i fear. so, fine. here they are.

i fear goats.
i fear religious zealots
i fear remote control cars
i fear.... goats.

i've been thinking about this for at least a week and this is all i can come up with. why do i not fear snakes in a toilet (does that really happen????)?

socializing in a vacuum part deux

i woke up grumpy. this happens approximately once every 3 or 4 months. not bad, on balance. i have a theory that people who wake up in a foul mood on a daily basis are fundamentally unhappy. i married one of those people and, in time, decided not to wake up to that every day ever again. all this to say that i mostly awaken to a bright, possibility-filled place even, or especially, when it's cloudy out. i'm not giddy or foolish about it, though. it is tempered with the understanding that i don't know much and that the best paths are not linear in the least.

i came here last june. here, i failed to mention earlier, is hot springs, arkansas. spa city. i chose the name of this blog because i am not a spa type at all. my idea of hell is to go with a bunch of girlfriends for seaweed wraps and full-body massages by strangers. i can't shut my mind down long enough to enjoy stuff like that. a mani/pedi is my limit and even that requires wine. call it a character flaw. i like the irony of being in a town like this - so spa-centric to the tourists, having come from an area that is so tan-centric to tourists. here i am, the whitest white girl going. i used to joke with my friends that i feared the white of my legs would somehow jam the radar at Palm Beach International Airport and that my appearance on the beach could, quite possibly, make planes fall from the sky.

now, to the present. i had essentially been on a 5-year hiatus from my life, from myself. i'm in the midst of rediscovering what i like/love/want and have found that i've become very discerning about how i spend my time. i'm not interested in cultivating friendships without common ground. maybe this is a reaction to time spent with people i had absolutely no deeper connection with. i don't know. this is at odds with opening myself up to new people, new situations i suppose. i always got 'unsatisfactory' marks for 'uses time wisely' on my childhood report cards. maybe i just don't want those anymore.

prior to my brief, ill-fated stay in south carolina from whence i abandoned my marriage, i lived in a very populated, very busy place. not so long ago i would go out to a bar by myself and run into at least 10 people i knew and enjoyed seeing. i value my time alone and could be alone if i wanted, but i didn't ever have to be. this is in sharp contrast to my life today. i have made a couple of friends now, one of whom is that person here - the one who doesn't ever have to be alone. i don't think envy is what i feel but it is most interesting to be on this, the anonymous side of the equation. it makes me aware of the things i miss, the things i never realized i wouldn't have, if only for a while. i know it will change in time as i meet more people. i know, i know it takes work and risk and waking up to possibility. it probably also takes getting over myself to some degree. yep, i get it.

socializing in a vacuum part 1

I always prefer to believe the best of everybody - it saves so much trouble.
- Rudyard Kipling

so, yeah. this is how i feel.

inaugural address

succumbing to the voices in my head, i have decided to try this blogging thing on for a spell. i hope this isn't like when a person gets a new pony and they can't wait to trot it out to show the neighbors only to leave it in the pasture after a month or two. we'll see. i guarantee nothing.

this blog will more or less chronicle how a person who knew someone everywhere she went in the course of a day becomes almost entirely anonymous. and a bit of a curiosity to those around her. as many of you know (assuming i will have some meager audience...), i am a person who isn't great at being anonymous. everything is different. every. thing. i guess i want to talk about the strangeness of the journey.

to wit; i am now working with a group of people who were born and raised in the same small town in arkansas. they, many of them, are related to one another (in the non-icky sense) and know each others' entire histories. i cannot imagine it. there are new plants, new design trends, new directions to contend with. well, new to me, anyway.

let's start with the plants. wow - things are blooming everywhere i look and the landscape can change entirely from one day to the next. i drive into the mountains every morning and see the changes in an instant. one of my co-workers brings flowers almost every day and the variety is astounding to me. she: "i grew this 2-foot yellow iris and these peonies are from 40-year-old plants in my grandmother's yard" me: "GREW??? where's the cellophane?" i think they laugh at me a lot.

design trends. camo as nursery decor, baby wear, even a recliner (i shudder to think...). to be specific, real tree. as we all awaited the birth of this baby (who is really as cute as hell), i suggested they would need heat-sensing goggles in order to locate him. had they registered for those?

finally, directions. i am from south florida. if you drive east, you are in the atlantic ocean - west, the gulf of mexico. it takes 7 hours to even leave the state unless you are on a boat, in which case it takes 35 seconds. i am now in the center of a large web of roadways that don't necessarily meet up. ever. the amount of swearing in public has decreased but in my car, why that's another f*&%#@%g story.

so there. be gentle, gentle readers.

coming soon - socializing in a vacuum.