nourishment

"on rare occasions, if you're incredibly lucky, people come into your life and nourish you in ways you never knew you were hungry."

that was what i posted to twitter on april 12th. the follow-up would have to be that, when they go, which they sometimes must, you can feel you may well starve to death.

at this moment, seeing or speaking with this person again is uncertain and, i fear, unlikely. i will always be grateful for what i learned during the time spent in the company of this nourishment. for the freedom he gave me to be entirely myself, to accept help, to feel safe with another person. it's a rare gift.

truth is, i know i will not die from this. in any part of myself. it opened me back up to feeling and trusting (something i lacked even through my marriage and, y'know, divorce). as much as i'd like to withdraw from the possibility of letting someone get that close to me again, i will try very hard not to. i don't let people in easily - really let them in. they just think so. i'm social and friendly, so i cover pretty well. this one was a great surprise to me.

funny how, when one energy ends, a different energy can sneak in. i'm reconnecting with the other artists in my community. i'm again seeing what can be. after the extended dark period i've been immersed in since the divorce, it's looking like there's light outside. maybe this time spent with this person was to remind me of that.

going forward, there will be new artwork, new places and ways of spending time, new conversations. and kindness. can't have too much of that.

when the wedding tiara becomes irrelevant

my long-awaited divorce is, so it would seem, a few days away. i've waited nearly 603 days for this to happen. i couldn't stop smiling when my lawyer called to say we finally have our day in court.

ummm.... then what?

just last saturday i was working on the room that will be my studio - going through boxes and bins that have been in storage for ages. i found pictures of long-ago boyfriends (one of whom, oddly, contacted me on monday - after nary a word for the last 7 or so years). i found the decorative paper from between the bundles of newspapers i delivered every morning. i found the rusted landscape of linoleum that lined my 50s metal kitchen cabinet (under the sink, where the water leaked and gathered). i'd quarantined that thing for about 2 years before i used any of it in my work. at the time it was as disgusting as it was beautiful. now, it's just beautiful (this sometimes happens and it's really, really good). i found pieces of tin, old tile, innumerable architectural salvage finds, and paper, paper, paper. thrilling beyond words.

in all those gorgeous textures, i came upon my wedding tiara. i tried it on. i put it on shelby's little bean of a head. it gleamed so brightly amid all that competing decay. funny that this object means less now than all the cast-offs and half-ideas i've been hoarding and carting for so very long.

my impending divorce has been my identity for quite a while now - in fact, for the whole of the time i've lived here. i wonder how i'll be when it's finally done. my invisible cloak will drop and i'll find out what it's like to be free of the weight of it. i've been making my way here in spa city. connecting, learning, trusting - occasionally, distrusting - making things happen in new ways. even so, i feel surprisingly vulnerable right now. as certain as i am that the marriage wasn't good or right, it's been a form of protection.

i love that the challenges i've had over the course of my life have helped me realize any pain or vulnerability i feel doesn't define me. what defines me is where i go now that the weight of that cloak is falling away. i turn to the half-ideas and see if they're ready now, finally; if they've matured and ripened in all this time of decay and disuse.

i keep the tiara, of course, and i figure out what it means to be wholly myself again.

obligatory new year post

yes, yes, i and millions of others have returned to our long-neglected blogs to start anew. we, humans, are creatures who love a good re-start, doncha think?

my last post was exactly 3 months ago today. i had just gotten my apartment and was trying to fit an entire household into a pocket-sized packet of a place. i did it. the dogs and i are cozy in our little home. sure, there's overflow, but people with lots more room than i have storage places, too. i feel fine about it.

i've spent the last week in a self-imposed hermit-y existence. it's been good. year-end at work is ridiculously crazy and, through it, i've been wrestling with a miserable nagging cold, insomnia and general dissatisfaction with certain things about my life. the last page of that calendar can bring a load of self-reflection down on a person.

i start the year STILL married. it's almost a joke at this point. i texted my lawyer when jon & kate were finalized and said, in a nutshell, "really?!?!?" the arc of life is such that my near-ex-husband and i have been on great terms lately. i spoke with him earlier and asked for his girlfriend's phone number so i could be sure she'd be the first to know when he's free to marry again. his two-word reply was not "merry christmas". hehehe

today, mom and i saw "up in the air". aside from our admiration of george clooney's ummm, countenance, i loved all the ambiguities of the story. nothing was really wrapped up at the end. like life. i'm thinking a lot about what the main character said to his future brother-in-law. how he asked him the circumstances of some of his best moments; was he alone? or was someody else there?

i realize my best moments have been, in large part, with others. there was the time i got stuck overnight in the airport in paris. i had to sleep on the floor, surrounded by 8 weeks of luggage. a late-night tap on the shoulder was a young french kiosk worker bringing me an apple and a sandwich in case i got hungry in the night. then there was the guy from montreal whom i'd met on a ferry trip to remote islands off the north of scotland. we got stranded in the midnight sun and had to sleep in the half-light in someone's yard. my courage grew tenfold that night, though i didn't know it at the time. i also learned red and black are hard to distinguish from one another as i played solitaire in the perpetual dusk. there was the lassie-like tour a border collie provided on the isle of eriskay. i have a series of photos of that dog waiting for me to catch up as he led me to another section of the island. it was magic. it was a story, as many of them are, that i could never have written.

though i have had many 'best moments' with people i love - standing next to my cousin on her wedding day, or my sister and i calling out to mom and dad under the bedroom door on christmas morning to see if santa had come (i was in my 30s, she in her 20s) - i realize so, so many are with people or in circumstances that are, at the core, just moments. with strangers. these are things that will affect me for as long as i have the capacity to remember. i wonder, then, who i may have affected in passing. i hope it was in a good way.

for the new year, i resolve to recognize that the littlest moments can have the longest, most far-reaching impact. i will live my life in this awareness. i've been told i have great insight. i will learn to apply it to myself. i will remember that great risks are the way to great rewards, however, i will first breathe, then choose wisely - in all things.

i hope 2010 is a breakthrough year for all of us. i'm cheering YOU on.