Thanksgiving

I spent Thanksgiving at my Mother-in-law's place.  I was never allowed to cook with her, and I thought that this would be a great opportunity to do so.  Cooking in someone else's kitchen means getting to know them on a very personal level.  I only allow very few to actually cook with me.  I can truthfully only think of one person who I allow to cook with me.  I cook with others, but having someone cook with you means that you trust them to cook as you would cook. The food should look like one person cooked the meal.  It should be seamless.  I got to cook in her kitchen and I loved it.  I got to see where she kept things and figure out her system, which is not far from how I would set up the kitchen.  I got to use her things, and handle what she handled with such love and reverence.  Looking at all the lovely things she had to host made me sad that she did not use them all.  She had everything you could imagine to cook with.  She even had a heart shaped melon baller.  She wanted fine china so badly and she never used her set that she finally got.  (My husband would not allow me to use her very fine set, and I did not push it since it is not even 40 days.)  I went out to her garden, since I like to have natural things on the Thanksgiving table, and found many of her roses in bloom.  I cute a few, and placed them on the table. I felt that finally we had made one meal together, and that pleased me and made me miss her all the more. 

More Musings on Death and Grief

When my grandma died, I found the most fantastic leaves and purple hydrangeas on my lunch time walk.  When the towers fell, I thought that civilization was coming to an end.  That day, I made a huge pot of tea in my office, which I made everyday for six months, and bought tea cups from the charity shop on my lunch time walks.  When Dad died, I made art for 9 months, and started this blog.  I do things that are odd at the time to help heal my pain.  Wonder what I will say about this period of time when I look back on it.  I have a feeling that I will be taking more photos very soon.  I find myself looking at things and wondering how I would frame it and if I like the light.  I have never really done much in the winter that I like, but maybe now have the right eye and heart to do it properly.  What I like about winter is the bleakness juxtaposed to striking color and light.

Grief is an Odd Thing

I find that in grief, I am often like a small child who has had her teddy bear taken away.  I was a child who had a very strong relationship with a "slightly padded" bear, and quite frankly she still resides in my home.  My parents will tell you the first time they heard what my mother describes as a Celtic cry came when my bear lost an eye.  They both thought that I had broken my arm.  I say this to set my description of grief.  I hate losing my loved ones.  I hate it.  I also sometimes feel like a child throwing a temper tantrum.  I find myself in a situation that I can not control and if given a chance it would not resemble what it has become.  I whine.  I hate whining. 

The truth is that I lost someone I did not imaging losing so soon in my life.  For that I am angry and deeply sad.  I could tell you who Branka Stancev was, but no one would understand who she was unless they spent time with her.  She was complicated.  She did not start off as my friend, but we became friends and she as a brilliant grandmother.  We will all figure it out and move forward and continue to be family.  She and my father-in-law came to the new world for a reason.  That was to have a better life for all of us.  I have the deepest respect for her and her husband, my father-in-law.  I miss them both. 

I can't edit these, so please have mercy.  What I write; I write from he heart.

Death

Death.  As my sister said last week to me, "My heart is set on permanent heartbreak."  My often difficult, but always generous of heart mother-in-law died a death that was terrible and heartbreaking to watch.  She died because she had nothing to fight with against what assailed her and I hated watching the fast progression towards her leaving this life. 

Her name meant fortress, and she was one.  She had many tragedies in her life, and yet she pressed on looking and hoping for peace and joy.  Maybe she did not know what it was when she had it, but she always knew that was what she wanted.  She loved the fantastic and beautiful and was always proud of her looks and how she dressed.  My Mother-in-law was fierce as as lion and gentle as a lamb.  I must say that is a rare combination in people.  She did not like me in her kitchen.  I don't blame her.  I let precious few aid me while I cook, but I do not know some of the recipes she made that were cultural.  I will learn them from her friend who was from the same area off Serbia. 

All of this a nightmare to me.  I never expected her to leave this world so soon as she was the youngest of the grandparents.  I look out at my life without her and wonder how I will be able to keep the cultural connections I was still hoping to learn from her.  How can I serve the Slava? (Slava is the family feast day marking the day the family converted to Christianity. It is particular to Serbs.)  I feel totally inadequate to take the role as the matriarch  How can I be that?  I don't know how to do that!  I don't feel like I learned enough from her to do any of this. 

May her memory be eternal.

The Last Rose of Summer

 I feel as though I never got a chance to enjoy my roses or my garden this year, or for many years.  I have born and raised small boys, and then my father died.  Last year was the year where all things fell apart and I was not sure what my life might look like.  This summer, my mother's  and my husband's mother's health is not good. We wait and hope. These are the hard years. 

I am currently getting my life and house in order - little piece by little piece.  Right now, my only artistic outlet is photography, which is a good thing since it forces me to look, feel and think all at the same time.  Funny how that is.  When Dad died, I was able to work in clay, which for me is a more feeling first kind of medium.  I needed to let my feelings have a healthy expression.  Now, I need think, look and feel my way through this next stage.

This is the last rose of  Summer.  Summer is passing with all its sunny optimism.  Now, I look to the Fall and Winter and I begin to nest.  I am looking forward and preparing the way while being open to change- not easy, but necessary. 

Ruble Wall

Feeling a bit like a ruble wall. I'm not quite whole.  Maybe I am in the stage where I have to take apart before I can put back together. I am hoping that is true.  I don't want to take much more apart. I fear, though, much more needs to be taken down before I can start on a cleaner and firmer foundation.  I take this as a sprititual journey.  I've had wall renovations before.  Never really what you might call fun, but always worth the journey.

Balance

I call these pin hole shots.  When I was in school and learning photography we started with a pinhole camera we build ourselves.  I loved that project because you never knew what you were going to get until the picture was developed. For these I just put my purse camera (my small silly camera)  in the general direction and see what I get. It's the tie-dye of the photography world.  I love the surprise.

Photography makes me think.  I have to say to myself, "What is it about what I am seeing that makes me feel."  Then I have to figure out the framing and lighting.  Ceramics  is a discipline where I don't think with the reasoning side of my brain. I let the back of my brain, my intuiton, take the piece of clay and let it be what it should be.  One part always considers, and the other just lets the intuitive side do its work.

I have to have both sides at the ready when I work.  On one hand, consideration of design is so important, yet on the other hand letting the back of your head take over can free the form and take you to new places.  Balance is the key.  So tricky, balance is, but so improtant.

One Bright and Sunny Tuesday

So much sadness on this day.  I am so grateful that the pain has lessen, but the memory of that sunny day in September where everything went so wrong lives with me. When I was a teenager our family went to NYC and the first place we went was the World Trade Center.   I lived in NY and fell in love on the towers.  Many nights my beloved and I would go to The Towers just to look out or look down on the solarium or watch boats come in and check out the big clock in NJ. We never saw the solarium until after the attacks.  So much joy I had there.  Sometimes the joy is part of the pain.  Everything changed that day and I have not liked it at all.  I learned what it felt to have my backyard bombed.  My nation, which used to be able to hold civilized conversations with each other, no longer is able to do so. 

I am haunted by the sound of all the proximity alarms going off and then going silent.  I am haunted by the desire to give blood if needed, and it was not.  I am haunted by the images of emergency medical workers assembling to care for thousands and no one showed up. I am haunted by thee selfless love of those who rushed in to save those in need, and perished. I am haunted by the flight in Pennsylvania whose passengers realized what was happening, and ran the plane into the ground rather than take others with them into death. I am haunted by that day.

I struggle to keep my reason when I remember this day.  I have held fast to my convictions that we are all humans and are created to love and be loved. We are not created to destroy.  As my spiritual father always said, "We forge on."  So I must move on. In grief, for this really is what I feel, the process is slow, and sometimes goes on and on and on.  I move forward in love.

Distraction

Distraction allows the mind to wander away and lose focus.  Sometimes distraction aids me if I am too focused on something not useful.  In college, I would take a walk to clear my head and then I was able to write.  On the other hand, distractions can kill us.  If we are texting or talking on the phone while driving, someone could get badly hurt or worse. I worked with women who spent time in federal prisons some of whom served time for fraud.  What amazed me about these women was how they would distract me from what they did not want me to see.  Whenever I felt like I was being hypnotized, I knew something was going on.  I did not always know what, but I knew I had to keep my eyes wide open.  Life is a lot like working with fraud artists. We don't get that privilege in the real world of knowing who the fraud artists are. We have to live our lives, keep our eyes open, and hope we are looking in the right direction. 

The Garden

As an image, the garden is quite powerful. The garden is a place of rest, of fruit, joy, peace accomplishment, desire, love. We go to our gardens to feel whole, to entertain and connect. If you garden, you know the joy of sticking your hands in the dirt or pulling weeds so good plants can grow. Biblically, we begin in a garden where all things are as they should be, and then we mess it up but good. I think we as humans long for the garden. I think the garden we long for looks different to different people. We long for perfection and wholeness of heart, mind, body and soul.

In Spring, I am amazed that the buds when they first appear hold all the information they need to become what they are. How is it that we do not have this internal knowledge, or do we? Are we just born into a fallen or mixed up world and so no longer are able to hear the natural call to the garden?

When I look around, I see people looking for their own gardens and I wonder what their garden is all about. I wonder what they see as beautiful and perfect. I wonder what their desires are drawing them. I wonder all these things about myself. Maybe I need to edit my image of the garden, and pull out the weeds that just do not belong there so that truth, beauty and love might grow.

Change of Plans

Troubles. Last night the computer that houses my photos stopped working. I had been in the middle of a post for this blog and wanted to finish, but this seems like a much better topic to write about. Life is like that. One moment you have an idea of how it is going to go and then the next moment something happen completely different from what was planned. So many times in my life have set out plans, only to have huge changes occur which make the plans impossible. I have found that the journey I took as a result on an unexpected path has always brought me wonderful treasures. Sometimes my whole life has been changed in a second, in a look, in a word. I find that amazing about life. Sometimes the journey has been rough and without much light on the path, but the other side of the darkness has always brought me something wonderful that has made me grateful that the plan was changed.

Come Forth

Just a little note. Today in the Orthodox Church we read one of my favourite gospels. I love the story of the raising of Lazarus and could write on many aspects of this piece, but I won't. I will only speak about the end where Jesus call to his friend who is dead to come forth. While I may not be dead in its clinical sense, parts of me are dead or not alive, not turned toward that which will give me fullness of life. Just like Lazarus, I am called forth, yet somehow I would rather remain in tomb than live the fullness that life has given me. We are all called forth. Let us come forth and live.

Plans

Looking at opportunities for the summer. Last year I planned, but life happened. I don't regret it because new opportunities opened for me. I was able to photograph my parents home from late spring to mid-summer which was a real treat. This year, I hope to be able to photograph alley ways of Hamilton. I have never seen alleys like this. They often scare me which in a weird way I take as an indication that I need to do something. Will be looking for partners to photograph with in the darker alleys of Hamilton. (Safety first!) Love that even in the deep dark alley, I need only look up to see the light. Things are changing in my life and work. I look forward to what comes next.

Today

Today most traditional Christians celebrate the Annunciation. In the Orthodox tradition, the hymn of the day, the Tropar, starts with "Today is the beginning of our salvation". Today. Now. How can something that is suppose to have happen in the past be today? We enter into the narrative, we put on the glasses of the text through which we see our lives. For those in the Orthodox Church, today is the day of the beginning of the nativity narratives. Today we celebrate that God became one of us so that we can become like him, not him, but like him. That means we get to do what he does. That means we get to change the world through love of neighbor, through selfless acts, through emptying ourselves so that others might live. Not easy. One of my favorite Christmas sermons said that the incarnation was like the baker becoming the cake. I like that. It gives the illogical nature of what we proclaim in a simple image. How can this be true? No logic. None. If anyone tells you there is logic in this, they either do not understand, or are deceiving themselves and you. Yet, we affirm that today is the beginning of our salvation, of our hope, of our being able to enter into the life of the gospel . Today we enter into love.

Crocus Time of Spring

Seems like yesterday we were deep in the stillness of winter, holding on tight and waiting for the promise of spring and new life. I love the crocus because she bursts forth from the ground before most other plants dare to and proclaim the coming spring. I look forward each year to the first cocus to come up. I am warmed by the promise that Spring is almost here and the troubles of winter will soon pass.

Kind words in a time of trouble or acts of love have this effect on me. Sometimes in the winters of my life, sweet words or acts of love let me know that I am not left alone in a deep winter where there is no hope and no connection. I know then that the snow will melt or even that I am not alone waiting for the snow to melt. Cold weather might still be in the future, but it is going to pass. Joy will come again. Things will grow and bear fruit, just like it always does. I have been through such a winter. I am in the corcus time of spring, and I thank all for their kind words and acts of love that have seen me through this winter to remember.

Stillness

Is it any wonder that in the middle of the winter we dress our homes with color and light. The Winter can be so bleak, yet, only in the stillness we can hear that small voice in our hearts leading us on the path. How natural our lives are in their cycles. When we allow ourselves to accept the cycles and listen to the still soft voice, when we take our life as a journey and an adventure, we then begin to learn the lessons we are meant to learn. Sometimes the lessons are big and require a time of dormancy when we can focus our lives to listen to the lesson. What a better time to listen than in the winter when the snow falls and that special quiet fills the earth around us? That stillness of the snow fall, is the stillness often times required to hear the voice in our hearts. May we all when we find ourselves in a deep winter of our life path, stop and listen with an open heart and mind to the voice of truth that may be trying to get our attention.

In the Scripture it says, "Be still and know that I am the God"

Winter in all her furry and bleakness still give us such beauty for comfort and joy. I remember the first time I realized that even in the darkness of winter we have such wonderful colors. For me, it is like this in grief and hardship I see the beauty and the beauty takes me through. I count them as gifts. The journey I have been on this last year has taken me to places of despair and pain I have not known before, but along with these pains and trails, I have had beauty and joy. I say joy for specific reasons. I believe joy dispels fear and despair. I believe it revives the soul. I have understood more and felt emotions more, or at least to a greater degree or depth, but I have seen greater beauty in my brother and sister as well as the events of my journey. In the frozen winter of my journey or even of the season we have found ourselves, I recall the beauty that surrounds me every day. While too much ice can cause tree loss or power outages, still in the natural beauty we are reminded that there can be joy in the depths of our pain.