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.