Life sometimes surprises me. No that is not true, life is always surprising, it is me that is only sometimes aware of that fact. And when I am aware these days it mostly makes me laugh. And sometimes cry.
I don't really aspire to be a writer. I more desire to be conscious and aware, so when I am once again caught off guard by life it makes me realize how much I live without really thinking, something I so readily accuse others of doing. It is writing that helps me live more thoughtfully.
For a period of years, ten perhaps, beginning in my late thirties, I kept a journal and wrote almost daily. That practice grew out of keeping a sketchbook while getting my art degree and entering therapy when my mother died, but dwindled over time as I became busier living than observing. At least that is what I thought. And my journals were, are, private; I still have them, dusty and stacked on the highest shelf in a bookcase. I haven't read them in years but I think there is much that is repetitive inside the covers of those unlined books, and probably much that is not worth reading let alone remembering. But this morning I am wondering if they bear rereading, like history that could, if observed, not be repeated.
It is that time of night, morning, that is so early I cannot have coffee. Three o'clock is the time when I have had enough sleep to not be tired but not enough to carry me through the following day. It is the time I used to get up and paint when I was in my painting years, which parenthetically coincided with my journaling years; as often as I would paint at that time of day/night I would write.
I did not only write/paint in the wee small hours of the morning (okay I stole that but isn't it lovely?) in fact that was the exception more than the rule. It was just the time when things felt most urgent. Is that what I am feeling now as I write, a sense of urgency?
I will turn sixty-four soon, in a few weeks actually. Sixty-four is the year of the great Beatles song, whose music defined my coming of age and the beginning of consciousness. Sixty-four is also the age my mother was when she died unexpectedly. Both of those thoughts have occurred to me as I come into this birthday. And yes there is a sense of life speeding up, of things becoming more pressing, of a need to become more thoughtful once again. All of which describe a sense of urgency.
My husband is looking forward to his fifty-fifth high school reunion this coming month. I have another friend who just returned from her same fifty-fifth gathering. I have no such desire to attend a reunion but I can understand the pull. High school, particularly the end of high school and particularly if one had a good experience of high school, is a time when all things are possible. Everything is pregnant with possibility. We are coming into adulthood fresh faced without the scars of age. We have not yet made bad choices or mistakes that will define us. It is a time of Camelot.
Sixty-four, or seventy-three as my husband will be on his next, soon, birthday, is a time when one begins to wonder what is still possible. When choices may have hardened into patterns and lifestyles that we never saw coming. Or for some of us, when looking back, we realize how life is full of wonderful surprises that also never saw coming. And for most of us it is some combination of the two; there are some regrets that cannot be undone but there are people and experiences in our life that have, and continue to, enriched it beyond anything we could have imagined at seventeen or eighteen. And everything that happened between the two can fill volumes.
That is why I write. At first because I wanted to live a conscious life, something that came out of my painting and my therapy, and now because I want to share that process and the result of that desire with others. Not many mind you, mostly close friends and children and hopefully someday grandchildren too, but some. Anyone really who finds their way to my table and wants to share the fare.
My older son and his wife spend an hour every morning sitting and being, reading, writing (for he too journals), and now they have two of their three children join them for that quiet time. It is a lovely way to start the day and a way for a family to be together in their separateness. It is a practice I find enviable and surprising but mostly nourishing. Nourishing for the individuals but also for the group who are together in a way they will not be ten or twenty years from now. It is a practice in mindfulness.
My mindfulness is more haphazard and random. It comes at odd hours and odd days, when I am just waking from a sound sleep or when I am engaged in solitary work which I do so often as an artist. When I am walking or when I am gardening also. It comes more often these days and like my son, (and Winnie-the-Poo), mindfulness will bring me to my thoughtful place which is sometimes to my laptop and this blogspot. It is a practice that seems essential for these chaotic times and these diminishing years when some things are beginning to seem impossible.
And because there is that feeling dwelling around the edges of everything I do these days, the wondering if this is the last time I will have an experience of travel or renovating a house, two things that I dearly love, I want to be conscious in the process of deciding what I will give up and what I will fight to continue doing. I do not want any thing or any person I love to slip away without the awareness that I am letting it or them go. In the busyness of life it is easy to do that, and while they will find others to fill whatever void I leave I may just be left with an emptiness of my own making, becoming the product of my own laziness. The opposite of mindfulness.
So yes, life continues to surprise me, and I am fortunate that those surprises are delightful and fill my being with joy for the most part. And the answer to the question "Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?" is a resounding yes. Nourishing my soul is my job and my responsibility, writing in relationship is but one tool to accomplish it.
"Amen, sister", as my friend Rosie would say.
Friday, September 26, 2014
Wednesday, September 24, 2014
In the Mountains
In the mountains
Lungs inspire mo' better air
Toes weave with foldover grasses
Eyes drink morning light
Light changes
In the mountains
Light changes throughout the seasons
Throughout the day if allowed
Daytime sounds arrive from town
on the backs of ridges then recede
Night changes everything
In the mountains
Night changes everything
beckoning spirits of all ages.
Light fires with
modern day torches.
Watch sparks fly returning
mingling with the stars of always.
Urging remembrance
letting time fall away. Sit still.
In the mountains
Lungs inspire mo' better air
Toes weave with foldover grasses
Eyes drink morning light
Light changes
In the mountains
Light changes throughout the seasons
Throughout the day if allowed
Daytime sounds arrive from town
on the backs of ridges then recede
Night changes everything
In the mountains
Night changes everything
beckoning spirits of all ages.
Light fires with
modern day torches.
Watch sparks fly returning
mingling with the stars of always.
Urging remembrance
letting time fall away. Sit still.
In the mountains
Monday, August 25, 2014
Parent, Child, Parent
I don't remember exactly when I was orphaned. I know we are all orphaned at some point; recently for some of my friends it has been in the seventh decade of life. The first inkling for me came when I was three or four, standing in front of a picture window in an empty living room wishing someone would come home and take care of me. The second time was the summer I was thirteen, this time sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor crying as I listen to my mother call me a whore. In front of my aunt and uncle while my father stands silently by.
Thirteen year old girls are not easy but mothers of those not quite women can be brutal. The year preceding that summer, my eighth grade year, was especially difficult for both my mother and me. She was turning forty and finding herself back in the work force as a way to steady the income my father had always played fast and loose with. At the same time I stubbornly drew a line and refused to wear the little girl clothes she preferred to buy; twin versions my younger sister, by eight years, was also wearing. I drew the line and she left me out there in no man's land; none of the new income would flow my way for clothing or much else for that matter.
So I began babysitting to earn my own wardrobe, and the sewing I had played at since I was nine was put to use copying skirts other girls bought at the new mall in town. With a new sense of freedom those earnings gave me I took advantage of my mother's absence to range farther afield after school, and along with other girls my age developed an interest in boys. Playing basketball, baseball, meeting at the bowling alley and the occasional movie were new ways to pass the time when not in school. In the summer those activities were augmented by trips to the beach on the army bus provided expressly for that purpose. That bus became a source of independence and we used it to hang out; many fun filled hours were enjoyed as we rode back and forth to the army recreation center. Still in all I was not a bad child.
This particular Saturday I was playing baseball with a group of kids at a field near our house; it was mid morning and we had managed to corral a not too large group and field two teams. It was noteworthy because if there were enough boys the girls would be relegated to the sidelines to watch rather than join in the game. It was 1964 and women's lib was but a phrase in Life magazine; it had no place on the playgrounds of my youth. My Aunt Bobby and Uncle Andy were visiting from Illinois and while in years past I rarely left their side, things had changed over the winter and my uncle had embarrassed me by singing "Peggy Sue" the previous night at a little league game. So I escaped the house bright and early that day.
The game was just getting under way when my parents drove by with my aunt and uncle in tow; my father stopped the car and my mother ordered me home. I was not sure what I had done or why my brother was allowed to stay but I left and, embarrassed once again, returned home. It would be several hours before they came back but before I could say a word my mother tore into me; me and my "little whore friends" and our forays into the nearby woods was the subject of her diatribe. I fiercely defended myself and although in retrospect I know it sounded like sass I didn't care at that point. Horribly embarrassed the damage was done; never again would I derive any pleasure from those family visits. Never again would I feel the same need to please my mother.
As I sat there on that floor, where I am sure I landed partly out of my own drama, all I could think about was how I did not need these people; how I did not need anyone. I knew I was nothing like the people who were raising me and indeed would never, ever, aspire to be anything like them. And while I understood that I could not leave, there was no escaping the hold they had on me, I also knew in that instant that the only way out was education. And that I could, and indeed would, work four more years to get the grades I needed to go to college.
I am not sure how exact those thoughts were in my head at that moment, but the gestalt understanding of what it would take to survive the family, the parents, I had been born to was completely formed at that time. I was orphaned again in the kitchen of that house and it was my own doing.
Almost twenty-five years later when my mother died, followed shortly by my father, I was orphaned for the last time. I had become educated, married well and had two beautiful sons, but the desire to be someone's child never left me. I went away to school but came back time and again seeking a mother and a father. They were not there; not the way I needed them. The visits were short lived but always I came back trying to be the good daughter, giving them the opportunity to be the good parents.
I am not sure we ever stop needing to be someone's child. At some point, in order to achieve some real kind of maturity, we have to become the parent to our own little orphan. Luck was on my side the winter my mother died; it was the right time and place to learn to love the abused little girl I carried inside. It was not easy and it did not happen overnight but I know now that my parents were just orphans themselves, suffering from their own brokenness, and that they had neither the energy nor the skills to heal themselves. They just passed that wounding on to their children. But what I also know is that the greatest gift they gave me was dying young. I do not grieve for those lost years.
The Christmas before my mother died in February we were once again standing in her kitchen and she was telling me about the chest pain from which she was suffering. She knew she needed a cardiac cath but she could not leave my father long enough, trust him enough, to go and have the procedure that would have saved her life. She died two months later of a massive heart attack. My father was drunk when I arrived for the funeral and except for the actual day she was buried he remained drunk until the day he died eighteen months later. It was his drunkenness that forced me to face my demons and enabled me to become the parent to my own child.
It was not easy and I am not sure it is ever finished, this work of raising yourself, but it becomes easier over time and the results are incredibly rewarding. However what I have come to understand is that while being a parent to my own child had to be learned, trying to parent my parents was a job I had assumed early without thought or preparation. So now, even as I find myself healed from those early parental wounds, I realize I am drawn to parent other orphan children. The mother in me cannot stop. And it is not the loving mother but the disapproving mother that often takes over. Because while I am compelled by the orphans staring out of the eyes of friends and lovers I am also frustrated and irritated with them for not being their own good parents.
Forgiveness is the underlying desire of this place I find myself. Forgiving my parents, forgiving myself, forgiving my friends and siblings and lovers. But also seeking the forgiveness of my children for being the imperfect parent I was and am. Because while I have come to understand that all parents are flawed it has been especially difficult for me to accept my own imperfections. I do think my sons and their wives are light years ahead of where I was at their ages, and certainly where my parents were at any age; they understand forgiveness in a way I have only just begun to appreciate. And I, their mother, find myself the beneficiary of that wisdom. Children and parents...the circle of life. Easy to embrace, challenging to hold.
Thirteen year old girls are not easy but mothers of those not quite women can be brutal. The year preceding that summer, my eighth grade year, was especially difficult for both my mother and me. She was turning forty and finding herself back in the work force as a way to steady the income my father had always played fast and loose with. At the same time I stubbornly drew a line and refused to wear the little girl clothes she preferred to buy; twin versions my younger sister, by eight years, was also wearing. I drew the line and she left me out there in no man's land; none of the new income would flow my way for clothing or much else for that matter.
So I began babysitting to earn my own wardrobe, and the sewing I had played at since I was nine was put to use copying skirts other girls bought at the new mall in town. With a new sense of freedom those earnings gave me I took advantage of my mother's absence to range farther afield after school, and along with other girls my age developed an interest in boys. Playing basketball, baseball, meeting at the bowling alley and the occasional movie were new ways to pass the time when not in school. In the summer those activities were augmented by trips to the beach on the army bus provided expressly for that purpose. That bus became a source of independence and we used it to hang out; many fun filled hours were enjoyed as we rode back and forth to the army recreation center. Still in all I was not a bad child.
This particular Saturday I was playing baseball with a group of kids at a field near our house; it was mid morning and we had managed to corral a not too large group and field two teams. It was noteworthy because if there were enough boys the girls would be relegated to the sidelines to watch rather than join in the game. It was 1964 and women's lib was but a phrase in Life magazine; it had no place on the playgrounds of my youth. My Aunt Bobby and Uncle Andy were visiting from Illinois and while in years past I rarely left their side, things had changed over the winter and my uncle had embarrassed me by singing "Peggy Sue" the previous night at a little league game. So I escaped the house bright and early that day.
The game was just getting under way when my parents drove by with my aunt and uncle in tow; my father stopped the car and my mother ordered me home. I was not sure what I had done or why my brother was allowed to stay but I left and, embarrassed once again, returned home. It would be several hours before they came back but before I could say a word my mother tore into me; me and my "little whore friends" and our forays into the nearby woods was the subject of her diatribe. I fiercely defended myself and although in retrospect I know it sounded like sass I didn't care at that point. Horribly embarrassed the damage was done; never again would I derive any pleasure from those family visits. Never again would I feel the same need to please my mother.
As I sat there on that floor, where I am sure I landed partly out of my own drama, all I could think about was how I did not need these people; how I did not need anyone. I knew I was nothing like the people who were raising me and indeed would never, ever, aspire to be anything like them. And while I understood that I could not leave, there was no escaping the hold they had on me, I also knew in that instant that the only way out was education. And that I could, and indeed would, work four more years to get the grades I needed to go to college.
I am not sure how exact those thoughts were in my head at that moment, but the gestalt understanding of what it would take to survive the family, the parents, I had been born to was completely formed at that time. I was orphaned again in the kitchen of that house and it was my own doing.
Almost twenty-five years later when my mother died, followed shortly by my father, I was orphaned for the last time. I had become educated, married well and had two beautiful sons, but the desire to be someone's child never left me. I went away to school but came back time and again seeking a mother and a father. They were not there; not the way I needed them. The visits were short lived but always I came back trying to be the good daughter, giving them the opportunity to be the good parents.
I am not sure we ever stop needing to be someone's child. At some point, in order to achieve some real kind of maturity, we have to become the parent to our own little orphan. Luck was on my side the winter my mother died; it was the right time and place to learn to love the abused little girl I carried inside. It was not easy and it did not happen overnight but I know now that my parents were just orphans themselves, suffering from their own brokenness, and that they had neither the energy nor the skills to heal themselves. They just passed that wounding on to their children. But what I also know is that the greatest gift they gave me was dying young. I do not grieve for those lost years.
The Christmas before my mother died in February we were once again standing in her kitchen and she was telling me about the chest pain from which she was suffering. She knew she needed a cardiac cath but she could not leave my father long enough, trust him enough, to go and have the procedure that would have saved her life. She died two months later of a massive heart attack. My father was drunk when I arrived for the funeral and except for the actual day she was buried he remained drunk until the day he died eighteen months later. It was his drunkenness that forced me to face my demons and enabled me to become the parent to my own child.
It was not easy and I am not sure it is ever finished, this work of raising yourself, but it becomes easier over time and the results are incredibly rewarding. However what I have come to understand is that while being a parent to my own child had to be learned, trying to parent my parents was a job I had assumed early without thought or preparation. So now, even as I find myself healed from those early parental wounds, I realize I am drawn to parent other orphan children. The mother in me cannot stop. And it is not the loving mother but the disapproving mother that often takes over. Because while I am compelled by the orphans staring out of the eyes of friends and lovers I am also frustrated and irritated with them for not being their own good parents.
Forgiveness is the underlying desire of this place I find myself. Forgiving my parents, forgiving myself, forgiving my friends and siblings and lovers. But also seeking the forgiveness of my children for being the imperfect parent I was and am. Because while I have come to understand that all parents are flawed it has been especially difficult for me to accept my own imperfections. I do think my sons and their wives are light years ahead of where I was at their ages, and certainly where my parents were at any age; they understand forgiveness in a way I have only just begun to appreciate. And I, their mother, find myself the beneficiary of that wisdom. Children and parents...the circle of life. Easy to embrace, challenging to hold.
Thursday, August 14, 2014
Artist-in-Waiting?
It's too early for coffee; perhaps I will go back to sleep I think as I write. Perhaps.
I have been immersed in a renovation project, actually two projects, this year. I have not taken time to write or make art but I have worked steadily keeping my head down and until the last few days slept well. As this second project comes to a close I find myself unable to sleep. Or not able to sleep for long periods; the full nights sleep that has been a trademark of the last ten years eludes me.
My friend Rosie has come to visit for the month of August. She is renting the other little house just down the hill that we own here in the mountains. She came with hope and desire; a desire to spend time writing by herself and writing with me. I have not written since last December, and I was not sure that I would again until Rosie came.
In years past whenever I was having trouble sleeping it often felt as if God was calling me. I am so busy during the daylight hours I don't seem to hear that call and so it is the middle of the night that I get awakened with an image or a thought, or more than a thought; an essay. That is what happened tonight.
Rosie is retired from a life of dedicated work. She was a nurse, a teacher, a visionary in the medical community and finished her career as CEO of a retirement community. Rosie saw the need, found the resources and initiated the project in our hometown. It is a model program. Now she has retired, with a pension and her savings and moved back to Virginia. That is why she is visiting for a month and not just a week or a weekend.
I am not retired. True I am sixty-three years old and have had various jobs from which I might have retired if I had dedicated my life to any one, or even two of them. What I do now, over the last ten or twelve years is just an extension of that job life, but not really a job. I am not sure what to call it or what it is.
Upon graduating from school in the early seventies I took and passed my boards to become a registered nurse. I dedicated myself to that work, first in the army then in teaching hospitals until I had my first child. Then I became a stay-at-home mom. Another child and four years later I became possessed of the itch to go back to school. Always a mom, a cub scout den mother, a PTA worker and elementary school art mother I began taking classes, succeeding in getting my BFA in studio art. Six years had elapsed. I still had no career but I was hired as an art teacher in the very school I had just volunteered hundreds of hours. An award of sorts.
Married, at the time, to an army officer there was no doubt that he had a career. A graduate of West Point and Rutger's Law School his work defined career in our family. Many of my shifts in jobs, and school, were precipitated by his reassignments. So just as I caught my breath and began to have a feel for teaching we moved to New York; where a BFA did not qualify me to teach art. After getting my children settled in a new home and a new school, and a couple of months of pondering my existence, I went back into nursing; a field I had left thirteen years earlier.
It was overwhelming at first but as I got back in the rhythm I remembered why I loved this work. More jobs would follow, some in nursing, some in the arts. At the same time I became truly immersed in painting, something I had not felt particularly called to when getting my degree. It was invigorating and inspiring to be me, a healer of sorts, a teacher and community activist. I felt at the top of my game.
At that point I decided to turn the non-profit I had conceived and given birth to over a period of ten years to a new director and retired to my home and studio to make serious art. Only it did not come. Sure we bought a new house and I, being enamored of the Bloomsbury Group, painted every room. Applying faux finishes and decorative murals throughout, the work was beyond invigorating. But my studio work lanquished.
I made my first mosaic in that house after a trip to Italy with women friends. Many more mosaics would follow. In the hope of saving my marriage there was a move to another house, this time with major renovations and redesign projects. The budget dictated saving the old kitchen cabinets so I designed the space around them, painting every surface; beautiful painting some of it. New rooms were added with skylights and large windows overlooking a wide deck and garden-in-waiting. I did finish the house but I could not save my marriage or finish that garden.
I bought a condo and invigorated by the previous project began another renovation. This time I did more of the work myself, ripping out carpet and scraping the cement slab until it was returned to a near virgin state, I stained and sealed it. I applied mosaics in the kitchen and bathroom. I hired painters for the walls. It was a little gem and when it sold two years later there was a nice profit to show for my labor.
Remarrying, this time to a judge albeit another lawyer, I moved into his newly re-imagined, renovated early twentieth century home. I kept my studio in a rundown warehouse of a building nearby and got busy with the business of marriage, again. A month later a tree fell on the old garage and we began the process of building it back, this time inspired by the idea of an arts and crafts era "gar-low", combination garage bungalow.
I drew up the plans and my husband and I, acting as our own contractors, began the paperwork necessary to rebuild in a historic district. The little shed garage grew into a six hundred square foot building with a studio above that now serves as our media center and overflow guest space. It was almost two years in the making, as well as another few months of landscaping and hardscaping, but finally we were done in the spring of 2008. The next summer we bought a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.
That is where I sit now as I write this. Well not exactly in that cabin but in the slightly larger, newly renovated, bungalow up the hill. After completing the remaking of the little cabin three years ago we began feeling the urge to have something just slightly larger. With more bedrooms for little visitors. And a flat driveway. So here I sit.
It is a quarter to five in the morning and we are getting ready to host a family reunion in two weeks at the new house. Last week the painters finished the exterior while the masons completed the front entrance; today the contractor comes back to install the mantle on the new fireplace. Since April we have torn out windows and doors, moved and added walls, opened old doorways and restored rooms to their former function. I have painted, and re-painted, kitchen cabinets and walls, stained paneling and helped refinish floors. Imagining, and re-imagining, the front entrance I moved brick and stone trying to maintain the original concept while improving the function. Only then did we call the masons. Much of the work has been about function although aesthetic concerns were never secondary to the process.
Sitting here in the master bedroom there is the feeling of a nest. Unintentional but after all we are in the trees. Not much was changed in this room; new french doors that actually open to the deck and painted walls come to mind. There is a new seagrass rug on the floor under the bed and a new quilt on top of it. It is the most recent in a series of quilts I began making when our first grandchild was born seven years ago. Fabricated over the past winter while we were waiting to get started on this newest project, it is the first one made for myself, and I love being in this bed.
So what next is the question everyone has begun asking. Are you doing any art is the other. I always make excuses when that query comes along; new marriage, ten grandchildren in seven years, new houses. But now as I look back I see all I have been doing is my art. For the last fifteen years, since leaving the employ of the Art Factory and striking out on my own.
Everything I have done, every house constructed or renovated has been a work of art. In addition to conceiving the space and drawing the plans I have created mosaics and floorcloths and quilts to fill the homes. Some I have left behind. Some I have carried with me. Some are yet to be made. But the conception, the inspiration and the energy are all there, waiting.
So yes I am a working productive artist and no, I am not retired. Hopefully I never will be. But this time I have plans to finish the garden; after I paint the bathrooms.
I have been immersed in a renovation project, actually two projects, this year. I have not taken time to write or make art but I have worked steadily keeping my head down and until the last few days slept well. As this second project comes to a close I find myself unable to sleep. Or not able to sleep for long periods; the full nights sleep that has been a trademark of the last ten years eludes me.
My friend Rosie has come to visit for the month of August. She is renting the other little house just down the hill that we own here in the mountains. She came with hope and desire; a desire to spend time writing by herself and writing with me. I have not written since last December, and I was not sure that I would again until Rosie came.
In years past whenever I was having trouble sleeping it often felt as if God was calling me. I am so busy during the daylight hours I don't seem to hear that call and so it is the middle of the night that I get awakened with an image or a thought, or more than a thought; an essay. That is what happened tonight.
Rosie is retired from a life of dedicated work. She was a nurse, a teacher, a visionary in the medical community and finished her career as CEO of a retirement community. Rosie saw the need, found the resources and initiated the project in our hometown. It is a model program. Now she has retired, with a pension and her savings and moved back to Virginia. That is why she is visiting for a month and not just a week or a weekend.
I am not retired. True I am sixty-three years old and have had various jobs from which I might have retired if I had dedicated my life to any one, or even two of them. What I do now, over the last ten or twelve years is just an extension of that job life, but not really a job. I am not sure what to call it or what it is.
Upon graduating from school in the early seventies I took and passed my boards to become a registered nurse. I dedicated myself to that work, first in the army then in teaching hospitals until I had my first child. Then I became a stay-at-home mom. Another child and four years later I became possessed of the itch to go back to school. Always a mom, a cub scout den mother, a PTA worker and elementary school art mother I began taking classes, succeeding in getting my BFA in studio art. Six years had elapsed. I still had no career but I was hired as an art teacher in the very school I had just volunteered hundreds of hours. An award of sorts.
Married, at the time, to an army officer there was no doubt that he had a career. A graduate of West Point and Rutger's Law School his work defined career in our family. Many of my shifts in jobs, and school, were precipitated by his reassignments. So just as I caught my breath and began to have a feel for teaching we moved to New York; where a BFA did not qualify me to teach art. After getting my children settled in a new home and a new school, and a couple of months of pondering my existence, I went back into nursing; a field I had left thirteen years earlier.
It was overwhelming at first but as I got back in the rhythm I remembered why I loved this work. More jobs would follow, some in nursing, some in the arts. At the same time I became truly immersed in painting, something I had not felt particularly called to when getting my degree. It was invigorating and inspiring to be me, a healer of sorts, a teacher and community activist. I felt at the top of my game.
At that point I decided to turn the non-profit I had conceived and given birth to over a period of ten years to a new director and retired to my home and studio to make serious art. Only it did not come. Sure we bought a new house and I, being enamored of the Bloomsbury Group, painted every room. Applying faux finishes and decorative murals throughout, the work was beyond invigorating. But my studio work lanquished.
I made my first mosaic in that house after a trip to Italy with women friends. Many more mosaics would follow. In the hope of saving my marriage there was a move to another house, this time with major renovations and redesign projects. The budget dictated saving the old kitchen cabinets so I designed the space around them, painting every surface; beautiful painting some of it. New rooms were added with skylights and large windows overlooking a wide deck and garden-in-waiting. I did finish the house but I could not save my marriage or finish that garden.
I bought a condo and invigorated by the previous project began another renovation. This time I did more of the work myself, ripping out carpet and scraping the cement slab until it was returned to a near virgin state, I stained and sealed it. I applied mosaics in the kitchen and bathroom. I hired painters for the walls. It was a little gem and when it sold two years later there was a nice profit to show for my labor.
Remarrying, this time to a judge albeit another lawyer, I moved into his newly re-imagined, renovated early twentieth century home. I kept my studio in a rundown warehouse of a building nearby and got busy with the business of marriage, again. A month later a tree fell on the old garage and we began the process of building it back, this time inspired by the idea of an arts and crafts era "gar-low", combination garage bungalow.
I drew up the plans and my husband and I, acting as our own contractors, began the paperwork necessary to rebuild in a historic district. The little shed garage grew into a six hundred square foot building with a studio above that now serves as our media center and overflow guest space. It was almost two years in the making, as well as another few months of landscaping and hardscaping, but finally we were done in the spring of 2008. The next summer we bought a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina.
That is where I sit now as I write this. Well not exactly in that cabin but in the slightly larger, newly renovated, bungalow up the hill. After completing the remaking of the little cabin three years ago we began feeling the urge to have something just slightly larger. With more bedrooms for little visitors. And a flat driveway. So here I sit.
It is a quarter to five in the morning and we are getting ready to host a family reunion in two weeks at the new house. Last week the painters finished the exterior while the masons completed the front entrance; today the contractor comes back to install the mantle on the new fireplace. Since April we have torn out windows and doors, moved and added walls, opened old doorways and restored rooms to their former function. I have painted, and re-painted, kitchen cabinets and walls, stained paneling and helped refinish floors. Imagining, and re-imagining, the front entrance I moved brick and stone trying to maintain the original concept while improving the function. Only then did we call the masons. Much of the work has been about function although aesthetic concerns were never secondary to the process.
Sitting here in the master bedroom there is the feeling of a nest. Unintentional but after all we are in the trees. Not much was changed in this room; new french doors that actually open to the deck and painted walls come to mind. There is a new seagrass rug on the floor under the bed and a new quilt on top of it. It is the most recent in a series of quilts I began making when our first grandchild was born seven years ago. Fabricated over the past winter while we were waiting to get started on this newest project, it is the first one made for myself, and I love being in this bed.
So what next is the question everyone has begun asking. Are you doing any art is the other. I always make excuses when that query comes along; new marriage, ten grandchildren in seven years, new houses. But now as I look back I see all I have been doing is my art. For the last fifteen years, since leaving the employ of the Art Factory and striking out on my own.
Everything I have done, every house constructed or renovated has been a work of art. In addition to conceiving the space and drawing the plans I have created mosaics and floorcloths and quilts to fill the homes. Some I have left behind. Some I have carried with me. Some are yet to be made. But the conception, the inspiration and the energy are all there, waiting.
So yes I am a working productive artist and no, I am not retired. Hopefully I never will be. But this time I have plans to finish the garden; after I paint the bathrooms.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
On the Trajectory to Christmas and Beyond....
It is the nineteenth of December. Again I am sitting in my husband's office, what we call the library, enjoying the sun rise with my coffee. Having been on antibiotics for a persistent sinus "thing" I have not enjoyed coffee much this past week so I find myself unusually content this morning. Perhaps my writing will reflect that.
Today is a rest day in our celebration of Christmas. To be honest we have bowed out of a number of parties that just felt too much like "going just to go" kind of events rather than real celebrations with friends. So I don't think we are overextended at the moment but of course there is almost two weeks until NewYear's Day and the holiday season officially ends. Unless you are talking about Epiphany.
When we first receive invitations to parties I mark them on the calendar and look forward to the comradery and the opportunity to catch up with some old friends. But then as the dates came closer, and we become engaged in Christmas plannings of our own I realized that we were heading into overkill, and by the time we see the last of our children on the thirtieth of the month we might be beyond exhausted. So time to step back and make some choices.
Staying home is an easier choice for me than for my husband. Al is more of an extrovert and really enjoys parties. While I do enjoy parties my pull is to small gatherings and quiet time with friends more than big cocktail type events. From my side of the equation we get invited to smaller gatherings, his friends and acquaintances are more likely to be found at a large extravaganza. So at times we struggle. And in the midst of all of this Al's birthday comes. Yesterday to be precise. All of which means there is a lot of juggling going on between Thanksgiving and January second.
This year my children decided to stay home; thus we are going to visit them after Christmas. Al's children opted to come the two weekends before Christmas and also stay at their own homes for Christmas Day. At this moment Al's son and daughter-in-law have come and gone with their two children and we have celebrated one Christmas, had one Christmas dinner. Tomorrow Al's daughter and son-in-law will come home with their son and we will have our second Christmas and our second Christmas dinner. Still some presents to wrap and a dinner to plan, grocery shopping to do. I must confess here; his children are staying with their mother this year which does change the dynamic somewhat.
And I need to backtrack a little; two days ago we had our "family of choice" Christmas gathering and dinner. Over the last almost twenty-five years I have gathered with a group of women to celebrate our lives. We do birthdays, we do spring, we do Christmas. And sometimes we do trips together. The Christmas gathering is special and easy and I begin planning my gift theme sometime in early September. A few years ago we added men which hasn't really changed it as much as you might think. So really we're up to three now.
On Saturday we will go to a belated Thanksgiving dinner that my friend Jayne gives for all friends. It is also her birthday, coinciding with the winter solstice, so there is much cause for celebration. This year Jayne has reduced her household from seven to three ( her story to tell) and taken a new job. I expect there will be much joy as those four young men return and gather with us mostly women friends to celebrate this new turn in her life. Not really Christmas but still.
Two days later Al's younger brother and sister-in-law will join us for another family dinner and gift exchange on their way to her family's big gathering. They are our only overnight guests this year; kind of strange in and of itself. It will be quieter, because she is quieter and I don't share the family history that gets reviewed every year, but we are looking at inviting some others to fill in chairs at the table. Smiley face should go here.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will find us alone. This year an old friend who recently moved to Virginia has returned for a visit; we will spend some time with her. Another dear friend is suffering from kidney cancer and is having a difficult time at the moment. I hope to spend some time visiting with her; she is one of my soul sisters and I really miss her. And of course there is my real sister and my brother's family; that family gathering kind of fell apart a couple of years ago as the grandchildren came and came. Perhaps we will journey to see them; it is nearby.
Two days after Christmas we will load the sled and head to visit my children. First to Atlanta and then to Montgomery. We will try to do something special and memorable with them; but mostly just enjoy some together time. Usually we are all here in Augusta after Christmas and there is lots of chaos and time to sit and drink coffee together. It will be different and it will be fun but by then we will all be tired; maybe we will watch movies and eat popcorn.
And as we come to the end of this year we will leave Montgomery and drive across Alabama and Georgia to Edisto Beach in South Carolina, where we will gather with some of Al's oldest and dearest friends to welcome in 2014. It is a small house party, eight or ten people, and a larger oyster roast on the actual eve of the new year. It should be fun. It will be fun.
So here I am on a down day, drinking my coffee. The sun is up; so is my husband. The sky is blue, the air is cold. A perfect day. Tonight I am gathering with two of my oldest soul friends to watch White Christmas, something I usually do alone. We will eat a simple supper and laugh at our old stories and maybe drink a little too much but probably not. It is the real meaning of Christmas I think; taking time to spend with those we love and who love us. To hold and be held. To give and receive.
I am glad for a down day but more importantly I rejoice in Christmas and the opportunity to create new memories. As we head into the winter and the anticipatory atmosphere of introversion it provides, I welcome this extreme extroversion. It is the parties that are the celebration of life; it is in the winters we do the work.
Now I need to go finish some doll clothes I am making for gifts for some special little girls; the coffee pot's empty.
Today is a rest day in our celebration of Christmas. To be honest we have bowed out of a number of parties that just felt too much like "going just to go" kind of events rather than real celebrations with friends. So I don't think we are overextended at the moment but of course there is almost two weeks until NewYear's Day and the holiday season officially ends. Unless you are talking about Epiphany.
When we first receive invitations to parties I mark them on the calendar and look forward to the comradery and the opportunity to catch up with some old friends. But then as the dates came closer, and we become engaged in Christmas plannings of our own I realized that we were heading into overkill, and by the time we see the last of our children on the thirtieth of the month we might be beyond exhausted. So time to step back and make some choices.
Staying home is an easier choice for me than for my husband. Al is more of an extrovert and really enjoys parties. While I do enjoy parties my pull is to small gatherings and quiet time with friends more than big cocktail type events. From my side of the equation we get invited to smaller gatherings, his friends and acquaintances are more likely to be found at a large extravaganza. So at times we struggle. And in the midst of all of this Al's birthday comes. Yesterday to be precise. All of which means there is a lot of juggling going on between Thanksgiving and January second.
This year my children decided to stay home; thus we are going to visit them after Christmas. Al's children opted to come the two weekends before Christmas and also stay at their own homes for Christmas Day. At this moment Al's son and daughter-in-law have come and gone with their two children and we have celebrated one Christmas, had one Christmas dinner. Tomorrow Al's daughter and son-in-law will come home with their son and we will have our second Christmas and our second Christmas dinner. Still some presents to wrap and a dinner to plan, grocery shopping to do. I must confess here; his children are staying with their mother this year which does change the dynamic somewhat.
And I need to backtrack a little; two days ago we had our "family of choice" Christmas gathering and dinner. Over the last almost twenty-five years I have gathered with a group of women to celebrate our lives. We do birthdays, we do spring, we do Christmas. And sometimes we do trips together. The Christmas gathering is special and easy and I begin planning my gift theme sometime in early September. A few years ago we added men which hasn't really changed it as much as you might think. So really we're up to three now.
On Saturday we will go to a belated Thanksgiving dinner that my friend Jayne gives for all friends. It is also her birthday, coinciding with the winter solstice, so there is much cause for celebration. This year Jayne has reduced her household from seven to three ( her story to tell) and taken a new job. I expect there will be much joy as those four young men return and gather with us mostly women friends to celebrate this new turn in her life. Not really Christmas but still.
Two days later Al's younger brother and sister-in-law will join us for another family dinner and gift exchange on their way to her family's big gathering. They are our only overnight guests this year; kind of strange in and of itself. It will be quieter, because she is quieter and I don't share the family history that gets reviewed every year, but we are looking at inviting some others to fill in chairs at the table. Smiley face should go here.
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day will find us alone. This year an old friend who recently moved to Virginia has returned for a visit; we will spend some time with her. Another dear friend is suffering from kidney cancer and is having a difficult time at the moment. I hope to spend some time visiting with her; she is one of my soul sisters and I really miss her. And of course there is my real sister and my brother's family; that family gathering kind of fell apart a couple of years ago as the grandchildren came and came. Perhaps we will journey to see them; it is nearby.
Two days after Christmas we will load the sled and head to visit my children. First to Atlanta and then to Montgomery. We will try to do something special and memorable with them; but mostly just enjoy some together time. Usually we are all here in Augusta after Christmas and there is lots of chaos and time to sit and drink coffee together. It will be different and it will be fun but by then we will all be tired; maybe we will watch movies and eat popcorn.
And as we come to the end of this year we will leave Montgomery and drive across Alabama and Georgia to Edisto Beach in South Carolina, where we will gather with some of Al's oldest and dearest friends to welcome in 2014. It is a small house party, eight or ten people, and a larger oyster roast on the actual eve of the new year. It should be fun. It will be fun.
So here I am on a down day, drinking my coffee. The sun is up; so is my husband. The sky is blue, the air is cold. A perfect day. Tonight I am gathering with two of my oldest soul friends to watch White Christmas, something I usually do alone. We will eat a simple supper and laugh at our old stories and maybe drink a little too much but probably not. It is the real meaning of Christmas I think; taking time to spend with those we love and who love us. To hold and be held. To give and receive.
I am glad for a down day but more importantly I rejoice in Christmas and the opportunity to create new memories. As we head into the winter and the anticipatory atmosphere of introversion it provides, I welcome this extreme extroversion. It is the parties that are the celebration of life; it is in the winters we do the work.
Now I need to go finish some doll clothes I am making for gifts for some special little girls; the coffee pot's empty.
Monday, December 16, 2013
Home Alone....
Having coffee this morning I find myself alone. Al has gone to the mountains to tend to some business and I am at home nursing a cold. At times in my life I have become aware of how bad I am at being alone. Oh, I do it well for a day or two, glory in my alone time in fact whenever Al goes home for business and I stay by myself in the mountains. After a day or two, however, I need company. Conversation. Another human voice.
A number of years ago I began an effort to become more conscious. It was not a choice so much as the forces of nature pushing me in that direction, but nonetheless I began the steps necessary to the process of self awareness. One of the first assessment tools I utilized was the Myers-Briggs personality test. The one where we determine if we are introverts or extraverts among other preferred modes of being and operating in the world. There are four pairs of preferences that are evaluated and on three out of the four I tested dominantly in one camp or the other. On the attitude of extraversion vs introversion I tested smack in the middle. And so while I have many of the characteristics of an introvert, like a need for in-depth conversation and fewer, more meaningful relationships, I also love a party, especially when I get to be in charge. So on days like today the extrovert gets antsy. I need to talk to people; but guarding my alone time I dare not leave the house and seek out companionship. Horns of a dilemma.
My husband is certainly an extrovert; extreme extrovert in fact. He never tires of entertaining, whether at home or in the mountains. I am more divided in that need so have come to prize my time in the mountains as my alone time and my time in Augusta to meet my social needs. The time in Augusta is spent catching up; arranging dates with friends and meeting for coffee, drinks or dinner more than entertaining in our home. It is more of how our friends live nowadays. For me, the time in the mountains is to kick back and read copious numbers of books, take long walks and even hikes, and cook interesting meals. But here's the catch; when you have a retreat away from the extreme summer heat it feels somewhat selfish not to share it.
Entertaining in the mountains takes it up a notch though. It means having house guests, 24/7 or more likely two or three or even sometimes four days at a time. And often the sheets are washed and put back on the bed only moments before the next guests pull up in the driveway. It is extreme extroversion. Al loves it; I not so much, however much I enjoy the in-depth time spent with close friends. Horns of a dilemma.
We became the proud owners of our little mountain cabin, aptly named "Pickett's Retreat" a little over four years ago. At the time we had been married three years and while we have four children between us there were only three grandchildren. Life had become a little busier, but much more stimulating and interesting. Entertaining in a way that only required us to grab our car keys and head to Savannah, or Montgomery or Atlanta. Now, four years later with a total of ten grandchildren, grabbing our car keys has become second nature.
As a grandmother of seven of the children, unfettered by a need to work outside the home, I spend more time on the road than my husband. Being a retired judge Al is able to work part time, engaging his love of people and the law. He spends about a week and a half a month in Augusta working; I spend some of that time with him tending to the needs of our hundred year old home, but some of that time I take advantage of his busyness to visit my children. Or just recently, to take grandchildren to the mountains with me for some one on one time.
This fall I have become aware that all of my relationships are suffering from my nomadic life. Some friends in Augusta have fallen by the wayside; others have become less of a priority as the grandmother call has gained prominence. Due to my need for some introversion I haven't really made any friends in the mountains which means it is almost essential to import house guests to meet Al's need for extroversion. And my relationship with myself, my call to be more conscious in an active way, has taken a back seat. Not to mention my art.
So as I sit here, early this December morning watching the sun rise, I am aware of a need for balance. How precarious balance is; without realizing it I find myself alone on the edge of the diving board. New life in the water, old life staring at us from the pool surround. Who will jump in the water with us we cannot control. But the need to jump is apparent because there comes a time that running back and forth, climbing up and down the ladder, just doesn't work anymore.
So as we move into a new year I find myself once more needing to stop and listen to my life and my heart. To set some limits and decide what, and who, is important. Some things will go, some will be reclaimed and some movement will be necessary to incorporate the new life that beckons from the depths. It is exciting, a little anxiety producing, and just a tad exhausting, to contemplate. But I have been rolling along for the last seven years mostly reacting to things outside my control; okay not completely reacting but more than I would like, more than is healthy for a sense of well being.
Expectations. Changes. Work. Balance. All beckoning as this year comes to a close. A new home to become an outward and visible sign of inner change. That's the plan anyway. Catch me this time next year and see how I am doing. For now, enjoy and give the extrovert a little fun. Winter is a great time for inner work.
A number of years ago I began an effort to become more conscious. It was not a choice so much as the forces of nature pushing me in that direction, but nonetheless I began the steps necessary to the process of self awareness. One of the first assessment tools I utilized was the Myers-Briggs personality test. The one where we determine if we are introverts or extraverts among other preferred modes of being and operating in the world. There are four pairs of preferences that are evaluated and on three out of the four I tested dominantly in one camp or the other. On the attitude of extraversion vs introversion I tested smack in the middle. And so while I have many of the characteristics of an introvert, like a need for in-depth conversation and fewer, more meaningful relationships, I also love a party, especially when I get to be in charge. So on days like today the extrovert gets antsy. I need to talk to people; but guarding my alone time I dare not leave the house and seek out companionship. Horns of a dilemma.
My husband is certainly an extrovert; extreme extrovert in fact. He never tires of entertaining, whether at home or in the mountains. I am more divided in that need so have come to prize my time in the mountains as my alone time and my time in Augusta to meet my social needs. The time in Augusta is spent catching up; arranging dates with friends and meeting for coffee, drinks or dinner more than entertaining in our home. It is more of how our friends live nowadays. For me, the time in the mountains is to kick back and read copious numbers of books, take long walks and even hikes, and cook interesting meals. But here's the catch; when you have a retreat away from the extreme summer heat it feels somewhat selfish not to share it.
Entertaining in the mountains takes it up a notch though. It means having house guests, 24/7 or more likely two or three or even sometimes four days at a time. And often the sheets are washed and put back on the bed only moments before the next guests pull up in the driveway. It is extreme extroversion. Al loves it; I not so much, however much I enjoy the in-depth time spent with close friends. Horns of a dilemma.
We became the proud owners of our little mountain cabin, aptly named "Pickett's Retreat" a little over four years ago. At the time we had been married three years and while we have four children between us there were only three grandchildren. Life had become a little busier, but much more stimulating and interesting. Entertaining in a way that only required us to grab our car keys and head to Savannah, or Montgomery or Atlanta. Now, four years later with a total of ten grandchildren, grabbing our car keys has become second nature.
As a grandmother of seven of the children, unfettered by a need to work outside the home, I spend more time on the road than my husband. Being a retired judge Al is able to work part time, engaging his love of people and the law. He spends about a week and a half a month in Augusta working; I spend some of that time with him tending to the needs of our hundred year old home, but some of that time I take advantage of his busyness to visit my children. Or just recently, to take grandchildren to the mountains with me for some one on one time.
This fall I have become aware that all of my relationships are suffering from my nomadic life. Some friends in Augusta have fallen by the wayside; others have become less of a priority as the grandmother call has gained prominence. Due to my need for some introversion I haven't really made any friends in the mountains which means it is almost essential to import house guests to meet Al's need for extroversion. And my relationship with myself, my call to be more conscious in an active way, has taken a back seat. Not to mention my art.
So as I sit here, early this December morning watching the sun rise, I am aware of a need for balance. How precarious balance is; without realizing it I find myself alone on the edge of the diving board. New life in the water, old life staring at us from the pool surround. Who will jump in the water with us we cannot control. But the need to jump is apparent because there comes a time that running back and forth, climbing up and down the ladder, just doesn't work anymore.
So as we move into a new year I find myself once more needing to stop and listen to my life and my heart. To set some limits and decide what, and who, is important. Some things will go, some will be reclaimed and some movement will be necessary to incorporate the new life that beckons from the depths. It is exciting, a little anxiety producing, and just a tad exhausting, to contemplate. But I have been rolling along for the last seven years mostly reacting to things outside my control; okay not completely reacting but more than I would like, more than is healthy for a sense of well being.
Expectations. Changes. Work. Balance. All beckoning as this year comes to a close. A new home to become an outward and visible sign of inner change. That's the plan anyway. Catch me this time next year and see how I am doing. For now, enjoy and give the extrovert a little fun. Winter is a great time for inner work.
Sunday, December 8, 2013
Power, Intimacy and Equality...too much?
Recently my thoughts have been consumed with equality and intimacy, and personal power. Volumes have been written about these concepts and I don't think I have much to add; that is not why I write however. It is the thoughts that consume me, that grab my attention in the middle of the night, that drive me to pick up a pencil and try and make a visual picture of a concept, it is these thoughts that must be explored in writing. And re-explored. And some record makes it easier to see ideas evolve and change over time. My need to reread them however is not the issue; it is the need to get them out of my head that is the driver.
My husband is a judge. He has a lot of power in his world; whenever he goes to work his every need is tended to, if not divined by his subordinates. It makes it difficult at home, in our relationship, to have equality because his idea of that concept is cerebral, not experiencial. Al was raised in a southern home in the fifties. In the time of Leave it to Beaver and Donna Reed. My Three Sons also comes to mind. Both his parents worked, both were educators. Homemaker was not a word one applied to Al's mother but keeping a home was important; for that they had Irene.
Irene referred to Al as "Mister Albert." From that experience his world was divided between women who met his needs and women who had authority. His mother was the authority in his young life, but Irene was his caregiver. The imprint of his relationship to women, and subordinates, was early and complete. One takes care of you and the other is the one you push against to gain your own authority. No equality in either relationship.
But when I started thinking about equality and power I realized we are all born into a place where first we are the center of our own universe, only to realize at some point early on that we are at least ONE DOWN in power as we measure ourselves against our parents. And that is if we are lucky; for many children one down would be a dream.
So for men like my husband, who was one down in relationship to his parents, he nonetheless was ONE UP with Irene. Within limits he could make his needs known to her and she would do what he wanted. He might have to manipulate her outside the confines of his parents domain, but for a child manipulation is second nature. And reinforced, in the case of a young man who not only gets his basic needs met but every bath drawn, every meal made, every dirty shirt picked up from the floor and returned clean to his closet. Which model would you choose if you were young Al? It is no accident he became a judge; he was born to play that role.
My place in the world was more than one down from my earliest memory. I had a father who was abusive, a mother who was emotionally absent, an older brother (the key being older) and a younger brother (the key being brother). In case I was confused about my place my mother frequently reminded me; I was the sneaky one, the liar, the cheater despite being a high achiever and not the least bit of a troublemaker, unlike my brothers. The last words she spoke on the subject, before I no longer listened, was that while I got better grades than my older brother " your brother is smarter, you just work harder." And later "There is no money for you to go to college; if there were it would be for your brothers." This after being told at a nursing school interview that I should be going to college, not entering a diploma nursing program. And despite the fact that neither of my brothers desired a college education.
Education was my escape route from a family where I felt so devalued. I realized it at the age of thirteen, a particularly difficult time in most girls lives, true, but in mine it was horrific; I was called a whore by my mother while my father looked the other way and my brothers quietly observed. I became a feminist that day; I put my head down and studied, soaking up all the awards and accolades the world outside my home had to offer. My attitude took its toll in that my decision regarding nursing school was driven by how quickly I could be out on my own, independent of my parents, not by the education I really desired. The school offered a full scholarship and I would graduate in three years; winning hands down over four years and student loans.
A nurse is one down from the truly educated; doctors. A registered nurse from a diploma school is one down from a college educated nurse, this despite thousands of hours of training that resulted in more hands on experience. And eventually I realized that my diploma put me one down from my college graduated husband, whom I would go on to put through law school; never would I be equal in his eyes. "You don't really mean that; You don't really think that; You don't really want that" were his frequent refrains throughout the course of our thirty plus year marriage.
I fought for equality in that marriage. I became more educated. Gaining awards for devotion to my family, my education, my community, I felt empowered and vital. But inside that marriage I was always one down, sometimes more in the patriarchal system that governed our lives. So I divorced. And remarried. This time not just a lawyer, interpreter of laws but a judge, dispensor of laws. As one relative, a court reporter, told me "I can't believe you went from being married to a lawyer to being married to a judge." This only two weeks into the second marriage. I didn't realize what she meant then; I do now.
My struggle for equality is synonymous with my struggle for power. As I have gained power I have fought for equality; the more personal power I gained the more equal I would be or so I thought. But each marriage was to a more powerful person than myself, and my father. So hasn't my struggle for power, and equality been against my father all this time, a man who is long dead?
My father was a sergeant in the army, high ranking in the enlisted ranks. My first husband graduated from West Point and was a lieutenant in the army, low ranking among the officer ranks but outranking any enlisted soldier. I myself joined the army and became an officer but that was not enough, I was not respected for that by my father. Respect for my husband came with the patriarchal system; for me no system was powerful enough to override my father's attitude towards me and women in general.
My second husband outranks my first husband in the world of law. My first husband, when he goes to court, must behave in a reverential manner to the judge and abide by his judgments. He can appeal them to a higher court but he cannot argue, or disagree openly, with the judge. I have watched the dance when my judge husband is in court, I have seen him exercise his power and I have seen the dance that lawyers do to befriend judges. It is all about power. So haven't I won in the power play?
Haven't I defeated my father despite the fact he is dead and cannot jump across the net and shake my hand. If my sense of personal power is coming from within then I would say yes but as long as I am engaged in the struggle for equality with my husband, waiting for him to say and do that which shows I am equal to him, then I have lost. Or at the very least I am still in the game. I am still trying to wrest power from my father and that is the shame. Because it was never his to give.
My own father came into the world ONE DOWN. He left home, joined the army the day he turned eighteen, to achieve his independence; to gain power and equality in his own personal struggle. Did he achieve that goal? Based on his life long drinking habits, his abusive behavior towards his wife and children, I would have to say no. He never felt secure in his own power; his sense of self was only achieved by keeping others down.
That is the problem with power and equality. We are all born at least one down and we all begin our struggle for power and equality when at the age of two we utter the first "no". Some of us are helped along the way by our parents, our teachers and our employers. But most are kept down by the need of the more powerful to feel secure. Sharing power is not easy.
Equality is a wholly different thing; power is sought by everyone but equality is sought by the one down segment. Personally I have never heard a white man talk about the need for equality. Power and equality are inexplicably intertwined yet different. Equality comes with a state of mind as much as it is granted by society through laws and judgments. Power is measured by jobs and income and accrual of wealth. I can have power and not have equality and I can have equality and not have power. It is time to define the two anew. Because I think with equality, the kind of equality we get when we know who we are, comes a different kind of power. This is surprising to me as I write because it has not come into any of my thoughts or discussions of the past week. And it is taking me dangerously close to the beatitudes, not a place I am comfortable going.
'Amen sister' I can hear some of my friends saying.
Oh...and there is intimacy. That's a real kettle of fish.
My husband is a judge. He has a lot of power in his world; whenever he goes to work his every need is tended to, if not divined by his subordinates. It makes it difficult at home, in our relationship, to have equality because his idea of that concept is cerebral, not experiencial. Al was raised in a southern home in the fifties. In the time of Leave it to Beaver and Donna Reed. My Three Sons also comes to mind. Both his parents worked, both were educators. Homemaker was not a word one applied to Al's mother but keeping a home was important; for that they had Irene.
Irene referred to Al as "Mister Albert." From that experience his world was divided between women who met his needs and women who had authority. His mother was the authority in his young life, but Irene was his caregiver. The imprint of his relationship to women, and subordinates, was early and complete. One takes care of you and the other is the one you push against to gain your own authority. No equality in either relationship.
But when I started thinking about equality and power I realized we are all born into a place where first we are the center of our own universe, only to realize at some point early on that we are at least ONE DOWN in power as we measure ourselves against our parents. And that is if we are lucky; for many children one down would be a dream.
So for men like my husband, who was one down in relationship to his parents, he nonetheless was ONE UP with Irene. Within limits he could make his needs known to her and she would do what he wanted. He might have to manipulate her outside the confines of his parents domain, but for a child manipulation is second nature. And reinforced, in the case of a young man who not only gets his basic needs met but every bath drawn, every meal made, every dirty shirt picked up from the floor and returned clean to his closet. Which model would you choose if you were young Al? It is no accident he became a judge; he was born to play that role.
My place in the world was more than one down from my earliest memory. I had a father who was abusive, a mother who was emotionally absent, an older brother (the key being older) and a younger brother (the key being brother). In case I was confused about my place my mother frequently reminded me; I was the sneaky one, the liar, the cheater despite being a high achiever and not the least bit of a troublemaker, unlike my brothers. The last words she spoke on the subject, before I no longer listened, was that while I got better grades than my older brother " your brother is smarter, you just work harder." And later "There is no money for you to go to college; if there were it would be for your brothers." This after being told at a nursing school interview that I should be going to college, not entering a diploma nursing program. And despite the fact that neither of my brothers desired a college education.
Education was my escape route from a family where I felt so devalued. I realized it at the age of thirteen, a particularly difficult time in most girls lives, true, but in mine it was horrific; I was called a whore by my mother while my father looked the other way and my brothers quietly observed. I became a feminist that day; I put my head down and studied, soaking up all the awards and accolades the world outside my home had to offer. My attitude took its toll in that my decision regarding nursing school was driven by how quickly I could be out on my own, independent of my parents, not by the education I really desired. The school offered a full scholarship and I would graduate in three years; winning hands down over four years and student loans.
A nurse is one down from the truly educated; doctors. A registered nurse from a diploma school is one down from a college educated nurse, this despite thousands of hours of training that resulted in more hands on experience. And eventually I realized that my diploma put me one down from my college graduated husband, whom I would go on to put through law school; never would I be equal in his eyes. "You don't really mean that; You don't really think that; You don't really want that" were his frequent refrains throughout the course of our thirty plus year marriage.
I fought for equality in that marriage. I became more educated. Gaining awards for devotion to my family, my education, my community, I felt empowered and vital. But inside that marriage I was always one down, sometimes more in the patriarchal system that governed our lives. So I divorced. And remarried. This time not just a lawyer, interpreter of laws but a judge, dispensor of laws. As one relative, a court reporter, told me "I can't believe you went from being married to a lawyer to being married to a judge." This only two weeks into the second marriage. I didn't realize what she meant then; I do now.
My struggle for equality is synonymous with my struggle for power. As I have gained power I have fought for equality; the more personal power I gained the more equal I would be or so I thought. But each marriage was to a more powerful person than myself, and my father. So hasn't my struggle for power, and equality been against my father all this time, a man who is long dead?
My father was a sergeant in the army, high ranking in the enlisted ranks. My first husband graduated from West Point and was a lieutenant in the army, low ranking among the officer ranks but outranking any enlisted soldier. I myself joined the army and became an officer but that was not enough, I was not respected for that by my father. Respect for my husband came with the patriarchal system; for me no system was powerful enough to override my father's attitude towards me and women in general.
My second husband outranks my first husband in the world of law. My first husband, when he goes to court, must behave in a reverential manner to the judge and abide by his judgments. He can appeal them to a higher court but he cannot argue, or disagree openly, with the judge. I have watched the dance when my judge husband is in court, I have seen him exercise his power and I have seen the dance that lawyers do to befriend judges. It is all about power. So haven't I won in the power play?
Haven't I defeated my father despite the fact he is dead and cannot jump across the net and shake my hand. If my sense of personal power is coming from within then I would say yes but as long as I am engaged in the struggle for equality with my husband, waiting for him to say and do that which shows I am equal to him, then I have lost. Or at the very least I am still in the game. I am still trying to wrest power from my father and that is the shame. Because it was never his to give.
My own father came into the world ONE DOWN. He left home, joined the army the day he turned eighteen, to achieve his independence; to gain power and equality in his own personal struggle. Did he achieve that goal? Based on his life long drinking habits, his abusive behavior towards his wife and children, I would have to say no. He never felt secure in his own power; his sense of self was only achieved by keeping others down.
That is the problem with power and equality. We are all born at least one down and we all begin our struggle for power and equality when at the age of two we utter the first "no". Some of us are helped along the way by our parents, our teachers and our employers. But most are kept down by the need of the more powerful to feel secure. Sharing power is not easy.
Equality is a wholly different thing; power is sought by everyone but equality is sought by the one down segment. Personally I have never heard a white man talk about the need for equality. Power and equality are inexplicably intertwined yet different. Equality comes with a state of mind as much as it is granted by society through laws and judgments. Power is measured by jobs and income and accrual of wealth. I can have power and not have equality and I can have equality and not have power. It is time to define the two anew. Because I think with equality, the kind of equality we get when we know who we are, comes a different kind of power. This is surprising to me as I write because it has not come into any of my thoughts or discussions of the past week. And it is taking me dangerously close to the beatitudes, not a place I am comfortable going.
'Amen sister' I can hear some of my friends saying.
Oh...and there is intimacy. That's a real kettle of fish.
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