7 December 2015

I have thought about Miss Kelly every day since she died this summer and in those thoughts, wondered if I would be able to come back to this writing.  There are so many things that I wish that I could tell her now,  now that I more fully understand that our time together was always finite, limited by inevitable death, and longer and richer than most of the relationships I will ever know.

I have been thinking about this, trying to be certain how old I was when we met.  I am not sure, but I think I may have been 7.  There are only two people remaining on the planet who have known me longer:  my mom and my sister.  There are only two people who with me might remember the vast history that brought us all together, and soon enough there will be only one.

My mother remembers very little of anything but her own childhood these days. It is not intended as a criticism, just a heartfelt knowledge that dementia is stealing all the intervening years away and grabbing the simplest details and blowing them into the wind where they dissipate entirely.  She is 84 now and more frail than I anticipated.  She was always the smallest among us, with her thin cheeks and fine bones, her funny Canadian vowels peeking out through certain words.  She was always little, but also fiercely independent and scheming.  Now, she holds my hand when we walk along the street, up stairs, and down stairs.  She wants to hug me hello and goodbye every time she sees me - even if it is only a few hours since the last intervention.

She needs a lot of interventions these days - how to use the remote control for the cable television; how to turn the overhead lights on and off in the living room; where she set her three medicines (citalopram, galantamine; and advair); and so many other things that seem so routine it is hard to imagine how anyone could forget them.  But then, I am only 58 and memory is still my friend.

Whenever she asks about dear Miss Kelly - I have to remind her that she died this year.  And then she follows this with another question, asking if my dad is still alive.  And what of Pat? And tell me about Margo?  I tell her all are gone now...gone a long time actually.  She says, Oh, I suppose I knew that.  

And I think it is, in its way,  a wise response: "I suppose I knew that."

(I suppose I knew that it would be ridiculous to continue to write these posts to you, Miss Kelly - sporadic and infrequent - but, I promised I would when we were together in the room where you died.)  

Norman Mailer said that Pablo Picasso lived his life on the last line...the last line of drawing.  I have come to envy that sort of compassionate response to the rigors of this life.  To live on the last line, drawn with simplicity - a breath - a motion - a phrase...the last line.

If I could speak to Miss Kelly now, I would tell her that the sky is still blue, all the time, even in death.  I would tell her I made the most amazing martini the other night, and have come to love a perfect manhattan with rye.  I would tell her that I have a new job and will have to change my bio and update my LinkedIn profile.  I would ask her how she's feeling today and how is Mary?  I would tell her that life is so precious and so cruel.  She would say, "I know, kid"  and take a breath.  And that might be the last line.

Sunday, 25 January 2015

Finally, a studio again.

It takes so much longer than I think it will to make a corner in the world where I can sit and think. I so long to be one of those who can work anywhere, sit in any chair, write with any pen.  But, I am not.  I need my things around me and a certain sense of myself in the space.

This is not to say that I have never written on an airplane, on my lap in the passenger seat of Kirsten's Toyota truck.  Of course I have.  This is not to say that I cannot draw and paint on the sidewalk in Montmartre.  I can.  But when it comes to working here, at home, I need a little corner of quiet and a few layers of my history around me.

So here you have it: Paints, stamps, more than one pen.  A candle, a date stamp, a cup of coffee gone cold.  The ever present journals.  And behind me?  A wall of cookbooks.

I think I like it here.

All this change.

In the last few months, I have touched everything we own.  Moving from our home to the tiny house across the street so we can witness and watch this massive renovation plan, we packed and packed, unpacked and repacked, all to set our lives into half the space for one year.  I have fallen in love with this little house.  It is a gem. Circa 1948, it has two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room and a kitchen.  Years ago, the front bedroom was the neighborhood beauty salon with an exterior door, now bolted closed.  Between the living room and the kitchen is the tiniest little niche that must have masqueraded as a dining room before I claimed it for a studio.  It is all of 8'x4', but, with double windows and a three-prong plug for the lamp and the stereo (the computer and printer reach by a power strip to another plug outside the space).

It has taken me weeks to get this settled down and in.  Sorting papers and pencils and pens and paints, I have wondered if I would be able to paint in this space at all...but here I am.  And yes, I can.

So this morning I posted on artcards.tumblr.com for the first time in over a year.  And now, here I am with you, Miss. Kelly.  I wish you could see this little house and its tiny studio.  I would take you on the four-and-a-half-room tour.  Make you a mimosa in the green kitchen.  Point across the street to the house you imagine I am in and laugh over the plans for its renovation.  New kitchen.  New guest rooms.  New master bedroom.  New porch.  New studio.

And a year from now, I will spread out again into a bigger space for art and writing than I have ever known.  But for now, just a little pass through space between the living room and the kitchen will do just fine.  It's mine.  It's here.  And so am I.

I love you, Miss Kelly....wish you were here, too.