How could I have forgotten that beach towns Are filled with frivolity and sun and fun? Actually I didn't. But that so many would be couples, of course, So twos together, yes, that I did. So on top of these Past busy weeks Is too much of doing alone, alone, alone And coming home to more problems And more alone. Tonight I can say couples should all die together Wish I had, am so angry you left me dealing with Stress, misery alone.
Last two days in the new studio Have been light on visitors but Good for painting. Yet I am not quite into the swing Of working here and am unsettled, Unhappy with work.
Halfway in this latest journey With my two latest best friends, Sovaldi and Ribavarin. My energy levels remain as ever They have been and hopefully I am Still hvc free.
I am not sure yet what to think Of this adventure, or why, really, I’m doing it. Oh can say to see if I like the idea Of having a studio/gallery, prefer it attached To my house. Or I need to get off this long dirt road, And that is true, I do. So this is directed Towards doing that. But I have been running off this road For the last five years and and washing back Again and again. It has been noted that meeting anyone Is next to impossible as long as I go No where new. Selling is good as it means another Likes my work. But it isn’t needed for Me to eat. Perhaps I am doing it to allow life to perhaps Open to change that can be welcoming, Rather than hurtful.
Dinner last night with friends, Whole flounder, grilled nicely Cobia was delish. Spent a few hours on the island Opened and drew, waiting to see some folks It was pleasant. Left at five and came home to make dinner Relax and catch up on bills, a different Kind of day.
Haven’t been committed to a place being open In a long time, feels burdensome and we feel Four days enough! It is pleasant to swap stories with others but I can see it is not a panacea for closeness, Although it does Allow me to appreciate the sweetness Of my solitude when it is not an unbroken Drag of time.
It is late as I sit here thinking of the last week, s toil. The shop is set up and we opened two days ago for This holiday weekend People did come in, a few here and there, summer folk. We are considering when to be open without being There all week. Easel set up, learning the dynamics needed for a small Working studio with shop, space for ball but mostly We are painting.
I have had company in my house And have started another adventure On my own I do with a friend and am helping her learn What this thing may need as best I know, I too learn I think this is a good thing for me To be doing, even as I still will Ever miss you.
Brought up on things like five year plans When I think quickly, it has been an eternity Since your death. And I have little to show for it, still living In the same place, while most every one we knew Has moved on. Read the five years of blogs in a single seating, And I now see the slow evolvement of a woman Devastated, destitute, lost, Who in time eventually learns of dealing With her horrible reality through moments, Steps and breaths To different levels of equilibrium. Not yet to The sense of place, of home, of self hoped for, and Though it feels As time has flown too far, too long, been wasted, yet while slow perhaps, progress inches towards knowing me As I am now. Who was for so long halved and pained, is slowly finding Whole again, however forever tempered by deepest hurt and Memory of you.
Two thousand nine is a lost year for me. I can find no journal, my calendar is gone, have only Jack’s pocket calendar. I am afraid I have lost the small details, Wish so to remember what I can before I loose all: Most of January, dinner with friends, Jack working for the auctioneer and doing side jobs. A show at the B&B, sell some things, riding When we can, Jack shooting as chance allows. He enjoys trap February, a gallery show East meets West. Jack Pouring more Dogfish beers over 10 ounces, staying with the Russells’. March, Joel comes to visit, of course they Go shooting and we conspired on dinner menus, Lots of talking. In March I broke that lamp and in a welling of despair Felt the toll these years here had taken on me as Well as Jack I paint Snow Hill. We work the oddi auction on Apr 22. Ian sings Time that sun sets, this outfits history - 100 Head or more. The Ward show again falls on his birthday. His mallard Garners no awards but Jack asks questions, listens avidly To judges’ advice. I still have the photo of Jack and Dover from an earlier Bark in the Park. Did he take Arlo this year? I can’t remember. May, Phil is here to visit and they both shoot, And go to the Shorebirds as once they would Go to Fenway, Jack shot as often as he could, and worked his studio, Ideas emerging and shaping as he would come ask Help with drawing. He found designs, decoys, spoons to copy, we built mock-ups of clay, allowing his touch to learn, transform. June we did not see Delbert again but at the Globe did Hear Roy Bookbinder, whose words I wrote, perhaps in That lost journal Late in the month, pregnant with triplets Delia came with Inning and Kimmi Summer with us. The pool was a favored spot, all sun drugged. Inning helped with farm chores, we shot skeet And watched baseball. Days on the river, swimming off the boat, Trips to outlets looking for deals. Old friends arriving To hug Delia. Days to the seashore, the fireman’s carnival, of barbequeing In the back yard and sharing recipes. Watching polo, Enjoying our company. Kimmi following Ahhlow, and Arlo licking her face. The joy of having this sweet family in our house. Time too short. What did we do for my birthday? I don’t know Dinner somewhere? we were together and we were happy with that And his doctors appointments were about psoriasis Not prostate and levels although I remember Talking of such. Sept 11 was Ligonier and Rich was not well. Mostly I remember the long ride home discussing Views about death. Where to be buried? Not Pocomoke and probably Not Needham, keep it simple, he needed only his ring In the grave. Oh well, when we are both buried in Needham then Will his ring rest in the grave. Rich’s memorial Was on Sept 25th. 22 years on October 4th, celebrated with each other Content with our being together. Two decades plus, Looking for more. We redo the bathroom, because whatever comes, next This time we are going to enjoy a remodeling project While we’re here Mid month an appointment with that urologist, Biopsy at the hospital results and a diagnosis It is cancer. But this Doc is confident and arrogant. We,trusting, so bewildered, everyone heals from this, don’t they? Jack signs up for a decoy show next labor day. He will need to work hard to carve enough inventory. A great idea. I will hang paintings, and can see a time we do this often, A new venture. I consider an asheville workshop For both of us. Another goose season and better a deer season By the pine Jack set up and shot his first deer A ten pointer. A shot through the jaw, dropped instantly He calls us at Faith’s to tell. I fly home in the subaru, Joel, Rico follow. We hang the rack in a tree so when it has decompsed To skull can hang in our home. Another deer later, Provides me venison. One day I will hang that rack in the kitchen above His painting and when that happen, within a year I will leave. Thanksgiving, my mother chose to go to Cheryl’s Afterall, there is always next year. Joel brings a wild Turkey he shot. We, as often we would, discuss recipes for moist bird. Presented on a marvelous old platter, the bird and all Is perfectly detectable. Saturday, Jack and Joel do not go shoot, Rather help Rico and me at an auction, so never have that last shoot. And the times we rode, the last, taking the bay, the gray To ride the back fields along the river, as ever riding touched by heaven.
December, he is content with his doctor, His choice of surgery date and I drive him early to the hospital. His doctor leaves me hanging, never comes out after to talk to me about my husband. Who stays in the hospital a few extra days Its a procedure new for the doc, has my Dear in pain, Told its normal. Jack heard from that doc, that this would be the most painful thing he would ever feel. However much I fault myself and I do, How I hold those words against that doc And hate him. The snowstorms started while Jack was still in the hospital and harried us forever with a cold I’ve never lost.
Read this blog these last two days, Straight through: all those early years of sharp engulfing hurt Through the lengthening days lost in a fogged Miasma with no direction at all. Direction is still An un-compassed thing. Deep in me ever rests that first fear, pain, despair Laying in abeyance, underscoring all I have done Since that day. Rising through has come a cope-ability In time allowing the learning of needed Trust in myself.
Have finished reading journals and indeed To often the same laments are written when The truth is I was unwilling to recognize stalled spots Or to make the needed changes about things that concerned me. Can see some of these faults are with me still. Some I have addressed in varying degrees, others I try forgiving.
Today I chose also to recognize I am tired, Not for ever and much for the meds but Need to see To learn to give time to myself to heal. I’ve run for five years, Run while Staying in place. This day I chose to not go, to stay close, Lay low and be just in the time of here Alone with me.
I have questions with no easy answers. The easiest answer is to do little, stay put, Make few changes What has been going through my brain, What do I think of the past, what is done, What of today, Never mind tomorrows, what keeps me From moving, keeps me still, of what Am I afraid.
Think about it, five years out, the winds Blow no softer. The change is I can Stand before them. Not easily, but now, after all these hours, days Months and years, I can sound weather, Find leeward edges Find respite, hide quietly in the sweet Corners that allow time to recoup, and Finally live on.
With this course of treatment, one Thing is I have enough energy To my surprise, To do almost anything I might’ve done. Almost, today I am tired from doing Way too much Normally, and now need time to regroup Back into quiet time. Which was simply Done with you.
The Studio at Line's End Farm is where I paint and try to find some joy again, and some equilibrium, not simple these days. One weblog records thoughts, ideas, methods and mixtures, palettes, observations, actually anything that intrigues me concerning my painting and working in the studio. Another observes only the horse in paintings that I find influential. The last are done for my sanity. All are my opinion only, open to other suggestions.
I will write in red, for my dear, love; who never saw red, not in ink, not in ire.
In 2010, the cold went beyond ten decades, was a century mark of hard winter through the mid-atlantic. For one small household banked by an Eastern Shore river this winter was epochal.
