Eclipsed

I surprised myself and pulled up a chair against and under the umbrella of the big tree in the field last night. Rosie sitting at my feet, the full moon lunar eclipse beamed straight into my chest. Slow, sublime and graceful, the eclipse was so much more than words I can say.

One group of neighbors, partying on their porch, trailer trucks on the night run, jake brakes and bumbling rumbles, another neighbor couple ‘who is that sitting in the field in the dark’, and it was cold.

Me, I was in a celestial event. 

On the Trail

This morning on the trail, we ran into a Burmese Mountain Dog puppy. The puppy: exuberant, friendly, confident and kind, my thoughts turned to rescue puppy Rosie. At fourteen weeks, after who knows what and a transport from Tennessee to Connecticut, the puppy I picked up was as serious and reserved as an old lady. She didn’t smile, wag, play or scamper. And she behaved. Seeming to learn instantly, she walked on a leash, understood what I meant by ‘business’ and laid quietly and watchfully in her kennel. Not a bit of mischief in Rose, nor a bit of play, nor a peep.

I set about to woo her. I smiled at her like crazy, sang her name, played by myself with dog toys and I am sure to my neighbors’ amusement, I ran around in the backyard, throwing and retrieving my own stick while Rosie watched. A friend checked Rosie’s teeth, thinking for real, this is no puppy, this is a little old dog. Nope, little teeny wiggly puppy teeth…..hmmm.

My father had died from head trauma the week before, my 12 year old dog Maple had died two weeks before my father, after her mysterious month long illness and my mother had died 8 weeks before Maple, after her few years of the mystery of dementia illness. 

To say that Rosie was exactly what I needed is an understatement of magnitude. Neither of us seemed to have the energy to complain or cry. 

About two weeks into Rosie and I living together, ‘against my what to do with a new rescue puppy knowledge’, I took her up to the woods behind the house, realizing I was going to let her off leash. What if she ran? Would I ever find her? 

I unclipped her, she took a few steps, looked up at me, and I said go ahead. Off she scampered nose to the ground, then head up, then tail up, then nose to the ground, no this way over that mound and then the other one and over the next one she disappeared. Would she ever stop, would she get nervous and hide in a hole, would she starve to death in the woods after running till she dropped?

It was a risk. I called her, I jumped up and down in the happiest yell I could find, ‘this is what it is Rose, this is what life can be, trees, dirt, smells, air, breeze, warmth, beauty, Rose? Isn’t this something to be happy about?’ 

And she came running back in a bee line, a bundle of smiling bounding joy came back. I still don’t know how we found each other.

Lumbering Rock

This slumbering lumbering rock stopped me in my tracks this morning. Battleship grey, laying about growing moss and practically making topsoil on it's tummy. I just loved it. Like it had been there for the ages. I thought of Jane Culp's interview in Painting Perceptions. A western United States en plein aire painter, Jane loves the dynamic energy of those newly minted Rockies. She talks about New England rocks as old things, almost used up, covered up things. And I have say this morning marveling at that big slab of rock laying there, I laughed out loud. Jane's interview is a good read, it's here: http://paintingperceptions.com/featured-interviews/conversation-with-jane-culp

And some of Jane's marvelous landscapes are here in the gallery, check 'em out!

Foretelling

I have foretelling dreams.

I had a dream a year before I was diagnosed of being in a deeper basement than I knew I had in my house. In the center of this basement I was surprised to find a 4 foot wide column of walled off space. One of the walls had a large hole that I immediately wanted to repair. Inside the hole, I could see this creature, big and wormy with undulating parts. The creature was very pale, like it had never seen the light of day. It ‘floated’ back and forth peering at me with a benign quizzical eye. It seemed happy and curious. Screaming, I threw everything I could grab at it. The creature, calm, unaffected, continued going back and forth looking at me like I was an interesting lunatic. I woke up, embarrassed at my response. I wasn’t the least bit calm or curious to meet the thing. And the thing looked at me almost as if to say, ‘why so upset?’ So I drew the thing, I made prints of it, I thought of it like a mythological snake. I wasn’t wild about how the images turned out. I couldn't get the flow of it right and the drawings and prints went into the 'later' pile. I moved on, and as happens with me and my work, I forgot all about the prints and the dream.

Months later, I was diagnosed. I knew nothing about untreated Lyme, the bacteria, how systemic the infection gets, how it likes to take up residence in the central nervous system, or how the microscopic bacteria look like undulating worms, but I had a gut response that I didn’t want to rant and rail and fight. I felt I had to get to know these things, be respectful, understand something, while somehow getting them out of my body.

More than a month into treatment I came across the forgotten monster prints. I remembered the dream. I had to go lay down. Shocked to learn the thing in the dream was clearly a lyme bacteria biofilm. A year before I was diagnosed my subconscious, my body was talking to me about what was going on, what was coming, what was going to be a part of my every waking day. That explains my gut response, and I am glad I listened to that much. This whole thing is really intense, the protocol is intense and my body is intensely challenged, calm was definitely a good way to begin.

And now three months later, there is this: GET OUT.  

If only I dreamt endings, right?

Labor Day 2015

Grateful

At work today only 6 minutes late after swimming and garden picking and visiting friends. Grateful to walk in the door, steep as the steps felt to my knees. Lyme disease has become as much work to me as making art and running the gallery. I’d like to sleep for more than a couple of hours at a time. In the night I wake in a tumult of voices and feelings in my head and body. The feelings, both physical and mental, profoundly dark, take my breath away. Who is speaking? How can these microscopic bacteria affect so many aspects of my life, even my thoughts? Some nights, I am curious, some nights scared and some nights just plain annoyed. And still this sunny Labor Day grateful to be alive, to swim, soak up a little sun and come to work, to paint, to talk to people, to write, to look at beautiful things and as much as I rightly bemoan it, to work and learn through Lyme. 

Simple Beauty

Pleasure this morning in this perfectly proportioned post

How do dogs know everything?

Monoprint, 'Oh Hercules'

This morning Rosie sat at the edge of the field and would not walk with me to the garden. I teased her a little, she barked at me, one quick, 'gosh you are not listening bark'. I ignored her warning and picked what I needed, walked up to the far gardens, fooled around and headed back to the house. When I turned around the biggest fox I had ever seen was sitting in the middle of the field. Rosie looked me as if to say 'I tried to tell you'.