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'. 

Mysterious

messages on the trail last few days.

Ridiculous

and her stick.