Getting Back Into My Art

I really have been resting. So this was a forced break. I needed it.

Monday was my birthday and it was a pleasant one. I turned 65 so officially I'm eligible for all the senior discounts out there. My Kaiser Senior Advantage went into effect this month. There are some savings, but from what I had, it isn't that dramatic Had lunch and margaritas with my friend Janet Seinturier. I am still not driving, so if I go out someone has to do the driving. Shelley and my grandson Kevin came by in the evening with cheese cake we enjoyed together and a lovely gift of a coffee carafe. I look forward to doing a brunch and have coffee in this carafe.

I continued my celebrations. After my art class with Carol Bradshaw, Valerie and I ate at the Padre Hotel. We ate in the bar and the food was excellent. I had a salmon salad and Valerie had chile verde tacos. Then on Wednesday, Barbara Long and I ate vegetarian at Mama Roomba.  It is not noted as a vegetarian restaurant, but the non-meat choices are very good. They have a wonderful vegetable soup. We also had sautéed mushrooms and a mixed bean salad with oil infused with cilantro. It also tasted like it had finely minced garlic. Their mojitos are great, and, of course I had one of those.

This week I did work on my art. I have had little energy up to now so it was a nice change. I did draw the barn with silos and a waterfall with little detail. Next week we are working on parrots. As my teacher says "something is better than nothing", because it gives her a sense where I'm getting it and where I'm not.  Then she can give me feedback to improve my drawing.

I didn't need to return to the doctors office for the cast this week. The cast fits better and the break  is improving some, though I continue to take pain medications because it calms the pain down. Another interesting thing is that my back has just about become a non-issue. I have had a couple of twinges, but very minor. One of my friends thinks that it is because I've been doing a whole lot less than I had been doing.  I thought it was because my wrist hurts the worst at this time. I'll see when my wrist heals more.
My friend Lynn asked me how I was doing asking others for help. I will admit, it really is difficult to do. I would really rather be on the other side and helping others. I try to remind myself that I have no problem helping others when they need the help and I can help. I worry about being a burden on others. Now that I think about it, many seniors worry about being a burden on others. That is why I push to do what I can for myself. Valerie feels we have to be on the receiving end "to balance the universe". "Everyone needs to give and take" according to Valerie.  The other issue is when I need help for toileting issues  I've always been so private that this is particularly hard.  When I was in the hospital, I found them putting in a foley catheter to urinate an incredible invasion of privacy.  The nurses just looked at it as a procedure to do which helped some in not getting embarrassed.  I do know many people who don't find this embarrassing. So, this is not an easy subject. I would like to hear what others think. What would you do if you were in this spot?

Today my friend Valerie Slocum and I went to watch a movie called "Strangers in Good Company" at the Art and Spirituality Center.  Excellent as usual and great discussion afterwards.

I've had no contact with my grandson and his family except through the internet.  They have offered to come over to help, but I have resisted visits from everybody. I'm at the tail end of this cold. It is no longer waking me up in the middle of the night. But, they have been posting such cute pictures and I can't resist sharing them.

So next weekend I am meeting with people I used to work with which will be about 1 1/2 hours north..I'm taking the train. My friend Janet will get me to the station here and another friend Annemarie will pick me up. We have done this several times.  We make it a mini-vacation. The hotel is very pleasant with a nice pool. Since I have a cast, all I'll be doing is dangling my legs in the water. The restaurant Tommy's is also a pleasant setting and my memory of eating here is very good. We expect our group to be a little smaller than usual, but I can't remember a time when it wasn't a great gathering.

Valerie Schultz wrote a good article in the Bakersfield Californian on grief that I would like to share.  I felt this with my losses.  I believe many of you will relate to it.  :

Valerie Schultz on grief

Thursday, Jul 03 2014 01:19 PM
VALERIE SCHULTZ: Grief is dark shadow over these early summer weeks
By The Bakersfield Californian

My sister calls it the trifecta, although without the happy connotation of that word: the window of time every year from Father's Day in June to our dad's birthday in July. In between is Independence Day, the date of our dad's death. The trifecta covers about a month. It is our yearly time of intensified grief, when we are reminded that we are fatherless, and we relive the days leading up to his death, and we regret that there are no more of his birthdays to celebrate. I'm always glad when the trifecta is over. It's not that I miss my dad any less during the rest of the year; it's just that the loss doesn't seem as in-your-face once the trifecta passes.

This year is the fifth trifecta, and I have learned that time does not really soften the ache. But then I think of my dad's simple, sunny outlook on life, and I know that he would want us to focus less on the bitter and more on the sweet. Our extended family has had some bad blood among its members since my dad died, but we've also had weddings and anniversaries and graduations. We've had new babies born.

My dad was a fantastic grandpa, and he would have doted on these miraculous additions as much as he adored my daughters. He taught me to appreciate the whole "circle of life" concept, just by the way he'd sit back at family gatherings and marvel at the little ones running around the pool, at the noise and laughter of people enjoying time together, at the palpable life in our midst. "This is what it's all about," he'd say, smiling fondly and taking in the progress of his progeny.

My dad was right: Life blazes on and holds us in thrall with its bounty and blessings. Our family has journeyed on without his physical presence, and we even feel completely happy at times.

And who would have imagined that my mother, in her 80s and in frail health, would find a boyfriend? But she has, and she seems content in this new chapter of her life. Sometimes I want to resent her boyfriend, as though it's his fault that my dad is gone, as though he could ever replace my dad, but I know my dad would tell me to let it go.

One of my sisters has speculated that maybe our dad somehow arranged from the afterlife for this new guy to take care of his wife, since he was no longer around to do it. Maybe so: It would be like him to have picked a fellow Navy man.

I feel pensive during the trifecta. I suppose we learn at an early age that whenever love is involved, there will be loss. We lose our pets. We lose our oldest relatives. We lose our innocence. We lose our illusions. Sometimes we lose the very youngest among us, which is an even deeper sort of pain.

But we continue to love, and risk the consequences, because life is hollow without love. Our loved ones expand our hearts, elicit our loyalty, engage our selflessness, enlarge our life experience. We can't ignore death, especially a death that pains us so, but we can accept it as a stage of the life that stubbornly burgeons and blooms.

My siblings and I visit our dear departed dad's grave under the reliably shady oak tree every 4th of July. We bring flowers, breathe a prayer, maybe read a poem or play a song. We aren't much in the mood for corn-on-the-cob and parades and fireworks, but our dad really loved all that jazz, all that patriotic zeal, so we try.

When night comes and the fireworks are finished, the trifecta is two-thirds over for another year. Life will continue to delight us and inspire us and challenge us and occasionally break our hearts, and we will try to handle it all with the grace we were taught, and that we must now pass on to our children.

"Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no," writes the poet Mary Oliver, in "Flare," the poem that I brought this year graveside. "Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also / like the diligent leaves."

Life really is a circle, a vine twirling and twining onto itself, and we all flower along the way, from life to death to life. We may never quite stop grieving when we lose someone we love, but with each day, we feel ourselves turning toward the light.

Living fully, being "green also," is how we honor those who have gone before us, how we keep the arc of the circle climbing.

This husband takes pictures of his wife who eventually died with breast cancer.  I felt it was nicely done and touching.

Captures Love and Loss Beautifully


That's it.  I'll see you next Sunday.             Rachel