Everything was original, once...

Elliot and I, as other people...
Tangential to the post, or maybe total non-sequitor.

So often it is said that there is nothing new under the sun.

The thing is, it hasn't always been said, only quite frequently since it was first said. So once, it was new, under the sun. Or perhaps the moon, if they first said it at night.

Anyway, the point? As I fumble along this path that might lead to art and might lead to something better, or something worse, well, what about creativity?

I've always felt it was my stumbling block. Once I have an idea, I can run with it. I can stretch it and bend it, push and pull it, but eventually it resolves. It ends. I can't repeat it endlessly, because I want the next idea now, thank you very much.

Problem is, I don't have Ideas. Or even ideas. Occasionally i have a thought, and with enough agressive pruning I can pull an idea out of it, but more often I see other people toting their ideas around, tossing one here, one there, barely breaking a sweat. Maybe I could sneak along behind, you know, and catch one they drop now and then. Use it like a seed, grow something with it...?

But when i make something, I want it to be MINE. Call me selfish - go ahead. Call me crazy, while you are at it, because, of course, there isn't really anything new under the sun. Our bodies are made of the recycled atoms of our food, of our forefathers, of dinosaurs and sandstorms and oceans and poop. But they are our bodies, now, and they ARE new.

And so our ideas could be new, even if others have thought them before. I want to strive for a unique collection of recycled beauty, recycled love, recycled expression in what might be art, might be vanity, is there a difference?

I was reading this, which, naturally, I saw on FB. Right away, I stole it and reposted, because I liked it. I didn't always agree with it, but I liked it all the same.

Maybe I need to let myself steal more. If there was anything I learned from Karl's passing it was to be kinder to myself, and maybe beating myself up for not having enough ideas isn't the way to live. (duh, right?) But I've never wanted to make somebody else's work, so I have left all their pieces untaken.

So a mission, then: Steal 5 things*. Dissect them. Take 1/5th of each. Reassemble and call it new. See what happens.

I'll keep you posted.



*intellectually, of course.

Replacements, or, I'm Back!

I finally got the new computer. I opted for an iMac instead of another MacBook, and so far I'm happy with the choice.

While the transition from the Time Machine to the new iMac wasn't seamless, it was reasonably easy for somebody with computer experience. I hit a few bumps, but in the end all my data was where it should have been, and I am thrilled to have the new machine up and running.

I hope this will mean more frequent updates here, as I have been reluctant to blog from the iPhone. It was just too tedious typing out my always too verbose ponderings on the virtual keyboard.

This week I also plan to replace a set of speakers and a filing cabinet. Besides kudos to Mac for keeping my data safe, I also have to give thanks to American Family Insurance for paying for it all. Their service and support since the breakin has been fantastic, as was their help when I had the roof replaced.

Now, I am being called upon to operate some paper puppets for the boy, so I'm off.

It is good to be back.

The Simple Life

I don't have much to tell.

I've been a little frozen. A little hibernating. A little lost from my earlier hopeful path.

But the air is warmer now. We have spent days out in the yard reclaiming it from the kingdom of dead things and weeds.
We have strolled in the park and planted seeds in the windows.
We have started coming out of the cave. Coming back to life.

We will see if the writing bug bites as all other things begin to hatch and awaken.

Till then, life rumbles on.

Long time gone

So it has been a while, huh?

I still don't have a computer, and I have found it both
freeing and isolating at the same time. In theory there
is a check on it's way from the insurance today and soon I will
be back to my old habits, but for now I will fill you in on the new
year so far.

I have been sad. A lot. Partly I think it is the weather, partly my
own ineffective efforts at being more social. Partly, and it is a big
part, I miss Karl terribly. And in addition to losing him, I lost two
imagined children - babies I had vivid dreams of even before Elliot,
and who still haunt the landscape of my sleep.

Of course, that is a bleak landscape of late, and poorly tended. I've
tried establishing better sleep routines, sound machines, herbal
teas; nothing is gettinge past the insomnia. I lay in bed sometimes
for hours, my mind buzzing with heartaches, anxieties, sometimes
desperation, sometimes fatigue so bone deep the feel of it pulling my
eyes down makes something inside me fight to stay awake.

In my once-upon-a-time fairytale life, I was supposed to have a daughter
now. She was going to come when Elliot was 3, and her name is Emily.

She has Karl's red hair, and she's beautiful. I dress her up girly till she
won't let me anymore. She follows her big brother everywhere, and he
adores her.

The reality would be different, of course. In the world of what if, she might
be blond. Elliot might hate her. She might love frilly dresses her whole life.

I only know her in dreams, and if I let those dreams come, I am doomed to
wake up and lose her again.

So I am considering ways to bring her into the real world, if she
Isn't here already. But I worry.

In the meantime Elliot is growing and talking and making the waking
moments of my life delightful. He is infectiously joyful, and I am so
grateful that he is mine.

Otherwise, life goes on. We eat. We drink. We work and play. I try to
keep the sadness at bay and often succeed. I am working on
sketches for new glass work, finishing knitting projects left and right,
and slowly recovering the house from it's long neglected holiday disrepair.

We wait for spring, and hope it brings warmer weather and warmer feelings
to chilly winter hearts.

Dusted - not Busted

So today I was robbed.

The day started out great. I had my Christmas cards ready to mail (before New Years), have my shopping well in hand, if not finished, and generally felt like I was overcoming some of my annual winter Bah Humbug.

Elliot and I set our for errands and shopping around 1:30. We ran around quite a bit, hit Taco Bell for a bit of a snack, and got home around 4:30.

I had my hands full as I walked in, and I hate to admit my house is currently enough of a disaster that I couldn't tell we'd been robbed. As I put my shopping bags down on the couch (already covered with packages and presents) I noticed a drawer was open on the buffet, and a sleeping bag was awkwardly spread out on the dining room floor.

At the same moment, somebody knocked on the door. I yelled "Who's there??" and it was my neighbor Phyllis. I grabbed Elliot and stepped out the door, closing it behind me.

Two years ago I gave Phyllis an ornament, and she's been bugging me to sign it. She had a pen, and I took it from her and tried to remember my name. What was going on in the house? Could the cat have dragged the sleeping bag out? He's a big cat...

"I'm a little freaked out right now..." I wrote my name and asked what year I'd made it. She told me, and looked worried.

"Um, somebody's been in the house. I think. Maybe my parents were over for something?" I called my mom. Yes, I know. When you suspect somebody's broken into your house, you should call the police. But I am the master of denial. I really am.

I told mom about the drawer and the sleeping bag. "Hold on," she said, "we'll be over in a minute. Just hang outside and David will go in and check things out."

Elliot, Phyllis, and I decorated our front bushes with red and gold ornaments while we waited, a project I'd been meaning to get to but it's been too cold. The box of decorations was sitting on the porch, so we dug in as the robbers most likely fled out the back.

After about 5 minutes, the cavalry arrived, and David went around back, confirming that the basement door had been broken in. Denial shattered. Reality's a bitch.

911, details of address, name, etc, and the cops were on their way. I tried my best to play it cool and not project stress at Elliot. How to keep him safe while keeping him totally unaware of danger... a fine line. The police arrived about seven minutes later, looking stern, and entered through the broken door.

We saw flashlights flash through the house, bottom to top, and I held my breath till they finally came out with the all clear.

And here's the really embarrassing part...

"Man," said one of the officers, "Messiest burglars I've ever seen!"

At which point I shrank a few inches and meekly admitted we were likely the cause of the majority of the mess. This was confirmed when we got inside. They had knocked over some piles and tossed a few things around, but most of the chaos preceded them.

I'm still trying to access my mental log of possessions to figure out what they took. I know what they left - the cord to my computer. The tv, my guitar, and a bag of chocolate and booze, all of which they left by the garage door (guess they couldn't get it over the fence...) My DSLR, which was buried on the table, my jewelry, still in it's travel pouch in the bathroom, incognito.

They got my computer, my(Elliot's) ipod, and our wii. My little point and shoot also seems to be missing, along with Elliot's birth year Mint Proof set from his godmother. I'm sure there are other missing things, but it will take me a while to (not) find them.

In the mean time, I refuse to be that put out by all this. I guess I just don't have a victim mentality - it was stuff, and all of it replaceable. We're safe and sound, and the alarm will be getting more use from now on. Other than having a lot of sticky black powder about the place from the finger print dusting, things are actually quite a bit tidier than before the robbery, so I've got that going for me... which is nice.

I'm not holding my breath that they'll catch the guys, but Christmas is coming, and I refuse to be a humbug. A small technical adjustment has allowed me to deadbolt the offending door, and life goes on.

Movie Night

Sometimes I get really worked up about movies. I get too emotionally involved and too agitated - too attached to the characters. For days I'm upside down emotionally over their fates...

I watched The Namesake last night. A friend had recommended it a while back. I can't remember if it was before or after Karl's death - the movie was released in 2007, but who knows when my friend saw it and thought I'd like it. The title had bounced around in my head for a few years, anyway.

It's one of those movies that sweeps through time, encompassing multiple generations as they grow and mature. There's only time to show snapshots - small moments that are formative to the characters as they learn who they are.

It's also a movie filled with themes that resonate with me, but most poignant was Ashima's last conversation with her husband, because it so closely mirrored my own. It was eerie and a little disconcerting to witness the shock and grief of another woman, fictional tho she may have been, living the same nightmare I had lived.

Oddly, tho, I had no trouble sleeping last night. I liked the film and believed the characters - they were charmingly human in their imperfections. I cried for their suffering as I watched, but it just didn't seem to carry into my dreams, which were no worse or better than they have been of late.

Of course, that's not saying anything, really, because they have been a little overwhelming. Last week a particularly painful dream, one where Karl and I were sitting in bed together, excited about the baby girl growing in my belly, watching Elliot play, all of us so happy... and all the while I knew he was gone, knew it was a dream, kept telling my dream self that I would have to wake up. And he would not be there, and my belly would hold nothing but the remains of last night's burritos, and perhaps a little too much gas.

I'd worried about opening myself up to this story, but I enjoyed the movie, which had a generally optimistic message. We survive broken hearts, just as we sometimes survive broken bodies... right up until the moment we no longer can. And every one of those moments is, in fact, a gift.

Drifting, Floating, Flying

Sometimes it's hard to be honest.

I like to record the best parts of my life here, and recently there's been a lot of good fodder for that. I haven't taken the time since getting home to write about all the great moments that added up to our amazing trip. The cruise was wonderful. My first dive couldn't have been much better without actually spotting mythical creatures. Elliot thoroughly enjoyed every* aspect of the boat. In short, it really was a dream vacation for me.

But vacations end, and tonight there's a lingering feeling of unrest. I can't bend it and twist it into poetry or submerge it beneath the greater joys.

It's partly the cold - we've hit the time of year when the hot water just can't make it through the cold pipes, so my usual hot bath is only tepid at best; my feet won't stop aching with the chill, even in 3 layers of socks. I hunch forward in the car, sitting on one hand, driving with the other, switching as feeling returns to the left, and leaves the right. I don't handle winter well.

More than just the weather, tho, is the season. Karl loved Christmas. I'm trying to love it but it's never been easy for me: the forced togetherness can cause undue stress for we social anxiety sufferers, and the family and media pressure for it to be a happy time - the Best Of Times - it wears me out.

It isn't that I'm not happy. I have so much happiness in my life, and I'm so grateful... The problem is, at the same time, I'm so deeply sad I don't know how express it. To say I miss him, to say I'm lonely, it's such an understatement. But here I am trying to put feelings into words - knowing there's really nothing to be said.

It's just one of those nights that I can't sleep, and I can't clear my head. One of those nights I'm not scared of the dark, but it does take away my balance. Tomorrow will be brighter, and I'll tell you stories about floating.

For now, dark and drifting, I'm keeping the details to myself.




*He's not so good at being served. Independent? Stubborn? Oh, yes. Stories to come.