DNA

It's been a while since I've been here. Since I last wrote, I've finished two pieces in a series called 'DNA'.

I guess it's fairly obvious why they're called that. The first is called DNA Diva, and she's pen & ink and watercolor. The second is DNA Dreamer, done with pen & ink for a black and white themed contest called Nibblefest. If you're interested, go to eBay on the 20th of the month and search on NFAC, which stands for Nibblefest Art Contest. Everything has to start at 99 cents, and some really good artists are represented, so you might get something fabulous for almost nothing.

I've rejoined the Breast Cancer email list I belonged to up until right around the time I started this blog. It's a group of very intelligent women and men with personal experience of breast cancer, including a couple of men who have had the disease. I found it a very supportive place to be when I was first diagnosed, and attended the annual get-together in October of last year. Then the silly flame wars got to me, and I suppose I also was having a hard time being constantly reminded that not only had I had breast cancer, I, unlike most on the list, still have breast cancer. I needed some time away.

John stayed on, and, though he had never posted much, brought me up to date on the happenings...a couple of people died; one woman I'd met at the get-together had a serious car accident; one woman I also met lost her husband, who wasn't yet 50, to what I guess was a heart attack, etc., etc. Hearing about these things made me miss everyone, but I was busy focusing on my art obsession, and establishing myself as a person who was...still living, I guess.

I have mixed feelings about going back. After my cancer metastasized, it was hard to hear, "Oh, May, we know what you're going through; we'll help you through it". No, you don't. I have a death sentence; you don't. While we all "just have today, really", which I heard too many times after I was diagnosed with Stage IV, I have been robbed of my future. I admit I felt resentful hearing these things from women who should know better. And like all other drunks, as they say in AA, I can't afford resentment.

Well, I don't want to belabor all this; I chose to go back. And I think it will be, all in all, helpful. And I still have my art.

May

Psychopomp

Today was a cold and dreary day. I sat at the computer and thought, more than I wanted to.

The word 'psychopomp' came up for me today. Last summer John and I took a picnic lunch to Harkness park. Harkness was once the summer estate of a rich and gay family. It included well-cared for gardens and a small golf course, right on the ocean in southeastern Connecticut. One of my high school classmates, who did some summer landscaping work there, wrote a book about the place, called 'The Great Sunflower'. He had a lot of potential as a writer, but he was one of the first young men to become a victim of AIDS (rest in peace, Cliff).

But I digress. Harkness being today a beautiful and relatively peaceful state park, with (theoretically at least) no swimming allowed, it's a good place to go if what you like to do is meditate, watch terns and cormorants dive, and collect tiny shells on the beach; then go visit the gardens, the broken statues; ooooh and aaaah at how the rich lived, or feel the cold wind of life and hopes past. All it lacks is the family graveyard.

John and I just wanted a tree to lean against, to eat our food. So we found a thicket bordered by a tree we could lean on if we needed protection or advice, laid out our blanket, and started doing the picnic part of our excursion.

Soon we were on our backs, admiring the lovely sky and the skilled kite flyers that the breezy park with wide open spaces brings out.

Suddenly a catbird came over and sat on the blanket by my leg. He clearly wanted food, and I was willing to give it, but he was jumpy and would run away if anything spooked him. I finally set a few bits of my lunch far from the blanket so he could feel safe approaching it, then lay back down, using a bag we brought food in for a pillow.

Only a few minutes passed before he came back. He had entered the thicket behind my head, and the next thing I knew, he was in the bag I was using for a pillow! He startled me and I moved; then he freaked, flew out of the bag and landed on John's toe. Clearly he was trying to tell us something and we weren't hearing it. Maybe that was for the best.

In some British Isles myths, sparrow is psychopomp, and not a beneficent one...but I detected neither benificence nor malevolence in our catbird visitor. We have many of that species in our yard now, though, and I do pay attention.

Fragment

I might as well live in a shoe factory,
unkempt and disorganized and smelling of rags,
where my restless nights are punctuated
by the sounds of hapless footwear
. . .
falling
.
falling
.
to be found by weary workers
in the morning.
.
How can I tell them,
suspicious as they must be,
that shoes that choose to drop
will do so, won't be stopped?

THE FUTURE IS NOW

At the door of Corrigan Correctional Institute, one of Connecticut's finest, lies a welcome mat. On it, carved into the rubber around the seal of the state of Connecticut, are these words: Corrigan C. I. - WE ARE THE FUTURE.

Scary, huh?

EBB TIDE

In the ongoing struggle to get all my (halfway decent) poetry published before I, well, you know, expire, here is a poem called Ebb Tide.

Last night you laid the cards
As gingerly we watched
In flickering light of candles.
You hung back, uncertain,
Slow to tell us what the cards knew,
Slow to let the wizard shine
In the lamp's fair flame.
.
Today we walked a slender strand,
Beach bordered by woods,
The salt air sweetening
Exuberant smell of roses.
Poking through the garnet sand,
We were at ebb tide,
One foot at sea
And one on land.

Blodeuwedd, Welsh Goddess of Spring

This is Blodeuwedd, Welsh Goddess of Spring. The frame around her face looks sort of like crinkly tissue paper, but is actually painted with Jacquard Lumiere acrylics. They're metallic and pearlescent paints, my absolute favorite.

I put this up on eBay for $8.99, which means it's unlikely to sell. I think I set the beginning bid there because I didn't want it to sell.

I'd like to thank Gaia, the Virgin, God, Mother Theresa, the indifferent cosmos, or whoever was responsible for the beautiful weekend we had.

I made it to spring!

Focus

Email this morning from a fellow breast cancer "survivor" "victim" "warrior" "patient" person, Alycia, who lives here in Connecticut. She talks about denial.

I think I know about denial. Sometimes I forget I have breast cancer; only concrete details like my port, that metal lump below my collarbone, keep me attached to reality. But mostly I focus--art, tiny green things coming out of the soil, unfamiliar bird song--and time goes very quickly. It's my version of meditation, but I wish time would stand still. Maybe if I study theoretical physics I'll learn how to make that happen.

It's a lovely, quiet day. I'm going to go outside and see if I can hear the trees talking.