Invisible Pathways

Summer and its heat have a way of slowing things down, in a very deliberate, sensual and slightly intoxicating way. It is like watching time through a slow motion viewer, like time has the effect of molasses slowly dripping through our days and nights. I love it, that slowness that only summer has, that allows us to appreciate the chirping of a cricket in the rust dry grass under our hot feet. I love the heat that slows down the love making at night, the dreams and onset of dawn already bathed in strong, warm light. Summer slows down the speed at which we eat, talk, laugh, willing us to enjoy the passage of time not as a curse, but as a gift, richly scented, like a rich oil. We BBQ. our food, we sit by campfires, and just talk and share, and laugh, or sit quietly staring into the hypnotic flames as we roast marshmallows for each other. And as time slows down in summer's enchantment, the invisible lines that tie us to our family and friends become more visible like spider threads in morning dew. What is precious to us reveals itself in the slower rhythm of summer,as we have a chance during long weekends and vacations and family reunions, to re-connect, re-appreciate, renew, forgive, understand, love, meet all over again, and return refreshed to the awareness that we better relish every second of this heavenly gift that summer brings each year with its warmth, abundance, colours, camaraderie, starry nights and bright days, before the leaves turn again, and the first chilling of fall reminds us once more that the deepest of happiness on this earth is circular at best. So until that day, let's melt into that summer's heat and its slower pace and soak up every bit of its peace and joy with enthusiasm and delirious gratitude. Life is a mystery, and summer is a great time to kick that mystery in the butt and make it dance determined to win the audition. Summer is awesome, whether hot or wet, dry or cold, long or short, to celebrate those who share the mystery of life with us, far and near, hard or easy, on good days and well, days. Celebrate the pathways that connect, that routine has made perhaps fuzzy or dusty, and splash some good old summer fun on them, make them sparkle again. Go get some supplies for 's mores, go dig up that bathing suit, go call that friend who knows how to play the guitar and sing ballads, and decide you will shine that star of yours that is your soul, your heart. In the process you will inevitably splash some fresh shine on your loved ones hearts and souls as well. It's a win -win situation.

July 20th, 1962.

Today on this day, 52 years ago, my youngest sister, Ludwina was born. She was 5 years younger than me, and committed suicide by hanging herself with a heavy lasso when she was 35, three months shy to the day of turning 36, on April 20th, 1998.She was a very beautiful child, with eyes full of life and mischief. I remember how fond she was of her milk bottle, and ice cream, and I also remember she cried often and easily, and was quite adept at cheating at board games at a very early age. I was 19 when I left Belgium to go study in the US, and at the time Ludwina was 14. I would like to think we knew each other well, but that was not the case. When she turned 21, she came to the US to study as well, to TCU, in Fort Worth, Texas where my brother and I both had attended before her. By the time she started there, I was in Austin, going to graduate school at the University of Texas. I met and married my Californian husband there in 1986 and we moved to Washington State in 1988. Ludwina seemed to be doing just fine, struggling with relationships, but otherwise doing fine, going to graduate school and getting her master's degree in economics. Then things started to spiral out of control for her. I will never forget the phone call I got from her about a week before my son was born, in July 1992, where she was telling me how she wished the voices in her head would just stop. We talked for 3 hours, me desperately trying to keep her on the phone, because I knew my parents were trying to get to her apartment before she thought of leaving again , going off alone frightened and confused.They had called me just minutes before she did, asking me to please keep her on the phone as long as I could, which I did successfully. They got there while we were still talking on the phone. My sister had been diagnosed with bi-polar depression about a year earlier, and would take up the tragic habit of going off her medication, in a desperate attempt to prove she was fine, only to end up in the hospital each time for two to three weeks. Before she hung herself with a heavy lasso my parents had bought in the Grand Canyon in 1973, and that they kept in their garage in their house in Georgia, where Ludwina was staying after yet another hospital stay, she had tried to poison herself, and tried to slash her wrists. I was stunned to realize she had found the physical strength and know how to throw a heavy lasso effectively and deadly accurately over one of the heavy wooden beams in my parents garage where she hung herself in April 1998, on the 20th of April, 3 months to the day before she would have turned 36. She struggled with unsuccessful relationships, and with drug and alcohol addiction. The alcohol was a very familiar demon on my mother's side of the family. It killed my mother in the end, as it had two of her three brothers. I last saw Ludwina in 1996, when I visited her and my parents in Georgia, where she was already living with them. She seemed so sad, so unreachable, and I was far too cautious, and hesitant. I should have hugged her more, cried with her if that was what she wanted. But she was so proud, so eager to behave like she thought we wanted her to. I simply did not know what to do, and I got no guidance from my parents. She was a very bright, beautiful young woman, who got trapped in her own mind and in some very pernicious family intrigue and politics. What went through her mind, as she swung that lasso over that beam, standing there in that deadly silent garage on that hot Georgia day, all alone ready to jump into that void, wearing nothing but her bright blue bathing suit. How did she keep her balance, barefoot, high up on the rafters of that garage, what was her last feeling, her last hope, her last wish? My son, who was 6 at the time, and I went to her funeral. It was a hot day, with blazing blue skies. I kissed her cold forehead goodbye, as she lay in that coffin, with a scarf draped around her neck, to hide the dark bruises where her neck had snapped and the lasso had bruised it dark, and I felt the ice cold grip of death as I touched her belly,over her cream colored dress,she looked so much older than 35. I told her I loved her, and I felt a warm wave of energy from her come to me. That night I had a vision where she told me not to mourn, that she was free now, and the vision showed her resting in Christ's lap, smiling peacefully. She said : " It is so beautiful here, all the broken souls and hearts get to live in this garden here. " The place looked full of light and flowers and laughter. I still dream of Ludwina, not in the way I had the vision. In my dreams she is often in danger, often very vulnerable and small, and I am often helpless to stop her distress. But I always remember the vision, its white bright lights, the sweet music, her peaceful face, resting in Christ's lap, and all the happiness and laughter of other souls around her in a most beautiful garden. I am so glad she showed me that place, and I hope she looks down on me and knows I miss her and love her still. Happy Birthday, Ludwina. Happy Birthday to you.

The Cardigan

Going back to a forever fleeting sensation I experienced as an adolescent of maybe 14, the height of summer and its at times relentless heat, brings a longing for the onset of autumn. Something about that first feel of crisp, cool morning air announcing the end of summer always has filled me with both a twinge of sadness and exhilaration. It has always been an elusive sensation, and mine is associated with the desire to wear a soft, luxurious feeling pastel coloured cardigan, with long, slightly overflowing sleeves , slightly too big in size, with a mohair touch and look, in a smoky brown. I know, it sounds so irrelevant, but I am still looking for that perfect cardigan, and the sensual, relaxed feeling wearing it will give me as I am walking along on that crisp, breezy, sunny autumn afternoon. I am not sure where that longing ever originated, but it certainly has stuck around. It is amazing how parts of our hearts and feelings are held together with the glue and paste of small, invisible concerns and longings, that somehow hold together the larger constructs of our being. Soft cardigans are one detail of my make-up that no one knows about, or I have ever even vocalized. There are not that many people in my life that would be around to have these detailed or casual conversations with about something so small. But perhaps the quiet, private beauty of a small anecdote like that is what has allowed that slightly sweet melancholy to persist for me all these years. Because every year, when I feel drenched to the bone by summer's heat, I feel that same longing I have felt for over 40 years now, to walk in the first cool fall air wearing that perfectly soft, comfy cardigan. Maybe this year I should just go and find me one and actually make that hazy, longing feeling something I can touch. I am not sure why I have waited so long, perhaps because the feeling takes me back to being just 14. Going and buying the  cardigan may make me realize I really am 57, and maybe that will be a whole other melancholic feeling as I find a grey hair or two mixed in with the blond ones when I put the cardigan on its hanger a the end of the day.  

The Dancer and the Tomato Plant

Our backyard is a wild and free form place, where flowers meet bushes and bushes meet trees in a pattern reminiscent of a jungle. I really like that. This morning, as I was checking the plants in the greenhouse, I noticed a beautiful big white Morning Glory whose vine like leaves and tendrils were wrapped in the exuberant height of one of our cherry tomato plants. The trumpet like shape of the opening Morning Glory was stretching up and past the confinement of the tomato plant, struggling to get the light and sun it needed. The flower looked like a delicate dancer, determined to apply all the strength needed to reach its full potential and goal, so it would be able to fully unfurl its large, creamy white petals and display its pale blue star pattern and soft yellow center. The flower was surrounded by tomato vines, but somehow it pushed past the obstacles its fellow plant presented. It was a touching sight. The delicate yet strong flower working past challenges by which it was surrounded. I took a photograph to remember the moment, and the picture shows very vividly the flower's circumstance. It seemed a poignant and relevant reminder to me about life as it presents itself. Life is seldom a straight forward path. We are often surrounded by challenges that threaten our petals to be shredded or torn, so to speak, by events or people more dominant than our own resources or strengths. Often it is a matter of determination and will to overcome both, and some well thought out strategy and plan. The flower reminded me of a dancer because dancing requires strength as much as a lightness of step and feet to achieve its intended both effect and purpose. Observing the flower's struggle gave sense, in a very quiet sort of way, to my own challenges. I felt it added a measure of dignity and poetry to my own life, seeing this beautiful flower trying its hardest to make sense of its unintended environment. I know in a flower, survival is instinct, but to me that only reinforced the idea that going with your intuition, your gut, so to speak, is often the way to get through challenges, big and small. The flower was fighting for its life, and was succeeding. It was a cool thing to witness and to learn from on a hot summer day.

Summertime And the livin' is easy

This morning while walking through our backyard and looking at our many flowers, before the heat made them stressed later in the day, I found myself humming the tune of a song I was very fond of as a child : " Summertime... And the livin' is easy... Fish are jumpin'... And the cotton is high..." Watching the beautiful opera by Gershwin left a deep impression on my 12 year old heart and mind. The bittersweet feel of the gorgeous song " Summertime" drifted back to me through the years, on moments when I felt both very low and very happy. That seems odd, I know, but it fits in with the dream like quality of the lyrics and music of one of the most beautiful songs ever recorded for an opera. I have lost a lot of family, and through both hard work and a fair amount of luck and mercy, I am blessed with my husband and son, and our cozy, private home in this quiet corner of the Pacific Northwest. The song alludes to the temporary nature of security and happiness : " Oh, your daddy's rich ... And your ma is good lookin'... So hush little baby ... Don't you cry... One of these mornings ... You're going to rise up singing... And you'll spread your wings... And you'll take to the sky... till that morning... There ain't nothing can harm you... With daddy and mommy... Standing by... " It is a profound both mystery and fact that the human condition and  its circumstances are forever precarious. But the strength and appeal of the song for me has always been the depth of the courage to believe in that happiness, no matter the awareness of how elusive that happiness is. I believe there is a certain amount of profound inner freedom in accepting the reality of the human predicament, it enables the capacity to enjoy every precious moment deeply. As I was walking around our colorful backyard, abundant with flowers, veggies and fruit, I realized that the awareness of past loss and sorrow had profoundly enabled me to truly appreciate my happiness now, and the fact that that happiness was fleeting and temporary did not dampen the euphoria of my feelings, or their importance and weight. It was a great moment. Of gratitude, of lightness of being, of acceptance and yes, joy. Joy at the willingness to live in the moment, to jump deep into its pool, its colours and music. Free. To just be. No matter the questions, no matter the scars, no matter. The awareness made me smile, deeply and for quite some time.

Embroideries

Red-Eye Tree Frog Embroidery - This one took me a year and a half.

Exotic Butterflies - This is the project that I am currently working on. Started in November.

My embroideries are done from live photographs, I draw the pattern onto the fabric, then the colors and layout are my own design.