Wrap-up

Line made with Buttermilk, Nov 22, 2018 9:10am, Samsung Galaxy 4 

Rowan Moore Seifred, Not for reproduction.

It's that time year when I add it all up. All the actions, all the practice, all the ideas, questions, conclusions. What I learned, what I forgot. On this day 357 of 2018. I add it all up and look at where I have been and where I am. 

I would say I am in a good place. My health is reasonable, as is the health of those nearest to me. There is so much gratitude in that mere fact that I could stop here but I will continue.

I enjoyed my design work this year as I normally do but this year was just a bit more pleasurable mostly due to my own attitude. I am extremely fortunate to work the way I do and I kept that fact in clear focus to get through the tougher days. I am grateful to my clients who provide me an opportunity to ply my trade. 

I read a lot. One of the best practices I have managed to cultivate this year was morning reading. I finished 8 books which is a major accomplishment for me. This brings me to another practice, a more challenging one, social media use. I have been struggling to avoid that one. Really it's just the device that is the draw, wanting to pick it up and hold it. It's all totally insipid. I read more about our developing digital lives and that in turn has broadened my thinking about my art practice. I have worked very hard to filter the information that I consume online. 

I thought a lot about existing in a liminal space. I spoke less often. The more I read and avoid the tendency toward distraction, the deeper I can feel myself go into where I want to, to expand my thinking. I shared a first piece called "Permission to Contemplate" and continue on that line of exploration into making art. I am slowly creating a community around the work and that feels good. I pushed drama and excess aside in favor of reaching my true goals. 

While I still have not written a coherent artists statement I am not worried. It's coming to me slowly, and I see that it is a thing I may never know fully. My mottos for this year include "know thyself". I have worked doggedly here. It helps my work on both sides of the spectrum. I kept things simple. I have also come to understand that no one is coming to save me. No one is assigned to the task of making things right for me, this is my responsibility alone and this has been a most freeing realization. Empowering in fact.

So, to conclude. I am grateful for everything and I plan to stick to my daily routine and avoid wearing the devil's mittens. 

See you in September

She's starting the 12th grade. Speaking strictly in cliches, I don't know where the time went. It's been interesting recently, dealing with a teen age brain while also dealing with my own changing brain. The difference in our ages is so ironic, she is in post puberty, I am in peri-menopause. She is ramping up, I am winding down. As an older mother I can see why people have kids in their twenties. We are both working to find ourselves and there are clashes and moments that leave me perplexed and worried about the future. It's a strange time. Sometimes I look at her and see this capable young woman on the cusp of her life and other times I see my 4 yr old kid screaming because I got too many steps ahead of her on the path we are both taking. It a push-me-pull-you situation, on an Olympic level. As with other stages of parenting there are moments of profound questioning and routine attitude readjustment. A constant letting go, while still holding firm.

She came home Wednesday from her first day of school and talked my ear off for almost an hour about her classes, her friends, her new teachers. It was a welcome change from the usual one word answers spoken with an attitude of contempt.

Parenting has been a challenge for my husband and I lately but we are in the home stretch and we must stick to our principles for her sake. I can see how teenagers end up out of the house. Their parents are exhausted and fed-up and the solution seems to be to kick them out. Show them what it is like to be on their on own. I am not saying we have come anywhere near that point but I can see how it happens. I see us a bunch of birds in a small nest, she is experimenting with new things all the time and we have to be the sounding boards, reflecting back to her what she needs to know but it's not always magical or even comfortable. Occasionally one of us gets a wing in the face, growing pains, space constraints and we feel like we'll fly apart or fall out of the safety of our tree. We haven't fallen yet and ruffled feathers soon settle down and smooth out and there are moments of brilliance woven into all of it.

Here she is in our campsite at Golden Ears Park. This was our 12th year there and I was struck that it might be the last one as next year she'll have graduated and be on to other things, her things. I suggested this to her and she gave me the 5 yr old face, oh mom don't be silly, we'll do this always. A part of her wants to stay this way forever, but we both know it won't.

This week

In some phases of your life, you have been a wanderer. You've had a fuzzy sense of where you belong. It has been a challenge to know which target you should aim your arrows at. During those times, you may have been forceful but not as productive as you'd like to be; you may have been energetic but a bit too inefficient to accomplish wonders and marvels. From what I can tell, one of those wandering seasons is now coming to a close. In the months ahead, you will have a growing clarity about where your future power spot is located -- and may even find the elusive sanctuary called "home." Here's a good way to prepare for this transition: Spend a few hours telling yourself the story of your origins. Remember all the major events of your life as if you were watching a movie.

from Freewill Astrology.

I am moving forward, always moving, even though my direction is unknown, and my movements at times are imperceptible, I am moving forward.

Me now

 

My dad somehow saw this picture of me on LinkedIn and sent me the following note via email:

Well its a good photo of a serious professional like you see on Linkedin.

Bears little resemblance to the Rowan we raised through all those years.

Just your professional visage facing the market place.

Evolution I guess.

Love Dad. 

 I think this is who he remembers. I'm on the right. : )

Gratitude

Everything is awesome. Summer has suddenly arrived. I'm working harder than I have in a long time which has been informative. Peonies are everywhere. Ladies of late spring with their lace edges and indeterminate scents. Who can say what comes next. I just hope it's more of the same.

Art and Commerce

I had a story that I was telling myself about making art. It was told to me by someone who influenced my life at an early age. The story goes like this. To be an artist you must not do anything else to earn a living. You can only make art and that is it, nothing else, you will suffer because no one really understands an artist's life but you will be superior because you have made this ultimate sacrifice in the name of art.

I understood that I needed to make a living and I chose graphic design and that is what I have been doing since I set foot on the pavement outside my college. Internally I made the distinction between art and design. Design was a living, art was uncertain. I chose a life with some certainty of an income and for many years I supported myself and my artist husband while he suffered along making art but very little money. We both suffered and I think art suffered too.

What I now understand about art is that it's a practice, and in the 29 years since I graduated from my college with a degree in Fine Art, I have been practicing my craft and my craft is art. I feel a sense of relief at this revelation. There was no time wasted—as I had thought—not making art because I was making art, and I was living a life that I had solely created for myself. In the 29 years since graduation I have been  honing my visual acuity and my discipline toward art making and art theory.

Lately I am working on projects that seem to blur the lines, or bridge the gap between art and design. I am supporting myself and my child by working hard at what I know and love and I am challenging myself all the while enjoying the life I have created for us.

I will always work. I think working in collaboration with others is what really makes us whole. I am sorry for those who lock themselves up in their suffering and superiority in the name of art. Art doesn't ask that of you. Ultimately being self supporting is the most freeing of all things. To be an independent person, a free thinker, unencumbered seems a good goal to me and the right thing to do to really begin to explore creativity.

There is a subtext here about the person who told me this story. We have to pay in this life. We either work and pay our own way and carve out time for what we love, or we find a way to integrate work and art, or we siphon our living off the backs of others, our spouses, parents, the government. Whatever you choose you have to eat and keep the lights on and someone has to pay those bills. Someone has to get up everyday and have a plan for how you are going to eat and I think it's reasonable that everyone who is eating is contributing something in some way, artist or not.

Resurfacing

"Whatever returns from oblivion returns to find a voice," writes Louise Glück in her poem "The Wild Iris." I think that will be a key theme for you in the coming weeks. There's a part of you that is returning from oblivion -- making its way home from the abyss -- and it will be hungry to express itself when it arrives back here in your regularly scheduled life. This dazed part of you may not yet know what exactly it wants to say. But it is fertile with the unruly wisdom it has gathered while wandering. Sooner rather than later, it will discover a way to articulate its raw truths.

Chew on that.

Postscript

One week post radioactivity. Yesterday I thought I detected a very metallic taste and odor. Does radiation taste. It passed. Pink insulation on the side of the road reminds me of flesh. Flesh with blood drained out, fur thrown free. I soaked in the tub and scrubbed my skin until it gave up little radioactive flesh rolls that look like gray splinters. I take extra care when I rinse the bathtub but is it enough? I don't feel capable of dealing with radioactive material unsupervised. Is the radioactivity hiding there, an invisible cloud. Or is it just inside me. At the weekend, we decide not to make love, as a precaution. All of my secretions are suspect. I discard my toothbrush and used q-tips. At the border I set the radiation alarm off as predicted but inside behind a special closed door 2 detectors fail to read what's actually in me. The device guesses Industrial Barium. I wait 45 minutes and then am approved to go home. The exercise is ridiculous and the border officer jokes with me and I am forced to joke back. My flesh knows how to react to many situations. At the hospital before the scan they wrap me up in warm blankets and the bed vibrates gently as they image me from head to toe. I drift in and out, it is not unpleasant, my flesh relaxes and I stay so still, I want to make a good image.

Low Iodine Diet Day 17, Radiation Day

I am now radioactive. 4mc. I have managed to make it to this moment despite feeling so wimpy yesterday. I even slept well last night. There were a lot more people in the nuke med waiting room today. An 80 yr old woman and her 50 something daughter waiting for testing, a woman with her husband dozing in a wheelchair. A single girl with a pink iPhone and slicked down hair. And me and my umbrella. My song for today is Radioactivity by Kraftwerk. I say this sort of tongue-in-cheek but somehow it lightened my mood about the whole thing.

I learned a bunch of new stuff about Facebook today and the algorithms that control our experience there which I have known but today it really hit home. I have been really exploring my feelings about Social Media lately. I forgot about the treatments and thought about the future for a little while. So that was good.

I'm fine, itchy but fine.

Sketchy

 Thinking about William Morris

Between you and me, I'm overwhelmed. Everything feels very touch and go. I am one day away from swallowing the prescribed radioactive iodine and I can't say I don't have reservations about what is about to take place. I've been to the hospital twice in two days to receive a shot deep into my ass muscle that will hide the effects of the synthetic hormone Liothyronine during the prescribed nuclear scan. 

I discovered a few days ago that I have likely been under dosing my Liothyronine. My lifeline. I've been brain foggy and was feeling like my world was closing in on me. I was pretty sure it was the early signs of dementia, seriously. I was doing everything slowly. I found myself in a kitchen filled with young people buzzing about and I could not keep up with the conversation. It was frightening. I thought it was hunger from the prescribed diet and that was probably a factor but it wasn't the whole story. In 9 months I have gone from having one healthy thyroid that I thought worked pretty well—although now I have some doubts—to half a healthy thyroid, and now no thyroid. At first the medication made me jittery so backing off on it seemed the right thing to do but I went too far obviously.

I am struck. I am without a part of my body that I barely noticed or even understood and now I am tasked with accepting the reality of living with a dependency on medication that I don't quite recognize the effects of. It all makes me want to break down and cry. In the hospital yesterday morning waiting for Mark to park the car I just wanted to weep big poor-me-tears. In that vast waiting area, so somber, so many sick people coming in and out. It felt scary and bewildering. I felt lonely there and loneliness is not something I generally think about but this whole process makes me feel profoundly lonely. It is my job alone to carry my body through this medical obstacle course. The shots make me feel sick so I can't do too much, the whole thing is distracting me from what I would rather be thinking about. Stress causes cancer you know. This is the ridiculousness of the whole exercise. Dealing with cancer can give you cancer.

My friend who has the same cancer as me but in more sites started her low-iodine odyssey yesterday. I stopped by today to give her a hug. She reminded me that I was almost done. Friday is the scan and then I can return to normal. Another new normal.

Low Iodine Diet Day 8

 

 Lunch of turkey, tomato, baba ghanouj, hummus, cashews and banana.

Here I am on Monday again. 8 days into the diet. I think I am doing a reasonable job but I must admit I am hungry. We sailed on Saturday and on our way home I bought a huge container of cashews (unsalted) and stood outside the store eating them, I resisted the urge to open them in the store and start gorging myself before I had even paid for them. I couldn't go any farther without eating something. So there I stood in an underground parking lot on 4th avenue in Vancouver oblivious to everything, trying to get my blood sugar back up. The danger with this diet is avoiding defaulting to too much sugar and choosing protein instead, but finding protein that is free of salt is tough also.

Beyond all the diet issues of the last week I had to face some other tough issues in my personal life. Learning to reign in my enormous ability to be horrible to those around me when I am feeling frustrated. I have dented something sacred and will work harder to control myself. I cannot afford to lose one ounce of the love I am the recipient of.

I saw my stepmother on Sunday and was moved by how much she has deteriorated since I last saw her in the Spring. She did not know me, could not meet my gaze. I choked back my sad tears and held her hands, moistening them with some nice cream and massaging them, and her arms and shoulders  gently. I told her little stories adding little physical actions, walking my fingers across her small hands, making little nibbles on her arms with my fingers and scratching her head. The story was about fleas. She smiled into her lap but never looked at me. Someone is in there, somewhere.

I went home and felt grateful for my crappy lunch and my ability to feed myself and for the person across from me who loves me so well. We sailed in the afternoon and somehow the conversation of the day before helped us both work together better getting the boat in and out of the water with mutual cooperation and kindness. I am humbled.

Low Iodine Diet Day 1

So I started my low iodine diet yesterday. It's advertised as a 2 week process but it turns out it's really for 3 weeks ending with a nuclear scan. I suspect in the third week you feel so weird from being shot up with all the crap they put into you pre-scan, eating might not matter that much. When I first started this process last December I had total faith in every step of it. This radioactive bit has me concerned. I don't relish being vaguely poisoned, but I am going along with it. I am nothing if not a good dutiful girl.

The long and short of this diet is no dairy, or anything containing iodine which is a dubious substance and is not really listed in the ingredients of things. Oh well. I eat whole food, I should be fine. No seafood for 3 weeks.

So... that leaves a lot of meat, vegetables, fruit and nuts. The challenge for me will be to avoid sugar as a way to comfort myself. Poor me. Boo Hoo.

Yesterday I ate the following:
Blueberries, home-made granola, ginger tea, raw cashews, dates, carrots, more cashews. Avocado, coleslaw, baba ghanouj. More dates, cashews now gone. Wine. Almonds. Brown rice, various greens, onions, celery, beef, fresh ginger. One measly piece of crystalized ginger covered in white sugar.

At some point during the day it occurred to me that instead of thinking about food and feeling grumpy I could get busy. I made tomato sauce with some of the bounty from the Urban Farm. And wouldn't you know it, I was cheered up right away.

Went to the big vintage trailer meet last weekend. It was a good one for sure. I still can't quite believe the absurdity of this event and my role in it but I find the people to be so interesting and sincere. We listened to some musicians play by campfire and had a big out of tune sing along. Pearl sitting next to me exclaiming "this is wonderful". And it was.  Here are some pictures! I even managed some sketches as well as some knitting.

June Blog

So what happened in June was I had the second surgery to remove my thyroid. The good part. The bad part went in January. It took a long time to get over in the winter. I felt profoundly wounded. I had had a huge scare at the discovery of the tumor  and then it took quite awhile after the surgery to get the results. So then I know something that I didn't want to know, but the good news is that part of me was in a trash heap somewhere. The nut sized cancer stopped dead.

The second surgery was easier. I had an idea of what to expect but the process of healing is still a job. The first 3 days were okay and then I was on my own for a few days which was not ideal. I should have asked for or demanded more help. After 10 days they took the bloodied bandage off and pulled out the sutures. The surgeon exclaimed "this looks great!" patting himself on the back for my benefit.  Somehow the incision site is less painful than the first time and I am grateful for that. In January I did not touch my neck near where they cut into me for over a month, despite knowing that gently manipulating the scar helps to soften the healing tissue. I felt apart from my body. 3 months after the first surgery I could feel connections being remade deep in my neck. Just around the time of the second surgery I was finally feeling normal. So I was more prepared for the second offense but the healing was still work that had to be done. In all it took about 3 weeks to feel okay again. There were real highs and lows during that time but then it all just dissolves little by little and before you know it you're getting up, getting dressed and going about your business like nothing happened. I was fortunate too that two other friends underwent surgery around the same time as me so I was able to help them and also have some really helpful discussions about healing. The surgeon only presents the landscape of the surgery they don't ever discuss in depth the after effects of the anesthesia on memory, the bowel, general outlook. In addition to the aftermath of the surgery I was also getting used to taking daily 2 or 3 Thyroid pills. At first 3 was too many and I felt horrible and jittery and I wasn't sleeping. The surgeon suggested backing off to 2 and that was a miracle.

14 days after the second surgery I awoke one evening, after a good weekend of playing tennis 2 days in a row and I felt so profoundly sad it was alarming. I climbed into bed with my husband and he rubbed my back as I drifted back into sleep. I felt badly about the damage to my body, the irreversible-ness of it all. The news came back, the pathology report was clear. No cancer in the side of the Thyroid they had removed but it was hard not to think, why couldn't I have kept it and used it rather than taking pills for the rest of my life. I felt again like an insignificant wounded animal up against a force much larger than myself and while I was grateful for the care I received it's hard not to feel like a statistic and a board recommended course of action. Am I out of the woods? I think so but the treatment continues, there will be another major test I will have to undergo in September involving Radioactive Iodine and 2 week diet beforehand. I will comply, what other choice do I have?

So all this is to say why I never blogged in June and maybe why the blog has been sparse all year so far. I am fine. I am here. I will prevail.

Sticks and Stones

How do you fill your days?
You may well ask.
What are your long term goals?
To become a better artist.

 Stick Pile #1

For the last 3 or so years I have been trying to reconcile my identity as a graphic designer with my identity as an artist. The process has been interesting and the outcome, a complete surprise.

  Stick Pile #3

This journey began with my first life drawing class in over 20 years in 2013. Drawing and painting got me back into thinking about art making. I read somewhere that you should never think about the why of art making when you are making it. They are two different activities and should not get mixed up together. That used to catch-me-up and stop me dead.

 Looking south on the east perimeter. Piles are 20ft apart.

Now I see things in simpler terms. After 20yrs, my time on this property is likely limited and so I want to  immerse myself in it while I can. It made sense that my statement would involve this place.

 The first 3 piles run south from the north east corner of my property.

People are starved for nature. It's being destroyed but it's everywhere too. Growing up between the cracks in sidewalks, sprouting in gutters. Art is there too, waiting to be called upon.

I caught a snippit of a headline that an eco conscious art curator I know commented on, and it made me re-visit the stick piles I began making when I first moved here.  And there it was, an idea I had had long ago resurfacing and the right moment. I have been waiting and watching, biding my time.

 Forest selfie with cedar debris.

My plan for the next 2 years, (I picked 2 because that marks a major milestone in my life as a parent) is to create a series of these stick piles around the perimeter of my 5 acre property. I am not going to think about why. I am going to pile things up and see where it goes.

Stay tuned.

Circular

I told my daughter tonight that if she wanted to know what sort of mood I was in to check the state of the kitchen sink. If the sink is clean I am feeling good. If there is chaos in the sink I am not in a good place. I think it's important to give kids these clues, to help them navigate the emotional landscape of the people they live with. My mother was not an open book. There were certain things she communicated clearly but teenagers are naturally self absorbed which makes picking up subtle cues challenging, if not entirely off their radar. I don't want to burden my kid with the process I find myself in currently, this period of hormonal readjustment, this life as a creative, self employed, slightly fragile human. This drying up. It's complicated and sometimes scary.

So far, the fall has been good. My daughter has been busy which means I am busy supporting her, in her multiple activities. In many ways being in service to another human makes your own life very simple and directed. It's easy to suppress your own feelings when someone else needs your support. I wake early, make breakfast, make lunch, drive her to the bus or to school, have my day, attend school related functions revolving around sports and music, make supper, plan lunch, sleep. Strangely, I feel the opposite of put upon. I feel like we are this team. I signed up for this and she is working really hard. It's my job to help her be her best. The structure of her life dictates the structure of my life and this holds me together while the rest of me fluctuates wildly. There is no chaos when I look at her. I see the course we are on, I know what to do. I am grateful for her.

I stopped over at the urban farm today, the home of my friend who I have been helping in exchange for fruit and vegetables, since the spring. We picked tomatoes and she gave me the low-down on making sauce, which I will do tomorrow. We weeded a bit, social weeding while catching up pulling out bind weed, that stuff that just spirals around everything. She dug me up a perennial to take home. An Echinops; globe thistle, to be planted in full sun. I made a note on my phone, my memory is poor for these things, these days. The garden is moving along, into a new phase, there is still so much life there.

Around Here

We cancelled our weekend plans.  I am out 30 bucks for a reservation but it's the price you pay. I've been home for a few days on my own now settling into the routine of work and dog care with occasional trips out to purchase berries or to pick them. The pressure to preserve fruit is heavy right now, how could I possibly entertain the idea of going away again when raspberries are finishing up and blueberries are coming on.

I am in love with my days, the lazy way they unwind. Yesterday, I inflated the blow-up pool and filled it up two-thirds with water as Mark requested. Today the temp was 58°F after a few hours of sun. Later on I'll pick berries again and even hope to cook a meal, something I have been neglecting. When I am home alone like this I regress into some pretty questionable eating habits. I am no ones model. I eat nachos for supper without vegetable accompaniment. I let the dishes sit where they were emptied.

Listening to music while I work, the doors to my office open wide. A breeze blows past and taps me on my bare shoulder, reminding me how lucky I am. I wish I had a signal to make, like the sign of the cross to acknowledge the greater force but my luck has no name it just blows in from outside me and I gather it up.

Perfect Summer

How perfect has your summer been? Mine has been dreamy so far. I am in that perfectly relaxed, sandals and a see through shirt state of mind. I sleep late, stay up late, eat late, work late. I have struck some magical balance between the things I must do and things I want to do. And more important even than the perfect blond streaks I had put in my hair is my perfect mood. I am not depressed for the first time in quite a while.  I've had some panic attacks but only the ones that happen when I am falling asleep. Somehow I have managed to revitalize my thinking toward my work. I am allowing my schedule to be jumbled while still maintaining the component parts. Walking, working, eating, floating, making and now added to the list is harvesting. The valley I live in is filling with ripe berries and so at this time of the year you have to set less important things aside and go and pick berries and bring them home and process them in the perfect way that is best for you. The whole activity is perfectly peaceful. Summer is the best looking of the season sisters, golden haired and tan and smelling of sweet grass. I shut my eyes and laid my head back on a late night drive home on the 4th of July and let the heavens pass over me dressed in the night air. We walk on grass and eat salads made from the few ingredients in the fridge. We drink cheap beer and eat watermelon and ice cream. It's natural to want to know what causes the depression. Is it stress about money? When work is plentiful I feel better but that's not everything. The weather helps but I started feeling better when it was still cold. It's some other tide that rises when your back is turned, diet and exercise play a part but only a part. Right now it just feels good that what I am working at seems to be working. Step over step, keeping my hands in the air waving to all who pass.

A long silence

The weather has been mixed. The bees are frantic in the kiwi vines above the path to my office. I can hear them buzzing furiously as I pass. They are oblivious to the dense clouds shifting back and forth in the sky, time is of the essence as the blossoms fall like snow at my feet. One minute glorious sun the next, atomic darkness. My pupils are sore from all the adjusting. The bees are charged.

I am trying to keep up with my integrated approach to my work keeping my guilt about certain activities at bay. I have a little chant, take breaks, take care of yourself, rest, work, repeat. Overall my energy to work has been good. I have gone from light work to almost every client I have every known contacting me seemingly overnight. I am sticking to my routine which seems to hold me together and I am making lists like a fiend and following them. I am not letting my mind go wild which seems counterintuitive but the result is calming. I stick to the structure of my day and complete the items on the list. I am talking to people, I have made more phone calls this last month than I made all last year. I can hear a change in my voice. I feel as though the blog has suffered because I feel well, but that is a twisted notion. I am writing now, that is positive.

Sons of Norway, Mission BC Vintage Trailer Meet

(long pause)

I didn't finish this post. It has been sitting here in a tab on my laptop. What have I been doing? What haven't I been doing? Writing is the main thing I haven't been doing. But the good thing is that I am busy, doing things, feeling well. School is out and so we are gliding into summer which for me means working diligently but also sliding in more recreational activities. When the weather is fine, one must get out.

We just spent 3 days on the Coast helping a family member manage his life. It wasn't so bad. There was the usual tension between Mark and his siblings when this work has to be done but they have agreed to do it, and so they do it willingly. No matter where you are in life there is the potential to be someone's caretaker or at least take part in the care of another human being. Our helpee lives in a small trailer park near a creek on the gorgeous Sunshine Coast. Whenever I visit there I imagine what it would be like, how one could arrange a minimal space and make it pleasant. Many of the residents have sweet little set-ups, making the best of where they are. Others are a little less polished or welcoming but the world is full of all types. Gardeners and hoarders, smokers and the deranged. We all have to end up somewhere and I like to imagine various possibilities so that if I ended up in a 16ft travel trailer with a joey-shack-sunroom and a sidewalk scooter I'd be okay with it. There are many ways to live, the point is to be happy with where you are and make it the best, for you.

So the summer means mobility and that means I have to get used to working everywhere because there is work that needs to be done. It's fine, it's better than fine. The routine of work keeps me sane and money keeps me from being a burden, and doing it in different places is freeing.

Wellness

I had a migraine on Tuesday brought on by whatever causes these things. I felt horrendous for about 18 hours and then after the pain subsided I was left with rising anxiety and severe heart palpitations accompanied by acute self awareness spiked with massive dread. These feelings rise up in me and I get thrown off, I feel lost and afraid to be alone. And then as quickly as they arrive the feelings disappear and the intense despair is replaced by my normal happy outlook, keen to embrace the day in all it's mundane wonder and I am left wondering if any of it really happened. 2 versions of the same picture sliding apart and then back together overlapping each other calmly. Fortunately for me I have an extraordinary partner and friends who have known way more misery than I ever will and they are always nearby when I need them most. My work is busy again and to counterbalance the stress of being creative for a living I have been helping my good friend in her garden. I am going once a week. We have a little visit and discuss this and that and then I help her with a few tasks. On my way home last week I felt an overwhelming sense of well-being. I am well. Well I am.

Swept away.

So far it's one of those springs when the weather got hot early and the snow has melted quickly. The local creeks are full and rushing and the combination of this and fine weather seems to draw young men (typically) to fast water. Two were lost at the height of the heatwave in Gold Creek near here, in a swimming hole we have swum in but that was late in the summer and by then the water was tired from rushing and the only danger was the icy temperature. Even my dad leaped into the granite pool carved there by centuries of falling water. Young men have also been lost in capsized canoes in deep interior lakes that bear pioneer women's names. Bodies are washing up on the banks of the Fraser, remains have been found up north in Prince George. Yesterday a boulder crushed two campers, a man and his daughter. Harsh spring, but a beautiful one.

The sun has been shining and so I have had no time to be reflective beyond noticing how tremendously hopeful and happy I feel. On Monday while I hung out the laundry on the clothesline I could hear bees buzzing loudly and naturally thought it sounded like trucks and cars whizzing by on the Trans-Canada highway 5 miles to the north. It turned out it was a bee swarm in a tree above my office. Mark was panicked as he has an irrational fear of bees and he was in the office when they appeared. I was over-the-moon. Let's face it the last few months have been rather hellish in the work department so the appearance of nature's busiest creature felt more symbolic than plagueish to me. The bees have stayed and so have the indications that I will probably be okay after all. I launched my new website, and reinstated my land line after a year and a channel of communication as wide as the Ganges has opened. We borrowed a box for the bees from our neighbor on Tuesday and thanks to the internet we set it in what seems like a good location. We rubbed the box with lemon rind and Mark put a bit of honey near the entrance. He relaxed around the bees and let his natural obsessive tendency kick in checking on the swarm and box every 45 seconds.

It's 8 days later now, it's been raining and I have returned from Canada to discover the swarm still up in the tree but the bee box is quiet and I fear barren. I have been busy with work and in between things today I took the opportunity to prune a few limbs along the driveway. I found myself under this red twig dogwood and the blossoms were alive with bees. I felt so pleased to discover they were here on the property. I am hoping that there is so much pollen to be had that the bees are lingering around and are enjoying being up that tree. Who can blame them, they have a view of the whole yard. I really want to open the box to see what went on in there. Did they just come in and raid the cupboards, so-to-speak, rob the hive of its honey and move along? It's a possibility but they are still up there so I am still hopeful that they will let me make them a home here.