Separation

 21 June
I don't often do this, but this morning I reached into my bag of Runes, no particular reason. Maybe seeking some sort of direction or emotional temperature by 'spiritual means'. I picked 'Separation' or Othila. It was reversed, not as shown above.
The opening paragraph of the description reads as follows:
Now is a time of separating paths. Old skins must be shed, outmoded relationships discarded. When this Rune appears in a spread, a peeling away is called for.....
Othilia is a Rune of radical severance.

A few hours later, my high school friend Emily called to let me know Kate (I always called her Katie, but she preferred Kate, so for this entry, I will respect her wishes) had sadly passed away last night around midnight. It was expected. She had been busy dying for a couple of weeks. We all knew it would end this way. Radical severance, indeed.
The last time I saw her was at her birthday, her 50th, this past April. Everybody showed up, it was a cheerful and heartfelt gathering. I hd been thinking of her constantly since. I wondered what she was going through, attempting to send her some energy to help her on her way, telepathically tell her how much I loved her and cherished our friendship, hoping she would get the message.

continued 26 June
Our bookend friendship, that began when we were teenagers in high school at Calhoun.
We lost each other in our mid twenties and then resumed our friendship in the past 2+ years. (we didn't miss a beat) She was still busy with her life though the appendage of cancer hung onto her like some phantom limb. I had a dream about her one night after a play and dinner full of rich food and alcohol. She was on a large dark stage, sitting on a bench next to a large distorted figure, wrapped up in bandages, without a visible face. She introduced it to the audience as her illness, that was cancer and explained it was something she had to take around with her, not being able to ignore it. She give it a seat and an introduction, but she wouldn't let it stop her from living her life fully.
Kate did not dwell on the thing that on the one hand allowed her to not work, but eventually not live. She was brave in her lack of self-pity, in considering life without her, the pursuits of cultural experience. I felt at moments she had to get her thoughts out about things, anything, so nothing is left unsaid. She felt rushed in having to pack it in, but she did. She gave us all everything she could, but more time.

We saw plays, went out to dinner and lunch, she drinking and eating heartily. As if to dare her illness to take away her zest for life through her palette or her thoughts. Talking, discussing, ruminating, was what we did best, with laughter in-between. About ideas, her son, our life paths, the twists and turns of them, pop culture, how silly our anxiety about safety, being a lawyer, being an artist, all grist for our mill.

One of the best times we had, was waiting on line to see Shakespeare in the Park last summer. Despite being a 'dyed in the wool NYer' from the upper west side (pre-Coops) I had never been to a performance. She was appalled and insisted we go. It was a perfect day to sit in the park on line and wait for them to hand out tickets.The company was the best part, we could just talk and gossip and complain and ruminate. It didn't matter what we talked about, it was just being able to be together. To be with someone, who though it had been a long gap, knew me as well, and honestly as anyone ever could. It was delightful, as well as a priviliedge.

This is a photo I took of her at the picnic we had before the play, which was (irony of ironies) 'All's Well That Ends Well'.

I really do not want to wax on eulogizing her, it's not what she would have wanted.
Selfishly I miss her, find it unfair and at the same time wish her peace in the hereafter.
It has been numb for me this past week. I'm not sure how I feel, but empty. Yet, strangely I feel her with me, talking, assuring me that she is still here, if only in my thoughts. Maybe that is what life is, being in the thoughts of others, with or without a physical body?

Later, on the evening of the funeral, I attended the last NY Philharmonic concert of the season, it was a performance of Mozart's Great Mass. Perhaps that is a little Christian for Kate, but going to the symphony, getting lost in the music, transcendence. It was something Kate would have approved as a send off.  For a moment I got to dance with her in heaven. It helped me balance the sound I heard earlier in the day, of the earth thudding against her coffin. Both sounds pierced my heart. Godspeed Katie. You still live among us in our hearts.

Tornado tour

Last month I returned to my mother's birth and final resting place, Tuscaloosa Alabama. I spent time with my cousins and rested in the bosom of my family. We laughed, we ate, we watched TV. We commented on the family behavior and how it demonstrated itself in what one of my cousins may call more libertarianism and I would refer to as independence. What ever you call it the tornado tore right through the geography of a lot of families.

I was taken on the 'Tornado Tour'. An event most of the town had already gotten use to was jaw dropping to me. Entire communities wiped out. Vanished. What had been damp and shady with old growth trees, perhaps more in the bayou sense of things, was now as flat and dry as the Serengeti. Then there were the comments spray painted on houses, 'too windy, we moved', 'it got drafty, had to go'. Then there were questions asked as statements, 'dog missing', and then sometimes answered, 'dog found'.

A couple of sorority and fraternity houses spent the first several weeks making massive box lunches so that people could be sure of at least one solid meal. Stores still standing opened their doors letting people take anything they needed. The grace that comes from a disaster, where people just open their arms wide and embrace whatever they can happened on a grand scale. To see the ruts in the land where the tornado ran through the ground is awesome. As in, filling one with awe, not as in a slangy sports term. Things are more cleaned up, except the poorer neighborhoods, which remain about the same as they did a month after the tornado struck.

It was totally random and could happen again. I am grateful that my family was spared, aside from a broken collar bone due to bicycling in the dark after the tornado hit. An error in judgement, not a freak of nature.

Meanwhile, I ordered a foot marker for my mother's grave and shipped a few pieces of remaining furniture up north. I ate BBQ and had banana pudding. Strangely for the first time. It was very tasty.
I grew up with the Vanilla Wafers part of it, but not the whipped cream or bananas part of it. I guess my mother preferred the cookies over the dessert. Or wanted to save the calories. Vanilla wafers was part of my home landscape along with cantaloupe with cottage cheese, bagels, herring in cream sauce and halvah. People in the south think banana pudding is a national dessert. I use to feel that way about bagels. Now bagels kind of are national. Not necessarily in quality. But you can get very good banana pudding at Magnolia bakery in NYC. I guess I had to go down south to figure that out.

Also my cousin built a chicken coop and is now a custodian to a fleet of very pretty sweet hens. They like to hang by the pool in the afternoon (see photo). And they lay about a dozen eggs a day. A dozen AMAZING eggs. Amazing in the sense of truly awesome. Grocery store eggs are another product, in the realm of American cheese. After having a simple omelette from these eggs I felt more nourished than I had in awhile. It might have been the R & R and family time too. But the eggs were really superb in that way that fresh can be.

How did I get from a tornado tour to food? We all want to feel secure, safe, comfortable. We don't know what will happen tomorrow. The news makes us anxious in general and annoyed in particular.
Eat something that tastes good and it all seems bearable. Or at least what you've eaten tastes good.
Somebody say 'Amen'.

Death, resurrection & real estate: End of 2011

I have been mute. Not because of deep meditation, as the image may infer.
It's been more like a war. There have been victories, and more set backs than defeats.
But the victories have been good, one fabulous.

It seemed, just as I am mentally composing an entry, the movie changes. The scenario drifts away and then something else happens!  Over and over....and over. It's all been exhausting. But exciting. But enough of the vague descriptions, I'll just make a list:
- While negotiations for the sale of the Orient house were in play, I saw a house upstate,
   and promptly fell in love. The house is better than a boy friend: more supportive, less
   demanding, quieter and you can dress it up without much argument.
- Sold Orient house (for less money and a lot of aggravation, but oh well)
- Bought house upstate less than a month later, had to delay closing for seller otherwise it
  would have been a week later. Closing was a snap, took 20 minutes.
-  Refinanced NYC building: aggravating, confusing, delayed and still weird.
All this building stuff took place within a month between November-December. Meanwhile there was an eviction pending since November, that was about the loss of a lot of money, aggravation for over a year and a completely thankless endeavor. They have finally been evicted a week ago. Good riddance! Apologize for the overuse of the word aggravation. I wish it wasn't so appropriate.

Meanwhile, just after Thanksgiving -  in between sale of Orient house, refinance and buying house upstate - I had a tenant pass away. In the apartment. The longest resident in the building (32 years) with the lowest rent (don't ask). She was a sweetie, and she wasn't old. It wasn't suicide, it was just her time. May she rest in peace. Now she can move on with her mission accomplished on earth, at least for this go round.

Ceramics, my art making solace, that balances all this building $&%# was busy in December. Did my first gig at selling my pottery. It was fun. I learned a lot, but I didn't earn a lot. Yet, I got a commission out of it and am inspired to try selling my work some more.

The 'victory' I glossed over (or couched in complaints) was the sale of Orient and the purchase of my dream-come-true-house upstate, in the Hudson Valley. It was love at-first-sight, and will help me make a wonderful future. It is doing a great job of making a wonderful present. On New Year's eve I sat in my new house, knitted, drank a little cheer, text'd with some friends and listened to Beethoven. It was heaven. On New Year's day I took a little walk/hike with a friend, who is a NYC to Woodstock transplant, around Lake Minnewaska. That was heaven too.

The war isn't over. But in the Year of the Dragon, I feel a stronger soldier. The solace, the refuge of the house gives me the rest to wake up refreshed and continue life in New York City as a landlord mogulette. Who really identifies with her artistic nature versus her business nature. Perhaps this is the year where the two can live together simpatico and enhance each others natures. Perhaps my bouncing back and forth between the two addresses is the external of the artist in the land of brick mortar and sewer pipes.
I didn't even mention the sewer pipe debacle. Another time, maybe.

I prefer to move forward and write about the house and projects that have less rant-appeal. Speaking of....Lest I forget, there is a barn which will become my ceramic and art studio. Was talking this morning with the contractor about how to put in a sleep loft with a stairway and bathroom. Lucky lucky me, artsy mogulette ha ha...

To see photos of the house/studios in progress on a flickr set
(still trying to work the kinks out of that) go to:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dgsdolcevita/sets/72157629075862311/
The photo of the lanterns was taken in Rhinebeck, NY during Christmas week.

Packing it in: Orient NY–Fall '11

Autumn in New York (specifically)

I don't want to remember or pay tribute to anything about 9/11. That may sound harsh or callous, but it was awful and remembering doesn't make it any better. It is not out of any disrespect to the dead or their families or loved ones. It is incredibly painful and it just sucks. I don't want to wax on how my day, THE day went. It's all anecdotal. Yes, we should never forget, sure. There are amazing stories, mostly tragic. It was terrible. For the last 10 years it has sucked. Not for me personally so much. Shifts, changes, some sad, some not, some fun, some involving death, heartbreak, disappointment, joy, gains of wisdom by the spoonful; the usual fare of life. But the world has gotten worse. It is more fearful/hysterical: endless war, lack of common decency, two-fisted greed, bald faced lying in government, in our economic system, dug in anger and unrealistic bias.
Or is it just that I am 10 years older and that much more jaded?

One good thing, that happened to me personally almost a month after THE day. My body: so stiff and sore from all the adrenaline pumping through it for weeks (the smell, the sirens, the TV, the fear, confusion, the numb horror and sadness, no laughter) I knew I needed to do something to calm down, stretch out, exhale. I began an Ashtanga Yoga  practice. A practice that became personal. It has been a steady in my life. Perhaps an external parallel could be how I use to walk out my front door, look south and see the twin towers. This yoga stuff works on the internal landscape, which could make it stronger than buildings or as fragile as a thought. It is the regular practice where I have learned to breathe in and out, repeating day after day the same series of demanding movements and postures while my thoughts run, sometimes amok. Through the doubts, hysteria, obsessions, whatever voices in my head that are claiming the mic, continuing to inhale and exhale. Doing my best to stay present or accepting that I sometimes am unable to do that. Slowly, it can seem imperceptible, but the range of going from one cliff edge to another swings less wildly. I can stay in a calmer, less drama driven bandwidth. The power to observe my thoughts and make friends with my own mean nasty ones and my difficult (and painful) feelings has helped my life get richer, more experienced, lived.

Perhaps that is what is asked of us from all this. Not false hope, or looking towards the future with optimism. It is about giving ourselves space within ourselves to be present. Be here now, (to quote from Ram Das), to still be here now. With all the distractions, all the screens, the shiny objects to desire, people to envy or loathe, so much yelling, it's hard times to muddle through... Can we take a breath and wonder at being here at all? The what-ness of it: Sadness? Humor? Frustration? Beauty? Tedium? Sweetness? It's all here now. It was all there now, 10 years ago, even 11 years ago or 111 years ago. It's always. Here. Now.

PS The photo is a picture of graffiti on a wall in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
I took it this past April.

DIY project

This hassock is all that is left from a set of rattan chairs and hassocks. My Dad got them after they had been abandoned in one of the apartments of one of the buildings he use to manage. Originally they were the natural caramel/beige rattan that was getting chewed up by time, wear and weather. We used this rattan set for the front porch in Orient. In one of my design mistakes, I painted it this minty green. It was a poor rift on some quasi-Martha Stewart idea, basically mediocre to bad.. Oh well. I kept meaning to re-paint it, like a white or something neutral....
Time passed.....
I've been trying to sell the house for 3 years (there has been a recession and a flat housing market, just in case you were in Antarctica), but time marches on. The chairs fell apart, rotted. Finally after throwing out EVERYTHING in the barn, the chairs got tossed with the everything else. All except this hassock. It still was holding strong. I have such nice memories of sitting on this very wonderful porch and I thought this small piece of furniture (with some help) could be the 'madeleine cake' to elicit the memories of a beautiful place of a time past.
So....I did some thinking. Found some vintage fabric from the 60s that I bought back in the 90s. I did some canvasing of opinions for color possibilities to replace the minty green shade and...voila!

The house is warming up to get sold (more activity, more interest), so meanwhile it sits on its porch. But I will take it with me to wherever my new porch happens to be.

Some Enchanted Evening

Should I really quote Rogers & Hammerstein when it should be more A Midsummer's Night Dream? I leave it to you to sort out and decide...

The most unusual thing was that it was my first time EVER to see Shakespeare in the Park. EVER! Really. It wasn't what I did in high school (doing mostly the first word of that phrase) and well....I just didn't. Yes, I grew up on the upper west side, yes near central park, even near enough to the Delacorte theater. *sigh*. My high school friend, Kate, who knew what I was like back then, was even surprised.
She insisted (thank goodness) that we go. The system was more streamlined than before. You only waited online half a day, being handed assigned seats at 1:00pm, the rest of the day was yours. It was a perfect summer day. Really. One of the 10 best weather-wise. Blue skies, no humidity, fluffy clouds, nice breeze, cooling down at night.....nice to think about  less than a week later when at 10:30 pm it is 89 degrees. We reconvened at 6ish to have a picnic on the Turtle Bay lawn, across from the Great Lawn. Here's the point of view shot:

We sat on a dense carpet of grass, drank wine, ate cold poached salmon, salad and dark chocolate shortbread. We chatted, reminisced, smiling at memories of people from the past and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. It was a key New York summer experience. Where was Woody Allen? Or even Marshall McLuhan? That movie did come out when I was in high school. Kate still teases me and calls me Annie Hall, though I am not from the mid-west, just the mid '70s on the west side.

Anyway, it was showtime. We get to our seats and before the ushers came around demanding that we delete any pictures of the theater I snapped a couple. So the top photo is 'illegal'. Considering the headlines today about journalism and legalities, I'll risk it. No one died, phones weren't hacked and the police weren't paid off. This is small potatoes.

At the beginning of the performance the actors come out dressed in lovely turn of the century style costumes. The dresses were beautiful shades of green. They dance in couples to this sweet waltz music. The blue of the sky had deepened, the castle was lurking handsomely behind the stage, it was just so beautiful. It was a truly peak New York experience, you feel so lucky that you are here to witness how fabulous New York can be at this moment and it takes your breath away, or in my case, my eyes welled up with tears. It was so poignant, I was filled with gratitude. New York demands a lot of its citizens, but when it gives you something, it gives it with both hands.