Mother/Daughter/Eternity–a work in progress

I actually used my mother's 'dying' as an excuse to a cab driver, so he would leave me alone, for trying to explain taking the wrong route home from the airport.
My mother hasn't passed away as of yet. But the time is nigh. She has pneumonia and has lost a lot of ground.
I was asked if I wanted to take 'aggressive action' or 'keep her comfortable'. This is code for sending her to the hospital where she will be hooked up to monitors and machines, perhaps a feeding tube to put off the inevitable. Supposedly someone with dementia has a harder time with this because of the lack of familiarity. 'Comfortable' is code for managing pain, remaining at the facility, in this case a nursing home, and having her symptoms managed, but allowing nature to take it's course. This course would be the body shutting down.
I opted for comfortable, though it was an uncomfortable decision, and a lonely one. As soon as I signed papers I wanted to leave, had to leave to get the plane back to where I really lived, had almost always lived. Where she spent half her life, the middle section.

She's 90, it's her choice to stay or go without me forcing her hand. Let her be comfortable.

In 1945 she came to NYC, right before the war ended. She told me on VE day, all these sailors were trying to kiss her. Unlike the woman in the famous photo, she would have non of it. She came from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, a beauty queen with high spirits and a sense of adventure. Her then husband was in the air corp and brought her to NYC on a weekend. Her infidelity to home and hearth started with that visit. She knew she had to come back, no matter what.
She did. The first marriage didn't last, he wasn't who she married, and she wasn't who he hoped she would be. At 24 this is not surprising.

Her urban friends, all from other places, Texas, Alexandria Egypt, Maine all said she should be a model and work at Bergdorf Goodman. 'What's Bergdorf Goodman?'' she asked. She soon found out and did end up working there, as a runway model. Not the same as the catwalks of today, but still earning a living by her looks. She had many adventures in the golden age of New York in the 40s and 50s. It seemed like a lot of fun, and very glamorous.
Pretty good for a small time girl. She ended up living in Tudor City with 3 girlfriends while they were building the UN. The construction always woke them up.

Eventually she met my Dad, after 6 months in the Dominican Republic hanging out with the Trujillo junta set. It was suppose to be 2 weeks with a girl friend, but they just kept staying on. I even have her driver's license for the DR.  She said the guys who liked her the most came up to her neck (when she was wearing stillettos). I saw a few pictures, it looked great.
Anyway, she met my Dad and that lasted longer because they were older and they both wanted to be married and have children. Eventually I alighted on earth and both agreed separately that it was the reason they were ever together. Not the greatest psychology for a kid, but it was something they both completely agreed on.

My Mom's glamorous life was left to stories she told me and how her life was 'before'. Before me, my dad, trying to live a conventional life, that she thought she wanted, but wasn't as keen on when it enveloped her.

But her beauty did carry her, even at the nursing home. I made a small collage of old photos, people talked of her being 'like a movie star', so glamorous. It was kind of amazing, how the nurses and aides, even the hospice people today got gobsmacked over when they saw the photos. Beauty can really count for a lot. I know it's something I pursue. Not quite in the same way as my Mom did. Being a daughter of a glamorous mom, I went about it differently; rebelliously, artistically, poetically, in flats and jeans, no makeup vs heels, pencil skirts, girdles and foundation. She did tell great stories and could be really funny. Giving me tea and cinnamon toast when I had a sore throat, making handmade Halloween costumes (no boxed sets for me), collecting angels at Christmas, teaching me how to sew clothes (as close to fashion as I got).

Parents are never an even playing field. They do the best they can, which is a sliding scale. We as children slide up and down as well. When our parents have grown old, we trade places, they become our children and we take care of them. It's one of the hardest trade offs we have to deal with in our lives. Yet, it does have a natural order. I am not enjoying it, typical of a baby boomer, but it is my duty, and in some strange way that gives me solace.

I will post pictures of what I speak when I can get them scanned in.

Snow Day 12/27/10

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It was a blizzard, creating havoc with people's schedule and sense of control. Weather can kind of do that. And there is a beauty in it it. It can give a key lesson of mercury in retrograde, universal snafu.

This blizzard that made the news happened and it was an AIRPORT DISASTER! WRECKING HAVOC! The global warming warning/proof. Cars abandoned, trucks jacknifed. Undriven snow in lower Manhattan! Pedestrians forced to climb over 3 foot drifts. Strong winds blowing snow everywhere! Dogs playing excitedly! People helping others with their cars getting stuck or digging out of the snow. Warm Pho after getting cold fingers a great remedy to ALL THIS WEATHER!!

Just after the holidays is a great time to have a blizzard. It's the in-between time when people don't admit it's a national holiday week, but it really is. People are away, it was mostly tourists or people acting as though they are on vacation, maybe some do live here.
I do.

Last summer, I noticed driving in from out of town on the 4th of July, even NYC for a brief time of a major holiday can get quiet on the quiet. It can be as empty and vast as the pure undriven snow. It's fun to walk like a drunk in the fresh, slippery, shimmery powder.

New Year's is another story. It will be with another entry soon.
I leave you with my cold rosy cheeks standing in the snow.
Happy Holidaze, and the living is chill.

Peace out

Seasonal Conditions...tinsel ahead

I am one of those people who have avoided the holidays for awhile.
It's too much consumerism, stress, sugar, brouhaha over nothing and blatant commercialism has driven me beyond the pale. Yeah? You too? No big news, huh?

Ok, so I did a lot of things to avoid the Thanks/Christmas/New Year's grip-mostly go away. Or go far far away, where they don't celebrate such things. But this year, I have stopped trying to 'beat the holidays' (holidaze), but still, I'm not much of a joiner. I define myself as a 'non-conformist', you could also say, 'non-joiner'. I have my groups and tendencies: yoga, knitting, clay, art/design, craft, small sub-sections of callings. That is how I will work through the holidays.....kinesthetically. If I put the winter darkness, tinsel, roving mobs addicted to shopping, over and over and overplayed seasonal music, in terms of sensory overload, enhancement  and deprivation, I think I can make it. I can take a breath and make a choice to stay centered, in the 'zone' or find a way to get back to some sense of middle ground when on the precipice.

So, there is not much daylight, consider candles, bright (colored) lights, or a sense of mystery. It's colder, knit/wear more wool, entertain at home (and maybe imbibe more alcohol). I can't begin to take on the whole Martha Stewart idea of decorating, but a tree, a small tree is a possibility. Don't want to do the 'Christmas Party' (note capital letters), it's too competitive and I'm not really Christian (or Jewish either, it's a grey area that has been a source of dismay for others and annoyance for me). But I do believe we are all God's children and to celebrate a sense of light or a birth of a child in the middle of the darkest days of the year, let's go for it! (that would be considered holiday cheer)

Keep your spirits up! God knows (as do some of us humans) the world is going to hell in a hand basket (cute phrase for cataclysmic disaster on all fronts) we all only have ourselves and each other, be nice. At least for a little while, use the excuse of the holidays to be pleasant. Do that, 'do unto others' thing. We all know we use the excuse of the holidays to get stressed. Now turn that around and go be a mensch.
Peace-out.

Spem in Alium: 40 part Motet Installation @ Rose Theatre

Spem In Alium is a choral piece by Thomas Tallis, who wrote for the Tudor monarchs posing as a Protestant, but actually a Catholic, albeit closeted. Seems the closet figures in a lot of forms in the church historically.
Anyway, he was an amazing composer and this piece is one of his best. It is a 40 part (how these singers keep it straight is amazing in itself), of a Latin phrase that in part translates, I am no good, worse than dirt under your finger nails of a grubby sloth and god I am not worthy, etc. Since it's in latin this rather depressing lyric is not oppressive.

Meanwhile the installation at the Rose Theatre, in the Time Warner building at Columbus Circle on the 5th floor, make a left after exiting the elevator is on for ONLY TODAY! (through Saturday Nov 13th 12-8)
This video I tried to upload,barely does the piece justice,and is too large to load so just trust me on this.

There are 40 speakers on individual stands placed around the edge of the room, each speaker is at adult head height and is a 'voice'. As you walk around you can hear them together or stand next to a speaker and hear the separate 'voice'.
The simplicity of this installation allows the piece to shine in an incredibly profound way.
The content defining the design or the adage of 'form follows function' gives room to have a deep musical (spiritual) experience. GO!!!!

Here is a link to a NYT article about why/how the White Light Festival was conceived, which this installation is a part.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/arts/music/24light.html

Morning Bounty

Today I cracked open my saggar box and looked inside. Was it like Christmas? Sort of....
I got lots of presents, but not exactly what I imagined....some better and a lot of broken fingers. That part, the broken fingers happened going into the box. What can I say? I'm a bit rough with my own stuff.

But I will say, it was fascinating to see what happened. The color, scaring and oxidation was far out! I will do this again, and I will work with something other than hands with delicate fingers....(oh the fun I will have in gluing them back on *sigh*)
I do love the SURPRISE element to this.
Talk to the hand, indeed.

Saggar who? what?

These pictures are of objects I made from porcelain, white stoneware and terra cotta or earthenware dabbed with different chemical mixes, root kill, sulfates, iron oxides, etc., and put in a clay box called a saggar. The whole point of this is the opposite of what it was devised for. Originally it was to protect the fine white of the chinese porcelain from the flames and not mar the finish. In this case you are putting it in a box in order to change the surface. Along with the ceramic things that I made I wrapped wire, masking tape, added sawdust, seaweed and shells with the great hope that these things will cause a reaction to the clay surface. All done in the hopes of a 'happy accident'. Hopefully more happy than accidental. We'll see....

I am working on a Buddha figure, Avalokiteśvara – the Buddha of infinite compassion, or Boddhisatva, literally, the lord who looks down, who is often depicted with '1000 arms and hands, and eyes to show his compassion of always watching and  reaching out to everyone and everything. He gets this reputation because he refused to go on to Nirvana until everyone was able to and he stayed incarnated so he could help everyone. What a guy, huh? Anyway, I saw a couple of statues at the Guimet museum in Paris awhile back and there was a Korean one that really moved me deeply. So I thought I'd make like 50 hands (it's not number, but effect, right?) out of different clay bodies done in this saggar firing method to represent all the different 'hands' Avalokiteśvara 'gives'. Again, we'll see...

Also, I have this idea about ladders and hands holding them....not like Jacob's ladder, different, but not sure what it is, except reaching or climbing. Enuf said...

Eggs of another color

 

I wanted to show something beautiful that was inspiring, nature made and tasty. My friends who live in Lambertville, NJ have access to a farm stand that has these wonderful local, 'cage free' domestic chickens that are different sizes, different color yokes and are miles away from the white rounded packages we see in our normal urban or suburban supermarket. (though Lambertville is not far from Flemington or even Trenton).

It is a sad testament that I write in wonder of these beautiful eggs. We understand things from their boxes, not their shells. A product or a brand, not a food coming from something that grows or breathes or is made by hands not gloved in plastic or put on a conveyor belt.

It is so easy for me to yell about this from in my Manhattan bubble, wishing for more connection to nature, wanting to participate in the locavore movement. Is this just a matter of rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic? We are sinking, and drifting further away from a world that use to work with seasons and without chemicals, without being propped up by government props that make farmers grow all the same corn and soybeans. Which in turn feeds cattle in feedlots that live lives not worth living cheek to jowl to their neighbor and then are brutally treated in their death, by workers who are also brutally treated in their morbid work to feed the people who are eating fast food, ruining their health in the process. This is because why? There is profit to be made in killing the land with chemicals, the cows by rote and us bipeds by disease, a bit more slowly than the cows....and at greater expense. 

I am ranting, I am angry and I don't let myself think about this too much, it's too upsetting. My original intent for this blog was to write about my observations when I travel. Much more benign stuff; armchair voyages for my friends and friend of friends (not a huge group). But, I took this picture a couple of months ago and had planned to write a post talking about color and design, etc., and it ended up here. Sometimes you just gotta say what's on your mind, even if it ends up being a rant. The blog takes a different turn this time. More stuff to come with art, design, color, photos and travel, but also with some indignation on the world here in my corner, in my country.