It doesn't matter what I do, I always end up here with you...
It's been a long 6 months. Mourned Mom, changed my job, and created a home. But you always come back to some of your loves and I'm starting again with my photography. Literally. I'm about to take my first vacation in 2 years, plan to take some photos, renew some skills and discover some new.
Changes as always are continuing and I'll be updating this blog. Don't know yet where it's going to head, but knew I wasn't ready to let it go. So it's fall the time of fulfillment, let's change the pumpkin into a carriage and see where the new journeys are taking me.
My Mom passed away this morning in Michigan with my youngest sister and brother with her. I told her good-bye a few minutes by phone before she died. This picture was taken at the Arizona Botanical Garden in November 2007.
She is Gone
You can shed tears that she is gone Or you can smile because she has lived You can close your eyes and pray that she will come back Or you can open your eyes and see all that she has left Your heart can be empty because you can't see her Or you can be full of the love that you shared You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday You can remember her and only that she is gone Or you can cherish her memory and let it live on You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back Or you can do what she would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.
St. Patrick's Day is an enchanted time - a day to begin transforming winter's dreams into summer's magic.
Adrienne Cook
There is a good deal of Irish and Scotch in my heritage. Today I didn't make corned beef and cabbage, drink green beer or do any of the things that American's do to celebrate. Instead I did something that is truer to my heritage...I planted. You could say I am my parents child....that is give me two inches of bare ground and I have to put something in it. My patio has an large area full of rich soil. So with the sun shining and the ground warming, not to mention I'm on a week off and doing a staycation, I put in a potager. Fruit trees, herbs, flowers and vegtables are now stretching their roots down and their green leaves up.
My Mom is truly in her last days. I know that in the next days or weeks a phone call will come. She is now bed bound, at times confused and not always recognizing my sister or brother. It was a hard choice to make to not go to Michigan, but I decided that I needed time after 18 months of not taking a break to catch my breath. But today, when I was planting the garden I felt close to my Mom in spirit. I'm planning to add a bird feeder for hummingbirds to celebrate her life and soon memory as she loves birds.
Some people were doing the wearing of the green today, but I was doing the raising of the green. In bringing forth the magic of the earth, I am connected to my Irish roots and thus my family.
The best thing one can do when it's raining is to let it rain.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Yesterday the sun was shining and I begin to prepare my new patio for planting. Today the rain is coming down and the drops are dancing on my garden Buddha. It's a lazy day. I've just shut out everything and am catching up on reading and Netflix viewing. One thing I've observed is that when you're running around on adrenaline, it's hard to slow down, but slow down one must and just be.
Another project I completed yesterday was refinishing a 50s Cosco cart which I'm turning into a bar cart for my living room. Now I'm on the outlook for vintage bar ware. That's my style a mix of the vintage with the modern. A typewriter to go in the front of my living room window is next. I'm also gathering some photos from friends to mix with my own as I'm putting some picture rails up to display said work.
Some changes are coming in the 1-2 months, good ones, but more about these soon.
The moment of truth, the sudden emergence of a new insight, is an act of intuition.
Arthur Koestler
The first major steps to emerging back into life here in California were taken this weekend. I got together with some photography friends on Friday and then squeezed in a short hike on Saturday morning. I'm realizing that I'm going to have to go back and begin to relearn Photoshop. I had begun the process of learning 19 months ago and things began to change. As luck would have it, I have found an online class that does Photoshop CS3 which I still have and want to learn before I leap into the higher editions. It begins in a couple of weeks and I intend to be there.
Mom is still holding on, but she moves away from us a little bit more every day. I speak to her on the phone daily for a few moments. I debated going back, but I realized I don't have much time left from work and I would only have a week with her. At this point when she is afraid and wants someone with her constantly, I don't think I could handle having to leave her there with that fear. I wish it was different, but her choices from a few years ago to be in the Midwest created this scenario. My sisters and I here in the West have agonized over not being able to be there at this time, but the reality of life is that you have to keep living yours even when someone you love is losing theirs. This may be one of the hardest lessons I've learned, but learn it I have and I am as I said when I began this entry am emerging back.
Because of the thoughts of change, of being from Michigan, the process of getting to change and having watched the Oscars last night, I've been thinking about Eminem today so it away I feel a kinship to his award winning song...
It's been a long couple of months. I was called out to Michigan because they didn't think my Mom was going to make it. Long story short, she made it and is still here. I had to come back to California, because of other events happening, I'm moved into a condo on my own. So it's been busy. Emotions have been like a yo-yo. Up and down. I would like to return to Michigan in some ways, but in other ways, no. I'm playing it by ear. Things are changing in so many areas of life, I just take it as it comes.
My mom was moved to a permanent hospice house this past week to spend her last days, weeks or months? The doctors and we have given up predicting. My siblings and I are talking regularly and I think all of us being together in December for what we thought was her last days brought us together after a few initial rough spots.
I try to to talk to her daily. Some days she recognizes me, some not (the cancer is now in her brain). It's a tough call, but unless she has a miracle and returns to the Mom I know, I hope the end is soon. We're all tired and watching our mother regress into a child-like state has been hard.
Right now though I've found a center in my home, I'm meditating again, doing yoga and beginning to make plans to return to a life that I have in many ways let go in the past 19 months (but wouldn't trade it for the time I've had with Mom). I'm getting closer to fine.
A woman ought to carry herself as an orange tree would if it could walk up and down the garden,
swinging perfume from every little censer it holds up to the air.
Harry Ward Beecher
My California friends are amazed and amused at my love of photographing citrus this time of year. There are two reasons. The first comes from getting citrus at Christmas when I was a child. It was a treat because with 5 children and the cost, fresh oranges in Michigan was not a common thing. The second is that after years of seeing barren trees with the only green things being pines in December to see a tree with ripening fruit is amazing to my four season senses.
Citrus ripens close to Christmas here in California, so to me it seems like a magic, mystical thing and I don't think I will ever lose that sense of it being that way. This year it seems even more special with every thing going on. However for all of that, I'm happy that for the first time in several years, I'll be home in Michigan with Mom and probably be having a "white Christmas".
