mother parkinson's age confusing to me

I need to write again. This time about something that really matters. My mother is 2000 miles away, 90 in Feb, living alone, doing very well until quite recently. We talk every day. I go there every six weeks to eight weeks. I try to make things easier for her.....she sometimes resists.

Sometimes on the phone I feel like Alice in Wonderland. She now has Parkinson's....and is lucky that it doesn't affect her in any shaking way...but there are other symptoms. Some of age.

So many people go through this tug of war between children, grandchildren, and parents. But when it comes to rest in your own heart, it is sad....and difficult....and confusing. It hurts.

There is nothing to be done but to take the gradual steps one at a time to make things ok for her and ....for me. She is still such an amazing individual.....she doesn't want to give up and I don't either.

So, I have spoken to the ether. Perhaps the lump in the throat will ease.

bitty gouaches large impressive sculptures

Working on very tiny gouaches.....about 3 x 3" or 4 x 4" to put in some frames that I have. Lean times call for new ways of doing things. It is a bit odd to scale down even smaller...from the
8" x 6" gouaches I have been doing for years. It certainly calls for tiny brushes and a bit of patience.

And I'd rather be working on the big paintings in the studio.....but the little ones will do for the moment.

I went with a friend to the gallery opening of an ex student of mine: Patrick Renner at Lawndale Art Center. There was a great deal of terrific art there last night. Patrick's has to do with telephone poles (cut vertically to fit the space) with amazing hardware of steel and wood and plastic attached to be pushed horizontally around creating sound. He is an excellent sculptor who continues to move through new ideas. He seems to be thinking: "what if" to see what will happen and what will work. He was in a painting class of mine....and he created a sculpture with wood and canvas....you just can't keep a born sculptor down!

It was all quite thought provoking and grand.

home from the hills

Home. Although John saved, in the middle of the table, a pile of the remnants of Ollie dogs errant chewing experiments ; although the house is full of floating dog hair; although the refrigerator smells bad, and I'm not sure if the meat pie I just threw out was the source; although I just had to pay a pile of bills;

and although I'm oh so tired from driving for nine hours.....it is so good to be home.

It is good to go.....it is better to come home.

comforting my daughter; cleaning up the dishes

As I am about to hit the road again early next morning, I am musing:

Boys aged 5 and 8 are loud, messy, tornadoes.

I can't cook.

I can still comfort my grownup daughter in her post op pain.

My son in law can cook.

I can complete six small gouache paintings in nine days.

My daughter's new dog is a spoiled bitch.

But anything my daughter loves, I love too.

Cleaning up is easier than cooking.

My daughters friends are great cooks.

And it is time for me to go home to my own dog, who is also spoiled and ate one African sculpture and one pillow in my absence, and to my husband who says he missed me but only after I begged him to say it.

And....that I love the long drive both here and back home....it is nine hours of personal freedom to stop and pee when I want, to eat when I want and to wander where I want. But I'll head straight home to the cozy that is waiting for me.

blackeyed peas, greens and gratitude

Shhhhhhhsh. Last night's noisy entrance into 2009 is over. It is quiet. There was a butterfly sampling the last of the butterfly weed today. A fallen blue jay feather lay lightly on the pine needles. The dog scratched his ear. Quiet.

There was the shhsh shhsh of brush on paper, gouache dripping. The smell of onions, garlic, black eyed peas with bits of ham, heavily spiced, and rounds of cornbread. Then at the table: greens and beets and salad.

An early dark night. A longing to be in the desert or the mountains ......just to see the stars.
Gratitude for being here, alive, breathing, walking each day one at a time, into the future.