Marvel
A triptych of threes
Balance between a cluster of four
Ankh
Lone dragonfly,
Tiny glass mystery
Maybe a bird singing.
Healing hands
Helping hands
Hands writing
If the angel deigns to come it will be because you have convinced her not by tears. But by your humble resolve to be always beginning to be a beginner- Rainier Marie Rilke
Beginnings, successes, and failures. I chose to be a beginner when I signed up for the children's illustration class at Cabrillo College. I know my artistic talent needs to be developed so I enrolled in watercolor classes as well as online drawing classes.
The online classes were complete flunk. I read the essays and watched the videos, but never did the homework. What a difference it makes being in an actual classroom with an actual teacher. I remember taking the nude portrait class at the Corcoran in Washington DC, my senior year of high school. We laughed as the model did a headstand and we had to draw his danger dangling straight down his belly.
I felt so inept then, still do when confronted by some charcoal or pastels. I completely fail in realism, something my art lacks unless a photograph. My art feels childish more than cartoonish, immature rather than anime, and I comfort myself by saying at least it's mine. At least I'm willing to put it out there.
Still my inner critics says it's no good, has no value, and in my dad's voice, it will never make any money. Maybe my art is primitive. It certainly is inconsistent. What is consistent is my pattern of doing something a hundred times, then stopping, just like the batik silk scarves I made to earn money for the Global Walk.
Or the Herland crafts that I would make after hours - stained glass boxes in the shape of pink and black triangles; decoupage cigar boxes lined in burgundy velvet repurposed from the thrift store; simply scanning objects and adding a pithy quote to create mugs, bookmarks posters. Magnets and more, who knew what you could do with a laminator and a pair of good scissors.
Some sold and did make money but there was always a feeling of falseness. It wasn't real art, especially any collage work, using somebody else's images, cut from magazines and old calendars as opposed to just doing a google search and downloading an image. Although in this day and age of AI scrapings, whether mixing music or images, who’s to say what is art?
These days I struggle with colored pencils, I’ve used up all the pastels, I muddy up the watercolors too often. I’m going back to painting with acrylic. Wonder if I do better with oils. We'll see after the next hundred little canvases bloom...
I choose to be a beginner. Not quite the perpetual student, but certainly willing to flip from medium to medium. Never mastering any modality fully, but least feel comfortable getting my hands dirty. The page and the coffee table now splattered as I spray liquid confetti from the ends of an old toothbrush across the page.
As she continued her story, I laid my hands on her shoulder blades, sending Reiki along her spine, her angel wings. She was using the blue, pink, and purple sharpies on the clipboard paper to outline her letting go.
In therapy we say you know you're “over it” when you can speak about ”it” in a normal tone of voice. Or I think about Marianne Williamson forgiveness does not mean what happened was okay. It means it no longer affects you.
So I forgive myself for not following up on the health insurance today, or watering the backyard, let alone mowing. Since at least the laundry’s in the washer, not quite ready for the dryer, I give myself permission to write down these few lines. Closing lines. Clothes lines.
It is entitled "Slices of Life: Stories, Recipes, Kitchens, Lists, and Tidbits." Dedicated to my hubby and all of our delicious adventures.
I used the plain white plastic binder my teacher, Lisa Garrigues, gave us for our handouts. Next, I flipped through Santa Cruz Waves magazine to created collages for the front and back, sprinkling in tiny dragonfly stickers and gold stars. Then, I found an unopened pack of kitschy floral tab dividers and rustled up the handy dandy labeler.
I dictate my notebook because it's faster than typing. However, then the editor set in, as much as I wanted to be on a raw diet and reveal the bare bones of my process, I stewed, I chewed, I eschewed.
I chose Courier as my font because it looks the most like a typewriter. I combed through my file cabinet and unearthed ancient college-ruled paper from my daughter's high school; three column accounting paper; pale green graph paper that once was a favorite journal, empty pages torn out, the rest burned. I mixy-matched with my supply of "pretty paper" I keep on hand for printing out various holistic hand-outs. I also took a few photos of journal pages and simply printed them out.
It is divided into five sections - Her Story, Recipes, Kitchens, Lists, and Tidbits. The meat of the book is the stories, my "Thoughts on" meme. There were several hefty pieces that took me days to write, most notably the insemination story. The tarot reading and a "History of Eating" also took quite a chunk of time.
Accompanied by Kitchens with a side of Recipes, these are tasty morsels, some saucy, some juicy, some just plain bitter. Always good to stir it up.
The Lists act as a menu of writing prompts: Foods, Restaurants, Words, each one is its own appetizer and desert.
Garnishing the cookbook is The Tidbits section, a few haikus and ramblings, a spring of fresh parsley to cleanse the palate.
Enjoy!
My hubby and I are born one day apart, and our birthdays also coincide with our wedding anniversary, which always brings up the question, where do we want to go and celebrate?
As a kid we would go to Pizza Hut, but I liked the Orange Bowl pizza better. Then we moved to Europe when I was seven. I remember eating chicken soup with little stars and a tiny restaurant in Milan. We had fondue for the first time when the parents came to rescue me up from ski camp in France. Then there was the tiny preserved violet on top of the chocolate ice cream when we went to the restaurant in Germany, it was on the Rhine and you actually fished for your own trout.
We moved back to America when I was fifteen. In high school the big fancy dinners took place at Dominique's in downtown Washington DC, now closed. They used to have a sister restaurant in Miami which I went to once. They are known for their exotic fare, such as alligator and wild boar. Alligators taste like chicken, by the way.
Avanti became my favorite birthday restaurant when I moved to Santa Cruz, then became the monthly lunch place with Dad, who thought their food was very authentic. Avanti split into the pizzeria and the restaurant, moving into a second location which happens to be at the top of my street. Pizzaria Avanti has nettle pizza. Restaurant Avanti has a full bar. We started going weekly to visit our favorite bartender, Katie, and feast on steak salad and chicken fusilli. The new owners have a fried cheese dish that I could bathe in.
Maybe we'll go to the French Laundry one year. I've not really intrigued by their menu posted online, but it sure does get rave reviews as a unique experience. My daughter loved to go to La Fondue over in Saratoga every birthday, which is where we also celebrated her recent bethrothal.
The first batch of toothbrushes, toothpicks, dental floss, mini sample toothpastes, mouth washes, whiteners, you name it, that I cleaned out from my husband's house before we lived together was staggering. I trucked this load to our neighbors down the street who were doing relief work for earthquake survivors in Haiti.
The next batch of said dental paraphernalia built up quickly over the next few years. I'm talking about dozens of flossers, glossers, gels, etc. I walked over to what looks like a little free library, but instead it is a free food pantry. The friendly message says "Leave what you can, take what you need." I thought if you're eating food you want to take care of your teeth, so this would be an appropriate place to share these particular gems.
I always wanted long hair. My mother had hers down to her waist, as did both of my babysitters. This was in the early ages of Disney, and all the princesses had long hair, long blonde hair. I remember crying at Woolworth's because the only princess mask was Cinderella and she had blonde hair when mine was brown.
My hair finally started to grow in elementary school. This started long fights with my mother, fights with the tangles, let alone finding a freaking hair conditioner when we moved to Europe, our chant, “First the brush, then the comb, then the rubber band.” It became a constant chore. I would keep it contained in one or two braids. By the time I was in high school I could sit on it. I never got it cut. Occasionally my mother would trim the split ends. It was only in my 20's that I finally cut bangs.
When I was fifteen, I went back to Europe to visit Julia. In London, I stopped at a hairdresser's to chop off my long locks. It was the early 80's and I was ready to pink out. The stylist convinced me I just needed coloring. Four painful hours later, my hair shoved through this bathing cap of tiny holes poke through with an embroidery needle to so that I had bleached highlights streaks in my hair was one of the most excruciating experiences of my life. Let alone the most expensive. After that died my hair myself, I adding blonde streaks or stripes of black dye leftover from my brother's particular embellishments, and now and then a nice bright henna red.
During my first marriage, things got a little bit rocky and I remember thinking, if we broke up, what would I do? I knew instantly I would cut my hair and do a ritual with it. I became the butch babe I was always attracted to.
In 1994, At the American Booksellers Association convention in Los Angeles, I went to my brother's hairdresser, as my hairdresser was much too invested and literally would not chop off my hair. I made a thick braid which was deftly sliced off. That rope of hair lived above my altar for over a decade. One day I decided that as my hair contains my history, I should allow it to be free. I went down to Lighthouse Field and released the strands into the breeze so the birds could make their nests.
After the ABA, I walked into Herland and gave my wife a big hug from behind. She turned and put her hands on my head, stepped back, and said, "I thought you could never surprise me."
It served me well this butch cut. A classic flat top, a touch of gel, I looked like a little spiky hedgehog. Being the queen Amazon at the lesbian bookstore, I needed to be tough, a warrior. Everyday I was baited by random men who had nothing to do but try to argue politics.
After Herland closed in 2004, I grew out my hair. I wanted to be the priestess with long hair again rather than the warrior. I exchanged my contact lenses for prescription glasses, bought a plethora of long flowy skirts and tunic tops, covered my tattoos and worked hard to embody the archetype of the healer.
Much too my surprise, my hair grew out thick and wave, when it has always been flat and straight. I keep it about shoulder length, my hairdresser, who really is my therapist and has known me for thirty years. She cuts layers upon layers to free me from the weight on my neck and still frame my face. She always cuts my bangs too long, but I love her anyways. I decided to stop dying my hair because of the amount of chemicals on my head, and switched back to using natural henna in a deep burgundy.
I walked over to my local coffee shop and ran into an old friend, who said, "Oh, you look so different!"
And I thought, yes, because I am not the same.
I am no longer afraid of mirrors where I see the sign of the amazon, the one who shoots arrows.
There was a fine red line across my chest where a knife entered,
but now a branch winds about the scar and travels from arm to heart.
Green leaves cover the branch, grapes hang there and a bird appears.
What grows in me now is vital and does not cause me harm. I think the bird is singing.
I have relinquished some of the scars.
I have designed my chest with the care given to an illuminated manuscript.
I am no longer ashamed to make love. Love is a battle I can win.
I have the body of a warrior who does not kill or wound.
On the book of my body, I have permanently inscribed a tree.
-Deena Metzger, Tree
Lori Anderson calls the body, The Nerve Bible. I see my body as an illuminated manuscript.
Today we received luxurious couples massages at our timeshare in Carmel Highlands. As the therapist unveiled me, I thought about each of my tattoos, each of their stories. Our scars are our stories. Some people wear theirs on the inside. I wear mine on the outside, and they're pretty.
I endured my first tattoo when I was 18 years old, after a vacation in Key West, Florida.My boyfriend and I just saw the play, Talking With, Eleven Monologues with Extraordinary Women. The protagonist was covered in tattoos and told us each of the stories. I was entranced. The next day there was a bright yellowy orange sun inscribed on my left hip. Many, many years later it was joined by a blue crescent moon .
Now I am fifty-five, and have over three dozen. Usually I get about one a year but it just depends, notwithstanding COVID. My last tattoo was a mother-daughter bonding ritual when Amber came to Santa Cruz this February to get married. We both got inscribed one of our favorite quotes from the Talking Heads “Once in a lifetime. Same as it ever was.”
I have mermaids, fairies, butterflies, dragonflies, Amber’s initials, pentagrams, hummingbirds, cats, the four directions, the red Chinese symbol for double happiness. There are black roses, pink roses, crimson passion flower, purple morning glories, pale green rosemary for remembrance, and my absolute favorite, bright orange California poppies. I have a huge back piece of an art deco woman by Mucha with a spray of olive green marijuana leaves behind her.
I balance my tattoos between blackwork and color, neo-primitive and modern, Celtic knotwork contrasting abstracts. Left and right, small and large, I've mapped out my body several times and choose carefully. I'll find an image or symbol that I fall in love with, and pop it into my “Folder of Desire.” Minimally a year, but often many more will pass before I decide to permanently carve this particular totem on my body.
For my 50th birthday, I chose twin spirals with three dots (maiden, mother, and crone) on the inside of each of my wrists. Spiral in, spiral out. What is most significant is that they are the only ones that are always visible. I tend to cover my tattoos, and not just when I’m around my mother, who is appalled that I still “scribble on myself.” While tattoos are way more commonplace than thirty years ago, especially here in California, I think they are distracting. And they are so personal for me. Well, and for my lover, who else will see the way these particular vines twine around my breasts, connect with my spine, embrace my hip, grace my thigh, adorn my calves. Besides for the massage therapist.
My favorite tattoo is the roundabout sign when you go down to the wharf. I would walk by this every Wednesday when volunteering at the Monterey Bay Marine Sanctuary Exploration Center. I just knew this would be my next tattoo, because you know, in Santa Cruz, there is always a roundabout way.
