Compost Studios

Seascape Number One

She was restless,  then tense,  riding a wave of emotion pushing up and out of her chest.

Her head falls forward. She covers her face with her hands.

Nothing to do but cry now. There's no turning back.

Her throat is constricted.  She can't swallow any more disappointment. She's full.

Full and yet empty. The great paradox.

In the last year her life has been dismantled piece by piece, and each time she's been close to rebuilding it, teetering on the cusp of normality, Fate has knocked her down again.

She is a woman drowning in slow motion, bobbing to the surface but never catching her breath. She is out of her depth.

She is weary of the relentless waves, the currents pulling her out to sea, the loss of footing, the salt burning her eyes.

She is tired.  So very tired.

Not just tired of dealing with her misfortunes, but tired of giving herself away, of tossing her words into the wind, of pouring her time and talent into a sandy pit, of watching the tide rise and erase her. 

The water is getting higher.

She is stuck treading water, always waiting for a sea change.

Waiting for children.

Waiting for things to be clean.

Waiting for things to be fixed.

Waiting for rescue.

Waiting for a message.

Waiting for a reason.

Waiting for approval.

Waiting for gratitude.

Waiting to be seen.

Waiting to be loved.

Waiting for Meaning to throw her a lifeline and pull her to shore.

July 2, 2008

While the work I encounter in the blogosphere often moves me or makes me laugh out loud, it's rare for me in my time-pressed and word-soaked world to come back to a blog post and read it over and over and over again. 

This piece by Jane has me doing just that. It is poetry and prose melded into one.

It's mothers and daughters.

It's Good Girls and the Grrrls Who Just Want to Be Free.

It's the voice of every artist and thinker who has nurtured their creative impulses like a child that needs discipline, freedom, and unconditional love.

It's our ongoing struggle to be fully ourselves and fully present in the world.

It's ALL that and more.

Check it out.

I dare you to read it only once. Tell me what you think.

June 28, 2008

Thanks for all the comments on my last post and my journey into painting. I hope that by putting myself and my art out there, I'll encourage some of you to try that "thing" you've always been interested in but either didn't think you had the talent for or didn't have the time to pursue it. Maybe it's some genre of art or cooking or photography or creative writing or gardening or geneaology or history or sewing or quilting or knitting or carpentry or woodworking or working on cars or something else altogether.

I think everyone has "something" that bubbles up and keeps being pushed down by circumstances or self-doubt. Pay attention to that secret wish that keeps bobbing up to the surface and pluck it out of the water and give it life.  Don't let your dream drown and become your secret sorrow, your private regret.

Dare to try something new or reacquaint yourself with an old love. Allow yourself to be mediocre at something so you can learn to get better at it. It's a cliche, but we have to risk failure to succeed, and risking failure and judgement is hard. Those who are very successful in some area of life don't like to start at the bottom with a new enterprise. Those who have fragile self-confidence don't want to be criticized and have any more negative voices joining the chorus in their head.  I am both those people!

I have to constantly push myself to step out of my comfort zone, to remake my image of myself, to see a different person than the one I've been conditioned to see. We have to be willing to make compost out of some of our old ideas about ourselves and fertilize new growth.

Where to start? Try your local community recreation center. It's been a great gateway for my journey into art. The classes are not too expensive and encourage people to come as they are--with whatever level of interest, skill, or talent they have. There's a time and place for you to explore new territory--dare to find it, dare to just do it, dare to do it badly and improve.

(What hobby/interest would you like to pursue?)

June 25, 2008

Quite a while back, a friend recommended The Wisdom of Menopause by Christiane Northrup to me. I bought the book in April, but it sat on my shelf waiting for me to be ready to hear what it had to say.  I thought it might be time to broaden my perspective on my emotional and physical health and the passionate desire I have to reorder my life.

When I read the opening paragraphs of the first chapter, I felt the author had climbed into my head with a laptop and written it based on what she saw there:

It is no secret that relationship crises are a common side effect of menopause. Usually this is attributed to the crazy-making effects of the hormonal shifts occuring in a woman's body at this time of transition. What is rarely acknowledged or understood is that as these hormone-driven changes affect the brain, they give a woman a sharper eye for inequity and injustice  and a voice that insists on speaking up about them. In other words, they give her a kind of wisdom--and the courage to voice it. As the vision-obscuring veil created by the hormones of reproduction begins to lift, a woman's youthful fire and spirit are often rekindled, together with long sublimated desires and creative drives. Midlife fuels those drives with a volcanic energy that demands an outlet.

If it does not find an outlet--if the woman remains silent for the sake of keeping the peace at home and/or work, or is she hold herself back from pursuing her creative urges and desires--the result is equivalent to plugging the vent on a pressure cooker:  something has to give. 

June 14, 2008

(This post was inspired by  Neil and his musings on writing from a female point of view.)

She had a moment of epiphany when her girlfriend was telling her about a recent trip to the mall to buy summer clothes.

“I found this cute dress. I thought it looked really good on me, but I knew Jon would hate the print. I didn’t buy it, because every time I wear it, I don’t want to be thinking about how Jon doesn’t see how hot I am in it—he just sees the colors.”

Her girlfriend, married for well over a decade, cares whether her clothes turn her husband on! This is astounding to her, as is the next revelation: her girlfriend also refreshes her makeup just before her husband gets home from work each day.

She was curious: Did her girlfriend’s husband notice? Did he care?

In a flash realizes she has no idea what type of clothing, makeup, or hair style her husband prefers, what turns him on, what his ideal wife looks like.

They’d been together since she was a teenager, why was she so clueless?

Did he like tight jeans and heels? Hippie chick layers? Short skirts? Sweet and romantic dresses? Snug fitting scoop-neck shirts? The outdoorsy look? Sheer blouses? Polished professional separates? Traditional suburban preppie wear?

She’d worn her hair a half dozen different ways over the years—from long waves that trailed down to her waist to a short cut that buzzed off the nape of her neck.

How did he like it?

How did he like her?

He never said.

She never asked.

What were the larger implications of this “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?

One time when she was about 25, he left on a two week business trip in the spring. While he was gone, she highlighted her hair with blonde streaks and worked on a tan, eager to transform herself  into someone worth missing, someone worth coming home to.

When she was younger, she used to model new clothes for him, happy to show him her latest look. Did he care? She remembers the lingerie she bought, the miniskirts, the attention to self improvement--everything that dissipated after the children arrived.

How long had it been since she started a diet or fitness program or bought an outfit, fragrance, or beauty product with the idea it would not only please her but make a difference to him? Was their mutual lack of interest a sign their marriage had advanced to a new level or that it was dying?

She can’t remember the last time he told her she was beautiful or sexy, the last time his face lit up at the sight of her, or anything even remotely approaching a public display of affection or a private display of deep tenderness. She tells herself that these things don’t matter, but if she’s honest with herself, she knows sometimes they matter a lot. They were, after all, a big part of the reason she married him.

True, when it comes to beauty and fashion now, her aim is to please herself and not him. The law of diminishing returns has become reality in middle age. There's only so much to be done with the face and body the years have delivered--why struggle? She wants to believe her attitude reflects maturity and confidence, but in her low moments she thinks it’s a sign of defeat, evidence she has surrendered to the idea that nothing she can do will ever make her desirable again—not to him, not to a stranger on the street, not to the cute guy at the grocery store who asks her where the Oreos are.

She’s sliding toward 50. She's almost invisible now. No one notices her. That phase of life is over for her. The conscious and subconscious focus on the strength of her powers of attraction no longer commands her attention or energy. 

She should be relieved to be free from it, but instead what she feels is resignation bordering on defeat. She carries a sense she has lost something she can never regain, and what feels inconsequential in one moment feels huge in the next. She considers whether she’s mourning a fantasy--the loss of a state and power she never had in the first place. She was never known as a beauty.

She always consoled herself with the statement that she’d rather be smart than beautiful, but she’s not sure being smart has worked to her advantage in any relationship. When it comes to love, a sharp mind can cut both ways.

She’d observed that smart girls make lively conversation at parties, but few men want to deal with being intellectually challenged at home. Smart women make bad partners—they think, talk, and care too much. They fight domesticity, question the status quo, and are never content—at least these are the messages she’s gotten over the years.

As her girlfriend prattles on about her shopping trip, she wonders what her husband thinks about the beauty myth, the impact it has on menopausal women, how it affects intimacy and marriage, how it has (or has not) affected them, affected her.

But she knows she’s not going to ask him about it.

And she knows she’s not going to tell him what she thinks.

She is a smart woman after all.

She doesn’t need his silence and tight-jaw to tell her that, yes, she thinks too much, and no, the dressing room mirror doesn’t lie.

I was a communications major, and my senior year in university, I was required to take art appreciation, studio art,  black and white photography, and publication layout and design. I had never taken an art class in my life and was surprised how much I liked studying the visual arts.

I became a regular at museums and galleries and noticed design and photography wherever I went.  I had a good eye, had studied composition and color theory, but I lacked basic skills and never did anything artistic at home. I longed to be an artist but couldn't see a way of making that happen.

Fifteen years passed.

When my life took an unexpected turn and I became an expat, I began to dabble in rubber stamping, card making, scrapbooking--more crafts than art.  A small step in the right direction. Less than two years later, when I crossed the line into art journaling and collage and began mixing media, I slowly started to consider myself an artist.  No, not an Artist, just an artist--someone who didn't claim to be "good" at art but who made it anyway.

I gave myself permission to be mediocre, knowing that the only way to become better was to accept that I had a lot to learn. Yeah, I knew I was starting late in life, but so what? The only things keeping me from being a better artist were the voices in my head saying, "You don't have a talent for this" and "It's a waste of time."

The truth is that few people have "natural" talent. Most successful people in any field have a passion for what they do, and this makes them work harder and longer than everyone else. If I enjoy making art, it's worth my time. I used to be a person obsessed with perfection. It brought me lots of recognition and awards but not a lot of happiness. Midlife has brought me to a wonderful place where I'm all about process and not about product.

While living in Belgium, I signed up for art classes more than once but every time something blocked my path. Classes were cancelled because not enough people were participating, another had to be re-scheduled and the new schedule didn't work for me.  Lacking formal instruction, I muddled along, often feeling  thwarted in my attempts to advance my skills. I got books on mixed media and started reading art blogs, picking up info and inspiration wherever I could find it.

After moving back to America in late March, I made signing up for classes a priority. My first class met Thursday, a beginning class in watercolor taught by a well known regional artist. We were told to bring "whatever watercolor supplies we had on hand."  I expected what I had was fine, that there would be about ten people in the class, and that everyone would be a true beginner like me.

When I showed up, I walked into a room with more than 25 people in it. About 75 percent of them had degrees in art or art education or were members of art guilds and exhibited their work. They walked in with impressive supplies and big "art boards" to clip their paper to. I pulled out my inexpensive brushes and pigments, my Wal-Mart palette and puny pad of 9 x 12 inch, 120 lb. paper and had a nice big slice of humble pie! 

I learned that good watercolor paper costs about $4 a sheet, that a mid-range brush would cost $25-$50 each, that I should expect to spend several dollars per tube for the least expensive acceptable quality watercolors. And that yes I needed an art board to paint.  Who knew? No problem, I could upgrade my supplies a bit.

As I listened to many of my classmates talk about their frustration with painting, their inability to "control" the media, their concerns about the quality of their work, their multiple fears and questions over our assignment ("Sketch? We have to sketch? On what kind of paper? With what sort of pencil? What should I sketch? How do you want it?"), I realized that despite my inexperience and crappy supplies, I had a big advantage over them.

I didn't care about the "correct" pencil or my lack of drawing skill. I wasn't worried about choosing the perfect subject for my first watercolor. I wouldn't agonize over composition. I wasn't going to become intimidated by the level of skill in the room.

I was there to learn, to make art, to have a good time, and not to fret over all I didn't know or have. After all, anything I pick up in this class will be more than I knew before.

Maybe I'm in over my head.

Maybe I'll be embarrassed.

Or maybe I'll discover that my lack of fear will take me places a $50 brush can't.

May 30, 2008

When she strolls along the fence line, the warm air is heavy with the scent of honeysuckle, and it transports her back to a time when her life seemed full of possibility.

She remembers summer mornings that started with a six-mile run through the green tunneled country roads of her youth and sultry evenings when she couldn’t wait for a certain boy to park the car and kiss her while heat lightning flashed on the horizon.

The memories are sweet and powerful. Like the scent of the honeysuckle.

Thirty years later she escapes the house and walks in the evening. She feels the backward pull of the past as she slowly passes the manicured yards of her neighborhood. The brick houses and perfect lawns speak of stability and accomplishment, a life set in concrete, built on big decisions made long ago, commitments renewed every morning.

She knows all about that--the security of straight lines, the weight of steadiness.

She veers off the road and down a dirt path that takes her from the world of carefully planted azaleas, rhododendron, roses, and irises to woods touched by wild climbing vines and crawling groundcovers, steeped in last season’s leaves, scented with the sweet smell of newness and decay.

It’s buggy but cool, and she sees a doe and fawn bound off as she rounds a curve, their white tails flashing as they retreat to a greener place . The woods buzz and rustle with secret life and she likes it here, far away from the neighbors, the joggers, the cyclists splitting the air with aerodynamic speed.

The earth is soft and a little muddy and slows her pace. She plods on under the leafy canopy as the sky disappears and darkens. The light is steadily fading, the shadows deepening, but she’s reluctant to surrender the day and return to the safety of the paved road.

Instead she inhales the scent of honeysuckle and remembers a sense of freedom, her ragged breath, the way her legs, once lean and tan, pumped up and over hills, the way the wind lifted the curtain of hair off her neck like a lover and brushed wisps of it away from her face.

She remembers the boy, the exact way the hair curled on the nape of his neck, the worn cotton of his shirt, the faint whiff of soap, the silky feel of the skin on his bicep, the square firmness of his hands, the tender spot beneath his ear, and the words he whispered in hers.

She sighs and heads toward home, keeping her head down, her eyes locked on the thick and twisting roots anchoring the trees. In the gathering night, they resemble snakes across her path.

May 28, 2008

Memories of the road I walked as an expat in Belgium

By the end of the month when the last cardboard box disappears, the garage is empty of items to send to Goodwill, the closets are neatly organized, the art is hung and the last random piles littering the floor are resolved, I will finally have a sense that my expat experience has ended and the next phase of my life has begun. There's been so much to sort out. Being an expat isn't just about location, it's tied to your state of mind.

In many ways, my expat experience didn't begin the day I landed in Belgium to live, but the hot July day I first seriously considered leaving America behind and starting a new life in a foreign country. I stepped out in faith, knowing little about what would lie ahead but believing I could handle it, that it would be good for me even if it was hard.

And it was hard. And it was good for me.

It was  a journey that expanded my world, created a whole new interior and exterior geography, and altered my ways of seeing and being. Just as the title of this blog suggests, life grows, breaks down, is rearranged, and generates something new. 

While the preparation and physical act of moving dominated at least six months of our lives, the psychological effects and lessons will be with me always.  As my post over the last few months have indicated, unpacking and settling into my native country again hasn't just been about dealing with boxes and closets. It's about unwrapping the feelings and ideas that were buried during the process, recognizing what they are, examining them from all sides, confronting what I'm uncomfortable with, working toward a larger understanding, and ultimately, processing my experiences--not stuffing them away.

As I've written before, the greatest truths are often revealed in the questions we ask ourselves. The questions define what it is we want to know, what it is that Matters. Questioning is a constant for me--the foundation of my life. As for answers? They evolve, are fluid, and will always reflect change.

As I come to the end of my first (but hopefully not last) expat experience, I give you The Big Questions I've wrestled with and continue to explore:

• Where is home?
• What does it look like?
• How does it feel?
• Who do I share it with?
• How do I share it?
• What is my community?
• How will I participate in it?
• What material possessions do I need to function happily?
• Why?
• If something isn't useful now but may be useful later, is it really worth saving?
• Does it really matter how much I spent on an item if I don't love it anymore?
• What does money have to do with value?
• Does it matter how much I've invested in a relationship if it's not working anymore?
• What does time invested have to do with value?
• How does proximity create, shape, and end relationships? 
• What items remain personal symbols and what ones have ceased to resonate?
• Why?
• Can I let go of who I was and acknowledge who I am now?
• How do I discard the past without discarding its lessons?
• How do I release old sorrows and embrace the day's joy?
• How do I let go of the hurt and truly forgive others?
• How do I hold myself accountable and yet forgive myself?
• Is all this soul searching leading to understanding and compassion--or narcissm and selfishness?

What are YOUR big questions?

May 12, 2008

In 1972, my sister Louise was planning a big adventure. A 24-year-old secretary, she had saved up a sizable amount of her modest income so that she could travel Europe for a month with her best friend. In the spring, she bought a set of Samsonsite luggage, and it came with a bonus gift, a little sprig of a miniature orange tree.

My sister Louise gave the orange tree to my mother Louise, who had a knack with houseplants. It grew from a six inch stick to several feet in height under my mother’s loving care. Much to our delight, it burst forth with sweet-smelling white flowers followed by oranges the size of walnuts. It seemed a bit magical, this tree, producing baby citrus fruit in our house.

When my parents moved from New York to Virginia, my mother managed to move the orange tree too, and it kept blooming in its new location in my mother Louise’s sunny kitchen. It was ten years old and thriving there in 1982 when my sister Louise died after a long battle with cancer.

It was twenty years old when my mother Louise died of cancer ten years later, in 1992. Still in the kitchen, it was a bittersweet reminder of the two Louises.

My husband, an avid gardener who shared a special bond with my mother, loaded the tree (and most of my mother’s other houseplants) up in his pickup and transported them to our home in Virginia, about 180 miles away. He pruned the little tree, occasionally fertilized it, treated it to a special citrus tree “cocktail” once or twice a year, and treasured the way its blossoms perfumed the air in the winter. When our children came along, they too delighted in the novelty of miniature oranges being produced at their house.

When the time came for us to move to Belgium, we gave away most of our houseplants, but we couldn’t possibly give away the tree that reminded us of the two Louises. The orange tree in its enormous white pot was driven 180 miles to western Virginia and put in the care of my big brother.

It was 2005, and the tree was now 33 years old.

Maybe in a stroke of what Buddhists refer to as “interbeing,” the tree remembered that my sister Louise had only been given 33 years on the planet.

Maybe it missed my mother.

Maybe it missed us.

Whatever the cause, despite my brother’s diligent care, the tree started dropping leaves and losing its vitality after we moved.

E-mails were exchanged between my husband, the master gardener in Belgium, and my brother, keeper of the family tree,  in Virginia. The Virginia Tech extension office was consulted for advice. My husband shared the recipe for the special "cocktail" my mother had fed the tree with. All sorts of actions were taken, and my brother and his wife were more than a little dismayed when they had to tell us that despite all their efforts, the tree had just died.

All that remained...

They moved the dead tree outdoors, under the watchful eyes of the statue of St. Francis, and my brother, who had saved some of the seeds from the last harvest of oranges, planted them in small pots and watched them sprout and grow. It was my family’s way of remembering my sister and my mother, of keeping them alive in our hearts.

The baby orange tree, grown from seed 

Maybe it was that act of faith.

Maybe it was a manifestation of our hope of one day seeing the two Louises again.

Maybe it was further evidence of “interbeing” and mystical connection between ancestors and future generations.

Whatever the cause, my brother and his wife witnessed a miracle on their front porch: the “dead” orange tree, now 36 years old, came back to life.

Somehow, out of all the dry brown wood and a long season of nothingness came new green leaves.

 A bit scraggly, but alive

Today the orange tree is once again under my husband’s TLC.

And the baby orange tree? My kids consider it their own.

See, not all family heirlooms are silver and gold--some are green and leafy and offer lessons in resilience.

I'm keeping faith that the tree, like our family, will bloom again and bear fruit.

May 9, 2008

The financial planner handed them copies of his report and reviewed the recommendations.

"Based on current models, you can expect to live to 95, and your husband until age 92."

The numbers were in front of her, and at 46 she saw her life spiraling in two directions, one toward death, one toward birth.

Part of her was elated at the thought she might be less than half way through, and for a second her brain teemed with hope that she might have time to satisfy all her unfulfilled desires. But then the vision of a 95-year-old woman crashed her party, and she recoiled from frightening thoughts of a walker and a single bed, days spent alone, eyes glued to a spot on the ceiling.

She stared at her hands--already bony with prominent veins--and imagined them 50 years later, stiffened and covered with paper thin skin, purplish bruises that never heal, and age spots announcing decay.

What could those hands accomplish?

Would anyone hold them?

Would they dispense tenderness or tremble with the futility of having nothing left to hold on to?

Her husband saw his life as a straight journey from cradle to grave, a linear progression of events and milestones. He moved steadily forward and left everything behind.  There was no reason to waste time looking back or fret over what was ahead.  He was programmed to let the days of his life slide back and click behind him in neat rows, like the uniform beads on an abacus that calculates costs in dollars, not sense.

But her life was different. It was a long strand of multicolored beads coiled in the bottom of a deep pocket, the shapes irregular,  the beauty varied, the texture uneven. Each bead was a moment in time and they all touched one  another. The threads connecting them circled and spiraled and threatened to tangle and knot. She carried all her days and all her years with her at once, tucked into her pocket, heavy with meaning.

She could not discard a single bead of experience or failure, or relinquish her dreams and lighten her load. Even the rough and ugly ones mattered, a foil to the ones that shined. While the pearls of her existence were lovely and luminous, the best moments glowed  with energy and clarity, the color of wine and roses.  How many red days would she have? What would the color of her life look like in the end?

The financial planner continues to speak for nearly an hour. She and her husband are side by side, but they don't hold hands. Their legs don't brush each other under the table. Their shoulders don't touch. In theory, they have 42 more years of marriage ahead of them. He sits obediently with his head bent, studying graphs, tables, and pie charts. She is lost in thought, fingering the beads in her pocket, riding the wake of his words.

April 30, 2008