Tag: in her own language (Page 9 of 16)

She draws something that looks like a flame atop a candle.
Or maybe a cupcake.
Or maybe a gnome, my husband says.

And I stitch it,
not wondering so much about
what the drawing represents
as I wonder if she ever feels
trapped
or imprisoned
inside her disability.

Last summer
I got a call that Nancy
was peeling off her clothes.
“She’s having a hot flash,” I said.
“Lord knows, when I have a hot flash,
I’d love nothing more than to pull off my
clothes.”

And sometimes I wonder if maybe I’m the one
who’s imprisoned
inside my so-called ability,
with all my layers of
culturization
and education . . .

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

She draws:

I stitch:

Once again I’m participating in Nina Marie Sayre’s Off the Wall Friday when instead of showing something we’ve finished, we take our cloth projects off the design wall and look at them in a different light, try something different, maybe even move a little closer towards completion.

“Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”

Annie Dillard

I spend at least an hour a day on In Her Own Language, and today I spent about two hours clipping cloths to trees, snapping some photos, then removing the cloths, knocking off the spiders, and bringing everything back inside. More than two hours if you count the time spent going to town to fetch more clothespins. And as I hung the cloths in the woods today, I thought about time and how at one point in my life, my identity was based in good part on how busy I was, on how little white space there was on my calendar. As a career Mom, it made me feel needed and special and important that people asked me to do things, to take leadership positions here and there. I felt visible and appreciated. (Didn’t take me long, however, to figure out the difference between being needed and being a sucker.)

Then came the (ridiculous) stage of feeling like I had to justify any expenditure of time in terms of (a) how it would benefit someone else and/or (b) how much money it would become.

Sigh.

Eventually came the stage in my relationship with time when (and we could really call this a thunk on the head moment) I realized that my clock looks just like everybody else’s. I have just as much time as everybody else, the only difference is: I get to choose how to spend my clock. Right then, I stopped saying “I don’t have time” – stopped cold turkey – and replaced it with “If not now, when, Sugar?”

So here I am, choosing to spend hours every single day stitching Nancy’s drawings, writing my books, going to walk. I have several books and plays yet to be written, and I am gathering things for three or four installation pieces I’ll soon begin. Oh sure, I still have responsibilities to tend to, but my job is to live as wide open as possible. And I’m all done with feeling selfish about that.

Oh, I’m using the clothespin bag that belonged to my maternal grandmother. I love that, don’t you? Kinda’ takes me back in time . . .

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

I am fidgety. Probably from sitting so much. Sitting last Wednesday as we flew across country, East coast to West coast. Sitting as we drove 3 hours from LA to Trona. Sitting as we drove 5 hours two of the days we were there. Sitting as we drove an hour at least twice a day for food and internet. Sitting as we flew back across country yesterday. Sitting as we drove up the mountain today. You get the picture. Tomorrow will have windows of walk and dance amid writing and stitching (I have two new Envoys – perhaps you’d like to be one, too?) And we’ll turn the furnace on. Over 100 degrees in the desert yesterday morning, high 40s today atop the mountain. No jet lag yet, and it usually hits me hardest coming East. Took some homeopathic jet lag remedy – maybe it’s just the ticket.

It’s good to cut thread with real scissors instead of fingernail clippers. Thank goodness they allow travelers to take nail clippers now, though. Otherwise I suppose it would have been the age-old teeth trick.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

Back on the red dirt of Georgia
tonight.
Much water has gone under the bridge
in the past week,
things swirling
and twirling inside me.
Pondering and processing
will have to wait
till I’m reacquainted with
a little something we like to call
rest.

And yet,
exhausted as I am,
I am struck with the
fragile threads of life
that connect us
and disconnect us.
Threads tangling and untangling,
twisting and crossing,
meandering and curving.
Threads dangling and raveling,
turning and stopping,
ending and beginning.

Lines and threads
that link us,
that connect us,
that bind us.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

Another sunset in High Desert Country:

When a person first moves to a personal care home, nursing home, assisted living home, it’s inevitable that they will plead with visitors to take them home, and it’s quite understandable that visitors begin to find other ways to spend their time to avoid putting themselves through the agony of not being able to quell the angst and agitation. Me, I grow much more concerned when they stop imploring visitors to take them home, their silence indicating a deep resignation and giving-up and/or further mental erosion. I am a Southerner – a rebel through and through. Maybe that’s why I want people to pitch an outright hissy fit when they don’t like something about their lives. Do not go silently into the night, I plead. Do not roll over and become complacent or compliant. Keep that white flag in your pocket till there’s just no other choice. Keep thinking for yourself. Keep knowing what you want. Keep kicking up a ruckus. I’ll have more to say about this when I’m more rested cause this is big for me. Big, I tell you. Many thanks to my brother-in-law Donn for sending this.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.

“Nobody ever writes me,” Aunt Ginny scolds immediately after the hugs. It’s a common, expected greeting, sometimes followed by more admonishing and borderline lecturing. Maybe to those who never raised a child to adulthood, to those who never had the opportunity, the experience to learn about wholeheartedly loving-in-spite-of, that’s what being a matriarch looks like: wagging a finger, pointing out faults, lecturing the children about on what they are doing wrong.

A stitched rendition of Nancy’s drawing and Aunt Ginny’s handkerchief, both resting on an afghan crocheted by Virginia’s mother/Nancy’s grandmother. Three generations of women. In fiber.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.
And there’s a pinterest board, too.