Chantepleure Reincarnated

I got a call from a woman at the Huron Valley Council for the Arts. She said she was calling about an author luncheon. Great! Who's the author? Well, you are. There were several more minutes of me questioning whether she had the right Linda Robinson. There is another Linda Robinson who has several books. No, she was pretty sure she wanted me and my book. I told her I could ask a couple of other real authors I know. Did you call because I'm a member of HVCA? Oh, are you? How nice! There may have been more but I'm embarrassed enough already. She named the book (pronounced it correctly) and told me what the word means. At the end of the call, I said sure, I'd be glad to participate. Then I waited for the call telling me their original choice was now back in town and said yes. Then the announcement showed up in my facebook feed, with my mug right in the center. Chantepleure was written during NaNoWriMo in 2007. 60,000 words thrown in a document. For the next year, the Sweetgrass Writers wrestled it into a story. We thought it was two books maybe. Perhaps it still is, but I'm not the dividing this after 10 years. We printed it, handed out chapters and segments to each other to edit, question, clarify and finish. Part of the ongoing endeavor was to figure out best way to get it into the hands of readers. I don't remember if it was submitted to traditional publishers: I doubt it. I'd gone through that years before with children's books I wrote and illustrated, only to find that traditional publishers don't want authors illustrating their books. They want their illustrators. Most authors don't ever meet the people who draw their stories. So, we self-published. Lulu for a printed book (very expensive still) and Smashwords later for an ebook. I filed the book with the Library of Congress, had our local librarian stick it on Ingram (where libraries can order) and then forgot about it. I wrote Chantepleure to bring to life a closed, boarded-up shop in our little town. The Artcraft Shop had lived as a bits and bobs arty store. I still have a couple of packages my mother bought there. The Artcraft Shop was in a series of decrepit storefronts that included the South Lyon Herald offices on one corner. The Herald moved out and Grande Trunke moved in. High end home decorating. Kathleen's was a nice clothing store on the opposite end, and then the whole block was bought and Kathleen was forced out by 200% increase in rent. That became a remodeling company. An auto paint store opened in the middle. Then The Artcraft Shop was rented, renovated and lives now as The Lemon Tree. I also wrote Chantepleure to gather my dead friends in one place, so I could visit with them again. This surprise reincarnation of Chantepleure fits beautifully with the restored Artcraft Shop. My friends are content.

Created for Those Who Suffer

The post title is from Tad Mosel's play All The Way Home and continues "especially those who cannot endure."

In 2004 my sister's best friend was diagnosed with stage not gonna make it breast cancer. I didn't know until I was diagnosed that the younger you are, the less chance of survival you have.

Stacy was 28. Stacy was going to die. Soon.

When Stacy was diagnosed I worked at the American Cancer Society.

I was going through my 7th surgery about the cancer I was fighting. I had a whole bunch of useless fucking statistics to hoist.

What I knew once more: I was going to live. Stacy was going to die.

I had no idea how to be there for her. Or my sister. How to be real. How to cope with the bizarreness of who lives and who dies.

My sister was suffering. Stacy was not. There is a difference between pain and suffering that the Buddhists can teach us and I am still learning. But Stacy already knew that and my sister soon would.

 My sister asked her what can I do? Stacy told her.

Help me tell my family I will die. Help me arrange my funeral the way I want it. The family were in shock and denial. Stacy and my sister melded their love with pragmatism.

My sister spoke to her parents. This is what I know. This is what Stacy wants. I will do her make-up for her casket. This is the outfit she wants to wear.

Stacy. 28 years old. Dying. The strongest person I had met until then. Until I knew my sister.

I wanted to honor Stacy's journey.

I'm an artist. I wanted to send her a card that expressed her strength. I looked and shopped.

And found nothing.

Get well. God will save you. Crosses, which are crap art. No. No.

I rescued Barbie dolls and used them to reimagine a world in which women mattered, but antithetically, fell in love with some high end fashion dolls.

I repurposed those dolls.

I spent one entire day photographing the dolls I had, those I knew enough about to resell at a profit, and those I would keep and make outfits for. Out of clothes I'd owned and loved. To express empathy for the journey.

This is the card I sent to Stacy. AND I WILL REMEMBER YOUR STRENGTH.

I will.

Another card was inspired by Barbara*  a woman I knew and, who in presentation I attended told her story about the doctor telling her she had 3 months to live. When she asked why would you tell me that, he said because I won't offer false hope.

She found another doctor in Texas who gave her enough hope to live to see her last Christmas with her children. 

There is an intense focus in specificity, a terminal diagnosis that cannot be understood and won't be felt until you or someone you love has that in their kit. It's a sense of your place in the universe. Small yet mighty.

The card art has Barbies. Collectible fashion dolls. Irrevalent in this context. But I love them, certainly the ones I kept. I didn't have dolls as a child, so I see the yearning in collecting as an adult.

The day I did the photography in the local park, I was frightened by a guy who popped out of the bushes. We stared at each other. He held up a cardboard image of Flat Stanley, the current GPS around the world photography image. Share an image.

Flat Stanley, I said.

Thank God you know that, he said. My niece made me do this.

That day I also crashed a mountain biker barrreling through my shoot. He was laughing too hard to stay astride.

I have these beautiful words I have honored all these years.

I made these images. Dressed this shoot. But it's iffy now. Doll collectors. Pffft.

Here I am. The writer. The artist. I want this out in the world. I think it matters.

I also photographed my great-gramdnother's and grandmother's teacups. And my grandmothers's and mother's gloves. And their pearls. And their handkerchiefs. Three generations.

 

Which art matches the words?

 I'm going to offer both. The art is subjective.

 The words are what matters most.

Addendum: Stacy was buried in the pink suit she told my sister she wanted to be buried in and the suit my sister told her parents to dress her in.

Keys to Nothing

I signed up for an editing workshop. We are to bring an excerpt for something we're working on. We are to state two techniques that we're good at. We are to submit questions for the person conducting the workshop.

I can't figure out where to upload that stuff either. I hate my homework being late still.

I'm contemplating the word irrelevant, in a social media realm of OK, boomer.

And contemplating the word control. I know in my brainpan somewhere that control is an illusion, that we control nothing, including what our brain decides to save into long term memory. My friend and I talk about this a lot. If we have no control, even of how our brain functions, then who or what does?

Irrelevant. We also discuss the difference between mind and brain. There's an analogy we came up with that both of us wrote down, but I don't remember it, and I'm not sure we are equipped to handle unanswerable questions. Examine how much life is left to you. Contemplate infinity. See how that works for you.

But the workshop signup started a chain of events that feels exciting.

I've been writing the story I will learn about editing for 15 years. It's memoir, so it's personal. Friends who have read the blog posts over the years love the stories about the wild ride caregiving is. There are about 60 million people in the USA who are caregiving right now, so maybe there's an interested audience, too.

So there's that to finish. Complete. Settle.

I bought a couch. One I picked out for myself. It's too much in the packed living room. What needs to go? My mother's secretary, which is a lovely piece of really large furniture. Her buffet that she bought for her trousseau in 1948? My great- and grandmother's desk that I had brought here when we sold her house? Most furnniture in the house is not mine, not pieces I chose. I don't like antiques. I keep them because? I keep them because of stories. I know the stories of all this furniture. Story provenance.

I told the friend who agreed to take the buffet that there wasn't anything in it. Then I dumped out the drawers. What's in it are all the things I did not want to throw away or hand out over the years.

It's a week later and most of the stuff is on the floor. Because in order to put it in one of the 2 remaining desks, I have to empty those, too.

Each day I choose something to put in the garbage bag sitting next to the pile on the floor. My father kept keys to things he no longer owned, including car keys. There are stories to those keys. But the stories are not mine. I threw them all out, inspired by Stu in The Stand (which I just reread) who–broke legged and dying in the wilderness–goes through his pockets and finds a keyring with keys that will open nothing. He throws them into the gulch. I did likewise.

Editing. The work and the psyche. Can't fill a vessel that's already full. This furniture offload is the equivalent of emptying the Junk Drawer of Life. Time to broom survival techniques that no longer serve, and have only been accumulating more stuff I can't use but don't want to look at too closely.

Stories are wonderful. Stories are how humans explain the universe to themselves. Edited stories are even more wonderful.

Time for my stories.

Lyydia

Lyydia crouched on the icepack alone, eyes closed, her weapon arm hanging limp at her side, and asked the earth to speak of others on her path. The River sang beneath the ice far to her left, and Lyydia spoke softly once — a word of command — to quiet the ice water music so that the ears of her mind could hear the distance.

She thanked Bear for the warmth of his skin on her bones, and for its sight. She visioned her children and grandchildren home in her Saariselkä village, swathed in Bear’s sister skins, safe and fed. She rocked, calling the vision, seeing Bear when it gave its life to her family. Lyydia was Noaidi, and as shaman, she had returned the bones to the den, singing the Bear joik, asking for the skill to use Bear eyes.

With Bear wisdom, Lyydia touched her damaged arm with her other furred hand, sending healing breath from her mind through her blood to the injury. The pain eased. Lyydia let go of her children grandchildren vision from Bear eyes and retuned her mind and sight to her surroundings.

Her eyes walked the dark blue horizon, unbroken waves of snow and ice reflecting the northern lights that wavered overhead. Beyond the great frost-rimed lake, the forest huddled in the distance to her right. Past the forest, another half day’s journey away, her people slept, ate, sewed, hunted and waited.

The reindeer herd snapped attentive. The many hoof sounds ceased, the frozen lake sending tiny drum rim cracks into the dancing light of the night sky.

Something was quietly approaching. Something she could not yet see on the land.

No Bear or Wolf spirit showed itself to her inner sight. The deer would be stamping, snorting, anxious to be away and prone to flight if a big animal was nearby. The animal coming toward them and her was alone and smaller.

Lyydia should not be here. She was a grandmother and her tribe’s shaman, and she had broken the thread of the village garment by following the desire of her selfish heart to journey afar and ask the underworld spirits to send Ringed Seal meat for her people. The crevasse had almost eaten her life, but she had stopped her fall and clambered out with only an injured arm. She had been a fool twice on this quest. A three-time fool seldom returned home.

Now she was a wounded and tired fool. There were many stanzas of her lifesong already told, and she was weary with shame and age. Perhaps Beivve, the sun goddess, was angry with her for being absent on Beivve’s festival night.

“Ah,” Lyydia said aloud. Her mind sight revealed the other animal that followed her trail. Lyydia fingered the tooth on the leather thong attached to the drum on her back. It was hot to her touch. It was one of the molars special to Wolverine. At the back of its upper jaw, on either side, these teeth were turned 90 degrees. The molars allowed the predatory carnivore to tear frozen carrion and to crush bones to extract the marrow.

The reindeer were not in calving season, so there were no young deer. The herd was healthy and no frail old ones would hamper retreat. A wolverine could take down an unprotected adult reindeer that did not run fast enough.

On this night Lyydia was the slowest of the animals on the tundra.

Holding the tooth in one hand over her head, she prayed to the tooth that, if the underworld required another toll for this journey, she alone would make the offering, and that her village would remain healthy and strong; that her children’s lifesongs would be sung long and with joy. Her grandson was a man now; a good hunter. He would take a wife in the spring, and this is what had sent her on the quest to ask for Ringed Seal to come to the people. His wedding cloak might be made from seal skins, bringing seal hunter magic to their home fire.

Her granddaughter had learned much of Noaidi ways from Lyydia, who had witnessed her gifts as a baby. Anu would be a gifted shaman for her village. Whether she would be a mother, Lyydia did not know. She had not found reason to look into that future. The next Noaidi revealed herself to her teacher. That was the way. Lyydia had lost herself in self enough for this day, perhaps enough to end a lifetime.

Face raised to the sky, the old shaman sang her joik and felt her spirit mingle with herd spirit and dance on the breast of the earth. Deer dancing, she rose into the stringed light of the sky, bringing northern light strength into her body until she could move her hurt weapon arm high.

Lyydia unstrung the wolverine tooth from its leather tie and placed it on her drum. She sat flat on the earth, holding the antler drumstick, visualizing her lifesong, and began to chant. She struck the rim of the drum once with the other side of the antler. The tooth would leap on the drum skin among the runes of Lyydia’s life drawn there; revealing her fate when it stopped dancing on the skin.

The club she used to hunt had fallen into the crevasse, along with one of her snowshoes. Slowly she unstrapped the remaining shoe from her foot. Using her teeth to save her arm further hurt, she untied the bindings, separating the long curved edge from the weave in the center. She set the bindings on the earth and the drum on her back. The hot tooth she put into her own mouth. She gripped the antler drummer in her weapon hand and the splintered snowshoe bow in the other.

Lyydia stood. She waited for the wolverine to come.

Back to the Drawing Board

We may think we're not being physically impacted by the global pandemic, but we are mentally. I had a progress phone call with an author today, and I wished him a happy Friday. He thanked me in advance, and assured me he is starting by having a good Thursday.

I looked up how to clean an eraser today. I know how to clean an eraser. My brain just cannot access that information now.

Getting my brother his breakfast, I changed up the order of prep, and poured milk into his already poured orange juice glass instead of his cereal.

On hold for 40 minutes to handle a banking transaction yesterday, I forgot what I called to do by the time I got to the person who could help me.

We have been semi-isolated in our house for 15 years. A Three Story Life chronicles this journey. Our father died in 2017, and, while we have adjusted best able, it limits how often I leave the house. When I go on my version of abroad - grocery shopping, lunch with a friend, the rare and wonderful whole day outing - I have to have someone here to be with my brother.

For most of those years, I made money illustrating from the Artist Dungeon. I did not meet the people who hired me. I could work 24 hours a day in my pajamas as long as we had toilet paper and coffee.

That is a lot of experience that should hold me in place well.

It don't.

There is a difference between being homebound and being housebound. We are finding how prepared we are, our institutions are, our government is. When we are back to business as usual, I hope it isn't business as usual. Back to the drawing board.

Happy Birthday to Me

This is the original art for A Three Story Life. We were in a townhouse then. Scott on the top floor, Dad in the middle, and me in the Artist's Dungeon. We had to move in 2014 because neither of the menfolk could make use of the stairs any more. Dad died in 2017 so the art (when I blog which is seldom) has a black band in the midfloor. I'm still in the Artist's Dungeon.

My friend Geri says the only thing good about birthdays after a certain age is the cake. She chooses a special one for herself each year. And now I do, too. It's all about the cake!












 

Celebrating my birthday and 10 years of A Three Story Life Writing.

Thank You for Waiting

NaNoWriMo, 20th anniversary. I wrenched a novel out of November in 2007, but despite 300,000+ words since then I haven't made the sprint to 50k words in the 30 days offered.

My process has been to create a cover first, and in some years not write one word. This year I made 4 covers, so I expect to not write 4 times as many words.

The ideas were intriguing. Still are. This year I chose a subject that has been in my brainpan for decades.

Waiting.

30 years ago, the title was Women Who Wait. Waiting is an activity we do well. We wait for the perfect partner, wait for promotions, raises. Wait to see the light, wait for dark. Wait for bruises to heal, wait for new ones. Wait for our loved ones to come home from war. Wait to heal, wait to die. Wait for the other shoe to drop. Wait on hold.

Noticing the messaging while on hold this month. Caregivers spend hours on hold. Doctors, pharmacies, health agencies, state handlers, county wranglers. In my case, when I get mad enough, wait for my legislators.

Doctor's office: 17 minutes on hold. Sales pitches for new mammogram technology, heart screening check (only $75!) and the ubiquitous messaging that you can do whatever you think you need to wait on hold to do on our website.

Pharmacy: 22 minutes on hold. Sales pitch op.

Kitchen cabinet place: "Thank you for continuing to hold. We are assisting other excited home remodelers." Sheesh.

The doctor's office is just down the street. I've checked the we are busy assisting other callers more than once. Drive down to the office - no one is on the phone.

Thank you for continuing to hold. We appreciate your patience.

The Patriot 2019

I drew this in Powerpoint on 12 September 2001. The day before changed America forever. Horrified, saddened and lost, I mourned what was to come from that day onward for my country.

The day after.

A woman on a panel recently said we are obsessed with punishment. With revenge, even if it is practiced without heed to justice. I forget if she meant Americans or humanity.

We woke on the next morning to a global war on terrorism. To more slaughter and jangling patriotism and children and their mothers around the world barely surviving in an apocalyptic aftermath of our righteous battle.

People who spoke to the idea that violence begets violence lost their jobs, were vilified and careers destroyed.

18 years later. We are at war on 17 fronts around the world. We are not safer than we were in 2000. We are denying USA asylum to peoples who are brown, and we have isolated our country from helping refugees around the world: refugees who are displaced because of retaliatory hatred.

We have an administration that no American could have foreseen. Except the people who saw it coming, who spoke about it, and who had their careers destroyed for speaking the truth to power.

Cheryl Ann Mull Moody

Purple Rose for Our Theatre Queen

Wild, funny, big-hearted, snarky, wonderful crazy woman. We met in high school backstage. One of the first things she did for me was wrangle a furious girlfriend who just found out the guy who'd started dating me had stopped dating her. Opening night, minutes before curtain up, that girl was going to deck me. The show must go on! Cheryl Ann did big deeds for people and spurned gratitude, but wow – cross her, and she'd take you out at the knees. She always loved her people wholeheartedly.

Many years later we were roomies in my Detroit house we called The House For Women on Their Way to Do Something Else. She would hear of a woman who could use a room, and in she'd move. Tennessee had a cousin Alabama, who just moved north. Come on in. Cheryl Ann had Tennessee roots her own self. Stinkin' Creek Road, if I remember correctly. We got introduced to peanuts in Coke.

Cheryl asked - soon after moving in - if she could use the oven. Sure! I said. She came back into the living room - did you know there are books in there? Oh, that's where those went! We both read the books she dragged out of the oven immediately. Forget dinner.

We all pitched in for household bills, and had a Chinese puzzle box on the coffee table for other stuff. Like psychics. And parties. And stuff. If you couldn't get the puzzle box open, you'd had enough stuff already.

She had pet names for all of us. She always called me Linda Ruth. She called my sister EA. I called her Cheryl Ann, with a hard CH and a twangy Tennessee accent.

Cheryl ran phone interference for everyone in the house. Is she here? I'll check. If she got a head shake no, she'd tell the person on the other end whatever story she thought up. If it was my mother, she just told her I wasn't in. She always knew what her friends needed.

I left the Christmas tree up until April one year. Cheryl Ann told people I wasn't going to take it down until the hostages came home. She always covered our foolishness.

So many wonderful memories. We laughed more than we did anything else. She loved to laugh, and did often and deep.

Among the pictures is a welcome home dinner she did for me. Fancy tablecloth, sign, apron et al. I had probably been gone 3 days. She did thoughtful things for people her whole life.

One of the men I was dating was older. Cheryl called him Dad. We'd take the roomies who were home on dinner dates. Cheryl would start a ruckus before we got down the driveway. "Are we there yet?" "Dad, she's poking me." "I have to go to the bathroom."

At one of the parties, 3 men I was dating all showed up. The house was big enough, and this party was on all 3 floors and in the back and front yards, so Cheryl would find me, warn me, head him(s) off, and I'd duck up down and around like a cartoon whodunit. She always had your back.

She saved me more than once, and with love and, when appropriate, a good scold.

We said when we were old ladies in the nursing home, we'd have a big couch. She would read on one end, and I would read on the other. She's now reading on the big couch in heaven, and one day, I'll take the other end.

I will always love her. Always.

Three Story Life - Toilet Paper Follies

My little brother uses excessive wads of toilet paper. He has started using toilet paper when he pees, too. I called a plumber 3 times in 6 weeks. Twice I was able to have the nice guys come over. Cheery as well as efficient. The 3rd time I got the crank.

A Lecture Isn't What I Need from a Plumber

You're using too much toilet paper. <duh>
Don't you have an auger? <show auger>
That's not an auger. <why does it say auger on the tag, then, hm?>
You need this size auger. <hefts his auger>
<Ooo that's a big one. Here's your check. Bye.>

1. Hide the Toilet Paper

This worked for the first handful of times. Scott has Alzheimer's disease, but he still can see. He knows where the toilet paper is hidden.

2. Hide the Toilet Paper Higher

Scott is short, so I thought I could put it on the top shelf in the back. Nope. So I hid it better.

3. Hide the 12-Pack

Unable to find the new hiding spot, he opened the new 12-roll package on the floor and used that.

4. Hide the Toilet Paper in Different Places

I figured out that the sound of his belt buckle dragging on the floor means the search for where the toilet paper is hidden is underway. With his drawers dragging, and a bum not in safe travel mode yet.

5. Hide the Toilet Paper in the Same Place. Listen for the Belt Buckle

This only works if I'm paying strict attention from the Artist's Dungeon directly below the bathroom. This method also requires that I remember where I hid the toilet paper the last time.

6. Tell the Carers Where The Toilet Paper Is

If I don't remember to reveal the location, there's a text message to be sent. If I don't remember that, I get a text. Where's the TP?
 

RJ Spangler Trio and Tbone Paxton Mardi Gras Jazz Music 2019

Spring cannot be far behind when listeners find a seat at Salem-South Lyon District Library to enjoy Mardi Gras jazz music with the RJ Spangler Trio and John (Tbone) Paxton. The group opened with Professor Longhair's ode to New Orleans and Mardi Gras. Next up, Art Neville's Mardi Gras Mambo. The link is Charmaine Neville's take. I love the growling baritone sax and the cover art, too. Art Neville just announced his retirement in December 2018.

This concert appearance is always a welcome musical experience that also delivers an education. Before performing Canjun Country, Tbone shared a history of New Orleans and its music. An organic convergence of French Acadians who were expelled from Canada in the 18th century, with West African, Congolese musicology. Congo Square was a gathering place for drumming and music in New Orleans (restricted and banned except on Sundays until the 1920s.)

We know Hank Williams (Cajun Baby, Jambalaya) and I'm going to introduce you to D. L. Menard's The Back Door, too. D.L. said he was asked to write about the Front Door, but he's got trouble with the hinges so he hasn't gotten around to it. Not quite jazz, but Acadiana, and New Orleans flavored for sure.

Hoagie Carmichael's New Orleans was our next treat. Quoting the link comments section here: "This is from the 1956 album "Hoagy Sings Carmichael with The Pacific Jazzmen" (Art Pepper on alto sax, Harry "Sweets" Edison, Don Fagerquist, Jimmy Zito, Irv Cottler, Nick Fatool, Al Hendrickson and Jimmy Rowles), arranged and conducted by Johnny Mandel.

RJ told us that Bix Beiderbecke played with Hoagy Carmichael. Before 1930, Bix was with the Jean Goldkette Orchestra. Goldkette was the music director of the DAC for over 20 years, and also co-owner of the Graystone Ballroom. Beiderbecke was born in Davenport, Iowa, and undoubtedly heard jazz music wafting off the Mississippi River. Goldkette married Lee McQuillen, a newspaperwoman, and I can't find a thing about her. What newspaper? Inquiring minds want to know.

Iko Iko is a story about Mardi Gras Angels, African-American/Native American influencers, performers who used to fight and now dance. TJ mentioned Rumble, a PBS documentary about Native American contributions to music.

And if you want to sing some more, Jock-a-mo-fee-na-ney. Next on the list was Eh La Bas Danny Barker, composer. This is one of our favorite audience participation tunes.

Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans? You won't want to miss this video of Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday. If you don't check any of the links before this one, do listen here. Don't know who the blonde is, but looks enough like my Mom to make this song even more bittersweet.

My li'l bro and I listening. I'm missing New Orleans in this photo. We both still miss both our folks, who shared music with us all their lives.

RJ and Tbone speak often about the responsibiliy - and beauty - of sharing their decades of experience with storytelling alongside performing music. We have watched young talented musicians sharing the stage with these venerable musicologists.

Jeff Cuny, bass. Jake Schwandt, guitar. RJ Spangler, percussion. Tbone Paxton, trombone and vocals. And whistling - that man can whistle.

Check the schedule on the RJ Spangler website to find where you can hear more jazz music, blues, Planet D Nonet.

Appreciation, as always, to Salem-South Lyon District Library for bringing music, art, knowledge to our fortunate community. Watch the SSLDL events calendar for more of this bounty.

10th Moose Productions

The Amazing and Talented Artist Carol Ludwig and I were talking about our art. Carol will be exhibiting in Dexter, MI come April for 2 months. Her collages are deep and evocative and beautiful. After a burst of creativity, then a lull spell, she's back in the flow. Brava!

We were talking about Louise Penny's book that I was rereading - the characters wondered throughout why there was no Muse who shepherded art. 9 Muses. Not one has art in her realm. Wacky Greeks. So we agreed with Penny we need a 10th Muse. As Carol and I were signing off, I wished her a visit from the 10th moose.

Misspoke inspiration.

Then I hunted my drawing of a moose, and posted it on facebook. Because it's funny. I like funny. And I like my drawings.

This moose came to life because of a white water trip. Don't remember which river, but it was wild. I wasn't following instructions well because I was terrified. And my moves were not yet automatic enough to get it right. Don't get it right in white water, and everybody in the boat swims. Through rocks and floater logs and sneers from Neptune. When we emerged untipped on the far far side of the wave chain, the stern paddler launched into instruction mode. Show me a brace. Rudder river left. Where are your feet? I don't know, I said.

Which put me into storytelling The Girl Who Didn't Know Where Her Feet Were. So tall, that... and this moose was born. And a pink flamingo, and I forget what else.

Art is often happy accident. The one painting I won a prize for - and sold on the same night - started out as a piece of paper thrown across the room. My watercolor sky sucked. Walking back in my workshop much later, I saw the paper on the cement floor. Upside down. Ah! As a sky it stunk. As a heaving ocean, it rocked.

I just missed a deadline for the show I've entered for 9 years and won multiple poetry awards in, and one art prize. It's a show about ekphrasis - an ancient Greek (and here are those wacky guys again) argument about which is more aesthetically pleasing: the art or the words in celebration of the art. Entrants submit an original artwork, and an original poem related to the art. For 9 years I entered the limit of 3. 3 paintings. 3 poems. That's 54 pieces of art. I experiment all year on the 6 results that will be entered.

I missed the deadline fully aware that was probably going to be the case. I'm not grieving, so I need to reflect on what's going on in my creative realm. 9 years, hmmm. Time for the 10th moose to step up.

Linda Robinson Art Vitae

I have created art all my aware life. My first art prize was in 3rd grade for a pastel of a camel. I suspect it was supposed to be a horse, and when that didn't work out too well, I added a pyramid and a palm tree. I won a Michigan art prize for that horse/camel, but because Captain Jolly was presenting the prizes, I skipped it by getting pneumonia. Captain Jolly scared me.

In recent decades I did textbook illustration, which put bread on table. Tiny loaf. When I could get the assignment, I made book art. My best friend and I made a team - she laid out books, and I did the art.  One of our team results was my novel, Chantepleure.

I made all the art on this blog. 708 posts, banner, thumbnails.

My artistic emphasis today is supporting other women entrepreneurs with art. Creating is a joy, and if I have enough to eat and keep a roof over my head, I choose the projects I want to play in. My friend Barb Barton is a gatherer/forager, and I made all her labels for wild foods, in exchange for honey, syrup, wild rice, vinegar. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

My friend Patricia Fero is a psychologist/author and retreat auteur. I am creating her 10th anniversary release of her 2008 book What Happens When Women Wake Up? I create women symbol medallions for her retreat participants. Because I believe in the amazing creative work she does.

Today I still create book art. I am enjoying lessons in watercolor, metalwork and am teaching myself to create in paper clay. Because I believe in the amazing creative work I do.

I do create for money, if the project appeals, and I can manifest the author's vision.

Not The Favourite

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Three:Two Story Life

Back the way it was. We're early in the 2nd year without Dad, and Scott still has this verbal tic. My response changes. I know, honey. It is the way it is. I do too. No response, depending on how the day's rolling. Scott is taking prozac now - I imagine he's depressed. The doctor agreed although I am the only reporting individual. She takes my word for it and writes a script. The carers report that he is more responsive (although I still don't know what to do with the one who coaches him to say praise Jesus!) I notice that Scott has stepped into life a bit more. (The fact that he can repeat praise Jesus! is one example.) This return to life shows up in making choices about his environment. He's picking up his dish from the table more often. He makes his bed. Moved his record albums into the living room from his bedroom. Decides when he's going to put on underwear instead of a diaper.

I have to be faster. He picks up his dish, but turns it upside down in the well I put the clean dishes. Then I need to rewash those. He makes his bed over wet sheets. Then the comforter is wet, too. Scott will toss underwear around until he finds the pair he wants to wear, and then I feel like he should be allowed to wear his choice, until the laundry basket is half full with wet underwear. I've had the plumber in 3 times in 60 days because Scott now wants to use toilet paper when he pees. A roll at a time. If he flushes, we're plugged. He doesn't always, so I have to be alert to what's up in the bathroom. Every time. Ten twenty times a day.

My handler with the State DHHS confirmed there's no way to timestamp this. Constant vigilance. No line item. I don't know why I brought it up with her. Looking for some affirmation that this is hard, unrewarding, depressing so that translates to a spreadsheet in the Capricorn corner of my brain.

My therapist used to instruct me to ignore stuff. Just la di da while stepping over scivvies tossed on the floor, toothpicks embedded in the carpet, twist ties strewn around the house. Back then it made some sense. Back the way it was meant arguing with Dad every week about allowing Scott his own life, his own agency, his own quirks. Now I am pushing back at that agency, a quandary for personal growth and peace.

All this stuff is just stuff. Whinging about the mundane. Because that's what it is. It is what it is.

Dad was a support on this three-legged stool of our stories. Scott spent all of his life with Dad in his story. That's a huge loss for him. Scott is finding his way in this new world order without the brain power and memory to find a way through. I question every hour if there is someone or anything that would be a comfort to him.

Dad was the person I could talk with, share his love of sports, my love of art. He was funny when he wasn't grouchy. Just like me. There are entire days when Scott and I have no direct communication; days when he's roaming the corridors of his inner life, and he does not hear me speak.

I'm mad and sorry most of the time. My freedom is curtailed - if I need to leave the house, I either have to take Scott with, or pay for support. I am not as agile, nimble, or interested as I was a year ago. Feeling isolated, I've isolated myself more. Quit the art commission. Stopped painting. Writing, creating, anything. I don't want to get dressed, shower, or rise from the bed to do neither.

I keep thinking this is the day it turns around. This is the day I reengage with life. This is the day my story will take up where it left off. And on that day I'm wrong again.

I am stuck in a groove of being unable to console myself because so many other people have it much harder than I do.

And I still can't cry.

A Three Story Life Farewell

We're burying Dad this week. He died in November, and the ashes have been at home until I passed the urn along to my big brother. In preparation for selling the house on Drummond Island, most of the offspring are on the island clearing out, tidying up. Since most are there along with Dad's ashes, my sister called the county to prepare the site. Feels rushed. The original plan was to coordinate this for later summer, early autumn.

It's always too soon, isn't it? Plans for this week changed abruptly Sunday when I heard the intent to bury Dad on Thursday, and I decided that I couldn't not be there. I don't want to wake up one morning down the road and feel bad. As if. Meanwhile, I have to prepare for making my brother share this long road to good-bye.

Our mother died in 1998. Scott won't get out of the car when we visit her grave. 20 years down the long road, he is mostly uncommunicative. I sometimes think he knows Dad has joined Mom, but there is no way to be sure. I told him Dad died. Dementia prevents him from keeping this knowledge. Some days he says it's over repeatedly. Some days he says back the way it was.

My closest friends think I'm crazy to make this trip at all, albeit with no other family in the car for 750 miles round. I have to pack mounds of incontinence supplies. Scott may or may not find closure, and even if he does, it's momentary. I protected him from the physicality of our parents leaving their bodies. That may not have been a good idea. I'm questioning everything. I pretend I can evaluate his needs. I cannot. I am wandering away from identifying my own needs.

All part of life's rich pageant. All grist for the writer's mill. In a life wherein I start writing again, this trip will be the closing scene. As it happens, the day Dad moves to his final place is the anniversary of us moving from A Three Story Life to A Two Story Life. May 26. It's also his brother and best friend's birthday. His brother died in 1998 also.

In that light on that stage, I imagine the items that might go in the grave with Dad's urn. Like ancient deceased expected to need stuff to negotiate the afterlife. I can't find my medicine bag (the collected donated items to help me kick cancer) that has the saxophone reed Dad gave me.

What I need to do is envision what I need to consign to earth. Leave whatever does not serve me on the Island when we get on the ferry. Use the mantra my lovely friend Carol taught me. All will be well.

I'm taking the golf ball.

Wish us peace.

New Orleans Jazz and Blues at Salem-South Lyon District Library

Donna Olson Introduces

"John and I go back 40 years..." RJ Spangler began. Back to Sully's Blues Bar in Dearborn, where Jimmy Lesnau brought in acts from all over the world. Blues legends. Scroll through the pictures - Duke Robillard, Terry Garland. The chance to back up great musicians and songwriters. Johnny Adams. Earl King (Come On, Baby Parts 1&2. More on that later.) Professor "Fess" Longhair, the rollicking piano man.

RJ Spangler and TBone Paxton played Sunday with Matt LoRusso on guitar, Jeff Cuny on bass. Jeff just finished his Master of Music in Jazz at WSU. Bravo!

Storytelling + music + history. Does it get any better than that? RJ is reading a book by Ned Sublette, musicologist that traces the African/Caribbean/Cuban roots of New Orleans music. New Orleans history, back to the Bourbon cousin French/Spanish colonizers.

Go Down to New Orleans. John "TBone" Paxton took the lead on this song to start us swinging. Note on Professor Fess Longhair - there's a bust of him in Tipitina's Bar. Enjoy another cover of Tipitina by Dr. John and Johnny Winter.

The 2nd song in the set Basin Street Blues, written by Spencer Williams in 1928, made famous by Louis Armstrong the same year; this video featuring Jack Teagarden on trombone. RJ mentioned Dr. Michael White, swinging clarinet player. We were treated to an experimental combination, starting as a ballad and switching it up swing. We heard it here first!

Strongly featured in the richness of New Orleans music, and as shared with us by RJ, are producers/players like Dave Bartholomew, who produced Fats Domino. His son Don B. continues the family music dynasty. The Batiste Family. Neville Brothers. Marsalis Family.

Iko Iko is a call and response Mardi Gras Indian tune. Big Chief, Flag Boy - designations of parade positions in a turf war that became a friendly costumed musical rivalry; raising money for charity and to bury the familial departed. Grateful Dead, Dr. John - even Jimmy Fallon and The Roots have covered this fine example of clave rhythm pattern.

Back now to the Come on, Baby, Let The Good Times Roll, Parts 1 and 2. The 1960 recording by Earl King, has Part 1 on the A side, Part 2 on B. Written by Shirley & Lee, their 1956 recording climbed to #20. Jimi Hendrix covered it, as did these others.

Next up was a walking ballad. Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?

RJ shared more stories: of Guitar Slim in Florida with a young musician he let run the session. Ray Charles was the man's name. Danny Barker, who played banjo and guitar in Harlem in the 20s and 30s, joined Cab Calloway's band, then went back to New Orleans, where he helped rebirth the New Orleans brass band tradition.

For those of you who need to know where the music is playing when it's out of town, Offbeat Magazine has New Orleans on the Road. April 2018 issue cover feature is the French Quarter Fest Issue.

To close the set RJ, Tbone, Jeff and Matt treated us - and we joined in - with Eh, La Bas, traditional New Orleans song. You can play here with the Creole, French, English lyrics.

Standing room only!

This program is funded in part by Michigan Humanities Council, an affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Life Goes On Minus One

Last post my father died and my brother and I were working on how we continue in an altered reality. My brother has moments of auxiliary reality that freak me. I think Dad is communicating with him, or more accurately, Scott is communicating with his father. He is one moment an afterlife zen master and another the human he is now - enmeshed in Alzheimer's disease. I am consumed with paperwork in my own alternate reality that equates the new terror in the mailbox with scenes from The Raw Shark Texts. We live in a scifi novel that hasn't been written yet. And bloody hell, I'm not writing it.

Meanwhile. I illustrated a remarkable book last year. The author, who is a coach specializing in improving relationships and organizational behavior wrote a book that is extraordinary advice for executives and children.

Look at relationships in nature and understand who you are.

Love yourself and understand that's all you need to have a successful life.

The book is coming soon. The art preview is here.

Three Story Life: End Game

So it's come to this. Me, a fifth of Jack Honey and a black hole. I snagged the Jack because I parked in the liquor store parking lot to take my brother to the doctor to pee in a plastic cup because we need to know if he still has an infection, after dropping in the mailbox thank you notes to medical personnel who helped, books in the library pick-up bin I haven't read, after starting at the house wondering if I'd remember how to start a pushbutton car.

I didn't remember. Nor did I remember how to shut it off. Three times.

Still not sure if my brother knows our father is dead.

One piece of business done today: I called DTE to change the auto payment from my father's account to mine because I started opening his mail, which feels intrusive, but the letter was dated the day Dad went into the hospital. Halloween. My mother's birthday, begob. Of course, the letter required a 2 day turnaround in their favor. DTE transferred me to Revenue Compliance. I need to send DTE a death certificate. Who pranks someone by switching their auto billing to their own wallet?

I instigated a breakout from Providence Park Hospital for my father. More on this later, but I haven't been 13 years of my life in his care and for his care to have him die in a hospital. The Attending thwarted for ego. Somewhere in my writing future this is the evildoer.

At the end, my siblings stepped up with love. I hope everyone in the house had a moment in the 24 hours Dad was home in bed where he wanted to be.

I was stroking Dad's hands. Keeping him, in his anxiety, from tearing at his oxygen tubing. When holding his hands away wasn't enough I lay on him, my face in his neck. He calmed. Minutes passed. I'm a pain in the ass he said. Well then, I learned from the best I said.

Scott had no moment. He was in the next room, witnessing the mayhem attached to a death: Dad yelling pee and drink, and when he figured we weren't fast enough, using his strobe flashlight to get attention.

I can't escape wondering what I could have done to make this easier on my brother. He lost his grandmother in 1987. She was his best buddy, finest champion, Yahtzee partner. My mother insisted on her being at their house. Did they handle his grief well?  It took our cousin from England to open my eyes in inquiring whether we'd dealt with Scott's loss. Scott then watched his mother at home in hospice care; objected to the police in his mother's bedroom when she died. And now this. The three most important people in his life died in his presence.

When everyone had left the house, Scott and I had dinner. I didn't know what to say to him, what he'd take in, what what. Then I held his face in my hands and I said, "We lost our Dad today. I am sorry for both of us. I want you to know you are loved, we are loved, and you are not alone. Do you understand? We will be okay."

And he said. Okay.

Tonight there's just me and Jack Honey and a black hole.

In the morning there's our life as it is now. Me looking at him for guidance, him looking at me.

Keep Me Posted

I don't have any art for this, so a 1000 pieces are enough. I've been a live-in caregiver for 13 years.  I've written a blog about Three Story Life for most of that time. The art's cute. Real ain't cute.

Dark Humor.

Tonight my father is in the hospital, next stay in a month, with a partially collapsed lung. He's 90. We're in for the hospital stays until he passes because he has lovely insurance.

My brother who has Alzheimer's has Medicare, and his infection was treated today as well. I set him in the shower tonight and he came back out, said "there's somebody in there." That's a long sentence for him, and I wonder what he saw. And then wondered if I needed to call 911 for me.

My father calls with what I need to bring to the hospital. One of those things is hearing aid batteries, so I can ask when the list starts "did you call FedEx?" because 1) he never listens to me and 2) he has no working hearing aid batteries. These calls can begin as early as 7 because he hasn't slept so everyone else in the known universe is awake.

I'm happy to be joined in this we all die thing by wonderful people like Caitlin Doughty. 

And in the truly fine way to move with much loved Leonard Cohen.

And in the blooming interim there's the true weird and wonderful. This is the intersectionality I live in. Between life and death there's old age, infirmity and diminishing capability for us all.

The Three Story Life posts are going to be a play. I'm using NaNoWriMo to be well on my way, and I hope to be at Ragdale to finish. Or perhaps it won't be finished.

Keep me posted is what my family texts/says. Maybe they all need hearing aid batteries. Maybe I don't know how to ask for help.