Born to Create

When I was in the second grade my teacher asked if anyone would like to volunteer to make the set for our school play 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears'. I raised my hand. She supplied huge sheets of cardboard and poster paint. She and I worked side by side. When I saw the large cut out figures on the stage I was transformed. I knew I was an artist in my world.

This graphic done using Sumo
This memoir started with the June 8 post

Angel Baby

While I was growing up my mother was always happy to tell me the story about how I was her special one. That I was 'born blue' and that she almost lost me. She called me Angel. She said that she carried me on her hip for the first 18 months and that I slept on her chest at night because I was so cold.


This graphic done with Sumo
This memoir starts with the June 8 post.

Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying

"Ruins are not empty they are sacred places full of presence"

The winding stair opens out into the sprawling attic. A large soiled, bare mattress is in the middle of the floor. Over there, facing out to the park where my friends were supposedly playing a ball game, are three small multipaned windows. They are small and inviting windows just like the ones I dream of being able to lie in my bed and look of. Just like the ones on my sister's side of our atttic bedrom. I focus on the blue sky.

I slip out of my ruined body and float through the glass with effortless ease. I float out into the trees and the brilliant blue sky beyond the soft call of the Mourning Dove.

This graphic created using Sumo.
This memoir began with the June 8 post.

Helter Skelter

Click on image to enlarge

This memoir begins with the June 8 post.

I'm no longer clear on time. Out of body. It's Sunday. I have my mother's car. I have not yet been to the doctor for my first check-up so it hasn't been six weeks since I gave birth and turned my baby over to Catholic Charities. It's sunny. They've opened the door at the end of the hall. Stairs littered with dust balls and debris curve up into the attic. I never thought about this house having an attic.

When I was ten the seven members of our family moved from a tiny duplex in the inner city to a tiny house in the suburbs. My sister and I were given the third floor to share. The ceilings sloped steeply. Only the middle of the small space was high enough to walk in but I could still stand on my tip toes and touch the roof. My twin bed was lodged under the lowest edge of the slope. The pillow end touched one wall and the roof was within inches of my forehead. The foot of the bed covered most of my closet entrance. My sister's side of the room had three little square windows all in a row. They faced the street. The bottom sills rested on the floor. The top edges touched the front slope of the roof. They were maybe 14 inches high. She could lie in her bed and look out. I envied her the view.

All three of them are wearing dark thick leather head to toe. Two of them have taken their positions in the stairwell. The biggest, tallest, heaviest one begins to idly toss a quarter into the air inviting the other two to make their calls. The one with multiple chains hanging from the applets on his jacket plunges his grimy hand into the oily brown paper lunch bag extracting handfuls of red capsules. He gulps them down, sneers and hisses his call to the coin.

This quick graphic drawn using Sumo

There's Something Happening Here...

He pulls the large black dog, mouth frothing, hoarse from barking, into a the room beside the bathroom. He slams the door shut and jiggles the knob. The sudden quiet is deafening.

I'd only been upstairs on a few occasions, during prior visits, dashing up to use the only bathroom in the large sprawling house.

This artist house has always been a place of laughter and joy. During other visits I remember smiling as I listen to the banter while I skip every other step wanting to get up and back quickly so as not to miss anything going on in the rich mix of creativity and play.

Always music, always food being prepared, the aromas of bread baking and soup simmering, the fabulous familiar sounds of Buffalo Springfield or the Yardbirds accompany me up and back.

The steps are steep and high to accommodate the first floor's old pressed tin ceilings.

I have never had any need to pay attention to what else is on this second floor though I've noticed the four or five doors leading into bedrooms. Some are opened. Some are closed.

Now as I am commanded up the steps, now as I reach the top of the dim interior landing, I realize that I never noticed the door to the right of the stairway.



There.


Down at the end of the hall.

In the shadowy space I can now see that there are three of them. Circling. Guns, chains, leather. A grimy oily brown paper lunch bag that looks as though it has been opened and closed and stuffed in the leather jacket pocket hundreds of times is in the hand of the one smiling through a gap in his discolored front teeth.

No one is saying anything. They smirk.


I begin to leave my body.

This drawing of the door done using Sumo

Sunday Afternoon

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It was a day like any other. Only days were no longer like that.

This quick graphic done using Sumo.

My Greatest Life Art Lesson

click on image to read the very first words I hear.

I turn; nervous for the silence. My right hand reaches for the door. Simultaneous comes the command.

Curdle blood snarling erupts from the landing at the top of the high stair that leads directly up from the back door. A massive hand grips the huge black German Shepard's collar. The other holds a gun. Pointed. Lunging attack beast's front legs flail the air, massive white teeth flashing, spittle sparkling as it flies in all directions, from the dimmly lit stair.


He bellows with a violence that mirrors the crushing volume of the barking: "This dog is trained to attack women!! Don't move!!"

Freeze frame.

A long drawn out slow motion.

this graphic done using Sumo . Rendered quickly, no need to linger.

There will be another dream for me

Click on image to enlarge


Is there ever any particular spot where one can put one's finger and say, "It all began that day, at such a time and such a place, with such an incident? Agatha Christie

Opening the door I knew in my gut that something was amiss. However on this day as most others since my recent ordeal I was not a resident of my body. It had been through quite enough. I'm 18. I'm looking for a holiday. I've come here to visit my group of friends. I don't want to think about all that my body and heart have just been through.

The house is silent. Eerily quiet.

I look to the left. The dining room is empty. The table is scattered with fabrics lying in wait about the sewing machine. The four Bose speakers stand tall in their respective corners. Mute.

I look to the right there is no one at the large welcoming kitchen table, its benches akimbo as though someone recently pushed heels against the floor, turning to leave.

Which is what I do.


This quick retrospective sketch done in Sumo...