The Summer I Turned Shitty

A Forced Full Stop, New Blood, and Love Eternal

There are two ways I could write this. The nonfiction, an unfiltered version with lots of pauses and stops to fill in gaps with explanations and back tracking. Maybe some foreshadowing. Or as fiction. A more tidy version void of explanation, no pauses to fill the reader in on small acts, updates and moments. Just let them all fall into place through character. The thing is, neither version will sound true. And as an artist, I guess I am mostly interested in truth. That’s a common gauge for us, not that the finished piece isn’t a lie, there are so many tricks and heists, and cheat codes in the artistic process, but that what remains once finished, honestly represents the process. The intent. That’s where truth-telling becomes essential.

So maybe I’ll do both.

If I am being honest, I probably started to feel tired in June. My summers require commuting to the East Bay three times a week to take my kiddo to work. Up before six, ninety minutes each way, working out of a nearby park in between, home by one. The driving is no more than some do every single day, but it is nearly impossible to keep a normal self-employed work schedule around 3 hours of drive time a day, and when I have tried to cut things as close as possible, everything has blown apart. There are a lot of parents who wouldn’t do this for their kids and they are probably right. It’s stupid and a little bit insane, but I have a long history of doing stupid and insane things for my kid. And with a 15 year old, that time in the car, two of us sharing a space we cannot escape from, is REAL.

Teenagers actually need more of this time not less. We set them free yes, but we also need to be around. Just around. And as a parent this puttering around can feel suffocating at times. Hanging out, being present even if they are choosing to be in their room with the door closed, amp blaring. It’s a thing to be there in the kitchen when they emerge to grab a snack. It is a different kind of parenting and one that is equally taxing for me, at least, to the constant jumble of infancy. When new parents have that hopeful look that things get easier, those of us on the other side know it doesn’t. Different yes, but never easier.

Perhaps I was distracted by the Knicks making it to the Finals, making the drive with my kid, being present, working, family stuff, advertising what was planned to be a course beginning in July, but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Every single day. Until I couldn’t.

As things usually go in my life, I was slowed down not only by my own body but by an external force that swept in to stop me in my tracks, because, well, I usually don’t do it myself. To add to all the work around my work I was already doing, PG&E let us know that for a few days in late June and for a handful of days throughout July our power would be interrupted. As much as an inconvenience as it might have been, I did need an external force putting on the brakes, The project was replacing our power poles, which, I was told, is what is known as “a 50 year project.” The idea of that fascinated me. That in another 50 years they will do the same. That we were here on this little hill to witness this half century process. Like a new upgraded artery. Something about that is so genuinely timely. So I got in touch with my clients, let them know as well as I could about the days we would be without power, moved meetings around, cancelled the course I was so looking forward to teaching. Resistance didn’t make much sense. I surrendered to it. And it was fine.

I had known my iron stores were low the first week of June. In fact I was scheduled to get a small iron infusion at my doctor’s office early July, scheduled of course around my drive, the power being off, and my work schedule. Should I have done it sooner? Yes. The answer is yes. Because one day I just started bleeding. A lot. Things like this happen in perimenopause, because really no one knows anything about perimenopause. There is no clear predictor for when someone will go into menopause, when someone is in perimenopause, it’s all a crapshoot, even with the best medical care. So when I started bleeding the assumption was it would stop. But it didn’t, and I nearly lost all the blood in my body over a period of 12 hours.

There’s a middle part here that is very medical and not nearly as interesting as the metaphysical, the spirit part, the lifetime part. So I’ll share this: I am fine now. A conclusion was reached, I had surgery, and 4 plus iron infusions later my body is in the slow and exhausting process of building new blood. And that is pretty cool. I get to have all new blood. And not someone else’s donated or borrowed, but mine. Built red blood cell by red blood cell. And it certainly feels like I could use some new blood. The opportunity to have new blood at 50 is weird, and delightful. I actually get to do that, and while the past two months have been scary and hard and exhausting, I kind of love that I get this current version of myself. All at once. There is more to come on this later.

Here’s what I really wanted to get to. The most important part of this summer.

Three years ago when my friend Tree died, my mom bought me a potted olive tree to place on the balcony outside my bedroom in honor of Tree. “An olive tree would grow,” she said. It was right next to an already beautiful and thriving olive tree planted in the ground whose branches brushed against my bedroom windows in the wind. It was always filled with chubby little birds singing at the first hint of sun. It was a good place for an olive tree. So I added a photo of Tree to the dirt, planted it in the pot, and assumed it would thrive.

But Tree hated the olive tree. It died in a few weeks under perfect conditions. My mom and I laughed, cut down the branches, put it in the compost, and headed out to Home Depot to find something else, perhaps a cactus. I assumed Tree would let me know somehow. After exhausting the cacti and succulent section, I came upon a tall, somewhat lanky, very understated cactus hiding among the oversized potted ferns. Discarded perhaps by someone who had changed their mind. It was unmarked for variety and care and it reminded me in many ways of the sparse Christmas tree that Charlie Brown gently surrounds with his friend Linus’s blanket.

I love buying cacti at Home Depot. It is always a mystery. They are rarely marked correctly and unless you really know cacti it is hard to tell what variety you are bringing home. We settled on what I thought was the fencepost cactus, it just seemed right for the tall and narrow terracotta pot. And finding it misplaced among the wild greenery just seemed right. Not fitting in was kind of Tree’s thing, even if he fought his differences with al his might.

My mom and I laughed at how phallic it was and how stupid men can be even in death, that if this thrived, of course Tree would want a huge phallic plant to represent him on my balcony. Even despite his sensitivity and curiosity, his loveliness and gentleness, he was still a man thinking about winning. It continues to make me laugh. Even more so that over the next three years this cactus thrived. It went all out in full competition with the other tall cacti on my balcony, inching taller and taller until it of course became the tallest one. Laying in bed I can just see the tip of it from my bedroom window. It brings me great amusement every morning. Cacti are silly.

As I spent the very last days of June and all of July in bed resting, making blood, being tired, and doing only what was necessary, the cactus, Tree’s cactus was sprouting buds. It seemed as though each day spent in bed the plant was working too, creating something new. It wasn’t until mid July that I noticed below where I could see from my window were suddenly four large buds. Buds that bloomed into buttery yellow blossoms the day before my surgery, the day of my surgery, and the day after. And that was it.

I think it is easy to say that this is just nature and timing and it was all a coincidence. Part of me prefers that. But my life is so much more than that these days, and the beauty of it all is hard sometimes. The immense love of that seems unreal. But when the moments come together, when I open to accepting that love is eternal, that pieces can line up in perfect order. These were my flowers. Blooming just once. Perfectly timed. A delightful and fleeting surprise. A reminder that everything really, is delightful and fleeting. Even 50 year power poles, blood, teenagers, friendship, love. All of it.

A client asked me a few weeks ago what my creative practice was looking like these days. I thought for a moment about being stuck by force and how for some of us who just keep going, being stuck needs to be forced upon us. And so I can say I’ve been stuck this summer. Not all of me, my body is doing amazing things and gifting me with a newness that I feel very spiritual about in some ways. But my creativity had to stop, get stuck, slow down. Perhaps it was PG&E or losing nearly all my blood, but the two seem strangely related. What is it about a 50 year project of renewing what gives us power? I guess I needed to be stuck in that metaphor twice. A lesson I had to learn in this lifetime. But this being stuck has also prompted new and exciting questions. Right now, I am going to take a little bit more time to rest and create. Probably in the most profound way I have ever really done. Making blood, creating new power and connections in my body. And somewhere on this little hill, fifty years from now, someone will do this all over again. Dig up what’s tired, run something new through the ground, and never think twice about it. I like being part of that kind of timeline. One where renewal escapes death.

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Here’s the fiction. I like this one better.

Daisy had been in bed for exactly one month. Her body still. A weakness that was felt deeply and heavy. She watched the mountain tops from her bedroom windows. Tucked tight under sheets and blankets. Tall cypress pines and redwood canopies swirling in the wind. Infinite greens with shadows of deep blues and shimmering silver. A reminder that nothing is just one thing. Green is many.

As her focus was inward and intentioned, a message was underway on the other side of the bedroom wall. Leo’s plant was busy, growing potted beside her, unnoticed and unseen. It had been quiet except for upward growth since she planted it three years ago on the bedroom balcony, tucking a photo of him in with the dirt. She wondered all at once if the paper photo would kill the plant or somehow make it stronger. The answer would be an experiment over time. It was still unclear. But the cactus grew tall nonetheless and in three years had surpassed all the other cacti on the balcony. As if to say, I win.

There had been little recent communication between Leo and Daisy. She hated that, and while the initial days of his death were difficult in ways she was still trying to understand, she missed that closeness, even if it almost broke her. She looked for him in butterflies mostly and had noticed that she had seen a monarch or a swallowtail every single day since May. Whether it was from the bedroom windows, the car, or on a short walk to the mailbox. The color delighted her and the impossible beauty of them reminded her of Leo and that he had existed, even if at times it felt like 10 years ago instead of 3.

When she noted the blooms on the cactus the day before her surgery, the presence of them was almost too much. She knew it was Leo. Whispering through the wall, “Flower Girl, I’m still here. I wouldn’t forget.” Making himself known. The energy in that. The eternity in that. It was more than her body could understand. But it was Leo, reaching from the other side in a way he knew would blow her mind. A plant that was quiet for three years would suddenly bloom bright yellow because he too would bring her flowers. And be there. And say hello.

She wondered if she would dream of him during anesthesia. But it wasn’t like that. Sadly, she just fell asleep hard and woke up laughing to a nurse saying, “you’re a fun drunk.” But she knew he remained in everything she did, even tucked away at times. Far away. He was still there. Next to her. Blooming and changing and full of the most wondrous surprises.

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I continue to work on my novel. It is slow, as everything is slow right now, but it is also good. I’m continuing to see Mentorship clients and grow my practice, it is my most favorite work. I have just three new spots opening this fall. If one of them is yours, let me know.

l’ll be announcing a new project in September’s newsletter. Like I mentioned above, I’ve been asking some interesting questions lately, ones that I have not been ready to ask. Ones that are birthing a new practice and an entirely new way of thinking. I hope you’ll join me.

xxx

Lisa