Stuff & A Bumpy Ride

I woke up this morning to read as I usually do. I finished a grand book, Aloft by Chang-Rae Lee and started a new book, Poemcrazy, which is supposedly going to teach me how to release myself into words. The title caught my eye, as I am thingcrazy @comcast.net. I have always wished that I were a writer of books and poetry, along with the creating I do on my vintage-selling web sites and the jewelry and paintings I have done in the past, and hope to do again. Thoughts are rattling around in my head, brought on by my reading and by my getting rid of stuff. I am going through our rented town house and finding new homes for tons of cool STUFF I have collected....way too much cool stuff. Way way too much. Looks like we are in for a bumpy ride the TV says in the background as I listen to the BBC news. That is what it has been, my life, a very bumpy ride. I always knew I was uncontrolled energy, even as a child, and that I would never let anyone hold me back, once I was free of my not-so-fun childhood. I had children feeling that even slightly crazy artists should procreate or the world would be full of just boring behaving people. I justified having my two boys and one girl. I did put them all through some hell. Still they turned out to be delightfully unique, intelligent and very creative individuals. I taught them, "you aren't bored, you are boring" and that there was far too much in the world to do and learn about to ever feel bored. I taught them responsibility for making magic, and that there were no barriers but those they created with their minds. I told them I would rather that they were picked on than that they ever picked on anyone else. Our homes were filled with art materials, art, modern vintage and antiques, music, books, free thinking, and open communication, and lots of laughs as there is no shortage of wit in this family. We had birds, rats, cats and a turtle. There was a swing in our vaulted living room, a pure 50s living room in another apartment with flowers and morning glories profuse on two down town porches, a sandbox and huge low work table with floor cushions in the common room. The kids created dioramas and troll houses in every nook and cranny.

There are times I am not proud of. Sometimes I drank a bit too much and listened to loud music on the head phones...was a misbehaving artist, not being a proper mom, but for the most part it was a rich experience for us all and certainly never boring. I went off the deep end and broke down when I left the last of my three main men, the father of my two youngest, Ari and Ant. I didn't know how to be just me, without a battery pack man to justify my existence, after all I had been unsuccessfully sex typed by my parents...and though freedom reigned in me, and although I seemed to be a major bread winner and inspiration for all of my man-based relationships, I had been well taught that I had no right to just be me, unless there was a man in the picture, no matter how lost those men may have been. If I had a man, I was validated. Without one I was not, and that is the great inner war I had to fight. It took so many years and brought on that superbly bumpy road, that fabric of life full of knots and snags. I tried to do too much, creating a huge gold jewelry collection for a gallery on the cape while raising two babies and a teenager. I felt I was invincible and could do it all by myself. My breakdown, the facts of which are too grizzly to mention here, could have killed me and my two youngest, left me utterly alone. I lost custody of them to their father and his insecure impossible wife. Gannon, my oldest, was off on his own then, but he was around to watch it all, and to fear for us. We see now that it was all necessary, and that without losing my children I would have not been stripped bare enough to find just little old me, deep inside. My daughter and I talk about this time of separation every time we are together, which is not often enough. I did have them absolutely every weekend, birthdays and holidays but I had to go to court to get even that. It was a really bad time for all three of us. We hated it. It took me five plus very long years with the help of child and adult therapists, lots of support from my lawyer and the court system mediators but I did get them back when Ant was in the 5th grade and Ari was in 7th grade. Though we still had our problems it was the warmest and most wonderful time of times continuing on together.

So back to the stuff! Some of the art has gone to Ari and Shira in Ithaca. I am trying to thin things out so that I can find myself a little spot in Ithaca near to them, while they have children and continue in their hippie life style. Ha! To think it has all come full circle, and that they are now becoming what I was way back then in the 60s and 70s. I lived on a commune, and now they are developing an intentional community. They don't flush pee down the toilet to save water. I do remember that so well. I never fit in on the commune though, as I liked baths and running water and making/selling art and not so much growing/smoking pot. The hippies picked on me, as did my then husband and I lasted only three months, before I was up and running free with other artists. Now I am very excited about moving to Ithaca, although Ari says that they will have to leave at Christmas to visit their Dad and step mom here, and won't that suck. No matter, I will be just peachy fine. Stuff....organizing it for my move....I have all the art materials expanding in one drawer about to need more room, all the photos in another drawer, the sewing stuff in various cozy places all over the place along with my vintage inventory yet to be photographed and listed, listed and waiting to be sold, and waiting to be restored. The more stuff I release from my ownership the more free I become. It should be a fun move..Yikes! It all brings to mind how much I still want to do with the writing, creating and living and how terribly short and sweet life is.