Laden

Loquat by Patty Browning

It is a lovely gray morning. Cool air coming through the screen door and the birds are chirping away. My loquat tree is heavily laden with green fruit that will soon ripen into tart little golden orbs, a metaphor for my life right now. The heavy burden on my branches is soon to be a bountiful harvest, but the rain must come to wash away the detritus and nourish the fruit.

Today I mainline British mysteries on Roku as I try to organize a life that feels like it is splitting at the seams. My monkey mind swings from the vine of one thought to the vine of the next and I am all over the place, but never actually arriving at my destination. Lists are made when I think of what I think I need to do, then I start another list and then  another, but very few things are being crossed off, and my lists continue to grow. I am scattered about like my thoughts. Raking up my to do lists in vain while they swirl around me like windblown piles of leaves.

In spite of all of the clutter in my mind and in my house, I see an end to the disarray. A gift bequeathed, but not deserved, is on the horizon. The relief the gift brings is tempered by the guilt that a survivor feels when they would decline rather than pay the price of an incomplete life.

I wish it would rain.

I Wish... by Finijo

I was 21 when I moved into my first apartment and attending college. My next door neighbor was a middle aged woman from West Virginia named Patty, and she looked after me like I was her own daughter. Patty and I would stay up late and watch Arsenio Hall or sit out on the balcony in our nightgowns and drink tea and eat the homemade chocolate chip cookies she made. Most days, Patty babysat her 8 year old grandson, Dave, and I began tutoring him when I found out that he could not read and did not even know the alphabet. When we started, he would fight me and say, "This is boring. You can't make me do this." I responded by making him run the stairs while his grandmother and I counted the laps he did. When I say I made him run the stairs, the truth is that Patty threatened to tell his grandfather when he got home if he didn't obey. Dave begrudgingly did what he was told. Pretty soon he knew the alphabet and after that he didn't have to run the stairs very often. A couple of years later, the family moved back to West Virginia and I have only seen Patty a few times over the last 20 or so years, but we talk on the phone and exchange letters and it always feels like we are back up on the balcony with our tea and no time has passed at all. I talked to Patty this past Christmas and Dave happened to be there, so we talked for the first time since he left Texas. He reminded me of all of the stairs I made him run and how he appreciated that I made him learn to read. It was strange to have this grown man telling me that I changed his life when he was a kid, but we talked about old times and had a good laugh.

Tonight I got a call from a mutual friend and my first instinct when I realized who was calling, was that Patty was either ill or she had died. I was wrong. Dave died of an overdose today. Two David's have passed out of my life in as many months leaving me feeling tired and sad.

Today I laughed at one of my clients until I cried. It was uncontrollable laughter, the kind of laughter that causes you to stop breathing and your face to turn colors. 

It all started when he told me that his girlfriend's cat got out yesterday and hasn't come back and he is very upset about it. I asked how his girlfriend is taking it and he said, "She's alright. It's not exactly my fault that it happened... well it is, but it isn't." I asked him to explain and this is what he says:

Well, my dog got sick. He got diarrhea and I didn't realize it until I pulled the covers over my head while I was sleeping. (I am trying to stifle the laughter at this point, because I know this is going to be an awful/terrible/wonderfully funny story) You see, I pulled the covers over my head while I was sleeping and didn't know that my dog was sick and had defacated on the sheets. (By now I am laughing in his face, but he just kept telling me the story). I ended up with feces in my hair, my ears, my nose and my mouth. (My tears are starting and I am waving at him trying to get him to stop talking, but he just keeps going) That's when I started to vomit. I couldn't stop throwing up. It was a helluva mess. I had to shower twice just to get it all off me. (I think I had a small stroke after he said that). So after I was clean, I had to clean it all up. Did I tell you that my apartment is kind of a dump? Well it is, and the smell of feces and vomit was everywhere, so I opened the window to air the place out. Because my place is a dump, the screen was loose and the cat must have pushed it open and got out through the window.  

When I finally got myself together, I apologized repeatedly. It really isn't professional to laugh at the patients. He accepted my apology and said, "It's OK, my girlfriend keeps laughing at me, too." 

True story.

Buddha Eyes by Finijo

Existential thought of the day: We all need someone to witness our existence. 

It is not enough to be alive, although that is something quite extraordinary. We need to be known, to have people or at least one person know who we are, to verify that we do in fact exist. 

I remember watching a movie when I was a kid that reinforced this idea for me, even though I was so young, I couldn't possibly have understood why they impacted me so profoundly. The film, Cipher in the Snow, was an after school movie and depicted a boy going through his school day without anyone speaking to him. He rides the school bus home and is noticed by nobody and as he steps off the bus, he takes a few steps and then falls into the snow and dies. The rest of the film is spent with a teacher who is supposed to be the boy's favorite teacher (even though he never really noticed the boy in his class) tries to understand who the boy was by talking to his classmates, and he comes to realize that the boy's parents divorced and he has no friends. The teacher concludes that nobody really knew the boy and that he was a "cipher in the snow" and died because nobody loved him. He died without a witness. 

I've been working on my family genealogy for about ten years off and on now. I wonder sometimes why this quest is important to me. It's not like having the information will make a difference in my life. I will live and die regardless of whether I find more information about all of those who came before me. It occurred to me tonight that for me, genealogy is a way to bear witness for ancestors and relatives who lived and died before I was ever conceived. My grandmother gave me the family tree to work on when I was 14 and I don't think I looked at it as more than a curiosity until she died in 2003. When she died, it was like the quest to know her relatives and family burned through me. With each new discovery, I felt like I was a little closer to her and understood her life just a little bit better.  My brother David told me that searching for information about ancestors was 'living in the past." He never really understood. Today Marilyn took a call from the coroner who did David's autopsy. Preliminary results are in and it turns out that David had been diagnosed with diabetes in 2007 and never treated it. He also had "multiple heart attacks." I thought he might have had heart trouble five or six years ago, but when I asked him about the heart tests that I saw paperwork for on the dining room table, he lied to me and said "It was just a check up." He was in denial about so many things and I loved my brother, but he could lie as easily as tell you the truth and even though you knew he could do it, he almost always fooled you. Part of me wants to muster up a little bit of anger about his deception, but I think I am just too sad about the fact that he felt like he had to deceive everyone. 

Haunted

Hibiscus Black and White by Finijo

I chanted this morning at the kaikan and got to have tea with a good friend and I feel great. Having some time alone with my friend after what feels like forever was really nice. It gave me the chance to talk about David and realize that I am doing much better. Talking about him feels like keeping part of him alive and with me. He was a workaholic and could not sit still for anything. He yelled at his workers constantly to "Get back to work!" His son, Robert and I worked on how his headstone would read and agreed on:

David West

November 25,1953 - December 31, 2012

Loving father, brother, and friend. 

I"m only laying here because I have to.

Get back to work!

He would appreciate that his wicked sense of humor could make people laugh who come to visit him and who come to visit others. Now I am off to celebrate Marilyn's birthday with some Vietnamese food and have a good time in the realm of the living with my family. I was excited to get the following tweet:

Chuck Palahniuk retweeted   Cecil Angeline Turla @TurlaCecil @_FullyBooked @chuckpalahniuk Awesome news is awesome! Stoked! #Haunted t.co/qOp9yHUW 10:39 AM - 02 Feb 13  Reply  Retweet  Favorite

Just Ink 2

Mandalascape by Finijo

Last night I had a great time at the Just Ink 2 show. I didn't sell a thing, but the atmosphere was buzzing, and the art was inspiring. So much creativity in one room, and at the risk of sounding like a New Age dork, so much positive energy from all of the artists and the people who were there to see and buy art. I had a very late dinner with my East End Studio Gallery peeps and enjoyed laughter and good company and conversation.

This morning, I went outside to feed the birds a bag of outdated corn tortillas and the weather was so perfect that I took a barefoot stroll through my yard to see what survived the winter. My fig tree is still chugging along as is my pomelo tree and I expect to have them fruiting nicely in about 2-4 years. On the other side of the yard my orange tree has rallied and my lime tree is going strong, but I think my lemon tree has given up. I will have to replace it this spring. While checking my lemon tree, I noticed a fresh harvest of pecans had blown into my yard from my neighbors huge pecan tree, so I filled the bag that held the tortillas in and came back in with about 5 lbs. of wonderful, fresh and free pecans. 

 Today I will create.  

Shame on Applebee's

While I no longer wait tables, I support that hard working and underpaid part of the American workforce. Unless you have done that work, you cannot imagine how much of a toll it can take on your body and your spirit. 

I just posted the following on my Facebook and I am hoping that it will strike a chord with others who will also express their displeasure with Applebee's.

I waited tables while I was in college and the thought of Applebee's firing the waitress really ticked me off. It's hard work for less than minimum wage and I support the waitress' right to express herself. She didn't post name of the pastor, but she did post the pastor's shameful behavior. This is the e-mail that I sent to Applebee's informing them that I will not support a company that does not support its employees.

I am writing to tell Applebee's of my disgust with your company's decision to dismiss the server for posting the receipt of the pastor who refused to tip and used religious tithing as the excuse. Shame on the pastor and shame on your company for allowing that dismissal. There are hundreds of thousands of servers and former servers who know what it means to work for less than minimum wage and rely on their tips to survive, and I am among them. The work is hard and at times hazardous, and although we expect to be stiffed from time to time because people are cheap or even dissatisfied with service, being insulted and having the cheapskate customer hide behind religion as the reason is despicable. Firing the server for posting the receipt on line without posting any identifying information about the customer is beneath contempt and cowardly of the manager. I expect a company to stand up for its hard working employees, and knowing that Applebee's does not feel the need to support their servers will keep me from eating at your restaurant in the future. Shame on Applebee's for not speaking out on behalf of the server and her first amendment rights. There are a lot of chain restaurants (TGI Friday's, Black Eyed Pea, Ruby Tuesday's, etc...) that serve similar food at similar prices that can benefit from my business.

I will be posting this letter on Facebook in the hope that there are others who will support the server your company betrayed.

Sincerely,

Karen West

Applebee’s fires waitress who posted receipt from pastor complaining about auto-tip

news.yahoo.com

An Applebee's waitress who posted a receipt with a note from a pastor complaining about the 

Responsibility

Murky by Finijo

I got up this morning before Connor and sad, but true, I will let him sleep until he wakes up on his own (about 2:00 PM, if I am lucky), just so I can have the house to myself. Marilyn is in Conroe, so it feels like it's just me as I sit here typing away and listening to the churning of the clothes in the dryer. I feel like I am returning slowly to center. David's death is a fact that sinks in more and more each day, so now the only thing that throws my equilibrium off are the calls from my nephew in Little Rock as he has minor melt downs about his brother's rants from prison. Both of them are very easily worked up as they push each other's buttons incessantly. They tend to go from baseline to critical at the smallest hint of a slight from one to the other and the only thing that matters to them in the midst of this is to be right while the other is wrong. I don't operate that way. My critical state is when I weep (sometimes wail) alone in my car. I have difficulty with the Jerry Springer-esque lobbing of threats and the futility of pissing contests to try to "win" an argument. I know part of my job over the next two years is to try to help these two brothers to either find a way to love each like brothers should, or to teach them to co-exist peacefully so that they can run the business. Neither of them has come to terms with the fact that because their father died without a will, they are equal partners in the success or the failure of the business he left to them. One of them is stepping up to be responsible and the other is stunted by his incarceration and seems to think he won the lottery, rather than inheriting a business with all of the responsibilities that it entails. The beautiful house they now own together can either be a place of peaceful cohabitation or it can be their own personal hell. I have to remind myself that if I don't succeed, it will not truly be a failure, since I have no control at all over how they behave. I can only lead by example if they are paying attention and if they want to be lead and if they don't and they squander the gift their father left them, then ultimately, that is their path. Not being disappointed in them or myself will be more than difficult, so I will try to focus on the positives as I reconnect with them both.

As I write about their drama, it is dawning on me that I am pretty stressed out about the situation. I have been having vivid strange dreams and they are all about me being responsible for some situation or some big project and not staying on top of the details. On the plus side, I am also dreaming about art and getting some ideas for pieces I would like to attempt. I think venting via blog will help me to process all of the things I am struggling with at the moment, at least I hope so.

Borrowed Time

Prayer for the Living by Finijo

Perhaps it is the combination of the New Year passing and David's death, but I am thinking more and more that I am on borrowed time. Grandma's life tells me that there is no way of knowing when your life will ebb away, but the Magic 8 Ball in my head keeps coming up "outlook not so good," when I think about the time I have left in this life to accomplish the things I want to do.  It's not exactly depressing, but I am re-evaluating what is important to me right now, and that isn't always as easy as it sounds.  

David Carroll West

I wrote to a friend that it is strange to think that I am in this world without my older brother and sister. They were always constants in my life and now there is a void where there presence once was. Even knowing they were a state away, they were still tangible and I knew that if I had a bad day or just needed to hear their voices, I could call them. It was an eight hour drive, but I knew that there was a hug and a smile from them just eight hours a way. 

We always assumed that losing Linda would be the hardest thing in the world, but somehow this loss seems more difficult. She had been so ill and become so debilitated by cancer that there was a small comfort in knowing that her years of fighting were over. David's illness began a little over a year ago and we thought he would be around for at least a few more years. I told him once that I thought he must have cockroach DNA, because he seemed indestructible. I think because we were so emotionally close to Linda our entire lives, but David had been so distant to us through his drug years, that his death is hitting us so very hard. I only became close to David after Linda's death, like a second string player whose chosen to play after the star player is out of the game. Slowly we built a relationship after he got sober and we became closer still in the last few years. His illness changed our relationship drastically after we went to care for him last Christmas. I don't think that he really knew we loved him until he got sick, and that saddens me greatly.

There was an ice storm in Little Rock just before we arrived. We witnessed the devastation it caused as we drove up I-30 and saw so many trees cracked and broken by the weight of the ice. David owned David's Tree Service in Little Rock, and he loved a good ice storm. He was not ghoulish about the devastation, but he knew that his phone would be ringing off the hook during a season that was normally not a busy time for his business. An ice storm was the chance to help people and to keep his crew working and earning money to support their families, and if the damage was extensive, they would be working for many weeks throughout the winter months.

While in Little Rock making the arrangements for David's funeral, I carried his phone and fielded calls from customers and from friends. Each call was wrenching and fascinating. Every single call was a window into his life that had not previously been open and those glimpses into how he impacted so many people over so many years breaks my heart and gives me great joy. I was shocked at how many of his customers broke down and cried while telling me what a great man he was and how much he had helped them over the years. They all spoke of his sense of humor and what an excellent service he provided. Most of them had something to say about the way he drove his crew to work to his exact specifications. I took a call Saturday evening, after the funeral was over and we were settling into our grief. The call was from Herman the German who called to tell David he was driving a truck through a place that David always wanted to visit, but never got the chance. Immediately I said, "You are in the Redwood Forest," and he replied that he was. He was very sad at the news that David died the morning of New Year's Eve. He said in his German accent, "I want to tell my story of how I met David." He recounted to me that he had just arrived in America in 1993 and was hitch hiking, and David was the first person to pick him up. He said, "He gave me a ride and he gave me a job." He talked of working for David and learning the tree business, and how eventually he was able to start his own tree company. "I had that company for 5 years and it was very successful, but I didn't like it." He sold his business and went traveling to "Ireland, Canada, and Maui." He wound up back in Little Rock last year and called David and told him, "I am back and I am going to drive trucks, but my job does not start for three months, can I work for you?" and David hired him back and they spend a lot of time together during those three months. Herman said he would continue to talk to David, because he thinks that they can hear you, even after they are dead. I don't know that they can't, so I hope he does and that it comforts him as it will comfort me to know that he remains in the thoughts of so many people.

David was a warm and funny man much of the time, but I never envied anyone who worked for him, especially his sons. His perfectionism on the job and his inability to communicate a directive without bellowing drove his boys away from the business he built for them. They both grew up steeped in the tree business, but neither son could work for my brother, and I understand too well why. His death has left the business to them and to my happy surprise they want to honor their father by keeping the company alive. David had a partner in his business, Orin, who has been in the tree business at least as long as David was. They were friends in their youth and worked together off and on over the years. Both David and Orin had similar work ethics, but their leadership styles differed dramatically and I think that under his tutelage my nephews may flourish, and in time even grow the business. I know that David would be proud of them for trying. I am proud of them for not taking the easy route and trying to succeed in the business their father taught them.

New Year's Eve

We found out this morning that our brother, David, died. In spite of his recent health problems, this was a surprise. He was not always the soundest of mind, but he was the soundest of body in our sibling group. It is more than strange to think that there are now only two of us left, stranger still to wonder at how much time we do or do not have left, given our brother and sister passing before reaching the age of 60. 

As New Year's Eves go, this one is not one of my better, but it is certainly the one I will be likely to remember for the rest of my life. We travel by car tomorrow to Little Rock and will drive the gray distance with a heaviness in our hearts that holds all of the trips back for sickness and death that we have made over the years. It occurred to me tonight that we always looked forward to our trips to Little Rock throughout our childhood and even into our early 30's, but then things started to change. Our sister, Linda, got cancer and married a horrid man while in a diminished mental state. Linda died, then our grandmother died, but not before countless trips to visit her in a nursing home. After Grandma died, we actually began to enjoy visiting David, which was no small feat as he was a difficult man, to say the least. Our relationship with him, which was strained and even distant through most of our lives seemed to develop into something deeper and with more respect than it had before. Visiting him last Christmas when he was sick and needed help to care for himself was a tipping point. He had promised to visit us, but he became very ill and  While the trip was more than difficult for us, he finally realized that he had two sisters who truly loved him, even when he felt he was unlovable. He wanted very much to visit this year, but his health failed him again and he spend much time in and out of the VA hospital in Little Rock over the last few months. We really thought he would heal up again and we would go see him in March. His sudden death this morning put an end to that plan. 

I am glad we had the last year and that he finally knew he was loved and that he had family that would be there for him in any circumstance. I wish he had more than just one year of that knowledge. I wish also that he had found happiness in his life. 

Happy New Year, David. We love you and are proud of the man you were able to become, and we are going to miss you more than you ever imagined was possible.

Contemplation on the New Year

Sitting in my living room looking out at the cold mid-morning grayness of the day, I'm grateful to be inside, warm and cocooned in my world of cats, family, and art. I am trying to center myself as I prepare to start another new year. I think about what I would like to accomplish in the new year and find that I am painting next years envisioned canvas with a much broader stroke than I did when I was younger. Instead of wanting to lose a specified number of pounds, I just want to live healthier. I want to eat organic food more, grow more vegetables in my garden this summer, cook more at home and eat out less, and get more exercise. Riding the bike that has sat unused since last year, is something else I want to do. There is no amount of miles that I have in mind per week, but I know I want to explore the bayous around Houston and I want to photograph my journey.  I want to steadily chip away at the debt incurred during the last few years of recession, but I don't have an exact amount in mind. I think I have finally learned that the best of plans can be detoured and derailed by the circumstances that are out of our control, so I am planning more loosely the things that I want to make happen in my life. Preciseness seems futile to me at this point, so I aim for a general direction and enjoy that path I am on. I will try not to lament the path not taken and hope that at the end of the year (just like at the end of this year) that I have progressed in my life and in the person I want to be.

Everything in my world is perfect, even the things I am trying to change. 

Speed of Life

Patience by Finijo 2009

The older I get, the more I know this to be true, life (for me) is speeding up. I try to stop and smell the roses, but it is longer and longer between sniffs. I remember days when I was a kid that seemed like they went on forever. Summers were infinitely long, so long that we had time to get bored, which made us excited that school would be starting soon. Now I don't have time to be bored. I don't seem to have time between one Christmas, birthday, holiday, etc...to plan for the next. It has been years since I was excited about the holidays and felt like I truly enjoyed them. They just seem to be so much work for so little benefit, that I find myself exhausted and stressed out when they are over. This feeling is not just at home, but also at work. It feels lately that I don't have time between clients, projects, or audits at work to breathe, and I find myself inhaling deeply as I leave the office each day. Even the things I enjoy like reading and painting have become laborious. I don't seem to have time to read books anymore and since I have started working at my art in the last year, it has been fun, but also made me feel stressed by deadlines. Sometimes I wonder if it is worth it, and I am relieved to know that most of the time it is.

I would like to finish out this year with more of my home and work projects done or at least up to date, and start next year with more vigor than I feel like I have at the moment. I am taking October off from doing any art shows. I will attend, but don't want to feel stressed about being in the show. I want to reorganize my back room and turn it into a functional studio for me to paint in. I also want to clean out my closets and get rid of half of what is hanging in them. I want to break free of stuff and try to slow down. I think my goal over the next few weeks will be to slow down and hopefully slow down my speed of life and enjoy the events, people, and things that make me happy.

Why I Haven't Blogged At All This Year

I think I have had blogger's block for about two years, but I really haven't even tried to post anything in 2012. Facebook and art have taken over my life. This is both positive and negative, I suppose. I looked back over my most recent (yeah, I know there is nothing recent) posts and realized that I never even blogged my trip to France, and that was truly blog worthy. I spent 10 days in Lyon with a good friend and her two children July a year ago and even had my birthday in France, which was quite memorable for me. It was a beautiful city and a year later, I often wake up from dreams of returning.

Floral Sculpture by the Rhone River in Lyon 

I've had a couple of interesting trips for work since my last post, as well. I went to Boston in June of 2011 and LOVE that city. Everything about that city appealed to me and I liked the people I met, as well. Beautiful art and architecture and the city just felt very much "alive."

I <3 -="-" architectural="architectural" boston="boston" br="br" by="by" cathedral="cathedral" detail="detail" finijo="finijo" francis="francis" of="of" st.="st.">

I also went to Minneapolis in May of this year and it was quite an experience. It was a beautiful city, but I have never visited a city before and seen so much crime in one visit. I actually had to give a statement to police about a theft I witnessed while eating dinner at an outside table at a very nice restaurant. Warning: Do not leave your iPhone sitting on the table when you eat on a patio, a thug is likely to reach over the fence and steal it. In this case, it was two thugs who did their maneuver simultaneously.

Spoonbridge and Cherry by Finijo 

The last couple of year has also been a very creative one for me. I have begun to show my art and have participated in about 8 shows over the last year. I have several more coming over the next six months and I also opened an Etsy store (http://www.etsy.com/shop/Finijo )and I have sold a few pieces, as well. I am starting to do assemblage art, which feels like a good fit, so that is exciting for me. I never really had a desire to show my art publicly (real time, not on line) before now and I am surprised at how much I am enjoying it and how well it is being received. 

Ode to JZ (assemblage box) by Finijo

After this month, I hope to get myself organized and set my goals for 2013. So much to do, so little time. I want to be in at least one show at the Lawndale Art Center next year, I would like to curate a show, and I would like to be more productive with my free time, which means that I could spend my time blogging more of what I see and do. I really have missed my blogging time, because it's that pensive time when I get to process my thoughts and file away the experiences I've had and prepare for the new ones at hand. I'm crossing my fingers that I keep this promise to myself.

The Ringlebens

These are two of the people who are responsible for me being here, John and Rosie Ringleben. Rosie's full name is reported to be Katrina (or Kathrina) Rosina Magdalena Von Hohenstein. They immigrated from Germany in the 1840's and they are my great-great-great-grandparents on my maternal grandmother's side of the family.

My brother views genealogy as a pastime for people who are stuck in the past. I think that the more you know about your past, the better you will understand your present. It is just a tool to gain insight. The past fascinates me, but I don't choose to live there.

We believed that we could change ourselves
The past could be undone
But we carry on our backs the burden
Time always reveals
The lonely light of morning
The wound that would not heal

Sarah McLachlan

I like the analogy of our bodies as clothes we shed from one life to the next. I think we know more about our past "wardrobe" when we are children, but as we age/mature, we lose or suppress the memory. Sometimes it's difficult to articulate the feeling of it all for fear of sounding like a nut. I have been working on the family genealogy for many years (off and on), so I have been feeling very "connected" to the past while living in the present and raising the future (so to speak). I feel there is a life thread that connects all souls. I guess my analogy would be that souls are energy (like electricity), and they run like current through a universal grid. Instead of being strictly linear, the grid is dimensional with time and form dimensions. The forms would be dead, alive, human, not human, ghost. I don't know any of this to be true, but it is how I sense that the universe works. It is the personal lens I choose to see through.