—crumpled tissue with acrylic paint,

—-  Cat Charissage, 2014

 

 

My arthritis is getting worse.  It impacts my daily life in a hundred and one ways:  picking up a large class of lemonade hurts because it stresses the base of my thumb.  It hurts when I pick up my journal with one hand, again because it stresses the base of my thumb.  I think 10 times before I figure I REALLY need to go downstairs to get something, because the stairs hurt my knees.  I almost drop the frying pan when trying to pick it up with one hand.  I’m awakened 8-15 times a night when I move into a position that my shoulders, or back, or hands can’t tolerate for more than a few moments.  Grabbing the seat belt to pull around myself hurts because I have to twist shoulder, elbow, and wrist joints into unusual positions.

I have excellent medical care, and I employ various alternative healing modalities.  I do what I can, and it certainly helps.  I might very well be crippled and immobile were I not able to access this medical and self care.  I’m profoundly grateful for that, and for the generous benefits from my spouse’s work which pay for most of the hundreds of dollars of medicine, therapies, etc.

But this post isn’t about just my situation.  Many people fall off the radar of visibility when they deal with health issues or family challenges and disabilities that don’t go away.  Day in, day out, 24/7/365, we all “manage.”  But HOW?  And how can we do so graciously?

What does one do when you’re already doing all that you can, yet the problem isn’t fixed?  My Western, middle class, educated culture is literally fueled by attitudes of “We will conquer this!”  “Proper planning prevents piss-poor performance!”  “Quit worshipping at the church of St. Mattress and make it happen!”  When it comes to medical problems the attitudes are “Don’t give up!  You can beat this!”  “There’s got to be something. . ., how about a new drug trial? ”  “Have you tried. . . ?”  “I was just checking on Google and there’s this new. . . .”  We carry these attitudes not only because we’ve been steeped in their cultural stew, but because they’ve worked.  They get us moving and trying and persevering, and they get us success.

When should one switch from trying to find one more therapy, one more drug, vitamin, or lifestyle change, to living with, creating new ways to live productively and happily, and somehow giving up the dreams of how one thought life was going to be?  When we turn to these new tasks (I think the psychologists call this part “Acceptance”) we still have loved ones, and an overriding cultural imperative, saying “Don’t give in!  Never give up!  Hope for the cure!”  Friends start wondering what we’re repressing that keeps our challenges unchanged in their chronicity.  Other friends wonder why we just don’t try whatever new therapy or snake oil they’ve just discovered, and therefore just get better.  They sometimes secretly (or not so secretly) wonder if we really want to get better.  Because there’s GOT to be a solution, hasn’t there?

Sometimes, there just isn’t.  This is hard for all of us, “sufferers” and loved ones alike.

When I used to work at the sexual assault center, I was baffled at how otherwise wise and compassionate people could still believe, deep down, the myths that she really must have wanted it, or led him along, or that rape is an understandable and even somewhat acceptable response to a girl’s or a woman’s poor judgement regarding clothing or acquaintances.  Then I began to understand:  a person tells themselves, “if I can identify just what causes sexual violence, then I can simply avoid those causes, and I’ll be SAFE.  Problem solved.”  By apportioning blame, or finding causes, we think that we can get through life unscathed.  Problems prevented.  Or, if we can just find “THE” cure for post traumatic stress disorder, then even IF something bad happens, then, problem will be solved.

I think the same dynamic can apply when well meaning friends exhort those of us facing chronic challenges to “Reach for the cure!” or spend even more hours googling new snake oil or new meds (sometimes the same thing).  And of course, we “sufferers” tell this to ourselves, too.  I’m not discounting the genuine care our friends have toward us, which I have certainly felt deeply and gratefully.  But just as it’s only human to deny our own mortality, it’s only human to deny our own vulnerability, too.

Life is complex. Shit happens.  How can we make it into compost, to assist us all in growing our capacity to bear witness, with compassion, to the suffering around and within us?

—Unfolding Mystery, Cat Charissage, 2014

Hello Dear Friends:

This summer I had the opportunity to take the 10-week online course LEGEND: Awakening the Hidden Stories  from Cosmic Cowgirls University, the organization founded by Shiloh Sophia McCloud (and others).  Shiloh is my painting teacher online, and this course included 2 sets of instructional painting videos from Shiloh, art journaling prompts and videos, and daily writing prompts, plus the opportunity to write our own Legendary Woman Chronicles.  I’ve just recently finished the painting, and wanted to share some of the process with you.

The reason I share these work-in-progress photos is that I want to demystify some aspects of artistic expression, and to encourage others to keep going in their own artistic expression, especially when the piece is in the “kinda ugly, maybe I should just quit now” stage.

This is also the way of daily life, too, isn’t it?  In taking on any new project, it’s easier to just give up when it gets to the “kinda ugly” stage, especially when there are so many needs to attend to and voices asking, pleading, demanding us to do all sorts of things for them.  I’m really learning that if my self-talk starts a new thought with “I really ought to.. .  ” or “you know, I should. . . “, then those words are my clue that I need to examine that thought and question whether it’s true that I really “ought to” or “should”.  I’m not denying that there are things in life that ethically we need to do, but those things are a small category of the “I oughtta” thoughts that creep in.  It seems that the very idea of doing something fun or creative, or something that doesn’t immediately benefit someone else brings up the socially constructed “but you don’t want to be selfish, do you?” thought.  Most of us women don’t even want to be thought of as being selfish, and will willingly squash the creative, fun idea in its tracks.  Or maybe, if we’re really brave, and have started on a creative task that doesn’t immediately seem able to benefit anyone else, we’ll definitely squash more attempts when the creative act gets to the “kinda ugly” stage.

It’s a victory for me that most of the time, now, I can differentiate between the ethical “oughtta’s” and the socially constructed “oughtta’s.” I’m definitely not yet doing the writing that I wish to be doing, though, nor am I painting and art journaling as much as I would like.  It takes time and inner fortitude to become the person you might be.  Yet, a few paintings at a time, a few blog posts at a time. . . .

Here’s what I painted first.  I didn’t like it at the time (it was in the “kinda ugly” stage), and so I gessoed it over and started again.  In hindsight, I wish I’d stuck with this painting; there’s something about it that I’d like to develop.

Portal:

Design:

In progress:

 

 

Glazing, where you paint over the entire painting (or selected parts) with a darker transparent color, is one of the scariest things I do.  If I’m liking the painting so far, I’m afraid that I’ll lose all the work I did.  Glazing, though, can harmonize the colors and bring a glowing richness;  that’s why I do it:

 

And how she/I ended up:

 

She hangs in my bedroom where as soon as I open my eyes in the morning, I see her smiling at me.

Join me in persevering through all the “kinda ugly” moments.  What comes next will certainly be interesting!

With love and the kiss of today’s September blue, blue sky,

Cat