Category Archives: relationship

Something Old, Something New

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Entanglement

The years hold us together

woven like twill undulating with daily browns

and greys making subtle the infrequent red,

the bright yellow, the hazy magenta.

Soft in our designer’s art we weave

the matrix we are, tie off our seams and send runners

out where new patterns are hoped for. I have pulled

a thread or two, cut a seam too thin and had to go

back, years later with new thread to patch it.

Once I threaded some bright orange wool, newly spun

into the old pattern and found a perfect match.

The blacks of years past melt into the present

soft grey like fields of heather and poppies.

We are intertwined, no form or color bears more

importance than the fabric of our bond.

Today seems a day for earth tones but I find myself

twirling strands of a deep vermillion in my hands.

 

I wrote this many years ago. I’ve stood up and said it to Paula when we were married in Massachusetts and then again when we were civilly partnered in Connecticut. I will say it to her if we have to move to a state that doesn’t recognize what we have done and said before. That doesn’t recognize what we have. There are some things I just stand for. That’s it.

In Tibet 1998

Paula’s Aunt Coral made this many many years ago

 

Moroccan wedding blanket from a village in the Atlas Mountains 1988

The Gap

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Two beautiful stallions and five pregnant mares moved into the barn across the road for the summer. Horses who race in New York have to be born in New York. They came here to be born. They also give us great views of new life – but that’s not what this is about.

Before the stallions were brought here, the large paddock in front was divided into two paddocks. Not just a fence between. Two fences between. A gap is needed so they can’t get to each other. As an aside my gelding at another barn is happy to lean over his fence and rip another horse’s field blanket to shreds – and yes, I’ve replaced a friend’s blanket at least once! Horses love to lick and nibble, push and nip their friends. Stallions take it to another level.

Sometimes it’s a lot of work to accommodate or acclimate to “the way things are.” In this case it took two men two days to secure the fencing so the stallions will be secure. In the breeder’s life they are worth a lot. Both stallions bring in more money than they could possible eat or sleep in -  they are the life’s blood (speaking literally here) of the farm so it’s a logical, left-brain decision to keep them safe.

What is important to you? What needs a double fence and a secure gate? I didn’t mention gates until now, but they are crucial. What really precious element would bleed out of your life without its own security. Whose responsibility is that? Where would you be if your crucial element hopped the fence, what have you done when it has?

 

Three Horses Grazing

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This painting spans my life. Starting when I was seven or eight I would read to horses under the big oak tree in the pasture with the pond my father made. At the bottom my cousin and I set up a jump with tree limbs and I don’t remember what. He taught me to jump by cupping his hand for my foot as I mounted and whacking the horse’s butt in front of the jump. It was the first time I remember blacking out.

In my childhood there were always horses. Gift horses, bought horses, small or large in various assortments of accomplishments or attributes. Most were without known talent in the horse resume world but they all had what I wanted: a different viewpoint and no where much to go.

I rode them bareback, with saddles and bridles or halters. They were out all the time, I don’t remember cleaning their hooves or putting saddle pads on. Henry Havilick the farrier came twice a year. He introduced me to Mounds bars and recited “Under The Spreading Chestnut Tree The Village Smithy Stands.” We had a big tree – there were many above two and three hundred years old – under which he would stand.

And now, what about now?

When Paula saw it in my studio as I was finishing it she said, “oh that looks like us – you and Bimala and Chandrika with your heads down and me giving directions to you!” I hadn’t seen exactly that but I am always pleased when a painting sparks a story. I love to feel my hands making the shapes, choosing the colors, in this case I used mostly sponges to paint. I have a love/hate thing with brushes. They often leave me feeling removed from the work of painting. I like the feel in my hands of both the creative idea and the laying of the paint.

This painting is on canvas mounted and framed, it is about 45″ x 38″ it looks lovely on the wall. Might it look good on yours?

 

How Can I Help?

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Often I run around trying to think of what to do, who to help, where to go and I forget to take a breath, look around and see what’s there.

What is here is often what I need to do. Learning from Niki here in the photo, I could, for instance, take a walk, hop, run around. Good ideas. Yesterday and today my energy hasn’t been what I’m used to and I found myself doing jumping jacks in the bathroom before I was really awake. Don’t know about that for advice and definitely not great for me in front of a mirror – but it got me a little farther along than I might have been.

Back to Niki. I have yet to see him do jacks or see a horse in a pasture doing calisthenics – not that some couldn’t benefit – but the point is closer to home. Can I help you if I’m not being helped? Right – we all know that, particularly when someone reminds us.

I spend a lot of time looking for connection. Looking for spirit, to be happy and useful and all those things endlessly written about  – nothing wrong with that. But the Deal is that Niki is already tuned in. He’s just Here. Now. He’s in the big Present.

Present is what I can give you. How can I help you?

PLAY

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Compassion plays around the edges of a smile. I can’t smile without my heart opening. And the reverse is true.

I’m playing games online, this morning the box I was playing in got tilted upside down. It was really hard to get my mind to push the “up” arrow when I wanted to go down – and, of course the reverse. Life gives me more play like that than I know but I often act as if I’m still upright. This game didn’t accommodate denial. Didn’t allow for my reality. It demanded it’s own reality. And I did better when I complied.

Life’s like that sometimes.

Fences Make Good Neighbors

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Notice the fence. Do you know where they would go if it wasn’t there? I don’t either.

it’s funny thinking about THAT fence. When we put it up – as soon as we moved in – the town got all twisted about it. Made us move it. Newspaper articles were written about it. Invariably about the wrong section of the fence, not the one the town wanted moved. That was because,looking at the fence, it wasn’t really obvious why it should be moved.We received letters telling us of other fences in town that were closer to the road than ours. A friend asked his friend who was the town’s road foreman at the time, had it been his (our friend’s) house, would he have made him move it? No.

So boundaries can be contentious and ambiguous. But the quote of the title usually means that if you know who you are, tell people it isn’t a good good time to call or whatever your boundary situation is then you become reliable and trustworthy.

When my sister – who can talk a lot – used to call my mother, my mother would complain afterward that she had missed an appointment or something and blamed my sister for talking. That’s nuts, right?

I love my fence, all of it, and if you call I’ll tell you if it’s a good time and if you ask that’s great. Then we’ll be easy and not trying to get tangled in what we don’t know.

And let there be room to run free!

Take A Breath!

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This morning when I woke up I was already breathing. I didn’t have to try, I didn’t do anything about the sun coming up, it was taking care of that. The moon was new Saturday and I felt renewed – none of it under my control and all of it for my appreciation. I have lists and lists of appreciation. Filled with things like the moon setting or rising, ditto the sun. Flowers, grass, dandelions, rain all duly noted, all filed under Appreciation. I have learned to do this more and more. I started with my own personal coach and now that I coach and am coached I get some of the smartest and most wonderful (my clients) people on this earth to follow along with me and then I do it better and better.

You know what they say – if you want to learn something, teach it. That’s what I say anyway. I love what I do. I love the paint on my hands and the voices in my ear, the dogs, cats and horses all around reminding me that the most wondrous moments are the ones I pay attention to – and they would add, with them, and I would concur.

 

Body Art

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I remember in third grade being the only one who didn’t know a certain song – that Everyone knew. And it was that same year that Linda Varney asked me to touch her tongue with mine at the drinking fountain. I did. She said I was the only one who would do it. She’d asked around. And then some years later someone said they’d give me some money if I asked the bio teacher what was missing in the crotch of the mannikin on her desk. I got the money.
I cannot tell you how many such incidents filled my school years but, yes, I was ready to try stuff.
And when I got my 4 x 5 camera and wanted to try it out, well there I was, wasn’t I? So I held it out as far a my arms would go – they aren’t all that long – and click. Too shy to ask someone to model, I guess. Remember I was on the doing side, not the asking. Asking is a life-long task – a thing confounded. The wallflower in me craves the wall.

Start with a shot, then go for it.