Healing Week 5

Five weeks of recovery is now under our belt.  We have learned to adjust to life in the slow lane- to linger over coffee, read magazines cover to cover, and put away the alarm clocks. Our home is like a time capsule. Kev's briefcase leans against his dresser- still unpacked from his flight home the night before the accident. That sofa I was reupholstering is frozen, mid-room, ghostly draped in muslin.  My studio door remains closed while healing takes top priority.

The final toll was heavy: 8 broken ribs, smashed scapula, dislocated clavicle, punctured and collapsed lung, pneumothorax, hemothorax, and the crushing blow of two pulmonary emboli.  The discovery of the emboli was nothing less than divine intervention. Had it not been for the tenacity of a student doctor to stand up to his supervising physician and push for c-scans Kevin would've been released with two time bombs in his lungs.

I have never not known this man.  We grew up across the street from one another, raided each others' forts, spent summer nights in homemade tents, and shared a first kiss playing spin the bottle in his garage.  The past two weeks at home have felt like those nights in the backyard tent- not sleeping close, but wishing we could.  Talking about dreams and childish wants until we fall asleep.  Words filling darkness, chasing away fears of mythical beasts, erasing uncertainty.

 

At times in the hospital I would see that 10 year old boy with eyes green as early spring moss blinking awake in an unfamiliar room.  Through the night he woke often, sometimes believing he was in Thailand, other times in Dhaka, and he wondered why the airline let us linger so long in this hallway. His days blended, confused in hydrocodone mists and blinding fury of pain. Those days are memories now and despite the trauma, Kevin has little recollection of just how much danger he was in.  For while he hallucinated, I hung tightly to the precipice of every breath, every lab result, every unmade memory for which I foolishly believed we had time.

What unfolds in these moments is the realization that life was getting the best of us.  Before the accident, days were planned according to outdated goals.  We endured weeks apart for the few days together between work, travel, and jet lag.  We became normalized to love in fragmented time.

Slowly we are reclaiming what routine has a bad habit of burying.  Perhaps we're that half full type of folk who see the positive shining brighter than the bad.  Maybe it's the scare of nearly losing life that sharpens one's focus and blurs out the frivolous.

 

 

Now as we reconnect, we see the disconnect and are not content to resume that mode.  In many ways the accident brought us closer than ever before.  Words left unsaid have been spoken and roads we've wanted to explore will now be traveled.  What lies ahead will be greeted together, with one voice, and hands clasped with the strength of every life past life we lived together.

LOVE  &  RECOVERY

Comfort in Trauma

You never know how it feels to be alive until you know how it feels to die.

I've sang these lines a thousand times while listening to Noah and the Whale in my studio.  Until two weeks ago these were just words. The moment I saw my husband hit the highway pavement, his motorcycle still spinning ahead of his limp body, those lyrics became my greatest fear.

Today is day 16 of my husband's recovery at Ben Taub Trauma Center in Houston. 

 

Time is amorphous in the hospital.  Foggy days, mixed up nights, stripped of every normal human routine.  Our section of a room shared with three other patients has no window.  Minutes dissolve into hours and drain away the days.  Progress is measured in tubes in and out, x-ray results, and ambulatory devices.  We have watched many roommates arrive and go home while we remain. Bunking with people with whom our paths would least likely cross, we all ride the roller coaster together. And perhaps most of us are better because of it.

In a trauma hospital there are few illness patients.  Our roommates have been shot, run over, stabbed and involved in horrific accidents.  Police officers sit outside many rooms waiting for the accused to heal and to take victim statements.  There are those in grave condition and those with mere wounds requiring a one night stay.  Some we have befriended through the curtains, others we couldn't wait to see discharged.  Though we are a truly diverse group, we share common bonds of pain and healing.

I have met two other women tending their husbands, remaining at the bedside to give comfort: one Asian, one Hispanic.  We don't speak the same language but we communicate through our expressions.   Looks of fear, worry, relief and sadness are universal and within these facial cues we lend one another support. Through the curtain we hear each other's cries, the sighs of relief, and laughter.  I know these women are like me refusing to leave the loves of our lives. Over the weeks we have learned basic greetings in each other's dialect.  We offer awkward hugs sometimes misread between cultures but in our need to not be alone we have found each other.  

Life changed without warning two weeks ago.  I feel I've lived a lifetime in between then and now. My husband is healing and soon we hope to go home, to regain a sense of truly living, to feel the sun escort the true hours of each day.  Life will never be the same.  In fact I believe it will be a more authentic, more tolerant, more understanding, more loving life.

 

LOVE & HEALING

Snippets

Accidents like this are recalled in snippets.  Sudden flashes that remind me it's all real.  Images that greet me before I even open my eyes in the morning, waking into another day of getting up, splashing water on my face, and getting to the hospital.  As I drive I remember what day it is and what the original plan was before the crash.  Hotel reservations never cancelled, road trip dates passed, and daily routines slammed to a halt.  It's all a blur as I make it from League City to Ben Taub Hospital in downtown Houston.  Though the days are long I carry on.  My husband is alive.  Everything else is insignificant. 

 

 

On February 19, 2014, Kevin was riding his motorcycle to Mancuso Power Sports to check out some bags for his new Ducati Mutistrada. He just returned from Singapore the day before and in three weeks he would be riding a motorcycle through the back roads around Cape Town, South Africa.  It was a good day. I followed behind him so we could grab some lunch while we left the bike at the shop for a routine check. Merging on to 59 South from 610 North in Belaire, my husband was blind sided by an SUV that made a crazy last minute, illegal lane change.  That snippet plays over and over. I see a car beginning to change lanes.  One car separates me from my husband.  Though I can't see my husband's bike I know there isn't room for that vehicle coming over. And then I see something like a ragdoll go up in the air and back down out of my sight. I know he's down.

There are other snippets that endlessly loop: my frantic screams, my husband unresponsive on the road, the stillness of traffic halted, the deafening fear in the silence of knowing this is life or death.

 

Angels also come in snippets.  It's amazing how many people stay in their cars and watch but then there are the few that come to help.  The man who sees everything and is first to call 911.  A complete stranger who prays over my husband and in that moment he wakes. A man who reminds my husband to breathe. The neurosurgeon just ahead of the scene who runs back to assess Kevin while we wait for first responders to make their way through snarled traffic.  Every driver who pulled aside to let the ambulance through.  The woman who gave me a hug.  I'll never know who these people are in their everyday lives but in their moments of stopping for strangers and doing whatever they could, they will always be angels in my heart.

 

Today is day 8 in the hospital.  These hours also play out in snippets though they feel like one uninterrupted sequence of lightless days. Emily, our daughter, and I take our comfort here.  We pass the moments with quiet pursuits waiting for the day we remember the healing journey in distant snippets.



LOVE  &  HEALING

A Bunny Returns To Bangladesh

Funny how full circles go.  It is the nature of up-cycling: reusing, repurposing, reinventing to reduce waste.  In the case of this wee bunny- his full circle brings him back to Bangladesh.  Back to where the cashmere sweater used to make him was made.

 

So many items sold in America are made in Bangladesh.  Search any closet, store rack or boutique and inside the manufacturing tag Bangladesh surely makes a showing.  I never gave this much thought until my husband began spending a lot of time in Bangladesh.  His job brings him to Dhaka several weeks out of the year- so often in fact that the hotel welcomes him "home to his second home".  That's probably not a good thing. There's no tourism in such a poor city so any repeat guest is highly appreciated.

After Kev's first trip to Dhaka he swore he would never return.  He was appalled by the poverty and desperation.  Now on his eighth return trip, he has an understanding of the culture and a curiosity for how people can be so friendly in a place of poverty unimaginable by American standards.  He has been followed several blocks by small children looking for food.  He sees people bathing in the same water where sewage runs. Dhaka's smog and filth eclipse most sunlight.  The air constantly muffled by an assault of car horns as makeshift vehicles clog roads.  But yet he finds color, beauty and vibrancy in this city.

 

As for bunny, she was born from an up-cycled cashmere sweater made in Bangladesh (most likely in one of the many clothing factories in Dhaka), sold in America, and cast aside after a moth made a meal of it.  She will be a gift to the new baby of my husband's co-worker who lives in Dhaka.  This bunny will be in a safe home.  But this got me thinking about the many children of Dhaka who will sleep on the streets, often fending for themselves for food, shelter and safety. Could a bunny make a difference in a child's life? 

Some ideas are fleeting.  We get a notion to do something bigger than ourselves- feel like there's a spiritual nod in this direction or cause but we get overwhelmed by how to transfer a belief into action. This is where I am- stuck between seeing signs and trusting the direction.  So for now this bunny returns to her roots to bring smiles to a newborn girl as she grows.  And who knows; maybe one day both this wee girl and her bunny will make a difference in this world.

LOVE & MAKE A DIFFERENCE

Studio Mice Stealing Hearts

January went by faster than a startled cat!  It was a month of studio changes, refocus, and wake up calls- but more on that later.  Today is a light and fluffy kind of return to my blogging side.  Today is a day to introduce the studio mice of 2014. 

The new studio mice are made of up-cycled wool and cashmere.

They are simple critters with big hearts.

 

Though they are quiet and relatively unobtrusive, they do tend to multiply quickly.



To see more studio mice, check out where they dwell on Early Work Mercantile,  Etsy, and Hendley Market.

 

LOVE & STUDIO MICE

 





Heirloom Ornaments

This article  was scheduled to be published in FOLK Magazine Christmas 2013.  I have no idea what the publication status is and have cut ties with the magazine.  I came across this ornament as I was taking down my tree over the weekend, and I felt the need to share my Grandmother's story even though Christmas 2013 is now behind us.

If we are lucky as adults, we have ornaments from our childhood to pass on to our children.  If we are extra lucky, we have at least one ornament from our parents’ childhood to covet as our own.  It is in these small holiday tokens that live legacies of love and triumph.

My grandmother loved color.  Pink and teal particularly.  Style gurus of 1950’s homemakers had nothing on her.  She raised my mother in a Cape Cod style house my Grandfather built high on a hill overlooking the Shetucket River in Eastern Connecticut.  Her kitchen was done in teal tile, she served simple meals on bright Fiesta dishes, and baked the finest éclairs in New England.   A silver tinsel tree was her signature Christmas centerpiece and upon it were hung the sweetest pink ornaments Woolworths offered.  Mingled in were blown glass ornaments my Great Grandparents brought with them from Czechoslovakia.  And in my Grandmother’s driveway a mammoth 1955 turquoise Buick was the envy of the neighborhood.   She would have to learn to drive it after my Grandfather’s sudden death when my Mom was only ten. Though years of transitioning from a homemaking queen to a single parent would bring difficulty, financial strife and resilience, that silver tree was finely decorated every Christmas as a testament to my Grandmother’s, and my Mother’s, strength to thrive.

Every December, I unwrap an ornament that once hung on my Grandmother’s tree.  I have only one.  I hold it to the sun as the light shines through the mercury glass and shadows tiny hand-painted blue flowers.  I snuck it away from my Mother’s collection one Christmas when I was home from college.  These were the precious bulbs stored in a tattered box with edges secured so many times the box was pretty much tape and dust.  Inside, the vintage ornaments looked like creamy curved marzipan treats peeking through time-thinned tissue paper.  My Grandmother passed away when I was a high school sophomore, before I had a chance to appreciate the lessons she often shared.  This ornament is feather light, delicate, ornate in its simplicity.  Just like my Grandmother.  Four feet ten inches and maybe 90 pounds after a hearty meal.  My Grandmother went to work in the Ponemah velvet mills after my Grandfather died.  She never complained.  Never cried where anyone could see.  Never gave the impression that a woman needed a man for anything.  Always preached love.  Always practiced determination. Always shone with bright color when most other women would have faded to black.

Over the years I have collected vintage ornaments to simulate my Grandmother’s collection, to hold dear the memories my Mother guards with old boxes in cedar chests. To share in the silent strengths that hang in the remains of love snuffed out too early. Pink ornaments now cover my own silver tinsel  tree. And as my daughter joins me in decorating, I share stories of my Grandmother, my Mother, and the Grandfather I never knew in hopes their legacies will fuel generations yet to come. 
LOVE  &  HEIRLOOMS OF LOVE

2014 Vision

2014 is my year of vision. The year of open eyes, big dreams and making the ideas of 2013 the reality of 2014.  It is the year of not backing down just because I am new to the game. In 2014, I will be fearless.

 

In 2013, my word was listen.  I paid attention to other artists' and writers' experiences.  I listened to how they grew their businesses and saw parallels to my own journey.  At the start of 2013, I was overwhelmed with stunted growth, dead ends, and a story that seemed doomed to remain unwritten.  I stopped forcing creativity and let the universe guide me.  Everything I needed was within reach, I just needed the patience to hear the vital cues.  By October 2013, I was in high gear and ended the year not tired, but renewed.

One of the biggest shifts over the past year has been shedding my identity as a primitive folk artist and morphing into a softer, whimsical up-cycler.  I adore prims, but the genre became my cage.  I felt I had to create a certain way, with a defined look that was at odds with my creative vision. It was as if the universe was nudging change by dropping old cashmere sweaters in my lap at every turn and whispering, "Go ahead... a few cheerful softies wouldn't hurt!"  And so I listened. And how my heart sang! The first time I saw a child light up at my creation, I was a believer.  It was time to grow with the change.

 

And so I greet 2014 with a fond hello, a firm handshake and a confident look in the eye.  The journey ahead will require continued hard work and tireless hours, but oh the places we will go!
LOVE  &  2014!