Saturday, November 28, 2009

Broken Chains


Ellen's Birthday
Originally uploaded by Tokyorosa

I'll explain the photo in a minute, but first, some things:

1. The studio sale has been going on for the last 2 days. Dave and I have sold about $350 worth of pottery, most of it carved vases and some bowls. We used the sale as an excuse to clear out some of the storage unit stash.

2. Speaking of the storage unit, our visit with the purpose of clearing out the pottery yielded the following non-pottery finds: about eight small pieces of art that we've collected from one of our favorite mixed media artists, Cynthia Cook, a small bag of jewelry that included my wedding ring, a dress in size 30-32 that used to be one of my favorite dresses (used to wrap pottery), and three pairs of black high heeled shoes that I completely forgot I even owned.

3. I volunteered to work the sale, which meant greeting people and wrapping things up. It was a surprise when Ruth walked in. I haven't seen her since Ellen's memorial service in March. And that's what the photo is about.

The Photo:

That is a photo of me with Ruth's partner Ellen. That photo was taken on the occasion of Ellen's fiftieth birthday.

Ellen used to be a studio member. We became friends that way. I knew Ellen for about...hmmm...maybe seven years? Seven years, I think. So it was a shock when, about two years ago, she was diagnosed with cancer. Her prognosis was so dire that Ellen's goal became simply to live to see her fiftieth birthday, a little over a year away from the time of her first diagnosis (during which she was told that she had weeks to live.) The journey to that birthday was soul-excoriatingly grueling, but she made it. She died two months later.

After Ellen died, I tried to compartmentalize my grief over her death. I fell into a depression. I wanted to crawl under my bed and never come out again. For a long time I did stop getting out of bed. I gained thirty pounds. I began having anxiety attacks so severe that I feared that I would go insane or harm myself. I was afraid to leave the casita and I was afraid to be alone in the casita. I had Dave take the toolbox away because I thought I might lose control and use the garden shears from the toolbox to cut off my own fingers. I tried talking to my grandmother who died three years ago. I went to the cemetery to visit her grave and my brother's grave. I walked around carrying a nearly crushing amount of sadness. I went back to therapy and to an acupuncturist who drained the anger out of me, mostly, but left behind the sadness.

I wish I could say that today it's all better, but it isn't. I am still dealing with the anxiety, daily. I am still carrying around the grief, all of it, years of it, not just from Ellen's death, but from my brother and my grandmother. (A few weeks ago, my aunt brought me a bag of things from my grandmother's house, things she had saved for me. Among them was a small plastic bag filled with some of my grandmother's costume and everyday jewelry. I opened that bag and smelled my grandmother and I cried for hours over dangling lone earrings and broken chains.

My return to the studio has been like trying to mend one of those broken chains.

Today on the way to the studio, Dave and I stopped at a ceramic supply store in town so I could buy some glazes, and Dave reminded me of another glaze I had tried and rejected years ago. He remembered it very clearly, the glaze, its color, the problems I had with it, and I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Years ago, I--

I can't finish this story.

Sorry.)

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