Category: Creativity

In the monastery the time we have is noticed. Breathing is noticed. the look on a face the eyes and memories the line on his face the memories of his youth his life his breath is noticed. It is surreal to see  your Dad who took care of you who was strong and smart and brave and true, be laying on the bed now  leaving the planet for a new place to live. He will live again in a new body and I hope it is in heaven but I cannot be sure. We all want it to be in heaven a beautiful place but that is between him and God who made him. all I can do is look at him and notice his being here now , labored and struggling and yelling and angry and uncomfortable of course and fighting. It is a horrible struggle to die. Too bad we can’t just kiss everyone goodbye and let it go. No we have to fight. Our time together is strange. I care for him like he was a child. What does he need to stop the pain… What can I say to make him focus on something else.  the hours and hours just looking at him. I am lucky. these hours are  not wasted.

I think about my own death. How will it be for me. will It be quick or drawn out. I hope I will fill my last days with prayers for everyone else I can even think of and pouring out love to anyone who will accept it and hopefully I will have a true thing to share that is only learned at this hour. . this is the gift of my Dads passing away in front of my eyes. I notice what is important in the last moments.

Staying with my Dad in his nursing home room gives me time to think about life and garner a new perspective about living.

Here he is in this small space with four shirts in the closet and three pairs of paints and a few undershirts and that is pretty much it. But he is still Dad. All the other stuff of life is dwindled down to just  a very small space. Everything is stripped down to the bare minimum. But even so  all of him is in that room. All the things he did are in his mind and ours, They will not go away. And in the end memories is all we leave for anyone . Good Lord, you want those memories to be good ones. One of valor and holiness and self sacrifice and love. How many houses you have or all that is not what anyone will remember. What they will remember is how you impacted their life.

If you were not a great person when you could have been  a great person, then at least the end of life could be sweet if it is full of asking forgiveness. At the very least say you are sorry before you cannot. I know for a fact that many people would have much much better after you are gone, if you just say your sorry. I think people would be amazed at how much someone can forgive if given half the chance,

Yesterday while I was painting, I got a phone call and was taking away and painting at the same time. After 20 minutes of an in depth conversation, I realized I had resolved my painting. There was something missing and after I hung up, it was done. The problem was gone and I wasn’t; even trying. I was just relax painting while I talked. The finished painting really was one that gave me a lot of comfort. It made me feel better just looking at it. It calmed me down . Yes my Dad is dying and yes I am thinking of that a lot and the gallery owner said don’t paint now because it is too hard, but I needed to do it just for me and it really gives me a lot of comfort.

I highly recommend doing some creative outlet activity while processing deep things to help you live it out. It is so much better to be with the grief than just try and avoid the pain. The gift of the grief will not be opened unless we go through it consciously. If anyone else is out there going through the same thing, which I know there are, then do this, at least write about it, poem about it. dance about it, paint about it and the gift will open up like a flower that blooms.

I have a brother who owns a restaurant. He has been the chef at his own restaurant for many years.

His food tastes like only he made it. IT is impossible to copy the way he cooks. It has a certain delicious taste in every single thing he makes that screams his name.

Don’t you think it is funny how you can just put together ingredients the same ingredients as it says in a cookbook and the same measurements  of those ingredients and the same directions and it turns out different for each person who makes it.

So there is a magic ingredient that is the persons soul gets infused in there somewhere and you can taste it.

steps don’t make it good, you make it good.

You

I like to think about this when I paint because the secret ingredient is me.

Don’t you think that is kind of great. It like we all have magic in us

 

We do airbnb . I love doing it. Getting ready for the guests and then seeing their faces and hearing their stories and having them stay in the space that I made. Your home is more than just a room to rent. It has your life in it so when guests  stay they absorb some of you . I like that. It feels like I know them a little and they leave a bit of their spirit when they go. We have this shared experience that makes me feel good.

Airbnb is a soul exchanging thing. There is an apartment in the basement that we stay in when we have guests. Its an old house so I can hear them walking above us. Sharing their lives for a time here.

Sometimes they are here for a big reason. A funeral, or wedding or graduation or even to grieve.

My house sees it all and hears all the stories and then I can almost feel them after they are gone. I know that sounds spooky but I think its true that you can sense someone has been somewhere. Something has occurred. People in transit are super charged just because they are getting all this new input from traveling. We are never so interesting as we travel. It is like a ball of string . the more you roll it the bigger it gets.

sometimes I fall in love the the guests and don’t want them to leave but stay here forever in a big commune. that happened once and both my husband and I did not want them to ever go.

So that is way different then just renting out your house. Way Way different.