A little sweetness

Last weekend we had a mini getaway....mostly from our colds!

We refused to stay indoors anymore, so we drove to pick up our wine (yea we belong to a wine club)

Needless to say, I had to get these:

wine infused cupcakes, they are made to pair with the wines we went to pick up.

I do have to admit, this was not the first time I had them, in fact I get them every time

Find some sweetness this weekend ladies...it may only be for a moment but it is all yours to have!

Musical Interlude

I don't care if they really made the music this way...it feeds the Rube Goldberg geek in me.

OK Go - Needing/Getting - Music - More Music Videos

Ramble On...

Aside from the deep sorrow of losing people in my life; I find witnessing others struggle in that grief just as heartbreaking. Maybe even more so....

I was asked over and over again after the services "how are those beautiful children of mine"

It wasn't until the third of the 5 times I was asked, did I realize it was my brothers children they were remembering and wanting to talk about.

One woman even said "well, when are you going to get some?"

I laughed and said with a deadpan face "I am not"

ugh, I chalked it up to the awkwardness of the situation and the desire to find small talk and children are the easiest of topics for most.

My parents witnessed much of it and simply smiled at me as I swung my combat sword and responded in a composed and refined manner.

The kicker was when another survivor was telling her story (it is part of our history, so it is important to hear again and again and share with others...forgive but never forget) I did not know her story so I sat and listened...it was fascinating and detailed.

Then she called me closer and I sat beside her as she said

(I swear I am not making this up and she did not know who I was or anything about me)

"  I didn't believe in god after I was placed in the camps. It wasn't until I finally got pregnant that I knew god existed. All my life all I wanted to be was a mother, it took two years after liberation to get pregnant. Being a mother is the most important thing."

At that, I stood up, thanked her for sharing her story with me, and quietly walked into a distant bathroom and cried. It felt like a pitchfork was stuck into my chest.

I clearly did not believe in god enough....

I hope to not have to go to a funeral for a long while, I am pretty emotionally cooked.

***

I am slowly, SLOWLY, going thru images I took while away. I took close to 3000 images from the 10days I was gone. well, 8 if you count travel to and from when I really didn't take any pics en route. well not real ones, point in case:

veggie meal en route to Ireland

The gallery was busy all night for the reception, it was a very surreal experience but I am so THANKFUL to have been there to watch it all!

Stylish lady looking at my piece opening night

 Before leaving I contacted an IF support group (they have a 24hr suicide prevention hotline as part of their support services) in hopes to get their thoughts on submitting my IF show in Ireland. I received a very kind but short note back from them that said

"Dear Barreness,

Many thanks for your email. I forwarded your email to our chairperson but I know she is extremely busy so I am not sure if she has had a chance to reply.

I would be interested to find out if you have a positive response from Irish galleries - you might let us know and we could post a link on our website.

Best regards,
Wendy"

When I hand delivered my proposal on CD to a very well established gallery and gave my "elevator speech" to the director as we walked up a flight of stairs leading to her office that my work might be considered controversial as it is about my infertility.

There were two people at the top of the stairs that stopped dead in their tracks and froze.

When we made it to them at the top of the stairs and passed them, they just stared at me like I had said I was going to bomb the place. The director smiled graciously at me, allowed me to see the show they had just hung and went into her office.

As I left I thanked them again and passed the two people who were still just staring at me in silence.

I know that none of this is suppose to be easy.

I prepare and work really hard for every little thing I aim for.

I don't get anything easy, never have and never will...

These days

I am feeling tested and taunted



Tearful Tuesday

*thank you so much for your kind words*

Ok, so I needed a new reason to be crying....this time it is from laughter!

Laugh today sisters....

Selective Memory

Today I attended the funeral of a woman I considered another grandmother.

I attended the funeral of her daughter earlier this week and while driving from that funeral to the afterfood/social gathering we got a phone call that her mother had passed. 

It was beyond surreal.

Today is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz; 67 years ago today.

For many this is a reminder of horrible history, for Helen it marks her liberation as well as the day she was laid to rest.

(the connections were not lost on any of us)

We remember how she and two siblings were all that remained of her family of 8.

Her best friend was at the funeral; the woman she befriended in the camps and then walked the death marches next to, shared stolen food with, and

who married her surviving brother and became her sister-in-law.

Helen was an amazingly strong woman, and from a very early age I was told that she was a survivor. She never spoke of the camps openly, it was always something you had to ask about. She wore shirts that hid her number, and when she caught sight of it showing was quick to cover it again. 

While visiting with her back in 1998, she was talking about how she was marched out of her home in 1942 and had never gone back.

She could never go back.

 She was convinced that her home was destroyed when the Nazi's cleared the Częstochowa Ghetto

Hearing this and loving her as much as I do, I told her I would go to Poland and look for her home.

I carried a little piece of paper in my pocket that had her street name, and the correct spelling of her town and went to Europe in her place.

I found her street, I found her home, I sent her a postcard from her town and I brought her pictures I had taken.

When seeing the images, she cried and started telling stories about living in that home.

It prompted her grandchildren to go there a few years later and see the home themselves and asks neighbors if anyone remembered their grandmother.

She loved family, had a wicked sense of humor and was egged to be even more mischievous when she was in the company of either of my grandmothers.

When I turned 21, my Nana asked me to pick 5 people to celebrate with me.

I picked my "grandmothers", 4 women that were grandmothers to me and my bestest friend.

My Nana took us all to....Chippendale's!

Aside from the awkwardness of being in a strip club with my grandmothers, it quickly faded away when I saw these woman, laughing and squealing and flirting with the strippers.

That is what I remember about the night, not the oiled men, or what I saw them do, but instead these amazing women, being girls...being girls with me.

Ever since that night, every time I saw her she would kiss me, and while hugging me say in my ear

"when are we going to see the big men again?" raising her eyebrows and smirking.

This is how I will remember her, smiling, smirking and giggling.

I miss her terribly and she is only been gone for two days.

 

Here are your big men Helen:

Blown away

The winds were strong, and cold and quieted my mind.

I am thankful for that.

My return was greeted with rough, tumbling winds, and I am spending my first week back attending funerals.
Two: a mother and daughter.

My heart is heavy with empathy and reflection

I am thankful, humbled, and inspired by you

she came and kicked my ass

Be careful what you ask for....

The Barreness came, kicked me as hard as she could in my uterus, making me puke and shit myself all at the same time, then left me bruised and sore for the last two days.

...but it appears that my period is almost over and I get on a plane tomorrow.

I will not be as swollen as I thought when I stand in the gallery overseas talking about my artwork with other artists!

Yeah

Moral:

Don't taunt mother nature

cause if you do it will bust your ass and leave ya bleedin'

*

I'll be MIA for a week or so, but I will report back with a pic or two

Promise

thank you sisterhood

xoxoxo

Waiting and waiting.....

So I counted days and by gosh I am suppose to have good old AF by now...days before the trip.

The last time we went on a big trip I got it the day before and was whacked out on pain pills the whole time...this time I want it to be different! I want to have fun and not cry the whole time!

Plus I have a great dress I would like to stand up strait in

and not be fighting the urge to hurl the whole time.

So as I wait, I search for funny pics and I found this site: Menstrual Pinups

Altered in photoshop, all have visible signs of the their periods.

Consider it an invitation to arrive AF, come on, I know you wanna be here.....

Ghosts of days past

So I go thru this weird thing before traveling for any length of time...

I am really quite a worry-er by my nature and coupled with my incredible ability to catastrophize anything into the worst case scenario, it allows me to be in a constant state of

"get my affairs in order" mode.

Today it manifested in my cleaning out the cupboard under my sink.

How this helps me "get my affairs in order" is not for me to understand, I am simply following that innate urge to clean up messes so that in case I die on this trip, no one will find out just how much of a slob I really was.

Brilliant huh?!

I found all sorts of things I had been looking for...

I go thru moods of wanting to learn how to properly put on makeup, style my hair or moisturize my skin regularly. In the wake of these moods I am left with a lot of "product", evidenced today with a bag of giveaway to my niece who can play dress up and can put on fancy lotions or something...

Past all the sparkle and play I found...

What I wasn't expecting, little boxes shoved into the back corner of the cupboard.

Empty but still present.

I found five, FIVE, empty pregnancy test boxes.

All empty, all with just the instruction booklets in them, but stacked carefully in the far back corner of the space.

I sat there looking at them next to the empty tampon boxes, wondering why I kept empty boxes...why didn't I just toss them into the recycle bin with the other empty boxes?

I guess, I simply wasn't ready to.

I peed on a lot of sticks in these last 8ish years, far more then the 5 boxes that I unearthed today.

Then with just as much anxiety, and heart pounding as I had experienced buying them, I broke them down and put them into the recycle bin, brochures and all.

after that I found a reason to leave the house; I couldn't bear to hear The Barreness's cackling laughter and blinding smile

Closer I am to fine....

My current work schedule has me away from the studio and working my other job.

It happens every year about this time. 

I am simply needed far more at my other job and I don't mind.

Except this year I prepared for it.

Artistically speaking 

It meant I worked like crazy for three months and submitted work to as many places as I could.

I was writing checks like a drunk sailor

...well if sailors carried checkbooks and wrote checks is still to be debated...

but I went crazy!

I submitted to more places and events then I ever have, 

and kept saying yes to everything that passed close enough to me to grab a chance at.

The result is AMAZING!!!

I have gotten my work into many more places, and in fact my call to the universe was heard (thank goodness) and I got into a show that had over 200 submissions and only 37 accepted artists. The piece I got into this exhibition is a piece from my infertility project !

In fact when the email arrived, I saw the subject line on my phone and refused to read the email until I was behind an actual computer....this of course made hubby laugh at my "rituals" and waited for me to read the actual email on the screen. The result was me laughing hysterically for close to 15minutes at my met goal.
He in turn was crying from pure joy of witnessing me meet this goal and the result of meeting this goal is that we are traveling to see the opening reception.

It just happens to be in IRELAND

Holiday Cheer

picture from: photospapersfromthepast.blogspot.com

It is that time of year!

Waiting in long lines to buy groceries, snide comments from customer service people, rude people driving cars, temper tantrums, and holiday music looped in an endless cycle on speakers of shops.

I do love this time of year, but it also carries the daily reminders of a family not made.

So I was sitting watching my company-keeper(TV) last night. I was watching "how I met your mother" and one of the characters finds out she was not only not-pregnant (pregnancy scare, in a woman who says thru the series that she doesn't want kids) but that she CAN'T have kids. 

This information has her sliding into an abyss of reality of a life faced without children. 

Her doctor asks if she can talk to a friend about it, but she knows how they all will react. Currently her best friend is pregnant and would be an emotional mess and needing comfort instead of comforting. That friends hubby would shower her with questions and possible fixes. then the remaining friends would try and fix her sadness with comfort food or hi jinks. So instead, when pushed by them to find out what is wrong, she says she is too tall to be a pole vaulter. He friends of course, all break into her described reactions.

She is telling this story to what appears to be her future kids, but in the end, they are actually imaginary. 

She is left sitting on a bench in a park on Christmas crying at the fact that her choice has been taken from her. That although she never saw kids in her future, it was a choice she was making not one that was made for her.

She ends her monologue with although she was never a mother, she was:

a successful journalist, world traveler, business woman and aunt.

Telling the audience that she indeed was still a whole person even without being a mother.

It was a well played/written reality of our sisterhood.

I personally have been meandering around a lot of this everyday emotion. 

The Barreness is knocking at the door into me as of late; she is dead set to get in...she might even shimmy open a window if need be. I am trying to hold her back with wit and a sunny disposition. 

I don't know how long it will hold....

I have made a new friend and she is now pregnant, I am thrilled for her (deeply and truly) but now can barely contact her anymore. 

I have another friend who just picked up the ashes of her son, a man the same age as me, who lost his battle to addiction.

I have another friend who just had to have a hysterectomy because of the same issues I live with. 

I have another who has now gone into early menopause because her ovaries shut down and has lost her sex drive completely!

I watch my hubby struggle daily with witnessing others parent. He often looks at me when his eyes are welled up with tears. Like the mere sight of me will make the tears go away.

We met family last week, a trip that meant us driving 1300miles in
four days. It was a lot of driving and a little visiting. 

We did this last year too...we have promised each other that next year we are staying put. 

Because we are a family of two, we are often looked over, invited last, told we can drive farther, and expected to be overly flexible because we don't "have to deal with kids".... *sigh*

it hurts too much to ignore any longer.

There has been a lot of wonderful happening too...

but for today I needed to unload the heavy emotion I have been bathing in.

I am feeling very very mortal and it scares me.

wordless wednesday

snorgtees.com

We will talk soon

Reading in between the lines

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The kindness of strangers

A simple act can really make a difference:



Be kind to yourself and others

Today's Inspiration-Thankful Thursday

I hope the dark days are behind me for another year....I saw this today and it made me smile.

Thank you for all your warm heartfelt wishes, they were felt deeply in my darkness.

Wordless Wednesday

"Most people are afraid of suffering. But suffering is a kind of mud to help the lotus flower grow. There cannot be a lotus flower without the mud."

Thich Nhat Hanh

I know a lot of people know this phrase, but it seemed to resonate in me today

Today

I awoke in a bright mood, yesterday was another story...but today I feel less heavy in the heart.

At least for the moment

I have asked hubby to join me at the ocean tonight...for some reason it feels like the right place to be, to say hello to the lost little ones.

Yesterday I was overwhelmed with emotion, I am not really sure what was the trigger, or why it felt so much like balancing an overfilled cup of tea...ripples running across the surface, threatening to spill at any moment.

The most heartbreaking moment yesterday happened in plain sight, and touched a deep place in me.

I watched my nephew fight against fear yesterday, as he described to his father the contents of a box of Halloween decor that he said was "super scary". The threat of that box being opened again was terrifying to him and witnessing him work thru these new and uncomfortable moments had me struggling to keep the tears within my lids.

When he was born, we had been struggling for years and I had just been given the "you are not going to get pregnant, we suggest you have a hysterectomy" speech again.

In my mind, I was convinced that my little boy had simply been delivered to my brother instead of me.

I had not been clear in my call to the universe, it seemed.

As heartbreaking as it was/is , I am thankful that I get to watch him grow and be whomever he becomes.

Tonight we are together as we were two years ago, except that tonight, I will not be in shock from loss. I hope to be wrapped around hubby, feeling how warm and full our love still is despite all that life seems to throw or drag us thru.

The past repeats itself

Our sorrows and wounds are healed only when we touch them with compassion

-Buddha

I am not sure where to start, after recovering from this cold...I am left sad.

In fact today I actually said aloud " boy, it is heavy. I can feel it pushing into my chest"

The first of three, happened two years ago Friday.

I am trying to really process all these feelings.

Something has shifted again within me.

Like a knowledge, an understanding of sorts.

Like when you are faced with a complex puzzle, at first you are overwhelmed and everything becomes frantic and blurred and chaotic.

Then after staring at it for a while you realize that there is a solution, but it is a labored one.

It can be solved.

I feel like that these days. Like I have realized my boat sailed.

~

I am standing on the shore watching it fade into the horizon, sometimes waving a fancy scarf on tip-toes with a smile and a tear.
Other times, just staring dazed, as tears stream down my cheeks.

Knowing I will never be a passenger on that ship.

~

I am trying to be kind to myself, allow myself to be quiet...

allowing myself to cry, if there are tears...

scream if there is rage..

Mostly tho, I feel defensive, and short of breath

We are filling our home this weekend with friends and family.
I wanted to infuse some joy into the house.
Maybe I am secretly wanting to push all the sorrow out...
let it go let it pass into the next place.

We build an altar for Dia De Los Muertos; I have little things for the lost ones...they are represented on the altar...quietly

One of the things I struggle with daily, is the feeling of not feeling connected to the past, for I can not create a future generation.

My mother was sent recently, a piece of family genealogy and it lists my great great grandparents birth homes and children and dates...the normal stuff.

I had always known that my great great grandmother had 11 children and my great grandfather use to tease her if she " just had one more it would be an even dozen"

This offered many laughs thru the generations.

There is a note on her record that she did have 11 babies, but only 8 lived.

She lost 3 babies too.

It made me feel her so closely, it scared me.

Maybe I am feeling her too, maybe history does repeat itself,

and this is how I connect with them.

Sick and Tired

http://annetaintor.com/

I am fighting a cold...or a cootie, regardless I am not feeling like me these days.

Last week I spent a couple of hours painting faces at my niece's school fair. 

They needed help and when it was known that my niece had an Artist that was her aunt I was asked if I would participate.

I had no problem doing just that...

I felt strong and ready to be around lovely adorable children. 

It appeared to be important to my niece so it was then important for me.

I painted whiskers, and horses, skulls and flames and rainbows and yin/yangs...

it was a busy two hours and I painted around runways of snot and sneezing and wind...crazy crazy wind.

Then one of the mothers said " when are you leaving? " I told her I had signed up for two hours and she said " well, your time is up" so I stopped dead in my tracks, put down the brush and paint and walked away.

It was clear I was not wanted needed any longer.

I was quite proud of myself, 

I did the whole stint without feeling pain, or sorrow. 

It was fun to hear what these little people wanted to decorate their faces with....

what they fantasized about.

Two days after this, I went to take family pictures for a friend. 

She and I were trying to get pregnant at the same time 

(she was trying for a second child and I was still just trying)

She has an almost 2 year old and I am two years older. 

I was greeted with two more snotty kids, touching everything in sight

...I was being bombarded with boogers.

So it really should be no surprise that I got a SuPER cootie: 

sore throat, into stuffy head into fevers on and off for a couple of days.

Hubby has the starts of it now, and he was recounting who has the super cootie at his workplace

and became clear that we were doomed to get it.

I decided to not bitch about the ick I was feeling as I reflected on the fact I simply have to take care of me.

No one else requires my attentions, I don't have to drive anyone to school or make lunches or any of those motherly duties...

Instead I just had to get me out to the market to pick up makings for soup...

it was just me that had to make sure I took my fever reducer and cough drops...

it was just me that slept on the couch so hubby could sleep during my coughing fits and night sweats.

it was just me.

Words for Wednesday

I think I need to add this womans mantra to my mix

A while back, at the entrance of a gym, there was a picture of a very thin and beautiful woman. The caption was "This summer, do you want to be a mermaid or a whale?"

The story goes, a woman (of clothing size unknown) answered the following way:

"Dear people, whales are always surrounded by friends (dolphins, seals, curious humans), they are sexually active and raise their children with great tenderness.
They entertain like crazy with dolphins and eat lots of prawns. They swim all day and travel to fantastic places like Patagonia, the Barents Sea or the coral reefs of Polynesia.
They sing incredibly well and sometimes even are on cds. They are impressive and dearly loved animals, which everyone defend and admires.

Mermaids do not exist.

But if they existed, they would line up to see a psychologist because of a problem of split personality: woman or fish?
They would have no sex life and could not bear children*.
*(this part does not dictate happiness) Yes, they would be lovely, but lonely and sad.
And, who wants a girl that smells like fish by his side?

Without a doubt, I'd rather be a whale.

At a time when the media tells us that only thin is beautiful, I prefer to eat ice cream with my kids, to have dinner with my husband, to eat and drink and have fun with my friends.

We women, we gain weight because we accumulate so much wisdom and knowledge that there isn't enough space in our heads, and it spreads all over our bodies.
We are not fat, we are greatly cultivated.
Every time I see my curves in the mirror, I tell myself: "How amazing am I ?! "

(The girl on the picture is French model Tara Lynn)