Category: Blog (Page 59 of 101)

News of The 70273 Project with a side of Jeanne’s Barefoot Heart

26

July 26, 2012 / jeanne / 1 Comment

she draws:

NancyFriday026

i stitch:

26b

What we make,
why it is made,
how we draw a dog,
who it is we are drawn to,
why we cannot forget.
Everything is a collage,
even genetics.
There is the hidden presence
of others in us,
even those we have known briefly.
We contain them
for the rest of our lives,
at every border we cross.

~ Michael Ondaatje

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

25

July 25, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

she draws:

NancyFriday025

i stitch:

Art is a language,
instrument of knowledge,
instrument of communication.
~ Jean Dubuffet

Nancy made one pen stroke in this drawing.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

it’s simple, really

July 25, 2012 / jeanne / 7 Comments

when i say yes, please
or no, thank you
or even just yes or no . . .

when i speak without pre-qualifying
or apologizing for what i’m about to say . . .

when i lay down the need to defend
what i know to be True . . .

when i simply show up and live
my one wild and precious life,
the life that has my name
and nobody else’s name
on it . . .

when i create “just because”,
without worrying a single wrinkle
about the ability gang:
marketability
sustainability
credibility
or if it’s a good use of my time or not . . .

when i live as though living is the only thing that matters . . .

that’s when i know glee
that’s when i know ease
that’s when i know play
that’s when i know free
that’s when i know full.

~~~~~~~

inspired by today’s skypeversation with my friend and writing partner, julie daley
whose birthday is tomorrow, 7/26.
all together now: happy birthday to you . . .

24

July 24, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

She draws (using a single pen stroke):

NancyFriday024

I stitch:

Art is a language,
instrument of knowledge,
instrument of communication.
~~ Jean Dubuffet ~~

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Of Martyrs and Moochers

July 24, 2012 / jeanne / 0 Comments

Jeannepop

I’m over at Bridget Pilloud’s place today, pondering prosperity and wondering why it is that you can’t loan family money or help in other way, for that matter. I mean, really. Just seems to me that with all the people in need, I’d prefer to help my family first. But is that possible? And when does helping turn the corner and become something else, something decidedly and glaringly NOT helpful?

It’s easy enough for me to wag a finger and answer these questions from what THEY ought to do or what they ought not to do, but this time I stood in front of the mirror and looked in my own eyes when I asked some hard questions.

Maybe you’d like to drop by and say hey? I’ll leave the light on.

23

July 23, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

she draws:

NancyFriday023

i stitch:

Nancy used one pen stroke in this drawing.

~~~~~~~~~

She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

Will the Real Jeanne PLEASE Stand Up?

July 23, 2012 / jeanne / 17 Comments

PhoebeCools

Our dog growls and barks and shows her anger when someone behaves badly or trespasses on our personal space. Our dog rolls on her back in the grass and smiles from rib to rib. Our dog sleeps and naps and just goes with the flow. Our dog lets her leg move uncontrollably to show her pleasure when we pet her in just the right spot. Our dog forgets and forgives when we ignore her or put her on a diet or don’t respond to her wants as expeditiously as she would like. Our dog says little, never complains, lives in the moment, apologies only when absolutely necessary then moves on, is always glad to see us, and holds no grudges (at least as far as I can tell).

[::]

I want to remain calm, despite what is happening to and around me.
I want to squeal with joy or bawl in frustration like the baby in the restaurant till people are holding their ears to make the sound bearable.

I want to be patient.
I want to act, act fast, and act NOW.

I want to accept everybody as they are.
I want to outlaw stupidity this very afternoon.

I want to connect with people.
I want to be left alone.

I want to be needed.
I want everybody to go figure it out for themselves.

I want to be nice and pleasant so people will want to be around me.
I want to snap peoples’ heads off and spit out the seeds.

I want to set and accomplish goals.
I want to play and saunter like there’s no tomorrow.

I want to offer guidance.
I want people to go find their own way and maybe (or maybe not) send me a postcard.

I want to think literally and logically and formulaically so you can see my brain shine, so I’ll be though of as smart, intelligent.
I want to leave the thinking to my bones. Maybe you’ll understand it, maybe you won’t, and I want to be totally okay with that.

I want to go to a party.
I want to go to a silent retreat. For one. (But I want you to bring me food periodically. Just leave it at the gate.)

I want to talk in parables.
I want to cut to the chase so there’s no mistaking what I am saying.

I want to be in control.
I want to let the breezes show me the way to go.

I want to be kind.
I want karma to kick some folks in the shins while I’m still alive to enjoy it.

I want to be able to sum myself up in a 6-word bio on one half of one side of a business card.
I want to cherish and indulge and honor my many and varied interests and talents and forget about labels to help you peg me in less than 60 seconds.

I want to trust that things will work out for the good of all involved.
I want to stay the hell away from groups in the first place.

I want to be confident and in charge.
I want to be blissfully vulnerable.

I want to trust people unequivocally.
I want to lock all the charlatans up and throw away the keys.

I want to overlook and accept.
I want to call out everything and everybody. Overlook? Blind acceptance? How do you think we got in this mess in the first place?

I want the Mona Lisa smile to be my lipstick.
I want to laugh and cry and sometimes be a non-committal blank slate.

I want to mince my words, saying very, very, very little so that each word counts.
I want to spill all my words – every last one of ’em.

I want to feel supported, so could I please get you to read this before I mash the send button?
I want to put it out there in its raw honesty and let the chips fall where they will.
In other words: I want your approval,
but I don’t want to want your approval.

I want to create for the sake of creativity, to do things just for the sake of planting goodness in the world – you know, like Johnny Appleseed and his seedlings.
I want to be paid for what I do, create, and am good at. (And I want you to think of that so I don’t have to ask.)

I want to be affable and easy to work with so people will want to do the things I’m paying them to do.
I want to take her head off because I’m not paying her to behave like a moron for christ’s sake.

I want to have a steady, predictable rhythm to my days.
I want to nap, write, stitch, and walk at will.

I want to make people laugh.
I want to make people cry.

I want to make people think.
I want people to stop thinking and start feeling.

I want people to look up to me.
I want people to look up to themselves.

I want people to follow me.
I want people to get off all bandwagons (including mind) and start thinking/feeling/creating/living for themselves.

I want to talk things out.
I want to settle this and move on.

I want to give people a chance.
I want to snap without planning or apology when I know I’m being lied to, tricked, mislead, manipulated, or any/all of the above.

I want to whet all my appetites.
I want to stop the overwhelm of taking in so much information and just go with what I’ve got.

I want to get answers from others who’ve already trod the path.
I want to rely on myself and my body as a cache of knowledge.

I have something to say.
I have nothing to say.

I want to know what it is I’m here to do.
I want to live in the Mystery Unfolding.

Hello.
My name is Jeanne,
and this is me in any given 24-hour period.

Maybe I should just become a dog.

OurMellowPhoebe

22

July 22, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

she draws (with one pen stroke):

NancyFriday022

i stitch:

22b

Art is not making a beautiful surface,
or drawing a realistic apple.
Art is getting to an essence,
reaching the senses.
~ Shoichi Ida ~

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

21

July 21, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

She draws this (using a single pen stroke):

NancyFriday021

I stitch:

HE SITS DOWN ON THE FLOOR OF A SCHOOL FOR THE RETARDED
Alden Nowlan

I sit down on the floor of a school for the retarded,
a writer of magazine articles accompanying a band
that was met at the door by a child in a man’s body
who asked them, “Are you the surprise they promised us?”

It’s Ryan’s Fancy, Dermot on guitar,
Fergus on banjo, Denis on penny-whistle.
In the eyes of this audience, they’re everybody
who has ever appeared on TV. I’ve been telling lies
to a boy who cried because his favorite detective
hadn’t come with us; I said he had sent his love
and, no, I didn’t think he’d mind if I signed his name
to a scrap of paper: when the boy took it, he said,
“Nobody will ever get this away from me,”
in the voice, more hopeless than defiant,
of one accustomed to finding that his hiding places
have been discovered, used to having objects snatched
out of his hands. Weeks from now I’ll send him
another autograph, this one genuine
in the sense of having been signed by somebody
on the same payroll as the star.
Then I’ll feel less ashamed. Now everyone is singing,
“Old McDonald had a farm,” and I don’t know what to do
about the young woman (I call her a woman
because she’s twenty-five at least, but think of her
as a little girl, she plays that part so well,
having known no other), about the young woman who
sits down beside me and, as if it were the most natural
thing in the world, rests her head on my shoulder.

It’s nine o’clock in the morning, not an hour for music.
And, at the best of times, I’m uncomfortable
in situations where I’m ignorant
of the accepted etiquette: it’s one thing
to jump a fence, quite another thing to blunder
into one in the dark. I look around me
for a teacher to whom to smile out my distress.
They’re all busy elsewhere. “Hold me,” she whispers, “Hold me.”

I put my arm around her. “Hold me tighter.”
I do, and she snuggles closer. I half expect
someone in authority to grab her
or me; I can imagine this being remembered
forever as the time the sex-crazed writer
publicly fondled the poor retarded girl.
“Hold me,” she says again. What does it matter
what anybody thinks? I put my other arm around her and
rest my chin in her hair, thinking of children,
real children, and of how they say it, “Hold me”
and of a patient in a geriatric ward
I once heard crying out to his mother, dead
for half a century, “I’m frightened! Hold me!”
and of a boy-soldier screaming it on the beach
at Dieppe, of Nelson in Hardy’s arms,
of Frieda gripping Lawrence’s ankle
until he sailed off in his Ship of Death.

It’s what we all want, in the end,
to be held, merely to be held,
to be kissed (not necessarily with the lips
for every touching is a kind of kiss).

Yes, it’s what we all want, in the end,
not to be worshipped, not to be admired,
not to be famous, not to be feared,
not even to be loved, but simply to be held.

She hugs me now, this retarded woman, and I hug her.
We are brother and sister, father and daughter,
Mother and son, husband and wife.
We are lovers. We are two human beings
huddled together for a little while by the fire
in the Ice Age, two hundred thousand years ago.

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.

20

July 20, 2012 / JeanneHC / 0 Comments

Nancy draws (using 5 pen strokes):

NancyFriday020

I stitch:

20b

“Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled —
to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float
a little above this difficult world.”
– Mary Oliver

~~~~~~~~~

She draws, I stitch.
She is my developmentally disabled sister-in-law, Nancy,
and I am Jeanne, the woman who flat-out loves her.
Go here to start at the beginning and read your way current.