Being Your Own Mom

It's that painful time of the year again. The time when the constant bombardment of ads for flowers, jewelry, brunches, cheesy cards, keeps telling you over and over not to forget "Mom." Sometimes I just want to scream at whatever media is flashing their reminders that, "NO, I'll NEVER forget her. Ever." It's hard to watch others toting their moms around and celebrating them. I never really had that chance.

My mom died six days after I turned twenty-four. I was barely an adult. She was barely fifty-four and she had had a very difficult life, which turned for the worse when I was eleven and my father, her husband, ran off with my brother's first grade teacher. We lived at the poverty level for years, and if it weren't for her parents who paid our heating bills, our taxes, helped with food and clothing, we would most likely have been on the street. Things turned rotten when mom was diagnosed with cancer, multiple myeloma, right when I graduated from college in 1983 when I was twenty-one. Mom had no health insurance. I wish, so much more in retrospect, that I could have done something.

With Mother's Day approaching I think about my mother more than usual, even though usual is every day. I talk to a painting of her- one that I did above- from memory- and one that a painter friend did of her from life. I tell her what is going on and how much she would love some of the things, and how much she would hate the others. "The others" being the horror show that continues to play in my life, starring my estranged father who recently threw something that resembled an IED onto our porch.

But despite my mothers' failing health and her lack of material resources she tried so hard to bring beauty into my life. It was embarrassing to me at that age- twenty-two, when she would mail me books that she bought used for pennies and stuffed them with letters in which she'd ramble on and on.

Now I am so happy that I saved them. The books and the letters. They live inside whatever book she sent me, and when she died and I inherited all of her books- and there were hundreds... I would constantly find things stuffed in them: clippings from the New York Times with articles about whoever the subject of the book was, gallery invitations for a book about a certain artist, a stray list of errands, and letters.

It has been twenty-seven years since my mom died and in the past seven years I have had so much turmoil in my own life that I didn't think about those letters and what they said...

But today, after I went to visit my Mother-in-Law with my husband to treat her to a lunch of sushi rolls, ("What is this? It looks very interesting. How do you eat it?") I was needing to mother myself, so I pulled out the letter that my mom wrote to me and saw that the date was April 22, 1984.

It was this time of year. It was stuffed into the book of Whitman poetry twenty-nine years ago, and it resonated even more now.

This is what my mom, Frieda Savitz Laden wrote to me twenty-nine years ago when she sent me "Whitman:"

Nina-
Thought you might enjoy this- the notes are not mine- it is a sample of his work- you already know-

I send you flowers- poems- & love- the sweetness- the beauty of life- and, all the eye can see- that is the fulfillment of living- to see- & to express it- & to become part of it- without doing- it is there- you do not have to "pick it"- "take it!"- "record it!"- it is there- it will always be there for you- as long as you are!- It is my gift to you- you wear it well, my beautiful daughter-

I never expected you- I have never expected anything- really in life- I did not anticipate who you would be- you are far more wondrous to me- then I could imagine- if I had imagined-

In time you will meet- what people can be- you have already- to a degree- in both directions-

You are magnificent- and I am fortunate- you couldn't be anyone else- never stop writing- a small poem will do- or, drawing- a small one will do- or, thinking- a small thought will do- but your's is yours- & no one can say it that way- it is your wonderment- the ugly- the cynic- will always draw the crowd- the ability to break down- to destroy appears to the many- to the big- to the popular- but the other grows in a corner- out of sight- small & very beautiful- all encompassing with the heart & mind!
The softness of a petal of a flower- you are! Happy spring!
Love, Mom

Mom was right. In so many ways. And I try to heed her words, her thoughts, her unconditional love. She isn't here anymore in a physical sense, but I do bring her with me wherever I go. I remember hearing people say how horrible it was to "become your mother." I know I can never be her- exactly her, but I can become the mom/woman/artist/friend she was- to me and to others. 

And that is a gift. 

So be your own mom.

To others and to yourself.

And share the beauty of who you are.

With Love,

Nina

It's Not A Woodcut: Inventing a Technique

Many times I am asked if I created the art for my book, "PEEK-A WHO?" with woodcuts. I did not. I love wood and linoleum and I've used those techniques in the past. I was also very into scratchboard at different stages in my life. When I came up with the idea for "PEEK-A WHO?" I did some art samples in gouache, but they just seemed ordinary and rather lifeless to me. I loved the vibration and edginess that wood, linocuts and scratchboard achieved, but they were problematic: I had a die-cut which needed an exact registration. Wood and lino can be very tricky to work with and I didn't want to have to cut over again if I screwed up. Scratchboard was not simple to add color to...

So completely by accident- or perhaps it wasn't an accident- I experimented with faking a woodcut style. To my delight and surprise it worked better than I expected. I loved painting this way. Even though the art and colors were bright and simple, the art had texture and movement. Was it a success? I'll say! "PEEK-A WHO?" came out in 2000. It has now sold almost a million copies. I know it's not only the technique I created- it is so much more... but as I'm in the middle of creating two more books like "PEEK-A WHO?" which will publish in Spring '14, I thought I'd share my technique here.

I truly believe that artists should share their discoveries. We all have our own styles, our own voices. Everyone brings their own individual DNA to whatever we do. So, in doing this, I'm not saying, "go copy me," I'm saying "if you want to play with this- go have fun, and take it in your own direction."

Of course I start with a sketch, an approved sketch if it is going in a book. I'm not going to show the sketch here. We have other fish... or frogs to fry.

In advance, I take my Arches hot press watercolor paper and I paint the live art area black. I use Holbein Acryla Gouache for my paint. It has characteristics of both gouache and acrylic.

Once the background is dry I transfer my drawing using white chalk. Plain old blackboard chalk on a sheet of tracing paper placed under the sketch which is properly lined up, of course.

I will always keep a folded sheet of tracing paper under my right hand as I work on my illustration so that I don't make a mess of things. That was a lesson I learned when I was working with charcoal and pastels.

Next, I choose my color palette, and using a very fine brush, I go in and outline where the color block areas will be, leaving a funky black outline in between the color. This is actually working both the positive and the negative space at the same time. My brain loves things like this.

I also fill in a few of the lighter colors as I go. I don't have a sink in my old city studio- I have to go outside and into the house in order to change my brush water- so I've learned to work from lighter to darker colors so that I don't corrupt my paint, but when I am working on color block areas, I change my paint water for each color.

My new studio (which I hope to move into in June) has a huge work sink. (some of my friends have dubbed it "the wet bar.")

This next step is small, but so necessary. I get a clean cup of water, and using a wide flat brush, I clean off all of the chalk residue on the whole piece.

Now I can see my outlines clearly.

Now the fun begins: I start filling in color areas, but using my brush strokes, I leave little "nick marks" that remain black. This gives the art a woodcut look and makes things look like they vibrate, or move.

I try to keep a nice balance of marks so that areas don't look too busy.

Then I start adding in the background, again, not concentrating the little marks in any one spot, but using areas around the frog in a more accentuated way as to give some action- especially around his arms where he is playing the banjo.

With the background in place, if you look closely you will see that the colors are not quite opaque enough. So now I paint everything over again! Yes. A second layer of the same colors.

It may seem tedious, but this is when I really get to choose which nick marks stay and which ones get covered over. At this point it is wise to have some excellent music playing on your music player so you can just get in the zone and paint.

It's looking better, but I'm still not done.



One last very important detail: I go back in with the original black paint and clean up every single black line to make them pop. (not the nick marks... don't worry- I don't repaint them.)

And here he is: a frog playing a banjo with a tadpole audience.

Very simple, but very fun.

I hope you enjoyed this!

With Love, 

Nina

Remembering Melvina

Melvina passed away, flew out of her wheelchair, grew eagle wings and soared on April Fool's Day. It was fitting that she chose that day in her fifty-eighth year to leave. She left behind a large and beautiful family, all wearing purple and black at her funeral. She left behind some of the most incredible beadwork, some of which I will share with you if you will bear with me, and she left me behind, the fool that I am, finally realizing that there are many sides to the stories that this beautiful and tortured Lummi-Tlingit woman told- and only some of them were true.

For the eleven years that I have lived on Lummi Island I became fascinated by the tiny First Nations woman in the wheelchair who rolled over to the ferry dock in all kinds of weather, pitching her beadwork and sad stories of bad health and woe while it stormed, froze, blew and roasted her. Her work was exquisite, though, and as an artist, I couldn't believe that she asked that little for what I knew took so much time to create, so I started buying her wares, listening to her tales, and we became friends of a sort. She reminded me so much of my artist mother who had died broke, with no health insurance, of cancer at age fifty-four. My mom didn't weigh eighty-six pounds like Melvina, but she did get tiny at the end.

The first two pairs of Melvina's beaded earrings I bought over a decade ago were these feathered pieces: drums with leather she had sewn, and the other pair had malachite beads in addition to the glass seed beads. But what Melvina was known for were her hummingbirds. Most of my friends on the island called her, "The Hummingbird Lady." Over the years I bought many pairs of her incredible hummingbirds. 

She would charge $25 or $30 for them in the beginning. They became harder for her to make as her health got worse, and she charged $40 for them later on. I told her she was a treasure and hoped that she was passing this skill on to other family members.

 She never really answered that question. She did say that she had a neurological disorder that came from a car accident and that she knew that soon she would lose the feeling in her hands and wouldn't be able to do this work anymore.

I felt bad for her and tried to help anyway I could. I drove over to her small, but comfortable duplex up the hill in the housing complex and brought her food and jewelry supplies a few times. I gave her strawberries from Mounts Strawberry stand on Slater Road. She loved strawberries. And I bought her jewelry and I commissioned pieces.

I asked her for rose earrings and she made them. She was so happy when I picked them up. She proudly told me that she had made them for another woman and that woman had worn them in Paris. Her roses were in Paris! It was like Melvina herself went to Paris. I have worn mine in Seattle, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Mexico.

Many islanders own her pieces and wear them proudly. I'm sure others have commissioned Melvina to do work as I did. A lot of people worried about her sitting there in the bad weather, and so many of us thought that she was abandoned by her family. Melvina told stories of a family that didn't help her or care. She talked of a son who was an addict and stole from her. She had two sons, one very successful, and she never talked about him.

As I got to know her, or the person she wanted me to know, I started to tell her about my family and our big problems.

I bought her amazing beaded Christmas wreath earrings about five years back, around the time that we discovered that we had two sons addicted to opiates. Melvina and I commiserated. I understood what it felt like to have your own family steal things from you. As we struggled to figure out how to get our sons clean, our time on Lummi Island became the very small refuge in what became an epic storm. Melvina was always there, like a buoy marking the channel. Her pain always seemed greater, but she carried on.

I kept supporting her. Secretly wishing she would offer to teach me how to do this beadwork. I knew how to use a bead loom...

She made me a beaded dreamcatcher. I did not expect there to be a perfect beaded eagle in the center. Melvina told me that the white feathers were eagle downy feathers.


Then she told me she wanted to make me paddle earrings because I told her about how much I loved kayaking. She put lavender roses on the front of the paddles. The beads were so tiny and her work was unbelievably tight.

But it didn't stay that way. There were periods when I didn't see her at the ferry landing and worried about her. She told me that she needed heart surgery, but they didn't want to operate because she wasn't strong enough. At another point she told me that she needed her pain pills- her oxy, but the doctor on the reservation wouldn't give them to her. That should have been a red flag to me... but I didn't see it waving.

I saw that the red poinsettias she made for me were not as well-made as her past work. She made them on what looked like electric guitar strings, which was clever, though. Melvina was a creative scrapper and I liked that about her.

The past few years her work was just not so good and I knew it was a sign. We all did.

She made me Dream Catcher earrings- it was her idea to make them, but they didn't seem finished. I had wished that she had added her beaded feathers hanging from the bottom. Yet, they are still beautiful. Melvina's spirit was in them, and I always felt compelled to buy what she offered me because I knew she put her soul into the work.

One day I saw these very detailed tiny hoops on the cardboard sheet of earrings that she showed to each car in the ferry line.

How she did this intricate work and charged next to nothing for it disturbed me. I offered time and time again to take her jewelry to museum gift shops. I told her that I could get her two or three times what she was asking. She never said anything. She just smiled that tight-lipped pained smile.

When we'd talk I'd look her in the eyes and tell her that I loved her. Sometimes I'd hold her hand. She had my cell number and she'd call me when she finished a piece, and I'd drive over to the ferry, walk on, and meet her on the dock and then take the next ferry back.

Her hummingbirds truly were her best work. I kept telling her that she could make them as a necklace- with just one hummingbird in the middle. So she made me this necklace. I didn't imagine the hummingbird to be so big, but Melvina was excited. "I had some big beads," she said. "How did you get the wings to stay open?" I asked her. "Oh, I put some glue on them," she said, "you can't see it, it's clear."

It was clear that there were so many things I didn't see about her.

This past fall my husband's health was failing. I didn't see Melvina. I didn't see Lummi Island. I spent most of November, December, January and into February hunkered down, either in Swedish Hospital or in our city home, nursing Booth back to the world of the living after he almost died.

I thought about Melvina on the few trips to the island in the winter, but didn't see her out there on the dock.

On March 20th, I drove to the island, riding through a storm so intense and dark, it was almost apocalyptic. When I got to the ferry dock the sun was shining and Melvina was there. It was lunch time and I had about a 45 minute wait before the next ferry. I rolled down the window as Melvina rolled over to me. "I haven't seen you in so long," she said. "I know," I told her. "My husband almost died." We talked and talked. She told me that she had a stent put in her heart, but that she had fluid in the pericardial sac around it. I didn't have to ask how she was feeling, I could tell by the pain in her eyes and by the simple earrings on her board. This was all the work she could muster. She told me that she really needed money. I told her that I liked the red glass ones. "Ten dollars," she said. I counted out a pile of singles and handed her ten. I wanted to talk more, but the ferry was coming, and so was the storm. She rolled away and I had no idea that would be the last time I would ever see her.

The next week we had a funeral to attend for former governor Booth Gardner who was my husband's second cousin, so we didn't go to the island. Then there was Easter and work... and then I found out that Melvina had died through our island community web network. I cried for two days on and off. I wore her earrings. I put together a vase of spray roses and decorated the bottle with plastic beads and gold ribbon. I wrote a heartfelt letter to her family and we went to her funeral at the Wex liem Community Center on Friday.

Seeing the outpouring of love and grief at her simple, but beautiful service, and listening carefully, a very different picture of Melvina came to light. The stories that I heard at the ceremony were of a beloved mother who made delicious chop suey, who sat in her wheelchair waiting for her son to return home in his fishing boat, of the grandmother who took everyone in, who loved her grandchildren and great grandchildren. Almost every woman there wore a pair of her beaded earrings or a beaded barrette. Her ex-husband spoke, although he had laryngitis, he said that they had gotten close again near the end.

I learned in the program that she was known as "Mama Kim" to her family. She has five sisters. She used to fix fishing nets and she attended Bellingham Vo-Tech in the auto-mechanic program.

Islanders thought that her family didn't love her. They did. So much so. But from what I could see, as the tiny beads came together and wove themselves into the story of her life- lately what they were giving her was tough love. That meant no money. No cash. Melvina needed cash and she was not the type to beg. She was strong and she was talented. She sold her beadwork to get cash for her own addiction.

It all made sense, and it didn't. But it didn't matter. She was free from her pain now. I could see her flying over the Hales Passage- without her wheelchair- the one that so many of her family and friends in the reservation used to help push up the hill to her home. She never asked. She always counted on them to be there to help her and they did.

Having been through what I've been through with family members addicted I should have seen the signs. They were all there... Melvina wasn't telling the truth on the ferry line. She was telling stories, but we believed her. I don't believe those stories anymore, but I do believe that she is now free.

I'm grateful to have gotten to know something of her- I wish I had known the real Melvina, but I will cherish her beadwork and love it as I have loved her. She was not her addiction, and I know there was nothing that any of us could have done to help her. What I can do now is share her beautiful creations and wear them for the rest of my days...

...and as the Lummi Elder who spoke at the end of the service said, I'm going to"stay behind the hearse. Don't race Death."

With Love,
Nina

Jacked: Painting with Words

I know I have not posted in a while. I am on deadline, knee-deep in acrylic gouache, painting two new board books that will publish in Spring '14. This is good. I am loving being back in the studio, listening to music and moving paint around on paper.

My mind wanders when I paint. I start writing poems, songs. I get ideas for stories, all of which I write down in my journal or on the kraft paper covering my table. I also think about the past.

The past five years were the most difficult of my life. I had to deal with family crises involving drug addiction, mental illness, and near death. I couldn't produce my buoyant and bold children's books, in fact I have not had a new book out in all those years. That did not mean that I wasn't writing. I wrote like a demon in my journals. I processed the insanity that swirled around me. I took the poison and the pain and I wrote a novel. It is dark. It is different. It is nothing like my children's books. It is called "Jacked." It is about many things, but it is mostly about robbing yourself of childhood and finding your own voice. It is based on true events and situations, but the truth was not enough so I found a thread that came from an old Mother Goose rhyme which seemed to tie things together. That led me to creating a meta-narrator who was the son of Mother Goose, who I dubbed "The Universal Jack."

It took me four years of reworking and revising to get the novel where it is now. Where it isn't is sold. I wish it was. My literary agent sent it out on a limited basis, first to the Young Adult market (it was deemed "too adult") and then briefly to the Adult market. So far it has gotten some great rejections- some praised my writing but said the book was not "commercial." Another said the book was commercial, but it was not that particular editor's taste. For the time being, I'm trying to be patient. I have many other irons in the fire in kid's books... but still, I have hope that "Jacked" will find a home.

Meanwhile, a friend on Facebook suggested that I share an excerpt. I decided that was not a bad idea, so I've copied the opening of the novel for your perusal. A warning: this is intense and it is definitely R rated, but so is real life.

Old Mother Goose,

When she wanted to wander,

Would ride through the air

On a very fine gander.

Jack’s mother came in,

And caught the goose soon,

And mounting its back,

Flew up to the moon.

THE UNIVERSAL JACK

Who was Jack? He was nimble and quick. He stuck in his thumb and pulled out a plum and said, “what a good boy am I.” He climbed a beanstalk. He ate no fat. He built a house. He also fell down and broke his crown. He was everychild. He was no child. He jacked his own childhood. He was going to keep tumbling and I had to watch.

I had to watch them all. It was a curse. I was trapped in my own collection of nursery rhymes. Maybe it was because she deserted me. She left me there and took off on that goose. I tried to send a message. I really did. But they can’t hear me. She can’t hear me. I’d like to change those rhymes. Maybe then she’ll come back and get me out of this mess. In the meantime, I watch them. All the Jacks. Jack Be Nimble. Little Jack Horner. Jack Sprat. Jack and his Jill. Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack and the Giant Killer. Jack and the House he built. Jack Frost. Jack in the Box. One-eyed Jack. Jack of Hearts, and Diamonds, and Clubs and Spades. I am them. They are me.

There was one Jack who needed me more than the others. He was like me. He even knew my stories. His mother flew off like mine did, although it wasn’t on a goose. But I couldn’t stop him from falling down, as much as I wished I could. However, I watched it all unfold, and hoped that one day he’d sense my presence and free both of us. I wrote this for him. He doesn’t know it yet, but he will. Believe me, he will.

And so it begins in the house. I didn’t build this house. Neither did he.  But here we go, and it’s…

PRETTY UGLY

There he is. Locked in the guest room in what used to be his home. The ceiling is high, inescapable. The walls seem to be placed too close to each other. There is no beanstalk out the window to climb, but it’s a good thing the bathroom is right there, one door away. That would be called a master suite in a fancy home, but not in this case. In this case it is one step away from prison. He, Jack Banks, is the inmate. Under ordinary circumstances he would get up to say, “hey,” in that sort of mumbled, barely audible tone he’s been using lately, but these aren’t ordinary circumstances. Cleo, the cat is outside the door, howling like she’s caught in a trap. His stepmother, Anna is howling, too.
“Jack, let that cat into your room, she’s driving us crazy.”
Cleo paces around in circles, convinced that the world is coming to an end, and in some ways, it is.

From what I can see, there are pieces of a puzzle scattered all over the floor. I’d ask him to help me make sense of them, but he’s barely coherent, and I’m not sure he’s ever been aware of my presence, except maybe when he was little. More about that later. Maybe if I describe the scene, we can put it together, at least in our minds. There is the requisite pile of clothing, color coordinated with a collection of expensive leather sneakers. Don’t mind the blood stains here and there. Extra bedding, as Jack seems to be hot and sweating profusely one minute, and cold the next, so the big, fluffy, flannel-covered down comforter is in a state of constant motion on the bed and off of it. There is a sizable amount of candy- hard and soft, chewy, chocolate-covered, sweet and sour- this is making me hungry for Christmas pie, but no plums for this Jack. This appears to be his sole source of nutrition. There is also an odd assortment of paraphernalia: lighters, tea-light holder-looking tins, orange plastic caps, half-empty pop bottles, a mostly empty pack of Marlboros, a thick black belt- already set for someone who has a waist as skinny as Jack’s arm, and his arms are pretty skinny. There is a knife, and a nail clipper. There is also a brand new composition notebook- the kind with the black and white abstract pattern- like looking at a Holstein cow through a kaleidoscope- and there are a few new pens, untouched. However, there is a well-used older Bic pen. It seems to be missing its ink cartridge. A tangle of cords runs over an assortment of DVD’s leading to a Playstation, hooked up to Jack’s old TV set. In some ways it could all seem fairly cozy- like being on a well-stocked sailboat heading out on a fantastic voyage. Only you’ll see, once you start fitting all of the pieces of the puzzle together, it is really rather frightful, and that sailboat is heading into the storm of the century. Hang on there, Jack, buddy!

There is something missing from the room, and it will soon become apparent that Jack is more than aware of this absence. That would be his wallet and his car keys. He surrendered them willingly not that many hours ago, but now he thinks he made a mistake. What was he thinking? Was he thinking? I don’t think he was thinking much, but from what I observed I sensed that he felt like a runaway train, and for some reason he pulled the emergency brake. To him the details may be fuzzy, especially now when it looks like he is going to crawl out of his skin. He’s wondering why he came home. He has an apartment. However he did ask for help. But now he thinks he can handle it. Maybe. Maybe if he calls Misty. Then he’d get a grip. Or maybe if he’s lucky he can get some Xanax or some Valium.  Poor Jack, he looks like he’s going to implode. Or puke. Or scratch himself until he not only draws blood, but writes a ballad in it- a ballad dedicated to Misty. She’s the bitch who smashed his racing heart.

Speaking of writing ballads in blood, I see Jack is up and about, kind of tossing things in a frenzy. Must be looking for something. Not the car keys, they’re not there. Oh, he’s looking at the composition book. Be still my beating writer’s heart. Anna gave him that composition book. She also used to read him “my stories” when he was little. Well, I didn’t write them, Mother wrote them, but they were “about” me. You know, “Jack Be Nimble,” “Little Jack Horner,” “Jack Sprat,” “Jack and Jill,” “This is the House that Jack Built,” “Jack and the Beanstalk.” That’s when we first got acquainted. I recognized some of me in him even back then as he listened to each word. He didn’t know it but there were hidden messages in those words. They are still there waiting for him to decode. 

When Anna gave him that Holstein cow patterned composition book she told him to document his recovery experiences. “Document?” he scoffed.
“Yes, Jack. Write. Write about what you are going through. I promise it will help. I got you three different colors of pens- maybe you can use them for different moods.”
“What color do you use for THIS SUCKS mood?” he asked, but got no reply. Write? I can see him wondering what kind of insanity that is when he can barely keep one stray thought in his head for maybe a second. Can I see him holding a pen and actually using it for something besides a tool for snorting or smoking? Not write now. (Mother wasn’t very big on puns maybe that’s why I like them.) No, Jack my boy, you are too busy being miserable, being sick. But wait a minute. What is this? Are you really doing what I think you are doing? Maybe I am the one who is delirious. Hold on, hold on- don’t shake so much, I can’t read your handwriting. Let me try to translate:

I’m supposed to write in this crappy-ass journal… I feel like total shit. What the hell am I going to write anyway? All I want, no, NEED, is to score. I’m going to be sick like any minute now. I can’t sit still. All I can think about is that little black lump, melting into the cooker, soaking it up and sucking it into the needle. That would be so nice… and Misty- she was such a piece of crap. She used me, so why do I still think about her? I’d take care of her. I’d be real, not like the guys she sleeps with. She only sleeps with them because they have more gear, more junk. She is just a slut. I thought we had something. I guess she showed me. What do I have? Nothing. Not a thing- and I need something, like right now. I am so cold. I itch like crazy. I’ve got to get out of here. Why did I do this? Why did I ask dad for help? That is like being put in the army jail. He doesn’t care if I smoke weed. Weed is cool with him- but there is no way he is going to get off my back with this- well, what he thinks is this- he thinks it’s oxy, but who cares, what’s the diff anyway? Oxy, smack, same thing. He thinks I’m just taking little ol’painkillers- stuff for little ol’ladies- that shit was too expensive, and the supply not good. But Boy, “H,” smack- is there and it’s cheap. Except that I’m frigging broke now. I want off this shit. I want out of prison. I want to go take my keys and wallet from his office- like he really trusts me, he thinks. I have enough cash, I can always take some out of dad’s change jar, he never notices. Just enough to score tonight- I’m going to die if I don’t I’m so goddam sick… Shit, Cleo- man, what is her problem? She is howling like someone stabbed her. She’s going to wake up dad and The Rules. Rob won’t give a shit- he’s probably out painting, tagging in some alley somewhere. Okay, cat in. Jack out.

Well, I’ll be. It’s not poetry. It’s a bit too blasphemous for my taste, but it’s definitely documenting what is going on. In fact, since Jack is now leaving the house with the keys to his car in one hand and his wallet in the other, I’d say it is true, and there isn’t a whole lot of truth in his life at this moment. But oh, should he be driving? It is no longer a question. It is a fact. It is the middle of the night and he knows the way. He knows the streets. He knows the sidewalks and the alleys and parks of Seattle. He knows them all like the veins on his arms. Soon he will be getting off that knife edge of anxiety- as soon as he can get that needle full of warmth, love and sweet sleepy syrup piercing through his skin cells, and on into the super-highway straight to his quivering brain. Only then will he feel well. Then he will go back home and sleep. Then we can start over. Then we can start documenting the story. If Anna thinks it will help, then maybe it’s worth a shot. Not that kind, but you know what I mean.

Whew. Now I need to get back to painting bright and brilliant gorillas, and bears, and frogs. Such is the  irony and complexity of life. Sometimes I paint with brushes. Sometimes I paint with words. There is meaning in all of it and I am grateful for the chance to share it with you.

With Love,

Nina

The Head and the Heart: A Valentine of Sorts

This year Valentine's Day is particularly poignant because Booth's heart nearly killed him, and mine nearly broke in the process. Every day has become Valentine's Day since we found out that Booth had "Left Main Disease," a genetic heart disease that is also known as "The Silent Killer" and "The Widow-Maker." We were lucky we caught the 90% blockage in Booth's left main artery and we were lucky that the triple bypass surgery fixed the problem. Unfortunately there were surgical errors which nearly killed Booth, collapsing his right lung and causing him to lose over two liters of blood, which also led to thoracic surgery to remove a blood clot that was almost a liter in volume. The blood clot scarred his right lung and the surgery punctured it. Every day we worried that there might not be a next day. Every day our hearts ached with fear of the loss of the love we have.

Booth is healing and I am trying to heal in a different way. I have learned a lot about many things during this arduous journey- things about the nature of love and sacrifice. I have learned so many things about our bodies, science, medicine, pain, signs and symptoms of shock, when to call 911, who to call to be with you when you have to drive to the ER at 9pm and stay in the ICU until 2:30am realizing if it wasn't for the fire department, the man you love would be dead.

I have also learned a lot about the heart itself. 

When Booth's cardiologist, the wonderful Dr. Willems first came back after the angiogram to explain that Booth needed open heart surgery, he drew a heart. He drew it just like you would draw a Valentine, but then he drew the aorta coming from the lungs, and he drew the high pressure chambers of the left side which receive the fresh oxygenated blood brought from the aorta directly through the left main artery. He drew the lower pressure right chambers where the spent blood returns to circulate back through the lungs. He did such an efficient job of explaining these functions that we gained a new understanding of the heart as a pump, the arteries and veins as plumbing, and the cardio-surgeon as a plumber. A very high paid plumber. Booth's heart pre-surgery was only getting 10% of the freshly oxygenated blood it needed to supply his entire body. With the triple bypass, it is now happily pumping away to its hearts' delight.

This made me do some deep thinking about the heart. We talk about thinking with our hearts, not our heads when it comes to matters of love. Now I know that is just a figure of speech, a metaphor, but after this experience, I can't help but think of the heart as anything but a beautiful pump... a powerful, rhythmic, dumb muscle that does its job and keeps the incredible machine that is our body, going. And yes, our brains are a collection of cells and neurons firing, and a chemical balance that is beyond my comprehension. Our brains are not supposed to do the thinking in matters of love, yet they process it all using every sense that we have been given- some of it common, and some of it seemingly mysterious. When our brain chemistry goes awry, as is the case with my father's bipolar disease, we can be fooled into believing things and become delusional. I have realized that never in his entire life has my father told me, "I love you." He is incapable of that emotional connection. It was a painful realization, but my brain allowed me to process it and let it go. 

With Valentine's Day we are bombarded with so many heart images and references it is truly a heart attack. I'm feeling a little gun-shy about this. I'm feeling the fragility of life itself as I ponder freshly oxygenated blood traveling through our arteries and veins. I'm feeling the intense love for the man I've shared the past twenty-four years with, hoping there will be twenty-four more, at least. But I don't think I'm using my heart. Or my head. I think I'm using my soul. I know our souls are connected, his and mine, and after this experience, I feel that connection even stronger. 

So this Valentine's Day we will continue to do what we have been doing: sharing our love... heart, mind, body, soul, whatever you want to call it. There will be some chocolate, too. (I'll be making Flourless Chocolate Raspberry Cakes.) 

My wish for you, my friends is to keep your heart healthy, your brain strong and balanced, and love with all your soul.

Happy Valentine's Day.

Truly, 

Nina

The Next Big Thing Blog Tour

This is something completely new for me. A blog tour. I have to admit that I've been very low key about my blog, but maybe it's time to play higher key? So what is a blog tour? A blog tour gives those on the tour a chance to meet different authors by way of their blogs. The Next Big Thing began in Australia. I've never been to Australia, but I'd like to go someday. Each week a different author answers specific questions about his or her upcoming book. The answers are posted on authors' blogs. Then we get to tag another author. On and on it goes. It may go around the world a couple of times.

The tour came to me from Oregon. I was tagged by my virtual friend Eric A. Kimmel. He was tagged by his friend Pamela Smith Hill. She was tagged by her friend Judy Cox. I'll add who I am tagging at the end of this post.

And now for the questions:

What is the working title of your next book?

The title, which is the actual title, not the working title is "Once Upon A Memory." The working title was "Does A Feather Remember?" which shows that working titles do change!

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea actually came from an eagle feather that I found on our beach. There is a belief in Native American/First Nations culture that eagle feathers should be left to return to the creator. I held the feather and wondered, "does a feather remember it once was a bird?" That question led to many others, which led me to write the poem that became the book. The poem is about memory and transformation, but it's ultimately about childhood. It has many layers and is conceptual and deep.

What genre does your book fall under?

"Once Upon A Memory" is a picture book. It is also a poem, but it's not really a poetry book. I have a habit of defying genre with what I write sometimes. I think it's a book that will mean many things to many people, and I hope that everyone will find something in it that they love.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

This is funny. I have other books I've written and illustrated that I would love to pick out actors to play... but this book is not character based, even though the illustrations do have incredible characters in them. I would pick a fine animation house to do a beautiful animated short  that would win an Oscar- in my dreams! Maybe Morgan Freeman with his soothing velvety voice could read the text.

Who is publishing your book?

Little, Brown Books for Young Readers is the publisher. It will be out in December 2013, so stay tuned!

How long did it take you write the first draft of the manuscript?

Truthfully, this was written over a period of a couple of years. I started the initial poem and wrote a good chunk of it. Then I let it sit for a while. When I started to think that maybe it was a book, I thought it was a board book for toddlers, and I submitted it that way. Then it revealed itself to be a picture book, and my editor Connie Hsu at Little, Brown gave me thoughts and comments. We went back and forth as I shaped it into the final evocative piece it became. 

What else about the book might pique the reader's interest?

I wrote this book at a particularly difficult period in my life. Up until this point, my previous books (over a dozen titles) have been quite different than "Once Upon A Memory," but I'm quite proud that I had to dig deep to produce this, and I hope that it will show a very enchanting and magical side of my writing that hasn't been seen before. There is a poet that lives in me, and she is in the pages of this book.

The next stop on the tour is the beautiful and talented author/illustrator Ashley Wolff who lives in San Francisco. You will be able to read her post for this blog tour next week by clicking here.  In the meantime, you can go back and read Eric Kimmel's post here. 

And... soon I will be back to my regularly unscheduled blog posts in a lower key!

Thank you for visiting.

With Love,

Nina

Missing: Myself

Parts of me have been missing for some time now and I need to get in touch with them. I'm not really sure how to go about doing that, but I know it does not involve the internet.

The parts that are missing are:

1) The part of me that drew and painted all the time.

2) The part of me that wrote: wrote stories, wrote poems, wrote novels, wrote songs.

3) The part of me that played guitar, ukulele and sang. Sang other people's songs. Sang my songs.

4) The part of me that skied and kayaked- the part of me that loved the feeling of motion over water, both liquid and frozen.

5) The part of me that dreamed dreams that were not stressful, scary, full of missing connections, engagements, appointments, of losing things, husbands, friends, myself.

I am missing a lot of parts. I know I've been barely keeping it together these days, and I'm not beating myself up over this. Yet. I know what I've been through these past few months, years, has been a nightmare, and it's little wonder why I had to draw myself inwards, not outwards. Now there's an image: myself inside of myself, trapped.

But now the excuses are gone. Booth is healing. He went in to work for the first time in almost two months today. "The Sperm Donor" or "Blob" (that is what I call my father) has been banished from my life, my cell phone, my psyche, which is much simpler to write than it is to accomplish. My brother, David can't handle the psychosis that Blob slings his way, so he calls me or texts me to dump it back in my lap, as if I know how to get rid of toxic waste, the latest radioactive crap being that Blob decided to inform the wonderful Ballard Landmark that he wanted to move out, then changed his mind (which happens practically every second of every day) but they accepted his "resignation" happily, and now he is buying a microscopic street level studio condo for more than it's worth, and less than what he has now in security and comfort, not to mention healthy meals and weekly cleaning services. He also told my brother that he wants tattoos on both his neck and his arm. Sure. Why not? Don't all 81 year olds get tattoos? I can't imagine what the images will be, or maybe I can. There is another image for you.

Sigh. Yes, this excrement is still going on, and I do feel more detached from it than I've felt in the past, but it still runs in the background like a computer virus, slowing things down and ruining my files.

So what am I going to do about these missing parts of me? I thought about writing letters to them, asking them to forgive me and to please come back.

I'm offering sacrifices, the biggest one being Facebook. I realize that it was a real comfort during all of the bleak moments and I needed the love and support of my friends to get through one crisis after another. But now it seems hollow and empty like a pretty shell that I don't need to collect right now. At this point I need to build a solid structure, a foundation for the future. I can allow myself a little "check-in" but where I really need to be is in my studio and office, at my computer and/or journal. (Like I am doing right now.)

For my missing art parts- I need to make myself draw and/or paint something every day even if it is just a doodle.

For my missing writing parts- I need to do this- what I am doing right now- and more.

For my missing music parts- I need to open those cases and tune those instruments and make some music- each day, even if it is just a few chords, or one song.

Now, I know I can't ski or paddle each day, but I need to treat myself to it when I can, and I need to keep doing my workout or walk each day, which I have been doing, which has kept me grounded and makes me feel strong and makes me happy that my clothing fits and helps me not worry about the time that my butt is in a chair.

The part of me that dreams will be harder. I think that is going to take longer to heal. But I can help it by reading good books before I go to bed and then hopefully dream of the good books that I will want to write, and then I will begin to feel whole again, and not just a collection of missing parts.

I truly hope this will work, but I understand that this will take time and practice... recovery can be slow, but in my heart I know it is what must be done, and it must be done with love.

I'm off to find myself. Hope to see you along the journey-

Nina