Neighbor Nick

 

 

We had the sweetest neighbor.  Nick would go out and pick up every far-flung stick that flew from the cedar trees dividing our yards.  He, also, Raked up every fallen pine spill.  All winter, they were quiet and we hardly saw him.  First sign of spring, there he was, picking up sticks and stacking them, neatly at the border of our yards.  If he saw us sitting outside on the patio, he would walk over and bring us up to speed on how he was feeling.  He was just not as active as he usually was.  We would have a good visit for an hour or so and off he would go to pick up more winter debris. 

On year, he got a load of wood and there were many wooden panels that were just my size.  He used to comment on the one outside painting I did on a wooden panel and hung outside on the side of the house.  He would say he thought someone was in my yard every time he saw that portrait painting.  I knew he liked my art.  He knew I loved wood panels.  He gave me a whole stack of them, and so, as a gift back, I painted him an extra large one. 

I painted a trout jumping in a mountain lake and took it too hm and he showed me where he was actually going to put it on a wall he was building in a family room downstairs.  He would comment on how visitors loved that painting and asked about it and who painted it. 

He, also, loved my ginger pear jam I sent home with him one day when I was canning.  Every year he would bring me over some pears and say how much he loved it.  Every year, I would take him some over. 

This spring he told me how he just did not have enough air to have much energy and he had a chair out on the end of their patio where he could sit down between armfuls of sticks.  He said he did not have much air.  Then, one day he told me he was having tests and was waiting for a special heart test that was booked for a few weeks away. 

At 3:30 am, April 17^th, I got a call in the middle of the night.  Nick had passed away and she wanted me to come sit with her and another neighbor friend.  He had wakened the night before, telling his wife that he just couldn’t breathe right and he did not think he was going to live through the night.  Ambulance was called and she never saw him again.  He died in the ambulance but they tried to resuscitate him when his wife following the ambulance, got into the hospital.  It was so sudden, so unexpected, and his wife was able to see him looking so peaceful.  Her last view of him.  He did not live through the night, indeed.  There was no sleep that night.

He was such a good, kind, man.  Nothing made him waver from hope and joy in everyday living, no matter how hard things might be.  He would see us come home from somewhere and would walk right over to visit as soon as we got out of the vehicle.  He was such a good man and I shall miss him dreadfully.

We went to his celebration of life on Saturday.  I was not prepared for my reaction.  Quiet tears ran down my cheeks as one of his 17 sibling, yes, 17, would give a few memories of him in their life.  His son, who I had never met, as life was busy for them and he did not visit often, gave his history.  At the front of the funeral home was his metal boat, his fishing gear, nets, and suddenly I saw it.  ... My painting in the center of the tableau.  It did me in. 

A sister, a brother, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, a friend, all shared memories.  And I was drawn into it all as I remembered his joy at that painting.  He never did build it into the wall.  I saw it propped up in their living room, against the fireplace mantle.  I saw it again at the funeral.  But it was not a somber affair.  It was as he was... calm, quiet stories to be told, laughter, everything he would have loved it to be. 

I took food over for the first few days.  What more could I do?  He loved my cookies and treats.  I would slip over and leave treats and food to help out with all he company that dropped in.  His wife never cried.  I thought it was shock.  But, I listened to her and understood she saw her beloved, married for 52 years, peaceful and believed him to be at peace... she was his twin flame... quiet, calm, and full of hope and lived life in such a way… as he did.   Both she and I woke in the middle of the night at the same time.  I would go outside to greet the dawn and see her light on in her house.  I have not seen it on since he passed.  She rests.  She will be lonely now everything is done and her son and his family are gone back to the coast.  I will go and spend some time with her before I head to Alberta.  Now the lonesomeness will come.   Thursday she will not go on their usual outing.  She no longer has her square-dancing partner, her fishing partner.  Those activities will not be happening, if, at all, they could.  He has left a hole in her life that cannot be filled.  He leaves a hole in our neighborhood.

He has bigger fish to fry now.

Carol Desjarlais 5,19,24 

 

Putting A Cork on Overthinking

 

 

The past is behind you, learn from it.  The future is ahead, prepare for it.  The present is here, live it.

I was, once, and am, yet, still, an overthinker, if I do not rein myself in.  I work hard to hold my horses back when thoughts want to stampede.  I am not a histrionic woman, but I could be.  I am not a catastrophic woman, but I could be that too.  I can be my own worst enemy.

These last two weeks, I have been invited to exhibit my work in a couple of places:  one a heritage site where bus tours for the Gold Rush Trail stop in and the other, a gallery.  It is so insidious how my brain kicks in to second guess everything I have the opportunity to do.

I should be nothing but happy and I have been stressed to the max because my ego starts its self-defeating chatter about how I am not good enough to show my work, how vain of me to even think so, that others will see what a hoax to think my work is worthy of such.  But I kept on typing up my bio, my artist statement and inventory, and display cards, nonetheless.

I encourage myself by remembering how I jump into a cold river pool.  I take some time to bolster myself up and the simply run and jump.  I refuse procrastination, let the fear go, and take the preparation paperwork step by step.  I literally take emotion out of the equation. 

I am slowly coming to the understanding that I am not who others think of me.  My art is not to please anyone else.  My art pleases me.  If I spend more time worrying about my art being accepted, it takes the joy out of sharing my creations with others.  I am offering up pieces of my soul that was the inspiration for each painting I do.  It is sacred only to me, in that respect.  If my art piece tells a new story to someone else, then it has been known.  Being known is being accepted.  I cannot let my chattering ego be in charge of my life.  My mind cannot bully my body. 

My ego, that chatters in the background, belongs in the past, is someone else’s voice, and in order to quieten it, it means that I must surrender the past critiques about my life, or my artwork, or a part of who I am. This causes me to overthink things as well.  I work hard to live in the Present and make sure to deal with the past negatives the moment they come.   I am very aware of lessening energy sustainability so I am careful where I expend it.  The mind grinds, indeed.

As I pay attention, carefully, I can catch my Ego starting to criticize, and rather than fall into thinking negatively, I block it and do something positive.  At night, as I wake up several times a night, I refuse to stay laying in the dark and, of course, do some serious overthinking, I get up and do something that takes my mind off it.  Typically, I sit and do art and allow my brain relief.  Nighttime wakening is a bad time for overthinking things, I have found.  Although I disturb my sleep patterns by getting up, I know that laying there would only give my brain free play.  For those of us prone to overthinking, Any time the mind is not doing something constructive, it will try and be destructive. 

If you are an overthinking, you know that it can really make you suffer, physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually.  I pray you find a way to cork it.

©Carol Desjarlais 5. 07. 24