I've been trying to find my way around the recent past. Basically... it has me stumped.

N has been doing much better lately.

But after I had to call the cops to check on her, I felt done in. In a way I can't describe. I thought I was strong enough to just keep chugging on, but I hit some kind of wall, and at first it felt okay to have hit that wall, to decide to take a little space for me...

to date (I'm trying out dating)
to start working again
to settle down a bit
and so forth.

And it seemed okay. I mean, N started to get better, it seemed. She found someone down in AZ who is older and present and familiar with being around people who are struggling, and he seemed to be the wonder she needed. I don't know if it was him alone, or just time, or a shift that was inevitable, or what, but I was grateful that someone came along who was able to give her just the amount of attention she needed to pull through a bit. And so I backed away, refusing to talk to her except via text messages. I felt like I couldn't handle another incident like that one. And the only other time I talked to N, it seemed like the conversation was heading that way, so I hung up. And switched to only text messages... sending her a message a day telling her I loved her and was thinking of her, and that's it.

And now she's getting better. I still try not to hold my breath too long in the hopes that it holds, but it's been about two weeks now. And she's starting to sound like her old self, though her memory and perceptions of what happened are 'gappy' to say the least.

But what I was afraid of -- on two accounts -- is beginning to happen.

1) She is starting to realize. She is starting to wake up, as if from a nightmare, and really see what has happened. That she has lost her partner, her home, many of her items; that she has wracked up an incredible financial debt, some of which she 'owes' to her friends (including me, but I have dealt with its loss and don't want it back); that she has damaged countless friendships; that she has damaged her body; that her body is damaged; that her life is spread apart the country in shards and bad memories.

And that, on the one hand, she is the one responsible for this, but on the other hand, she is responsible for none of it. How do you reconcile yourself to having acted without control, that you have lost without throwing away? I can't even begin to imagine it. Waking up. To that.

I feel such sorrow and compassion and love and pain for her.

But (2) I still feel done in. I feel like, though she was not responsible -- that the people who abused her are responsible, and the disease that entered her brain is responsible -- that nonetheless I feel differently. I cringe when she calls. I zone out when she talks. I try to escape. I view her imminent (August) migration to the PacNW with dread. I don't want to tell her anything, I don't want to talk. I am not at all angry, but I feel done in.

And I'm having a hard time reconciling my understanding 1 with my feelings of 2. How can I be so cold? Is that what friendship is worth? How can I be the person I want to be, someone whose compassion releases all resentment, hurt, and fear?

I don't know. But I'm trying to work through it, trying to figure out what I need to do to feel the friendship again. And in the midst, I think N knows something is screwy: she talks about burning me CDs; she's read my runes for me; she keeps trying to financially pay me back though I tell her I don't want that; she purposefully and pointedly asks how I am doing, and she gives me space. She knows, and yet she's flailing around as much as I am (well... more). I feel like I owe it to her -- or better yet, that I want to be there for her -- to let it go, but I don't know how to. Yet.

Didn't know how complicated love can be. Life's a delicate thing, I guess.

Potatoes are doing well... as is the salad mix...


My garlic is almost ready to harvest I think...


I'm trying out two different kinds of cabbage this year:




A little bit o' basil. I should have enough to make pesto galore this year!


And just look at those peas...



Oh, and my new hippie gate... finished:

Well, here she is. I like the space... feeling overall pleased, but still somehow unsettled and uninspired. I need to start setting myself some warmup projects to get myself back in the groove. Or the grove. Maybe I'm just nervous?

But it does seem to be coming together. I am almost used to sharing, but not quite. I think it will be happiest using the studio on those days that I'm alone, but maybe I'll actually soon like having the breathing nearby? Anyhow, we've kind of divided up the space and I'm hoping that jw2 is happy with it - we have equal space and she has her easel next to the largest window, but I get the corner, so I get to feel tucked in. She was pretty non-participatory in moving stuff, helping to set up, painting, etc, so I'm telling myself that it's all fair, plus I'm sharing my furniture with her, which makes her a lucky girl.


The end space is just a sitting area, but the plan is to move the couch and chair when there's an art opening and use these walls for hanging stuff. Artwalk so soon! Too soon, truthfully... I am not ready and will be showing old work, which is a little disappointing. Maybe next artwalk I will have new marvelous work?

Regardless, I am waiting for the blurry vibe. You know... that one.

So, I haven't actually submitted my work very much. Lots of reasons:

*I don't like the word "submit." In fact, I hate it.

*Handing something you care about over to another entity just seems like another way of discovering how different you are from others. That would be okay, but there's almost no interactive dynamic to make it okay.

*I have low self-esteem sometimes.

*Also, huge over-inflated ego issues that make it hard to deign to #1.

*It takes me a really long time to finish pieces, either that or I feel like I'm done with them afterwards, so done in fact that I want nothing to do with them. By the time I finish, I'm either really sick of (and hate) my work, or it seems somehow outdated. I don't like bothering with it; the puzzle has been solved.

*I also paradoxically like seeing projects through all the way. Not handing them off. Binding them myself and then giving them out. I made them, after all, so why should I pass them off incomplete to someone I don't know?

*Sometimes it all feels like a competition amongst friends and foes alike, and I fucking hate competition. I hate the idea of it, and I even hate the word, although not as much as "submit."

*I definitely don't like rejection.

So, I've been rejected. It's embarrassing, but it's for the first time, and I thought I had a shot at being a finalist, but apparently didn't even warrant a rejection notice (I found out by checking the website that announced ongoing events / contest-winners). It would have been nice to have been notified, maybe even a personal sentence or two, or something saying "press on." It's hard to believe in myself these days, and I've told myself that this is The Summer to either do it or stop it. Get a real job, or actually make something. After all these years, I feel like a bit of a poser. And a dumbass too.

Sigh. I hate being rejected.

P.S. And this is bitchy, but N told me last weekend while begging me to come rescue her that things will come back to me "multifold" if I help her, which is something she's told me for years about the energy that people (I amongst them) put out there. This, if true, apparently doesn't apply very much to those things I (and others, including N) care about. The energy that comes back seems so random and inexplicable. Sometimes this seems beautiful, in the same way that the sinewy tendrils on a sugar-snap curl around a metallic fence; but on days like these, it just seems like misplaced hope. blah.

P.P.S. I did get my first thank-you card and present from a student in years though. It was pretty exuberant and couldn't have been a suck-up card because it was for the class I don't grade. She said that I made her nightmare class (the reason she hadn't gone back to school in forever) a pleasure and removed all the fear from writing. And she did move from barely writing a paragraph at the beginning of class to writing 5-page papers at the end. I guess I ought to stop sulking because it was incredibly nice to be thanked.

such a physically exhausting day yesterday, and an intensely emotionally exhausting morning today that I spent all afternoon stuffing my face and watching tv under high anxiety (I have deadlines everywhere this weekend, and what do I do but watch tv and stuff my face). then tonight, cranky and feeling weepish, I briefly thought about who to call, and of course my mind went directly to N, who is the person I would normally call to talk about the ups and downs and cycle stuff and cheer each other up. but then I realized in a flash that she's the reason I'm emotionally exhausted and it might be possible that I can never call her again and chat with her like that, and I felt like my heart finally busted a little over this.

I had to call the cops for a suicide-threat check-in, and several thinly-veiled suicide/death messages, text messages, and phone conversations that involved her screaming at me, blaming me for not saving her, not valuing her. I tried calling the suicide line, but they told me the cops were the only option right now. I feel halfway like I ratted her out. mostly I'm so tired, and so worried because nobody has called me back. and I feel like crying.

So There. tomorrow, the deadlines. today, stuffing face and watching tv.