Tag: art

wednesday

I’ve left breakfast dishes in the sink this morning. On purpose. If I was my mother I would have washed them as soon as Julia left for the day. If I was myself ten or 14 years ago, I would have washed them as Julia got into the van.  Back then, I needed to control something and washing dishes was a doable task. An easy success. And I needed success. 

Now, I am willing to let them slide. To let them wait until . . . . until later.  I will wash before I go to bed tonight. So, okay, I still have some need of control.

Instead of washing, I poured a glass of clean water, taped off a page of my sketchbook and spritzed the water colors. I am trying to paint. I am painting. I cannot seem to sit in meditation these days. I wander, I obsess, I plan. I slip too easily into past and future. I bring my mind back time after time, but I am not patient with myself, with the practice that I’ve had for years.

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0

february

It has been a whole month. So much has been left undone and much of that has fallen aside. Right now, there are no projects needing completion and no tasks that I’ve scheduled. So many naps, staring at ceilings and walls, much too much junky tv, a bit of reading, some writing, and last week the beginning of walking outside.  Yesterday, I logged a bit more than 5,000 steps.  Not that impressive, I know, but if you saw my numbers for the last month, it looks like I climbed mountains yesterday.  

I went to chuch services last week and will again yesterday. I still have very little voice—a month of coughing can wreak havoc on the vocal cords—so no choir yet.  Maybe this week.  I miss choir practice. 

I’m still not feeling up to driving but again, perhaps this week. It has been a focus issue and then also exhaustion. As I began to feel more like myself last week, writing was not easy.  Not the physical act but the focus needed.  I have it for short amounts of time, but not for what I needed to produce anything. However, what I wanted to do almost as soon as I was able to sit up for long periods of time was to indulge in some mindless beauty and do something with my hands.  

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 1

return

Happy Summer! (lots of this was written over the past 10 days)

Today’s longest day antics: A screening of flying lessons, the film by Sarah Waldron that Julia is in, late lunch with a friend, and horror movies tonight.

Yesterday, June 20, was our really longest day—up at 5 am to begin our ride to Jersey City for the Golden Door Film Festival, a stop at The Cloisters when we realized we were way too early to check into our hotel.  Loved The Cloisters. Hadn’t been there since before Cheshire was born. Finished the ride, found our hotel and some parking —Jersey City has not changed as much as I had imagined in the century since I was there —took naps, went to the opening night party for the festival, saw a bunch of very short and short films and fell into bed somewhere just before midnight.

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0

last weekend

We’ve been walking a little slower, trying to savor, trying to memorize, and still, at the same time, trying to stay in the present. We know that we are looking at things we’ve grown use to for the last time. So many streets we haven’t walked down and restaurants we haven’t eaten in. We have gotten better at crossing streets with and without traffic lights and drivers of motor bikes and cars that consider lights, lanes and one way signs as mere suggestions. We are regulars at that pho restaurant on the sidewalk half a block away from our apartment and enjoy so much all the fresh fruit juices that we drink every day.

Lots of flowers were planted during out week away in Hoi An. So nice to see them.

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 1

David Hockney

David Hockney Show at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo. I wanted to take pictures of it all but it was not allowed for most of the show. Much of the work is only a few years old, done during Covid time using a iPad and printed out in panels mounted along a very long continuous wall.

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0

small things

Today is a day of doing small things for any number of reasons.  Julia’s continuing bad mood limits activity.  There is a building up of small tasks that have accumulated and feels like a much larger burden.  I am expecting dinner guests, my neighbor from upstairs, tonight and I have light duty as to the cooking.  And so, small things—gym this morning which was good for exercise and whose aim was to mitigate the foul mood that a Julia woke up with.  It didn’t work.  Cleaning up and pruning the window boxes on the back porch and washing the porch with the hose. Making cookies to go with a fruit dessert that I usually just make during the holidays for tonight.  Hanging pictures in the hall that have been on the floor for two weeks. Writing a few email, begging for help with Julia’s services.  And now, sitting down to write just a little bit.

I have had trouble sitting down to write.  Not finding the time when I am at my best and wanting only to veg out when I am tired or feeling overwhelmed.  And that is most days.

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0

my new year

 

Frank Bowlings’ Julia at the MFA

This is a time of deep diving into chaos and it is not over yet.  

We are leaving the blue victorian house that has held us safe and warm since we left Madison three and a half years ago.  It has never been the perfect space but it has served us well through lock down and Covid, through the rough months without services for Julia and through her toughest transitions—the last of which was a bit more than a week ago when she turned 22 and aged out of school-based services.  

The end of her transition services program, Community Connections or “CC”, was marked by a pizza party with most of the students and faculty and staff of CC.  When her Inclusion Facilitator and I first talked about her party, we thought that something small with a few students would fit her best.  Something like going out to get nails done, Asian noodles and a bubble tea with a few people.  But Julia knew what she wanted and she wanted a big party with cake she made herself.  She invited me and VNM but when we joined the party and I asked if we could sit with her, she preferred sitting with the teachers and aides who have been part of this experience.  It was great to see her chatting and holding court. It was great to see her happy.

She misses everyone at CC and especially those staff members who she spent time with.  I think she is texting with at least one of them and she wants to go back to visit. Connection has always been so important to Julia and it was good to see that she had made some in this program after those last years of high school which were so isolating and difficult.

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 2

newport 3

A closed gate to a garden we never entered.

Our final morning here, we drive the 10 mile Ocean Drive and look for a beach to visit for a few minutes before driving home.  We get to see another side of Newport.  Big and small, mostly modern beach homes with wonderful views. It is quiet here—and I have no idea if it is the middle of the week quiet or just the nature of this side of the town.  No restaurants, no where to tour.  If I was to live here, this is where I would find home.  This area is still not far from where the cottages are and we pass a few former carriage houses and footprints of old green houses.The surf is very small here but it is the ocean sounds in miniature.  The beach is a rocky and coated with a layer of dried sea weed but there is some sand in which Julia can play.  How many times, we have travelled to lovely beaches without sand toys!  Forgotten at home, or impossible to carry.  This time, she has her pails and shovels and there is little to use them on.  No matter, she is happy wading in the surf, picking up and discarding rocks and letting hand fulls of dry sand pour through her fingers.  

When ever I am at a beach, I wish hard to live by water.  Listening to the smallest of waves brings me home, home to a place I have never been.  

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 2

steps

After our first bike ride of the season.

The pace of life is picking up and has been for a while although I admit to becoming aware of it long after other people who are more of the busy world.  I know many people who have already gone to far away places, stayed for a month and come back with healthy looking skin and bright eyes.

This coming Sunday, I am scheduled to teach pysanky writing at my church and a friend wanting to sign up noted that there are two others events going on—a zoom Moth Story hour and an in-person music rehearsal.  Wasn’t it just last week when every gathering happened in front of a computer monitor? How glorious that there are now conflicts. How glorious that travel time is now part of many plans!

But I live a small life. 

On Sunday, on our way into church—we arrive an hour before services begin to go to choir practice—Julia and I noticed perfect small yellow narcissus blooming in corners around the back of the building.  Without a spring garden of my own, I notice and cherish those brave little yellow blooms.  I know that even though the day may be warm and sunny, there are cold days ahead. Silently, I wish the brave blooms are sheltered enough to survive another freeze. 

And I wondered, had I seen blooms in this place before? I might have just before we were locked down two years ago, but what I remember from that time is only the spring flowers we saw on our Covid daily walks.  I think it is probable that these little narcissus bloomed in 2020 after no one was walking into the church building and last year it was the same. I think to thank them for their perseverance and persistence, their willingness to be so beautiful even when no one was looking. 

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 2

late winter break

Whenever I have the time to write, I swear I have nothing to write about.  It is when I have a dozen other things, when I have to ignore something very important that inspiration hits.  I am also pretty good at working up to a deadline, missing it by a day or so, and laboring as if all hell will break loose if I don’t do as I promised. This seems to me an undesirable lack of moderation, of discipline, of getting into that Buddha inspired journey of the middle way.

But this was not what I sat down to write about.

Quick summary:  We are in an okay place.

Julia had the week off—never sure if it is late winter break or first spring break.  My plans for the week were to do what needed to be done and meet with those needing meetings especially therapies at the beginning of the week and then go somewhere—we settled on Salem where Julia has her eye on a few punk/goth stores—for Friday and Saturday. And if we were having a good time, staying until Sunday.  

Big however!

Continue reading →

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 0