The Jersey Shore

During these months of recovery, outside of the daily practicing of writing, reading and speaking, I have been dabbling with some art projects and over the last few weeks I have been working on a particular art piece. 

I am really lucky that I did not experience any long paralysis during the stroke that may have been disastrous for me, however, currently the right side of my body has some nerve problems that I hope will dissipate over time. Part of my rehabilitation has been working with my hands on this new piece that includes an old photograph of mine, but also the subject brings my thoughts back home of New Jersey and my wonderful old friends. Jersey strong!

"Cape May"

Transfer and oil pastel on canvas

8" x 11"

The other side of illness

Husband, friend, business partner, confidante, lover, partner in crime, and.... 

Caregiver. 

Punch Buggy

There are so many reasons that I love him, but I love that my husband, Eric, enjoys a little friendly competition. It's one of the things that makes us so compatible. When we started dating we took a short road trip, and since that day we has been competing each other of the game, "Punch Buggy."

I have a history of the game, having had two 60s vintage VW bugs before. And because we are little competitors in the making, "Punch Buggy" is now a family game. (No arms are harmed during the games....usually).

Today's photo is from a nightlite that I bought for my son when he was an infant, then used by various boys around the house, and it is currently being used by the youngest. Maybe when the youngest is done with the nightlite I will get it back. :-)

Art of Communication

When I was in the hospital, I really wish I knew how to communicate with sign language. Before the stroke, truly I took the art of communication for granted. Obviously the loss of something brings value again.

Right after the stroke, my communication was so impairment that I could not tell you what my birthdate is or my full name. I could say "Kate", but for my last name, "Sorenson", I could not annunciate. Other things like my address, my social security number, passwords, etc. felt think they had deleted the hard drive of my brain. These are more concrete things and they came back after a few weeks.

Of course, I never thought I could ever lose my ability to communicate. These concrete things in our daily lives and they have limited values. But the soul of my thoughts, my relationships, my memories - these are so more complicated within my unlimited potential. It is nice to say "I love you" to my husband. It is a wonderful thing to say WHY I love him.

Convalescence

It has been a long time since I wrote anything on this blog. This time it is going to be even harder to write. Not figuratively because I don't know what to write, but literally. It is literally a chore to communicate.

On November 9, 2012, I had a stroke.

Not because I was in poor health, but because I fell down the stairs which dissected my carotid artery. Subsequent I found out that my artery had a defect called, FMD, which caused a stroke. There is nothing I can do about the diagnosis for FMD since there is no cure.

For the stroke, the left part of my brain that controls communication and memory was damaged. This is what I meant at the beginning of this post and why this is literally a chore to communication. It has been a long time of rehabilitation to learn again to speak, write and read and I'm just starting to get better each day. So far I'm getting better about more complicated books, reply emails, quick texts, etc. to that I can be part of the human race again. The fact that I'm able to even write these paragraphs is a huge feat. (I'm proud!)

It has taken me about 2 hours to pull these thoughts on this post and I'm really tired. Make a long story short, part of my rehabilitation I need to practice writing and reading and visualizing my world each day.

Self-Portrait: Convalescence

Burning

This time in my life, this time where I find I have very little to offer an opinion about, is an odd time. (Considering those who have known me longer than a few days know I usually have an opinion about something). However, I find more often than not, lost in my thoughts, unable to articulate exactly what I’m thinking or feeling. Writing seemed to take a nose dive sometime in early 2010 when the earth was shifting in my personal life, and I’ve been highly distracted ever since. But as mentioned in my previous post, there is a calmness coming back. Somewhat of a rhythm or routine of sorts, that has settled into the household and into my life. I also feel creativity coming back, trust opening up, and fear eroding. I think humans feel comforted by routine, and more than I like to admit, I may like it, too. I have always fancied myself as more of a spontaneous chick, but I’ve come to learn over this past year that some measure of predictability is really a good thing. Not to say I can’t high tail it out on a walk through the park or take the long way home sometime at my spontaneous discretion, but if the daily rhythm is still there, I think it’s good for the body and soul.

And so for this blog, it has meandered through many roads since its inception. It started as an outsource for my creative ventures, then moved into necessity of publicity for my business, Revelry Press, and now it’s just, well, becoming just a blog. But really more like a journal because nobody is reading it because I’m not really blogging reciprocally. But that’s ok.

I did something very bold recently. Something I never, ever thought I would EVER do. As I have mentioned before, throughout my growing up and into adulthood, I kept many diaries: chronicling my good and not so good days of childhood, adolescence and early adulthood. There were at least 15 separate journal books filled with uninhibited ramblings. And there were entries in these journals that stung my eyes like mace. There were some things in these books that I had completely forgotten about or possibly my brain did me the favor of wiping them away. But here these memories were back now staring at me like a contemptuous ghost. They couldn’t possibly be me. These couldn’t possibly have been my thoughts and my actions. I started to well up when I read a particular entry from college. It was horrible.

And it was then that I did it. I thought to myself, how can I possibly keep this history alive? And so I brought that one particular journal from college outside and burned it. Yep. Lighter fluid, a match, and poof! It was ashes. And it felt great.

And then there were the 14 others staring at me in the face. I perused through all of them. Reading them and saying to myself, “Oh yeah, I remember that…” or laughing at some, and flat out gasping at others. I couldn’t help at that moment to think of my kids. I always had made the joke to others that at my death these diaries were to be burned. Because while I want my children to know me, maybe they don’t really need to “know” everything. And so why put it in the hands of someone else to dispose of them. And would I want that other person to read these? And so I thought, “No.” These were for me to dispose of. To literally dispose of the past and move forward. And so with that, I ripped out the pages from the book during July of 1987 on the day my dad died to keep that, kept my first one from when I was very young, and disposed of all the rest. And I’m glad to have them out of the house. I’m glad to see them gone. They were cathartic and necessary and helpful and educational and therapeutic and all that stuff for me when I needed it. But I don’t think they need to be honored on a mantel like a trophy. Our pasts are our pasts, we own them in our heart, but I don’t think they need to be worn on our sleeves. Because if you are an enlightened person, you will have evolved from where you were in your past to be the better person that you are today. Don’t get me wrong, by disposing of them I don’t deny where I am from. I don’t regret the things I have done. While I may cringe at some things, I have come to learn they have made me who I am today. I am a sum total of my decisions, some bad and some good.

But as far as keeping this past on a closet shelf with narrative and content like a bad Judy Blume book, I found it unnecessary. And I didn’t want my kids to see it either. So that’s that. I wipe my hands clean.

So there is still much revelry in my house and my life that I want to share and remember, so I think the name still fits. Andrew has started Kindergarten this year, CJ is already in 4^th grade (yikes!), there are many times throughout the week that there are up to 5 boys at my house engaged in tons of revelry at one time… so there are unending chapters to still write about as I move into my 40s. And I will likely still write things that may make me gasp in years to come and I can always erase this one, too, via one click of the mouse if I so choose to one day. No burning needed here.

Strange and New/Familiar and Old

There's a real stillness that descended upon the house this afternoon when the rain began. It felt like I hadn't heard rain like this in a while, and it caused me to slow down, take in the breeze through the windows and listen to the intermittent thunder claps. My actions paused for a bit and I felt myself becoming really slow. The calmness simply was good.

It's been a long time since I felt this kind of calm. Moving slow, feeling in good spirits, not anxious about anything, and feeling a sense of normalcy and no feelings of urgency. When you have such an upheaval of change like I have had this past year with the divorce, normalcy is a great feeling. But I really wanted that change, so it was completely self-inflicted, and saying you want change and making change are 2 different levels of stress. And ultimately I put a lot of energy into this change and part of it was having myself back again - the most tangible thing I have done to get myself back again was literally getting myself back again by reverting to my maiden name, which felt liberating. (Which is a tale itself about bureaucracy and inefficiency, but a story for another day...). But in the end now, I am very proud that I made the change I wanted to make in my life.

So I'm thinking about where I was a year ago at this time, and life was quite different. Everything was strange and new. The household was off kilter for the children. For me, old love was far gone, new love was blossoming. But the new love seemed so familiar as if experienced before, like we had been torn apart lives ago and were meeting again, finally, in this new life. So after time, it didn't seem so strange, new love seemed old, and it felt right and centered and destined to be on this course.

So these days, after a long emotional journey, the calmness is returning and I cry from joy. Pure joy and happiness has seemed elusive for me most of my life, not because I've had a horrible life but because I do not embrace it when it comes. I fear its ability to be fleeting and therefore opening my heart to happiness is surely enough to break it. But not this time. No, I am embracing it. I am smelling it. I am absorbing it. For as long as I have it.

Life can really sometimes be as complicated as you make it, at least when it comes to dealing with your own inner demons. How paradoxical to be afraid of pure happiness. It sounds silly and stupid to think it, write it and it feels downright spoiled to admit it. But after much introspection I've come to realize why I do it. I've spent a lot of time this year wallowing and fighting and being bitter and angry over people and things that wasted so much of my energy that I'm exhausted. It was a mistake for me to be this way, but I think it was just all part of the transitional process. The anger is receding, the acceptance is coming in, and part of me just doesn't give a damn anymore. The focus is being redirected.

I'm glad for the rain today. It centered me. And today is my favorite day of the week, Friday.

I am happy. Really happy.