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Maiden Mother Crone (The Arrival)

/ wvfurandroot / 4 Comments
Maiden Mother Crone

I have taken dozens of photos, scrapped hundreds of words, and pulled on my hair. I cannot capture the images and I cannot find the words to describe what I’m seeing, but my Maiden Mother Crone triptych is in my possession. And it is phenomenal.

I’m nearly speechless with awe.

I began blathering about this last year when my friend, the art historian aka The Bitch Across the Hall, snagged some student work. I threatened to steal hers, but as the conversation with the artist, Melissa McCloud, progressed, I found myself commissioning my own set. I fretted for some time trying to figure out how to pay for them only to receive the news that Dr. B.A.T.H. was giving them to me for my 50th birthday.

Melissa McCloud

My 50th birthday, all around, was an occasion that kept me in happy yet overwhelmed tears. The significance of the triptych to my turning 50 is so apparent to me that I’m puzzled when I have to explain it to people.

The average of menopause in this country is 50 and I’m right on track. Menopause is sometimes referred to as the crone stage of life. I’m still mothering my son, albeit in quite different ways, but the hallmarks of motherhood are passing. I’m entering, mostly gleeful, the crone stage.

Here it is Easter weekend. I have in no way marked Easter in the Christian tradition or Ostara in the pagan tradition. I have sat around wiggling my nose hoping to end up with a bunch of completed projects without putting in the time and effort.

It wasn’t working.

I forced myself to pick up the camera and try again. It was an insult to the artist and to my friend not to acknowledge this triptych. In moving about the house trying to capture their beauty, I’m slowly gathering steam.

The Working Drawing

The three women are carved balsa wood. Layers of balsa were glued together (laminated), cut and carved. At my request, they were heavily textured and stained the same color as my woodwork and most of my furniture. I wanted them to slide into this house like they’d always been here and to appear as if they’d organically grown with the barn on this hillside. And they have.

Carved front and back.

There’s no place in this house they wouldn’t be perfect. My struggle is to find the right place where I can see them often and touch them often. They beg for touch. (Besides which, I never get the opportunity to fondle a well-endowed set of breasts.)

Some years ago, I whined and pleaded my way into another piece of art featuring the torsos of three women (Artist: Sherri Weeks.) The multimedia piece has hung in my study for several years now and I never tire of looking at it. In anticipation of the Maiden Mother Crone arrival, I have been preparing the study for installation which has involved a thorough gutting, cleaning, wall repair, dithering about color, and the application of 8 million coats of paint. I have whined.

I have also stalled.

The Other Women

My plan was to install the triptych under the painting and on top the bookcases that serve as a credenza. The one trio of women would mirror the other.

For some weeks I worked feverishly on the study and other weeks not so much. The closer I got to finishing, the more my energy levels waned and then I got zapped by Carlos the Cruddy Cold (who may turn into Boris Bronchitis).

The camera is just inadequate.

Without the ceremony they deserve, I picked up the triptych on Friday. My inertia deepened when I couldn’t get them to photograph well, I couldn’t describe them to my satisfaction, and I couldn’t find the energy to finish the damn study.

Frankly, I’m tired of the chaos of the study project. I want nothing more than to sit in there gazing adoringly at my six women.

Winter is over, the triptych is here and I feel ambition welling akin to the swelling of the branches that will result in leaves and flowers on the plants in my as yet neglected garden.

The women whisper to me to get on with the next stage. The earth has turned, the sun has returned, and the time has come.

The women must be listened to.

A Cup of Coffee and a Pot of Shamrocks

/ wvfurandroot / 15 Comments

A St. Patrick's Day Tradition

Way back when I was young and attractive, I was sitting in a bar, the kind of bar old newspapermen went to after the paper had gone to bed, trying to have a conversation with a girlfriend. This was not a pick up joint; nor was I of a mind to be picked up. As was not uncommon when I was young(er), some guy sidled over to the bar with an offer to buy drinks. It was soon apparent that it was me he was trying to pick up and no amount of “No, thanks, I’ll be doing good to get through this one” was going to deter him.

As we studiously tried to ignore him, he hit on the brilliant idea of giving me the earth shattering news that I looked “just like Cher.” Well, the resemblance had been marked on before so I was neither shocked nor flattered. (“Exactly like Cher” is a gross overstatement.)

Not giving up easily, the Cher comment was followed up with “So? You got some Indian in you?”

Well. As a matter of fact I do. On one side of the family, great-grandma was full Cherokee and on the other side there’s some Native American but we don’t know what flavor.

“Cherokee and what else?”

“Irish.” The other great-grandmother was full Irish. Now between the two great-grandmothers there’s a bunch of mutts and if I were to list my whole pedigree it would encompass all of the British Isles as well as goodly portions of Europe and a few of the Indian nations. I even have reason to believe I’ve got some African-American in me. I am nothing if not multicultural. Up until that time, I was apt to answer the question with “some Irish, some Indian, some English, some German and a bunch of other stuff.” But I was being terse with this young man in hopes that he would go away, so he got the one word answer. (I was too young at the time to realize you needn’t be polite with drunks in bars.)

After hearing his response, I now tell folks I’m Cherokee and Irish – I don’t give the full pedigree because his response was priceless. He said:

We Irish/Cherokee women are actually delicate little flowers.

“Cherokee and Irish? That’s a bad combination in a woman.”

And then he left.

After cogitating over the years on that statement, I believe that in certain situations he was right. In both the Cherokee and Irish traditions, women were apt to speak their minds and the menfolk were likely to listen, because if they didn’t there was going to be hell to pay. While I’m sure there are individual women who would make a liar out of me, in general, it’s still true that if you want a doormat for a wife you best not be fraternizing with the likes of us. Double the influence of generations of feisty women with two cultural traditions and, yes, that’s a bad combination.

I was relaying this story not too long ago to a friend and some guy who was not trying to pick anyone up piped in and said, “You’re not kidding. My ex-wife was Cherokee and Irish. You did it her way or you got out or she threw you out.” And then some other guy said, “Hey! You’re right. I never thought about it but my grandmother was Cherokee and Irish and, man, you didn’t mess with her.”

I don’t think I’m that bad – I’ll listen to reason.

In spite of my Irish heritage, I’ve never been much of one to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day. Now it may be because great-grandmother was protestant Irish and they wear orange to celebrate William of Orange’s victory over King James II. She was also a teetotaler and I was in my 30s before I could have a drink without feeling like I had to hide it. Even then, I wouldn’t have let her see me with a drink in my hand.

Drinking is where the two traditions as they filtered through my family are at war with one another. The Cherokee side are hard-drinking, honky tonking, beer-bellied good old folks and the Irish side are alcohol-free church folk. (Go figure.)

One perfect bloom.

In any event, St. Paddy’s Day is not likely to find me in a bar swilling green beer. I do try and remember to wear green, but mostly so some juvenile won’t be provoked to pinch me. St. Paddy’s Day often finds me at home drinking coffee and admiring the Shamrocks I just bought. Every couple of years or so, I buy the shamrocks to replace the ones I’ve managed to kill with over-watering. I love Shamrocks. They’re such cheerful little things and if you take it easy on the watering they’ll live for years. If they are over-watered and succumb, St. Pat’s is the only time of year replacements can be found.

So. Happy St. Pat’s to you. Feel free to join me in a cup of coffee and a pot of shamrocks.

My hands are dirty.

/ wvfurandroot / 18 Comments

Painting Hands

My hands are dirty – paint stained, chemical burned, broken nails – but mostly they’re dirty (and into the Doritos). And old.

Nowhere, as much as my hands, does my age show. My hands have done so much.

As I try to coax paint out from under my nails, I think of all the dirt, grime, debris, and ick my hands have been in during my fifty years. Those thoughts lead to all the other things my hands have done.

Munchie Hands

I have painted so many times – my first apartment the first time I did it alone. (A tasteful beige to cover up the hideous peach that attempted to mute the reddish orange carpet.)

Last summer, I was up to my elbows in garden dirt, ripped to shred by blackberry thorns, and happy.

I’ve cleaned houses, cars, cat boxes, and cement floors.

I’ve been midwife to dogs and cats having puppies and kittens.

Puppy Hands

As a child, my hands were always dirty – finger paints, mud, dirt, tadpole ponds, pudding from the bottom of the bowl, and all the grime a little girl afraid of Not Much could get into.

I hesitate to say dirty, but my hands were bathed in the blood and fluids of my newborn son when they let me hold him just a few moments before rushing him to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit – his tiny body held carefully and joyfully and tearfully.

Camping Hands

My hands were clean for my first day of school, girl scout meetings, to make the pudding that later ended up on fingers and face.

My hands were clean for my wedding and for my divorce hearing. They were clean for job interviews and parent/teacher conferences and visitation hours at the hospital. They were clean under the white gloves I wore to church in frilly dresses and patent leather shoes.

Baby Hands

My hands had been cleaned until as sterile as possible to caress that 3 lb. baby through the openings of an isolette.

They’ve caressed a lover.

Clenched in pain at news of a death.

They’ve put roses in a coffin and roses in the ground.

Rocked babies.

Held wine glasses and coffee cups.

Washed mountains of dishes.

And laundry.

They’ve gripped bicycle handles, steering wheels, and jump ropes.

Cake Hands

Whisked cream.

And cut pasta.

My hands have wound music boxes and played air guitar.

They’ve carried evening purses, groceries, backpacks, diaper bags, apnea monitors, bouquets, and the lifeless body of a beloved dog.

They’ve comforted a breast cancer patient.

Typed a million words – some at 90 words a minute.

Loving Hands

Answered phones, opened cans, and checked for heart beats.

They’ve wiped my tears and the tears of others.

Applied bandaids and makeup.

Poured wine on hot summer nights and mulled cider on cold winter evenings.

They built cement block houses during an earthquake recovery mission in Guatemala.

Fed chocolate pudding to street urchins in Mexico. Carried a passport in London and luggage in Canada.

Om Hands

They’ve handed things and passed things and dropped things.

Tried to crochet a hundred times.

They’ve needlepointed yards and yards of yarn.

And mowed acres of grass.

My hands are old with the joys and sorrows of life; like my eyes and mouth, the wrinkles are my life written on my body – witness to fifty good years and some bad times.

With palms up, my eyes closed and my mouth open in a near silent om, I wish for fifty more years of filthy hands. Clean hands. Holding hands. Busy hands.