on grief

"you met me" c. '08 annie farnsworth
7.5" x 10.5" mixed media collage on recycled pasteboard.

I wanted to say again tonight how much I appreciate my friends. They've been there for me the whole time and willing to help but I've resisted opening up. I think it is hard to remember that true friends care about all of it, your whole experience, not just your sunny days. They want to be there for you in tough times too, but they can't if you never let them see that you're having one. And when you come right down to it, not letting them is a little like only wanting people to see you on a good hair day; it's dishonest and more than a little vain. I think it is hard, particularly, for people who are in the "helping professions" to show weakness or ask for help. We like to think we are here to help other people and that we can't do that if our own shit is falling apart. I had a great "talk" with a friend about the Shadow sides to personality; how if you do not acknowledge or allow them to be integrated into your life, they will come out and bite you in the ass when you're not expecting it.

My "Shadow" could be this whiny, weak, schoolgirl part of me with the unrequited love, who just wants to cry and listen to Fiona Apple and say "what if...?" and "if only I..." Let's just go ahead and call her "Baby." If I had acknowledged her earlier, let my truth show, weeks, even months ago... this process might not have been so difficult.

But maybe Baby isn't my "Shadow" at all. Maybe she's just a very honest part of my human experience, the part that feels those very human (but in some circles, unattractive) feelings like sadness and fear and rejection and jealousy and needing attention. Aren't those all very real parts of the human experience? Why do I fight so hard to keep her out of sight? I'm starting to realize that my Shadow is actually more like a Feelings-Nazi, who doesn't like Baby and is always telling her to suck it up. She walks around with a clipboard and checks things off, and dislikes weaknesses in others as much as she dislikes them in herself. Her main job is to prevent us from letting those weaknesses show. She wants us to be superwoman, to always keep it "together," to always be philosophical about everything. She is always practical and analytical and is afraid of being used or taken advantage of. She puts up walls, pushes people away. She is the part of me who thought things would be okay, and she was wrong and I am really pissed off at her right now. So I'm sorry if i seem a little whiny right now; if it seems like all i do with paper is make fires and hurricanes. Clipboard Lady can stuff it. It's Baby's turn right now.



"...there is no way around grief.
Can’t climb over it,
can’t crawl under it and,
as clever as I’ve tried to be,
no way to sneak around it.
The only way out of grief is through it."
~ Betty Ann Ruttledge ~

blue monday

"While Waiting" c. '08 annie farnsworth
6" x 6" mixed media collage on
recycled cardboard.
AEDM for 11/17/08

diptych of the wreckage

"Wreckage 1" c. '08 annie farnsworth
8.5" x 11" mixed media collage & original poem
on recycled pasteboard




"Wreckage 2"
c.'08 annie farnsworth
8.5" x 11" mixed media collage & original poem
on recycled pasteboard


These are meant to be displayed side by side as it is one poem in two parts. But I couldn't figure out how to post them that way in the blog. Which is fitting, I suppose, since the two people involved in the poem couldn't figure out how to integrate their separate selves into one whole either. And that's a bigger tragedy than i could ever do justice to with paper and glue.

AEDM, Sat. 11/15 & Sun. 11/16

perfect day to see the pain specialist

"Having to Wing It" c. 2008 Miz Annie
7.5" x 10.5" mixed media collage for AEDM

There's this saying about time. That Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once. You have good days, you have bad days. You have time in which to enjoy the joys and then for contrast you get the dark nights of the soul. The yin and the yang and all of that. Which is great in theory but every once in a while I think the works get gummed up and you get a day like I was gifted with today which seemed to be both at once. First the good news; I have a new job! I was told that I probably wouldn't hear until next week but I got the call today that I had been selected. I also saw my *Pain Specialist* today and it looks like I have a great plan in place for treatment that does not involve invasive surgery. My back is going to be just fine.

Right now it just feels like something else is broken.

already home but still with errands to run

"Already Home" c. 2008 Miz Annie

7.5" x 10" mixed media collage w/ art papers,
magazine cutouts, & laser print on recycled pasteboard.
AEDM for Nov. 10.

"Spiritual practice isn’t about trying to throw ourselves away and become something better,” teaches Pema Chödrön. “It is,” she says, “about befriending who we are already.”

I am a huge Chödrön fan; I have a much-loved copy of When Things Fall Apart that I keep at the ready for when.... well...when things fall apart. And they seem to do so fairly often these days. One of the biggest lessons that Chödrön shares is that we rob ourselves of so much of our own lives, our own human experience, by disassociating from anything that falls into the spectrum of what we've learned to label as "bad." In other words, when we start to feel that a moment in time is horrible, painful, unbearable, even just frustrating, irritating, or mildly unpleasant -- we want to run. We don't want to experience those feelings so we throw everything else out with that bathwater. And each unpleasant moment we discard is a moment that will never come again. You might read that and think, "Well, good riddance to it!" as though our particular emotional state is all that exists in that moment of time. How egotistical! Are we that self-centered that we can imagine that those moments are all disposable, because they happen to be moments in which we are irritated? (or pained, or lonely, or __________ fill in the blank)

I admit that I am often very bad at this "being in the present" stuff. Yup. So many of my present moments lately are ones in which I'm in physical pain and sometimes all I can muster up is that everything else can go to hell. But I'm working on it. I'm working on remembering that each moment contains far more than my fleeting emotional state, or my fleeting physical state. It contains millions of people engaged in millions of activities and thoughts. Wars are being fought, songs are being sung, babies are crying or laughing or sleeping, and my dog is chewing a slipper. The moon is nearly full, the leaves are rustling in the wind, the neighbor is showing off his shiny new truck. So much is happening! And it will never happen exactly like this ever again! Sometimes my own spiritual practice consists of little more than the prayer "Please allow me to get out of my own damned way." Once I can do that, there's a little more room for the rest of the world to enter my consciousness. So that is why Chödrön says that the present moment is our greatest teacher; if we can manage to allow ourselves to just be in each moment regardless of whether we've labelled it "good" or "bad," and don't get caught up too much in reacting to it, we can let go of a lot of what we have come to feel as "suffering."

And again, just because I'm writing about it doesn't mean I consider myself remotely good at it. I most certainly am not.(1) I am particularly prone to living not from this moment but from some future moment when things are really going to kick ass! "I will sooooo be a better person," I think, "when my back doesn't hurt." I won't be so crabby (or irritated, or angry, or stressed out...) when I get a new job. Or when I win the lotto. Or when X, Y, or Z happens. I forget to look at all the other things that are going on in the current moment, and what I can do to move forward. Send another resume, ask for help with the housework, take the dogs for a walk to the store and buy a lottery ticket. It never fails that in the act of simply moving forward from that moment, instead of becoming the feeling of dissatisfaction and embodying it, I have honored not only my Self, but also that previously unbearable, seemingly disposable moment. Simply by allowing myself to be in it. By using it as a metaphorical home base and venturing out its front door.

Begin where you are; work where you are;
the hour which you are now wasting,
dreaming of some far off success
may be crowded with grand possibilities.

~ Orison Swett Marden ~

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(1) I suspect that the Buddha himself wasn't that good at it, or he would not have had to leave his wife and children and go sit under a big tree to "discover" enlightenment. But that's a topic for another blog. ;-)

I found that quote

The "self help guru" I mentioned in yesterday's blog was actually Stephen Covey and the quote I was thinking of came from his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, which is actually much warmer and readable than its business seminar-sounding title might imply.

Covey tells the story of a conversation he had at one of his workshops, during which a man came up to him and said, "[...] My wife and I just don't have the same feelings for each other that we used to have. I guess I just don't love her anymore, and she doesn't love me. What can I do?"

"The feeling isn't there anymore?" Covey inquired.

"That's right," the man reaffirmed, "And we have three children we're really concerned about. What do you suggest?"

"Love her," Covey replied.

"I told you, the feeling just isn't there anymore."

"Love her."

"You don't understand. The feeling of love isn't there."

"Then love her. If the feeling isn't there, that's a good reason to love her."

"But how do you love when you don't love?"

"My friend, love is a verb. Love -- the feeling -- is a fruit of the love the verb. So love her. Sacrifice. Listen to her. Empathize. Appreciate. Affirm her. Are you willing to do that?"

Covey goes on to admonish Hollywood for giving us all the deluded idea that love is a feeling and not a verb; we've all come to expect other people to induce in us some nirvanic feeling of bliss when in actuality that feeling comes as a result of loving someone (loving, as in the action word. the VERB.) He also offers a quote by M. Scott Peck:

"The desire to love is not love itself love... Love is an act of will -- namely an intention and an action. Will also implies choice. We do not have to love. We choose to love. No matter how much we may think we are loving, if we are in fact not loving, it is because we have chosen not to love and therefore do not love despite our good intentions. On the other hand, whenever we do actually exert ourselves in the cause of spiritual growth, it is because we have chosen to do so. The choice to love has been made."

"Live Reverently"
2.5" x 3.5" ACEO c. 2008 Miz Annie
AEDM for Nov. 9, '08 & one for the Yogi Tea Tag series

mixed media collage on recycled pasteboard with magazine cutouts, glitter hearts and Yogi Tea tag.

home remedies from the magic cottage

"Love More" c. 2008 Miz Annie
5" x 7" mixed media collage

This was today's AEDM piece, which includes a quote from Thoreau which can be interpreted any number of ways to suit your own dysfunctionality. I would offer the disclaimer that I don't think Thoreau had it in mind that if you are in a crap relationship that isn't working, the best thing to do is continue giving 100% even when the other person is sitting around smoking Pall Malls and picking at his shorts. It doesn't mean that if you just love your partner "enough" or love them "the right way" they will stop abusing you. It means, well, at least to me it means that even if love has gone wrong, disappointed you, or otherwise let you down in some fashion, the solution is not to vow never to love again. The solution is simply to allow that experience to fall away, learn from it if you can, and move on. Love takes many forms and sometimes shows up when you least expect it. Maybe it is already here and you simply no longer recognize it? I also love how the subject "Love" is both a noun and a verb in this quote. Who is that famous relationship guru who is always saying "Love is a verb!" We talk about love as though it's a person we're waiting for, or some nirvanic state of mind they induce in us. If we don't hear angelic choirs (or Coldplay) and hearts and flowers don't weave through the air about our heads when we text each other, it must not be love. Feh! Think of it as a verb, see what that does for a shift in perspective. It always helps me, anyway.(1)

"Blue Archway" c. 2008 Miz Annie
5" x 7" mixed media collage on recycled pasteboard

Well, this is a morose little piece, is it not? I don't really care for it. But hey, we can't hit them all out of the ballpark, as I'm wont to say when participating in these once-a-day kind of things.

Meanwhile......

My son has been such an awesome help to me the past couple of months. He knows my back is hurting so he does all the chores around the house that require lifting (taking out the trash, lugging the laundry up or down the stairs, carrying in the groceries, moving boxes to or from the basement). He sweeps the kitchen for me as well as the stairs (which, due to the fact we have so many pets, is a daily requirement). In addition to helping with the housework, my son has lately become obsessed with creating the ultimate healing potion for me. (well, I'm sure all this extra work has motivated him to help find a cure! haha!). He is reading up on the healing properties of various foods and vitamins. Last night he made me hot "tea" made with cranberry and pomegranate juice, "for the antioxidants." Today he made an incredible curried carrot soup (okay, I helped a little), which was so good I had to share the recipe with you.

(the tee-shirt says "Save Trees - Eliminate Homework!")

Saute about a tablespoon of minced garlic and one large diced yellow onion in a generous dash of olive oil. Add about 2 cups sliced mushrooms and saute some more.

Separately, dissolve a cube of vegetable boullion in about a cup of hot water, add to the sauteed veggies along with about a quart of water, 5 or 6 large carrots, shredded fine (we used the Cuisinart so it took seconds), and half a block of extra firm tofu, cut into about 1/2" cubes. Season with salt and pepper, 1/2 tsp curry powder, 1/2 teaspoon garam masala, and 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin. Simmer for half an hour to 45 minutes. To be honest, these amounts are just good guesses; you might have to adjust especially the water - I'm really bad at estimating amounts of water. This soup was so easy to make and delicious - even the kids loved it.

Adding the shredded carrots.

The house smells so good while this is simmering! Veggie nuggets (Morningstar Farms makes an awesome version) and edamame completed the meal. MMMMM!


Hal and I have been cooking too; the other night we made a magnificent white-trash Green Bean Casserole (recipe is on the mushroom soup can). It is a horrible, disgusting dish which I absolutely adore. I told her that it was a traditional November dish, and that we had to practice making it for Thanksgiving. (As if it takes practice to open cans).


Gross. But Halle had fun "cooking" with mom and was so proud to dish it up at suppertime. Jacob, unfortunately, found it completely inedible (as it probably is) and having to eat it nearly brought him to tears. I caught him balling up a mouthful in a dinner napkin and attempting to furtively pocket it for later disposal. I would have been mad but I was too busy laughing. Hysterically.

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(1) again, when I speak of love, one must listen with the salt shaker in hand. Cuz, you know, what the heck do I know?

today's piece is for Caitlin

"Hope is the thing"
c. 2008 miz annie

7.25" x 10.5" mixed media collage w/art paper, magazine cutouts, photograph, & JoJo feathers on recycled pasteboard. In case you can't read my handwriting, the quote is from Emily Dickinson:

"Hope is the thing with feathers
that perches in the soul,
and sings the song without words,
and never stops at all."

with love to Caitlin.

XO