Weird Weekend

[merimask]

It's being an odd weekend for me.  Odd in a number of ways.

 

I'm not feeling well...some kind of stomach/digestive thing which I've had for days.   I'm not letting it sideline me (I have too much to do) but I just feel really crappeh.  I was so tired last night, but couldn't sleep.  So here I am, writing in my journal, waiting to see what the oatmeal I just ate will do to me.

What can I say?  I love oatmeal.  It's that instant Quaker Low Sugar apples and cinnamon oatmeal and it's perfect for a cold snowy morning (or any morning really).  It really is a very cold and snowy morning though...not too much snow but a lot of howling wind, which is blowing the three inches we got last night all over the place.  It looks and sounds just like an arctic tundra out there.

Greg's sick too, with probably the same thing.  I'd blame it on something we ate except it's an ongoing problem and we don't really eat the same things.  *shrug*  Anyway, in spite of feeling kinda yukky I went out yesterday...mailed some orders, went shopping at Tops, filled up the car.   Then I went alone to Kimmie's Dad's wake.

It was a memorial at an American Legion Post, in the heart of the decaying city of Niagara Falls, where I used to live in another lifetime.

The streets are pitted with potholes so huge that you have to drive around them (reminded me of Costa Rica) and the old neighborhood is falling down.  Big old homes that were sweet once but in such disarray now.  Every few houses, you see one that's still nice and being kept up, and you know a family lives there and that they love their home.  All around them though...urban rot and neglect.

I used to live there, on the corner of North and Lockport street, with my first husband.  My first house was a long large narrow 120 year old house with a big front porch and a side porch and stairs and four bedrooms...it was an uphill battle, trying to keep that place whole, but I loved it.  We fenced in the entire house, all the way 'round, so the dogs (my old sweet Australian shepherds) could patrol the property and keep us safe.  We remodled the kitchen ourselves, on a budget (but it was cute and HUGE, a gigantic country-style kitchen), and the bathroom, and I painted almost every surface with nice clean white paint, which made it cheerful. I loved the huge front porch; I'd run a hose from the kitchen and fill a wading pool with warm water for Char and we spent many long summer days out there on that porch, screened by trees, listening to the roar of the distant Falls.   Tucker used to stick his big head over the edge of the pool and drink her water, and she'd slap at him with baby hands and laugh. 

When I left my ex, I left him the house.  The neighborhood was terrible and unsafe, the schools scary, and I wanted better for Charlotte (who was 4 at the time).  So I left him the house and less than a year later he abandoned it, and it's been empty and unloved ever since.  Probably a crack house, like so many other houses in that neighborhood.  Smashed windows, slumping porch, no door...it looks like a mouth full of rotten broken teeth.  It made me cry to see it again...I drove by quickly and didn't slow.

At the memorial it was more like a party than anything else...a sort of Irish wake I suppose.  Full of life and laughter...a nice sort of send off I think.  Pete had friends of all sorts; he was a friendly and loveable guy, a real character.  There must have been about 200 bikers there (I never knew he was a biker!) and at least another 200 members of the SCA (Society for Creative Anachronism...a medieval sort of recreation group that I used to be active in.  It's where I first took up my leatherwork). 

I saw people I hadn't seen in years, which was really nice.  Many of them, I've known since I was Charlotte's age.  I got to tell some of them (not everyone...I was there to pay respects and not to promote myself) what's been going on with me and my crazy career.  It was really kind of a moment for me, especially after seeing the decayed ruins of my beloved first house; my old life.  I've done so much and come so far.  Everyone remarked about how youthful I looked (hee!) and I was dressed smartly in a black shirt tucked into my Levi's and really, it healed a bit of the wound that's been in my heart ever since I left that neighborhood behind.  I'm not that scared sad person anymore...I'm the person I was always meant to be.  I'm Andrea who has traveled to the other side of the world, who works hard and makes a decent living with her art, who lives in a much smaller but nicer house in a nice safe suburb and has a teenager on the short track to college.   I drive a 2007 Subaru Outback.  I have a savings account.  It's a beautiful thing.

I brought a copy of the Artvoice magazine with my masks on the cover, and gave it to Kimmie.  I told her about the mask I donated to charity for the Hospice fundraiser, in her father's name.   It felt good to do, because I felt like I was giving back to the people and life that was my starting place.  I know Pete would have liked that too.

I stayed for a few hours but HAD to leave...the bikers all smoke like chimneys and I was ill from it (not to mention whatever bug I'm dealing with).  I'm so glad I went though.  Kimmie is a good and constant friend and I know how hard it is to deal with the loss of your father...and lost to cancer too, like my own Dad.   Such a difficult, sad way to go, and a hard thing for a daughter to preside over.  We both did it though.  I guess I just wanted her to know I'm still here for her and always will be, and that there is an "other side".  You come through changed but whole, still, and able to smile when you remember your Dad.  That's the important thing.  

Well, the oatmeal seems to be settling nicely (whew!) which is a good thing.  I have masks to make today and I should probably rest, too.  I think I'm just going to make pretty things and take naps all day...which actually sounds heavenly to me.  ^_^
 

*smooch*  Love you all. 
 

Comments

[ermine-rat.livejournal.com]

I remember that old house, it's one of the places I remember how to find in that part of the world (I have a weird geography-brain). It has looked in rough shape for a while. Sad to see.

There have been too many wakes starting out this year, and I'm having trouble with dealing with them all. Too many and too fast.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

The state of my old house breaks my heart. I'd rather see it gone than see it rotten & broken like that. Such a shame. It was my home for so many years...

Did you know Thorgrim? He was such a wonderful person; he personified the best part of the SCA to me; the part that made you feel like you belonged to a family.

The list of people in the Society that are lost keeps growing & growing. It was bound to happen, but it's still so sad.

[madshutterbug.livejournal.com]

It's odd, sometimes, wondering if a place once lived and loved is still full of life and love. I don't think that much about the neighborhood where I grew up; haven't been there since Christmas through New Years of '95 and that was for my Dad's funeral. I've no urge to go back at all.

But I did, sort of, showing another friend halfway around the world what the area I grew up looks like, at least in satellite photos. From that viewpoint, it looks as though that neighborhood is doing OK.

What I actually wonder more about is the area where I went to my first two years of college, in Grand Rapids MI. I'll dream sometimes that I'm there. Nothing looks as I remember it so when I wake I wonder just why I knew, in my dream, that's where I was.

I believe you did a wonderful thing, donating that mask. It isn't paying back. There are some debts which can not be repaid, so we pay them forward. Someone, somewhen, who needs the care that particular Hospice program provides will receive it, because you payed forward.

Oh, and appropoe of not much, we love our Subaru Outback, we do.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

I haven't laid eyes on my old house for years because I avoid it...seeing it falling apart just breaks my heart. I wish I could pick it up & move it out into the country, into a big field, and fix it all up. If I was Bill Gates, that's what I'd do.

When I look at my career & my art, on one hand I did it without grants or art school or loans or a patron, so I feel like I'm self-made. And yet if I really think about it, there's no way I can take sole credit for what I have been able to achieve. So I'm trying to remember that and be humble in my success, and give back (or pay forward) as much as I can. They're just masks, really...I'm hoping that the way I make them & share them will elevate them to something more important than that. I think art can be a wonderful tool for healing & expression, & I'm trying to find new ways to promote that.

I love my Subaru too! All-wheel drive & 28 miles to the gallon...how can you beat that? I thought I'd never love a car more than I loved my Dad's old Volvo, but this Outback is a solid winner. ^_^

[golden-meliades.livejournal.com]

I've been on LJ several times today since you posted this and still can't figure out how to respond to it. I have never given up a home or seen one run down. No one close to me has ever died. I don't have a daughter. I've never been married.

Will you settle for '14 days until the clocks go forward!'? (If I posted this two and a half hours from now, it'd be 13 days...)

[merimask.livejournal.com]

Eh...I know what you mean. When I look at everything that's happened to me in my life I feel like I've crammed an awful lot of events into just 43 years. So many of them weren't good things. My hard times are like winter though; it all serves to make you love spring even more. :-)

Yeah, 13 days!

[oraien.livejournal.com]

I had to leave a home once. I was much smaller (11 about) but it's still been one of the regret/pain moments I remember.

A thing I noticed about this post though is that it's still really full of hope, inspite of the individual sad components.

Keep smiling.

[merimask.livejournal.com]

It's hard to see your home falling down. Nothing is quite as awesome as owning your first house, & you put so much love into it & have so much pride for it. Watching it decay is, for me, like watching a family member die slowly. It really hurts. :-(

I try to see the good side of things. Not in an annoying way, I hope. ^_^ It's just that I believe we are the sum of our experiences, & I want those experiences to be more positive than negative, for me.

[oraien.livejournal.com]

I haven't owned my own home yes, but I do definitely understand the feeling of watching a place an feeling like someone special is dying.

Hope is definitely not annoying to me, positive thinking is a very intellectually attractive trait in people. And your philosophy definitely doesn't hurt the overall presentation at all.