And so in just over 2 months I will be 70 years old. When I was 65 I was still out working in my glorious cottage garden, but then I took a fall, a bad fall, and I have never been able to garden again, in fact I can no longer do countless things. I no longer drive and my car has longsince been sold. My agoraphobia is through the roof most days, I never leave my house except the rare doctor’s appointment my daughter takes me to, well, it’s easy to live in a perpetual pity party and just give up. I choose not to.
Every year, these past 5 years, I have become more and more disabled, and it has been painful and scary and disheartening to be sure, but finally you have a choice — we always have a choice — and in the moment, understanding that I was, surely, seriously disabled, I WAS STILL ALIVE, and though I can’t get around the house without my rollator, I can sit right here at my work table, and read and write and draw and paint, and, after being a very serious fiber artist for most of my life, in 2014 my house burned down, it was a bad fire, I lost most everything and the insurance company put my 4 dogs and I in an extended stay hotel and then a small rental house for nearly 9 months, and several very large fiber art pieces almost ready to sell and all my large fiber equipment and most of what I owned were lost in the fire. There was a blessing in that I have a one car attached, concrete block garage and a lot of my fiber, small looms and spindles were out there. Everything else that was in the house was gone. And my heart was broken, and I thought I would never do any fiber work again.
Over these last couple of years the social worker that has been helping me literally had my whole house changed around so that I could move as comfortably and safely as possible. I have worn a “Fall Pendant” that I never take off and I cannot tell you how very many times EMT’s and Firefighters were sent to my house to get me up and sorted out and taken care of. It’s terribly embarrassing but I am awfully grateful. Recently they had to come 3x in 3 weeks. No more roller skating for me!
But the thing is, I have special needs and do my very best to take good care of myself, and living on social security, for which I am very grateful, makes it impossible to replace the larger fiber equipment lost in the fire (a few things that I really miss are my spinning wheel (which due to my feet I could no longer use but I have a number of hand spindles and I have always preferred spinning with a hand spindle), my beautiful wooden ball winder and swift, which I really need, and I have cried too many times over the loss of my batt maker, one of my favorite things in the world to do. But they are $500 or more and I am nowhere close to the ability to replace that. And so much more. You replace what you can, used of course, and you just have to let go. You have to let go of so many things.
[One of my beautiful batts made of numerous raw wools, cleaned and dyed, filiments, sparkly fibers and more, fed through the batt machine It is truly a magical art form. This one was named “Harvest Moon,” and batts are used to make the fiber that yarn is spun from, via wheel or hand-spindle.]
The thing is, it really does take a long time to come to terms with what you have lost and are losing. For 5 years I went downhill so fast I could barely blink and I was worse. But somehow over the past summer I stopped speeding downhill so fast. Oh yes, I am now in a slower decline (still, the times I fell 3 times in 3 weeks was just last October). Also embarrasing is that we are now not only on a first name basis they’ve had to come so many times, that they know Molly, my tiny dog, and call out to her when they come in, and sometimes give her a treat! but it’s given me quite a sense of peace. I can’t do more, but I have a little less pain and I’m not seeing one drastic change after the other coming so fast. I no longer feel like I am circling the drain ready to go down and be gone!
I did the painting at the top a few months ago when I had come to the decision, a firm, hard-won decision, that I would stop being depressed and crying over all the losses, and look at what I still had, or have occasional funds for small things to get, and look at all the things I CAN do. These last months there has been a HUGE shift. (If you dedicate a small notebook or journal with only 1 exercise repeated over and over, you’ll get worlds of wonderful ideas for things that can make your little home feel magical, and what things you might be able to do that you never thought of or perhaps not since you were a child. The exercise is “I can no longer do that, but I can do this _________”) For example, one of the hardest losses was not to be able to get outside to garden. But now I have plants everywhere, and I didn’t buy a lot of plants, no money for that, but I had a handful of plants I got at the grocery store before Covid and they have now gotten so big I am taking cuttings from my own plants to grow new ones. I’m looking to get plants or cuttings I can get cheap to grow my own. And my house is dark because I practically live in a forest but they have done GREAT with the inexpensive plant lights I got through Amazon. $15 or so for a light that will clamp to a table or counter and has 4 arms with plant lights in them. I bought 1 light each year so now I have 3. My studio is FILLED with plants and twinkly lights (the other thing you HAVE to have to create a magical enchanting home! Plants and twinkly lights make for a magical atmosphere, and then there are the gnomes. But I think they belong in another blog post!)
Most everyone knows that the room next to my big studio, where I sit writing to you now, I have always called The Cozy Room. It had the fireplace, the t.v., my beloved Beast (That’s what they call this model of recliner! It will hold a man up to 500 pounds and is a dream to sit in. And it’s what Molly and I sleep in at night, and once upon a time 4 pugs used to sleep with me in that chair!), but what was happening was my “cottage” is actually a 1970 “ranch” style house, and all the bedrooms and bathrooms are on the other end of the house which, when you can barely get out of a chair, and it takes you forever to get from where you are sleeping to the potty, and you have to go BAD, the thing is, you just don’t make it. (Pardon me, truly, but these facts affect many of us and I just don’t want others to feel embarrassed or alone.) I would suddenly wake up having to go to the bathroom so bad, and I can barely get up out of any chair, and then I have 4 steps to go up into the kitchen (which is why I have 2 rollators, one “upstairs” and one down here.) and I would be struggling and crying and doing my best to get there but I just couldn’t make it. I would (pardon me, truly) pee myself and so much so that I was leaving a trail of wet floor (the kitchen is tile) and then I would slip and fall on the wet floor and be splayed out in some kind of embarrassing position — it once looked, the way I had fallen, like I was trying to do the splits which I have never been able to do in my whole life anyway.) And I would push my emergency button and it took no time at all for them to get here but since they insist on EMT’s and Fireman both coming since I am a “little old lady” who has wet herself and the surrounding area, clothes wet, and am on the floor, and when I fall I cannot get up at all. It takes 4 emergency personnel to get me up (2 used to always do it but the day I fell and got stuck between 2 pieces of furniture the EMT’s called the fire department for help and ever since it is set up so they will all come at once. You’ve no idea how embarrassing it is at 3 a.m., soaked in your own, well, you know, splayed out on the floor and in pain (my feet and knees are no help at all. I cannot help. I have to let them get me up.), and my clothes have to be changed and well, it could just not be more embarrassing. For days afterwards I will barely be able to move around at all, bumped, and bruised, and in terrible pain. I don’t know who first said, “Gettin’ old ain’t fer sissies.” but DANG! if they weren’t right!
All this led to the social worker’s advice that we switch the rooms. I never used my Master bedroom, I can’t sleep in a bed, and would only go back there to shower and change clothes. But my family came over, moved everything out of the bedroom, moved my Beast, the t.v. and a few other things back there and bless them they made it as cozy as they could. Now when I wake up and need the potty it is just a few feet away. Talk about life-changing! And there are “grab bars” all over the place to help me have things to hold onto, and my shower, the kind you just step into, has a shower chair and all the accoutrements so I have to sit in it so I won’t fall and God forbid be nekkid when the emergency guys all came trooping in. (I am still terrified of taking a shower.) and what this all comes down to is that the former “Cozy Room” now began to look like a big empty barn where I could perhaps hire a fiddle player and invite all my neighbors over for a barn dance! It was rather shocking looking. But my bedroom is now a dream and truly a “Cozy Room.” The thing is, the house looked pitiful and sad with the equivalent of a big naked room where I once slept. And so it has been for months. Then, a lightbulb went on!
I have missed my fiber art SO much but wherever was it to go? BUT now I had this huge empty room. Finally, on Black Friday, I used a little of the money I got from selling my car to buy a chair for the room. There was absolutely nothing to sit on in there. It was literally an amazing miracle. I got a chair that before the sale was almost $1000 for $350. It is a very cushy, comfortable recliner that has heat and massage functions and is a “power lift” chair so that a big round button on the side of the chair will either put you back as far as you want to go, or it lifts you all the way to a standing position which is a godsend in my condition but I have been terrified that it would flip me up and over like a pancake in a skillet! 😬 So far, so good, but it still scares me to use it.
That was the first step. I got inexpensive floor lamps on Black Friday as well to put on either side of the chair and my darling helper Eleanor has begun to help me gather whatever fiber things I have and move them into this room. We’ve a long way to go getting it all sorted out, but now I will have a fiber room next to my studio where I write and paint and work on my book, and do all the things it takes to create an illustrated book which is supported by my Patrons. They have encouraged me, loved me, helped me through the hard times, and their financial support has helped me to buy the art supplies I need and even groceries. I’m having a very hard time financially but my Patrons are my guardian angels and saviors. And we are a community and there is so much love there. It’s a small community of 18 people but it makes a huge difference in my life. And they get lots in return for their pledge which can be as little as 5 dollars a month. And every penny helps. I just cannot tell you.
And so I bumble along, doing what I can, and finding new things that I CAN also do — such revelations and delights! And my cozy little cottage is filled to brimming over with the real and the imagined. Gnomes, for example, are my friends, and while they might look like little dollar store tiny statues or stuffed gnomes that I was just gifted, they are real to me. When you live alone and are seriously disabled you have to work hard and be determined to still live a life that brings you joy. I work very hard at that, and almost, without exception, all of my work goes to my Patrons –free downloadable art, new every month; a 45 minute podcast weekly; sharings and resources and love letters and more. Patreon has saved my life and I am always praying that more people will join, but I deeply appreciate those that are here.
Now it’s time for my wee dog Molly to go out, and I need to record this week’s podcast, but I really, truly will try to blog more often. It’s just that most of what I do goes to the generous souls who become Patrons to support and help me, and they are so deeply loved I am always thinking up new things to send them. Patreon gives me a life outside of my home since I never leave the house, and it is a private community. I am barely on social media anymore, and the thing that comes with my disabilities is very little energy. Some days I cannot do anything at all but rest but at least most days I can do something and I do, and I do as much as I can. It’s all a matter of how many spoons I have in a day and it varies. If you don’t know what I’m talking about click this link. It changed my whole world to gain this understanding. You can read more about it here. It’s a good thing to know for yourself and others. It changes your perception about everything.
I have been working on this post for 2 days. Now I need a nap. And so it goes…
Blessings and Love to one and all…
