Coral, bought for just $5 at an Outer Banks thrift shop years ago. I love to touch coral. Some people like smooth stones, I like the rough feeling in nature. It makes me think of my callouses from writing and painting and even flicking my lighter for cigarettes. Living, in other words.
I have been painting quite a bit and also working with my printer, now that I have figured out settings, which is a personal triumph. I am one of those with just enough knowledge and experience to get there, but not a master of the machine. But I'm trying to learn, and it's going well. I am also reading a book on photography, from the "for dummies" series, and I have to say it's fairly complicated, so I'm below dummy, I'm not happy to discover. I'm understanding it, but it's confusing when the author uses analogies. He compared pixels to buckets of paint which can spill over, which illustrates his understanding, but not mine. maybe he's describing what I call "hot" images. I don't know. I'm taking it slow. Against my own limits, I bought some more paint and put two more tubes on my wish list. I should get it within a week. I'm learning when to buy. I bought an introductory set of paints last October for $89, and this week I saw it for $67. So don't order near Christmas time. I bought the introductory set because it had all the colors I wanted and just one I'm not crazy about. It was heavily on sale, even at $89. Now I see that it was not really a bargain per tube, and I have already reordered paint individually three times. So I wrote my old painting professor for a list of colors to buy and what size - he used to hand these out every semester and I kept mine for decades, but threw it out in an episode a few years ago. When I bought them, I used them for twenty years - they were large tubes, which cost more, but are worth it in the end for savings. So painting has surpassed photography for me as an expensive habit, but I'm enjoying it immensely. It's even good for my self esteem and confidence, I find. I remember when I was at university I thought as long as I have my health and my tools, I'll be fine for any job, I won't starve. Little did I suspect that I might lose my mind, that the meds would compromise my ability - I've lost my steady hand - and that the illness would have me throw my precious tools in the trash. It's nice to come back from all that and give it a try. Yes, painting is good for my health, and the concentration I used to be able to apply to life drawing I now use for my photography. There is life after schizophrenia. It's just that it was nearly two decades before I was able to think about starting again. I think that this upsurge in activity is subtly due to my worries about upcoming health checks. I remember when the doctor's office called to say my test was positive, the first thing I thought was, at least I'm painting and working a bit on photography. I am just very happy that I haven't wasted my life. When I think about the really dark years with schizophrenia, I was even then writing letters and journals and ideas notebooks and painting and doing some photography and knitting. I have really tried to keep busy, and thus hopeful, with this illness and now I have a small collection of projects that I can look at and know that even when it's bad, I'm still there as myself. My themes have continued, despite some interruption.
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My Prince tribute - Starfish and Coffee. I have been feeling quite good even though I'm a bit nervous about my upcoming medical tests. I finished my two-month shopping spree with two trips to TJ Maxx - I bought two summer blouses for an upcoming invitation to visit a friend's plantation - haven't had new clothes for 7 years and all my summer shirts are handed down from my mother, a professional golfer. So you can imagine the look, lol. To be fair, those shirts have been nice to wear, even though they are faded from the hundreds of hours my mom wore them in the sun. They are not my style, but then I have no style, really, since I gained weight from meds years ago. I wear what I can wear, and am glad for it. Thank God for yoga pants. So yeah, two new blouses to celebrate the occasion and also to reward myself for losing 32 pounds in the past year. The other things I bought were three, beautiful, Italian picture frames, Florentine - so, wonderful colors and gold leaf - in total around $20! Amazing! I'm buying these frames not only because I love them, but because I have very few photographs left from my life because of my episodes - I tended to throw precious things away. I want to highlight and care for what I have left. They look wonderful in the living room and in my own bedroom. Pictures from my beloved years with my ex-husband and some from my time here, after we split up. So it's quite healing, this exercise.
I'm sad about Prince. I hadn't listened to his music in years, because I had episodes and threw out what music I had, and he doesn't allow stuff on the net, which I kind of depend on. But I ordered two used cds from Amazon, so I can listen to Raspberry Beret and Starfish and Coffee. Of course, all of his work is fantastic, but these are my favorites, I especially like Around the World in a Day, which is the album Raspberry Beret is on. It is hard to lose such a beloved figure in the arts, but it is heartening the tremendous reaction around the world. I also loved David Bowie very much, so yeah, it's been a hard year so far. I wasn't a music video director for nothing - it was certainly for a love of musicians and their music. RIP. I have started painting a new series based on my love of kinoflo lighting, which I learned about from my years as a director and photographer. They are just the loveliest lights and very light in weight and safe to use. They look like flourescents, but have a soft, stable, white glow. Gorgeous. I have several ideas for this series already, even though I have only painted one so far, last night. I only have room for two more at this point, because of lack of drying space. the last twelve of my first series are still drying - I have 30 all together. It will be so nice, as summer approaches, to have these paintings up. I'm going to at least invite people for coffee, starting with my neighbor across the street. She very kindly suggested exchanging phone numbers, so I will try and finish my decorating by, I guess, June. But yes, I want to open up the house to visitors as much as I can and it will be nice to be able to offer an unchipped coffee cup and to have some fresh walls. I am having such a wonderful time in life right now. I just hope I won't have a bad test result from my doctors. I mean, I'm trying to stay calm and rational, but every day I think about my possessions, what little I have, and what to do with them in the worst case scenario. So yeah, that. Some of my paintings drying in the garage. I have room for three more paintings to be done and hung to dry. I did three yesterday. When I do the three, I will have thirty paintings altogether. I stamped and signed the dry ones, and last week I bought a sealing wax set which will be fun to use on them. I usually never sign my paintings, but when I die and they all go to maybe a relative, or a thrift store, I want them signed. I also thought of doing a short history to go with them, I can put it in an envelope and tuck it in the back. All the rest of my paintings are in the city dump, unsigned and abandoned generally. They were large and I worked incredibly hard on them, but I just didn't want to live with them anymore. I wanted to paint something easy and fun and successful, and I got that with these color studies. I look forward to hanging them all and painting more. As I have mentioned in a previous post or two, I wanted these to cover some damage to the walls while I was hearing voices. But before I hang them, I will do my best to put a fresh coat of matching paint on those walls before I hang these. I'm making reparations.
I have had some slightly worrying news from the doctor yesterday afternoon. My tests came back positive and I have to see the gastroenterologist next month. I guess I'm more annoyed than worried, but plans for the worst case scenario hurtled through my mind. Since schizophrenia hit 18 years ago and decimated my life as I knew it, I have been quite retrospective about the few things I have left that I haven't thrown out to the dump. I leave those precious items to archeologists, who I fantasize will find my wedding ring and put it in a museum about ancient people. I am sorry that I can't make better plans for items like that, having trashed them over the years. It was beautiful, a medieval design, this ring, with a verse of a John Donne poem inscribed on it, which goes, "Come live with me and be my love, and we will some new pleasures prove, of golden sands and crystal brooks, with silken lines and silver hooks". It was lovely and it was engraved by the Queen's engravers for 100 pounds sterling. I absolutely loved the ring and the poetry, which was given to me on a piece of paper soon after we met by my beloved ex-husband. So yes, anyway, over the years I have thought of how to distribute my possessions after my death, those being a collection of paint brushes, paint and paintings, sketchbooks, journals and so on, what's left of my photography, my camera, computer and printer, and some music and a few books. That's all there is, aside from some pleasant but unimportant jewelry that was left behind in my purges and sits now in my safe deposit box. I think I will leave the jewelry to my niece, and the rest to a young cousin. Both young and artistic. But the camera system I thought I would leave for my brother, since he has shown some interest in them. So yeah, all I have to do is go through these medical tests and hope I come out ok. But if I don't, I am as ready as I can be, for life's next phase. I even have thought of some music and verse for my funeral. I and my family are Baptists, but I have wandered on to other ideas during my life, and I want to include a quote by a Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron, whose book The Wisdom of No Escape I discovered by accident in Los Angeles, when I was first schizophrenic without a diagnosis yet. It goes, "The first noble truth says that it's part of being human to feel discomfort. We don't even have to call it suffering anymore, we don't even have to call it discomfort. It's simply coming to know the fieriness of fire, the wildness of the wind, the turbulence of water, the upheaval of the earth, as well as the gentleness of the breezes, and the goodness, solidness and dependability of the earth." A corner of my desk. I don't know how I stand having all this stuff on my desk, but I do know where to find things because of it. When I worked at the newspaper in London, I had a clean desk policy, and my in-tray was empty every night. But now I have a lot of filing to do, which I do every six weeks or so, and the rest of the chaos is mostly my art supplies, which have grown beyond the wooden briefcase they belong in. My brother suggested that keeping my desk like this was probably disturbing to me, but when I tried to straighten it up, I became distressed, I know what I did and when if I don't straighten it. This desk and this filing has been my focus for about 6 years now. I kind of love it here and it helps me with responsibility and memory, which I try to keep on top of.
I'm proud of myself, this week, on Monday, I figured out my printer. It prints up to 13x19, but was only accepting US Letter size. I tried what I knew, and it didn't work, last year. So I was leaving it until I met someone who could help. Well, this week I was that person! I had patience, I consulted the help windows of Mac, Photoshop and Canon, and just basically just kept pressing buttons until it finally came together. In the past, I might have broken it trying to figure it out and losing my temper, but I stayed calm. I knew that this printer was my last chance, there is no more money for a replacement. It's special to me, it's the first system I have bought and put together without the help of my ex-husband, who did engineering at Cambridge and was a consultant for a few months - not to mention photographer anyway. This outfit was deeply on sale at precisely the right time I had money - Disability had made a mistake on my allowance and I was due more. It was a deal that was spotted by my friend in Baltimore and it's just divine intervention that he pointed it out right then, it's the right system for me, and I am now actually learning more, which has always been a goal and a thorn in my side. So yay. I saw my doctor on Thursday and he raised the Latuda. He also lowered the Wellbutrin, which I didn't think was necessary but I decided not to say anything. I mean, I'm super happy right now on these meds, but I don't want to overdo it. I just like Wellbutrin, it's the first med I had in LA, before my actual breakdown and pyschosis, and it kept me from being depressed and also helped me lose weight without being hungry. I had a lot of weight gain with meds over the years, notably Zyprexa and Haldol. But since I started Latuda last Spring, I have been able to lose 32 pounds quite painlessly. It's nice. I'm still hallucinating and talking to my imaginary friends - these are representations of people I know. They are hyperreal, they are highly expressive and very entertaining, and when I told them to leave because I was tired and I needed to get back to real life, they adjusted and it was nice. They are still there, but not as demanding. But yeah, I have to remind myself that these visions are not the real people they represent, and that if I were to contact the actual people, thinking we had been talking, it would be a disaster. These are people I really like and love, but they dropped me, hard, when I had schizophrenia. It's somehow healing to talk to them like this. It's friendly, even though it's not real. It kind of makes me feel better somehow, a little more confident and less pained generally. My new dishes, thanks to TJ Maxx. I came out of my winter episode with the idea of contacting old friends and sprucing up the house. I had the idea to go to TJ Maxx and just look, I always find stuff I like in there. I was still hearing voices and seeing people who weren't there, and they were pointing out things to look at. I needed a new comforter, some throw pillows and I decided some new coffee cups because I had two and they were chipped. The comforters were $100, and I thought if we're getting into triple digits I'm going to shop around. So I went online and bought what I really wanted, a down duvet with a washable cover. And a monogram. I wanted to be reminded of what I had when I was married. I also spent a lot on throw pillows, custom made, down, hand-dyed linen. They arrive in May. But for TJ's, I spent totally bargain money on some refreshing blue and white ceramics. And some Italian picture frames - $6.99 each. My brother likes the frames. The only thing left to do is paint the walls I damaged, and I'm waiting until next month to do that for my budget restrictions. It was nice to splash out and it's a miracle of science that I even care enough to do it. So my life is looking pleasant and I sleep like royalty. I decided this I deserve. I'm so rarely ever a shopper. I wear my clothes until they fall apart, and I haven't done housework in like a decade. But I mopped and dusted and vacuumed, had the broken window repaired and the chandelier I broke replaced. Just these touches. So in this regard, I am more sane with schizophrenia than I was before, when I was "normal". Then, I would have taken on the whole house, changed colors and all that. Total madness, as I can never decide and I change my mind. With schizophrenia, I have accepted what is, and I just did basic repairs and some new fresh touches, not a makeover really, but it feels nice and I am fantasizing about having people over for coffee or dinner. Another modern miracle. I'm happy.
I see my psychiatrist this afternoon and it's not a moment too soon. I really might have called for an emergency appointment, but I wanted to weather the storm, try to understand it and to exercise the discipline of carrying on with my normal every day activities as an antidote. I had some success. But Tuesday, in the afternoon, I started talking to myself and I did it for twenty-four hours non-stop, no sleeping, and forgetting to eat. I haven't had this kind of episode before, and aside from wishing for quiet and sleep, it wasn't disturbing. It was my own voice and my own thoughts and feelings, not voices and hallucinations. But still, I would like my medicine adjusted and today is the day. I'm excited. I have never before been enthusiastic about upping a dose of medicine, but this one, Latuda, is so enabling and uplifting and low on side effects and basicially a miracle, and I'm not scared. I want to stay on this medicine even if I have to go through episodes sometimes, because I have been stimulated, motivated, happy, creative, thoughtful, expressive, all those things, even though since September I have had three episodes. I want to work with it. Because of my other activities and the 24-hour talking jag, I haven't painted, and it's ok. I did well with it last week and it's nice to slow down and have time to consider carefully my next set of paintings. I'm still doing the color studies, but I kind of surprised myself with some ideas I had or that the voices gave me - some are friendly - and the paintings are kind of sophisticated and impressive, for this little exercise. So I don't mind being forced to pause and consider. However, I will want to pick up the pace this weekend and next week, even if there is a dip in quality. I just need that activity - the actual paint and the smell and the brush is a pleasure, and my design is very simple to look at and easy to do, and I don't have to always be impressive, I can be experimental and a little rusty and wobbly too. I want to start hanging these paintings in the house next month, after I fix the walls I messed up. If I do this, I will open up the house and next time we have a visitor I won't be having to explain the condition of things or close off doors, or just hope they won't mind or notice the damage and dust. The paintings are, for me, a success already, and I can even see keeping going until I can cover every wall in the house and more. This enthusiasm is new, so I must be happier and more confident and more accepting of myself than I have been in recent years. I cannot emphasize enough how much this drug is changing my life for the better. Before, I really was just waiting to die. Not because I was depressed but because I was drugged and that's as far as I could think. Now I wake up happy, I have to do lists, and as I have described, I am actually cleaning the house. I have had one tiny health set back this month. I'm apparently worryingly anaemic. So my doctor is doing more tests and has given me a prescription for a supplement, which is not covered by Medicaid. I'm watching my pennies so I'm going to finish this course and ask him if I can just buy normal supplements. I would save at least $18 a month. That's a trip to the sushi bar or a tube of premium oil paint. So yeah, that. I also don't know if I wil be required to stay on these supplements or not. Like, I have to stay on my cholesterol and schizophrenia medicines. I'm a little worried, because my type of anaemia indicates blood loss, not a dietary deficiency, so I have to be tested for things like cancer of the bowel and stuff, which I hate and also don't want to worry about, since I feel absolutely fine and have been living and eating like this since last spring, and have only felt better - I have even lost 32 pounds without feeling hungry. If you want to know how I do it, it's breakfast of my choice, lean cuisines or weight watcher's frozen pasta and vegetables for lunch and dinner, and two squares of chocolate and caramel in the afternoon for fun. It's the new Hershey's bites, just 140 calories. I like this diet and I don't want to change it, so it's kind of a good thing that my doctor doesn't suspect poor nutrition right now. I told him I'm basically vegetarian and have been for 30 years. He wasn't concerned. So that, yeah. Plates 2016. This image is kind of special to me. I remember being 8 years old in Naples, Italy and thinking one day to myself, I want to be a photographer. I told my mom and asked her for a camera. She said photography was an expensive hobby. I meant I wanted to be a photographer for my job, when I grew up. For my birthday, she bought me a Fisher Price Brownie camera. I was upset, I knew it was a toy made for children. Anyway, this is the exact subject and composition of my first idea. I tried it with the Brownie when I first got it, but it came out a blur, a fog, there was no focus, nothing. So I recreated it.
It was early schizophrenia, I think, the decision to become a photographer, because I had a vision of this exact image before I asked for the camera. I don't know where the idea came from, but it was in black and white, a stack of plates. I am kind of hit and miss with photography, because of the Fisher Price camera. It just completely was no good, and so it was more than a decade before I got a real camera to play with, and I had a blockage in my mind about learning how to use it. I still do. But I bought two books on photography, and if I go very slowly, maybe I'll get it this time. I know F8 sunny, F5 cloudy, from my time as a photographer in Georgia, after one of my hospitalizations. I was actually earning money as a photographer even with my technical hang ups. But the guy I worked for was very nice and very patient and I was able to learn some things that I actually can remember. I can get a picture I like, but I can't tell you how I did it. With this camera I have here, I just use it on automatic, unless I want black and white. This image was color and I photoshopped it. So I guess the lesson is don't let a disability stop you from pursuing your goal. For me, I have just looked at a lot of photography on my own, and digital really helps me get what I want, I use it like a crutch. But this summer I will look at my photography books and hopefully get it. It's about time. I have been painting. Painting also started for me in Italy. My mom bought herself some oil paints and took lessons, and I asked her if I could take lessons too. She lent me her brushes and paints and I took the class. I immediately loved it. Part of the assignment for this class was to do ten sketches, and the teacher told my mom that I was sketching stuff at an advanced level, but really I was frustrated, just drawing what I would rather take a picture of. She particularly liked a sketch I did of a flower growing outside of our fence. My paintings are abstract expressionist now, which started in that class. I did a painting of two red apples, with ultramarine blue as the background. I deliberately made the apples two circles of cadmium red. Just that. A voice told me to paint it like that instead of trying to create something realistic. So sometimes, with schizophrenia, I get a break, some help and encouragement. I don't know whether it is my own holy mind or if I am guided by spirits. I think it's spirits though. I can't think where the ideas are coming from other than that. Dogwood petals on the ground, azaleas, Spring 2016. Spring came about three weeks early this year. I remember because last year on these dates we were meeting for the first time my brother's daughter, who had been put up for adoption, and her children. The dogwood was just showing buds at that time. It was lovely to meet her. My brother, who also has schizophrenia and has refused medication, and is perpetually unwell, refused to meet her. But I'm glad I did. She's beautiful and a great mom to her own children. I really admire her, she's really "together". She handled my brother's last minute refusal to meet her very well. I know it must have hurt.
I'm going to paint this afternoon, at last. I have room for eight or nine paintings altogether, plus more once the drying of the other ones finish. I'm excited. I mixed some new medium and am just hoping I have enough stand oil in there, because I like the gloss - but it does slow drying time. I have lots of color combinations to work on. And I love the smell of oil paint and turpentine, it's always a nice reminder of who and what I am. I'm feeling quite good, but my psychiatrist's appointment still seems ages away, it's next week. Maybe I should have called when I was having a problem, but then again, I don't know him that well and I didn't want to mess with my meds with someone I don't exactly trust. I just think he's temporary both in contract and in his attitude, and I'm nervous about our next meeting. I'm hoping my request will be honored and that he won't have any more stupid suggestions. It's just that I have been through this for 17 years and I finally found a med I can live with, and I want to keep it and my antidepressant. I just want to increase the Latuda, hoping to avoid another six week episode. That's one of the things about schizophrenia, it's a lot of trial and error, and you have to be quite proactive about your own treatment, because without the patient's input, they don't know. You know? The Dogwood Tree, Spring 2016. I am writing two posts today, because I wanted to get the pictures of the dogwood in while it's still in bloom. So if you have time, read on after this post. I took these photographs last week, and already the petals are falling on the ground. I am just so thrilled to have a digital camera in my life, so that I can commemorate stuff like this. For some reason, I just noticed this tree this year. In preceding years, I hated Spring. I kind of blame the meds and schizophrenia in general for this. I liked winter. I like to bundle up and to feel the cold on my face and anyway, I was mentally hibernating. Spring seemed obscene. But for last year and this year I'm into it all the way, and this year I had the camera too. So voila.
This year I am also spring cleaning the house. I haven't done this in the 14 years since I lived here. Been too ill. So I'm actually glad to be doing this. It's fun. I spent $30 on cleaning supplies this week, and I also bought stuff for the house - some down cushions for the sofa, and a down duvet with a monogrammed cover, woohoo! It's just that to dry clean the comforter I have is $200, so I might as well invest in something I really want and can wash the cover to it. This is my logic. I'm pleased to say that I can start painting again this coming week. My paintings are nearly dry, and I cleared some space in the garage so I can hang them while they finish drying and start some new ones. I will also be painting the walls I damaged in the kitchen and my bedroom. I have a cunning plan. I found near-as-dammit colors so I am only going to paint the walls I damaged in these rooms, not the whole room. It's just that I don't have such a steady hand anymore, and it will be all I can do to paint just that, well. I'm excited though, I think it will work. It will be so nice to have a clean house and where I don't have to shut the door to my room off. Happily, too, I discovered a bunch of old clothes that I can now fit in - they are actually loose on me! My doctor is pleased with my weight loss and I feel really good about it too. I have a ways to go, but I can move and sit and so on without feeling squeezed, and I have some "new" things to wear now. These clothes are old favorites, so it's better than going shopping. Yay! Stills from my film. I have been working on the house, cleaning, clearing, repairing, and I found this page of stills I printed from a film I wrote, shot, edited and directed. I also made the shoes and the costume she is wearing in the last four frames. She made the orange dress. I was so happy to find this page, it's all I have left of that project. I threw my copies of the film in the trash, along with the rushes. The artist in the film is a singer/songwriter/artist/dancer called Mia Doi Todd, a fixture in the Los Angeles independent music scene. It was very kind of her to give me an afternoon for this film and she did beautifully. Actually, when I screened it, one guy cried, he said it was beautiful. So I am extra proud of this film. I want to borrow the only existing copy of this film from her, so I can make a copy, but I'm too embarrassed to admit to her that I need it because I trashed my own copies due to schizophrenia. I'm so tired of having to explain and apologize for this action in my life. Even though people have been wonderful about it. It's just always nervewracking. I'm sure she would be lovely about it. The thing is, I don't even know if she received her copy of the film, I had also trashed my address book, and I was trying to remember her address from my head. I didn't get it completely right, this I know, but she is the only person by that name and I know she is the only person living on that street - it's a loft in an industrial district. So hopefully it got there. She very kindly accepted my friend request on Facebook recently. So yeah, picking up the pieces.
I had a wonderful day out yesterday. I drove to Chapel Hill to visit my 84-year-old painting teacher from university. It was a really nice afternoon. We talked about painting and he told amusing stories and showed me his current work. He gave me a book of his drawings, which I love. His name is Marvin Saltzman, and he has a website. Google it if you have a chance. His work is lovely. He invited me to a show in July that I might actually be able to attend, with an old friend who wants to drive to the beach during her visit. It would be fun to be able to see it and I'm thrilled to be in touch with this old friend. We were friends as children, and recently got back in touch. Marvelously, she wants to visit all the way from Colorado, so I'm over the moon about that. It will make for a lovely summer indeed. I must mention that it was incredibly nice to visit my university town yesterday, for another reason. We made it to the NCAA basketball finals! Go Heels! Today I am visiting with a friend from out of town, and some friends from my neighborhood, which is making my social calendar stellar. We all went to high school together. I haven't had this much social activity since I lived in LA 17 years ago. It is fantastic, and I hope to keep making new friends too. I just am able to handle social situations while on Latuda, whereas on the Haldol, I was anxious and looking for an exit after 20 minutes. Now I find I can pay attention, think of things to say and smile and even laugh without being nervous. Thankfully my winter episode has passed too. Now, I have to get my dose increased so that doesn't happen again. I'm patient about this, I'm just so pleased generally with this drug and the way it is enabling me to live, that I don't mind adjustments. I just want it to work. That is all I need. |
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June 2017
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