Watercolor and red thread; 22″x30″. Click image to view on flickr. Here’s the whole Red Thread series to date.
Monthly Archives: October 2010
Fall’s Rain
We got our first big storm of the year this weekend. Over an inch of rain and some high winds this morning were a good test of the new tarp over the yurt. This morning, I stayed under the covers, grateful to have that new tarp in place. I listened to the rain and watched the ceiling, pulsing as though it was the top of a breathing, living drum. The storm, too, seemed to breathe, pausing for deep inhalations before hurling another bucket of water at us. I like living in this structure that flexes and breathes with the storms.
This week I’ll have been here for ten months, but already I feel the cycle of the year closing in. The storm brought with it a sense of familiarity…yes, I remember this now. Yesterday afternoon, Laika and Jasper burst in through the door, full of boisterous energy and once again patterned the floor with muddy paw prints. And already I have a collection of wet towels and clothing hanging around to dry. I must start tending to my wood pile.
This afternoon I built my first fire of the season. It wasn’t the coldest day we’ve had this fall, but since I was spending all afternoon and evening here (and had things to dry), I splurged. Having the fire is a little like having another pet, and I enjoyed being reunited with its cheery flames and cozy heat.
Most Sunday afternoons lately have been given to creative pursuits (another luxury!), and I intended the same for today. But I mostly frittered my time away until I realized that I may as well finish some work for a client and actually make some money. I tell myself that this invoice will pay for new super-duper rain pants and a camera, but the truth is that it will probably go to pay for a speeding ticket and traffic school. Now I know why the saying is to “cop” a resentment. I love my life and I don’t mind having little disposable income, but it is also familiar territory that little missteps like speeding have a bigger impact on my personal bottom line than they did in my higher-income days.
It was with amusement that I read Interview: man who owns only 15 things. Andrew Hyde only owns 15 things, and at the end of the interview seems to take issue with being called “elitist”. I got a little caught up in the excitement of the idea. Maybe I, too, could live a spartan lifestyle where I’d only own 15 things! Then I laughed when I realized that I simply couldn’t afford it. It would take too much money to pay someone with tools and stuff to do all the things I have to do for myself: cook, clean, shower, drive, keep track of bills and whatever else comes in the mail.
But I have no desire for Hyde’s elitist life; I much prefer my own elitist life, with or without the stuff. Recently I wrote here that I was happier than I’ve ever been, and I’ve thought about that phrase a lot. Some might interpret it to mean that I’m giddy with delight at every moment, but that’s not the case. It’s more like I suddenly woke up, noticed that the dictionary looked a little different, and opened it to find that the definition of happiness itself has changed. Most of my “problems” are still hanging around; the happiness lives side-by-side with sadness, anger, fear. But I’m finally facing all of that, in ways I didn’t expect. I’m becoming more flexible myself, weathering the storms, and maybe even learning how to breathe.
The rain stopped for a while late this afternoon. I went out to fill my water bottles and startled a Sharp-shinned Hawk, probably saving one of the Towhees who lives in the shrubs next my door. As the little hawk entered the airspace above the ranch, the Red-tailed Hawks screamed…four of them, circling over with Turkey Vultures and White-tailed Kites. Evidently everyone was getting lunch while they could. Even the goats were active, seeing me and trotting up to the pasture behind the yurt to say hello. I forgot my errand and wandered through the gate to greet Rozena and Audrey, then the others, and walked among them for a bit.
Tonight, there’s still a parking ticket to be paid, the messed up eating, the confusing feelings, the endless desires for MORE, the fears that the car will quit running or there won’t be enough ranch work to pay the rent this winter, or any number of other things. But there are also the coyotes singing to bring back the moon, the embers of a warm fire, hands that smell like goat, and a house like a rain drum. This is not a work in progress to be unveiled at a later date; this is my life, and I am already here.
Skins and Bones
My love of animals has always extended beyond the living, breathing creatures that I adore. I also like the artifacts left behind when they depart this life. I remember begging my cousin for a “lucky” rabbit’s foot, like the one he had. And I was always a little envious of the things the boys in my class brought to school for show-and-tell…snake skins, pelts, bones, feathers, seashells, antlers, owl pellets….anything left behind by living creatures. It seemed like I never found those things on our farm; it just wasn’t wild enough anymore. I dug for dinosaur bones next to the front porch, certain that I was working on the femur of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. 
My mom was not pleased by the fact that I’d ruined a brand new outfit because I hadn’t bothered to change clothes before playing in the mud. But I wanted that dinosaur bone.
Later, when I fancied myself a punk, skulls and skeletons were my favorite motif. They were harder to find then! I always preferred the stylized versions…flat white on a black background. Friends liked to contribute to my skelly collection frequently, but often didn’t understand that I wasn’t interested in the horror-show versions.
This week, my nephew was visiting and started telling me about his school lessons about bird feathers. I pulled down my jar of feathers and we sorted through them, first separating the curved wing feathers from the straight tail feathers and the downy feathers. “Aunt T, this is a downy feather. They’re like the bird’s underwear!” Then we sorted through them again, identifying the birds when we could, consulting the Sibley Guide for pictures of the animal that left the feather behind. It made me happy that he handled the feathers without reservation…I’ve seen adults approach them with a sense of revulsion…what if they’re dirty?
And last weekend I finally found a way to display the two goat skins (from another ranch) that J gave me last spring. 
Salted and dried, they’d been hanging in the yurt behind my shelves. They now hang as curtains over a window that’s been covered for the winter. There might be some who are surprised that someone who loves the goats as much as I do would have these skins, but to me it is another way to honor the animal.
Last spring, during the rainy kidding season, the real blood and guts of life and death was ever present here. I sometimes spent days without leaving the ranch, and began to feel a little feral. I remember heading out of town one day, passing some people at the graveyard. Dressed up in suits, ties, skirts, I suppose they were waiting for a funeral. A voice in my head said, “They should be wearing skins and pelts and feathers to show some respect!” I was so surprised, and nearly turned around to see if someone was speaking from the back seat behind me. 
But I understood what this voice in my imagination meant.
We don’t accept death in our culture. We’re all trying to look younger, to find the magic health plan that will let us live forever. We try not to think about death too much. We develop weapons that let us kill from afar. The kids are left at home with the babysitter for funerals. Bodies are sent to professionals who sanitize them and arrange them to look “lifelike” in caskets that seal everything out. Meat has no connection with something people know as an animal.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that I have both a fascination and love for these skins and bones, along with addictions to disordered eating and alcohol. I notice an attraction to these same kinds of symbols in others who share these problems. I’ve often wondered if it’s symbolic of a death wish. But I’m also starting to see it in a more positive light as a reaction to modern culture in people who share certain personality traits with me, specifically those of us with an introverted intuition preference. To engage fully in this culture we are born into, we’re forced to ignore everything in us that seeks to connect us back to the full world…a world that includes the unconscious, death, the underworld. And then, like Persephone, we are captured by it, enthralled by our skull motifs, by throwing off fears through drinking and then dying to the unconscious by blacking out; the stuffing down of the feelings of life with food or becoming a picture of death itself through starvation.
We’ve given up the rituals that connected us to the symbols of death and the underworld, so we create new rituals that bring the symbols into being through our physical bodies. How do we stop that? How do we heal? We need to honor the rituals and the symbols, and acknowledge their meaning and importance to us personally. It is not necessarily an easy thing; it goes against the flow of where our culture seems to be heading.
I think a lot about that, and how it relates to my fascination with skins and bones, during this time of the year. It’s the time of Halloween, Samhain, Día de los Muertos, All Souls Day…the time of the year when the veil between the worlds is the thinnest. A time, perhaps, to honor the skins and bones and the departed, to celebrate Persephone’s descent that makes new life possible.
Not an Astronomer
I’m not sure when it really happened, but I know that at a very young age, I became very manipulative. It wasn’t that I wanted to be evil. I just didn’t think I was worthy of getting what I wanted because I wanted it. I had to find another way.
What I wanted most of all, of course, was to be loved. But I had love confused with approval. (True fact: I actually had love and approval confused until just a couple of months ago…seriously! I still have to ponder the difference for a while to really get it.)
Perhaps, for me, the opposite of approval was anger. I dreaded anger, especially the anger of adults. I harbored a lot of fear that wasn’t really based on reality. I didn’t have a Toto to pull away the curtain that revealed that the wizard was only a man.
I got the idea that if I did the right things, I could keep the adults from getting angry. This wasn’t the simple, usual “if I’m good, I won’t be punished” kind of mindset. This was much bigger. I operated on a principle (that was not concious) that if I did everything right, everyone would be happy. So if I managed to chime in at the right time, or deflect attention in some way, I could prevent the anger that I dreaded.
A good example of this was during family car trips. If there was tension, I knew that the way to prevent a blowup would be to get a different conversation going. The best way to do this was to ask my dad a science question. Dad is smart and he loved to teach us. If I could get him going about something scientific, then we would just have a science lecture to sit through instead of an argument. “What is electricity?” was a really good one, as was (on stormy nights) “What is lightning?” I never understood the explanations, so I had no trouble asking those, time after time. I always pretended to understand.
In junior high school, our science class did a section on astronomy. For homework, we had to actually make little astrolabes out of protractors and go out and observe the planets and the moon, and chart their path from night to night. I loved it, or at least loved the idea of it. I was pretty bad at the follow-through, but found that I could look that stuff up in Sky and Telescope and mark it down on the charts on the day we had to hand it in.
I mentioned that, since I liked this so much, I thought that perhaps I’d be an astronomer when I grew up. This was met with lots of approval, and I ate it up. I couldn’t get enough.
Science fairs were another part of junior high school, and then high school. I got good at them. I won trophies and medals. It gave me the attention and approval I craved.
I got a summer job working at the planetarium at the University of Toledo. This was really a big bonus…not only did I get the approval for being so career-minded as a 17-year-old, but I got to move away from home a little earlier than most other kids my age. I worked there for four summers, sometimes getting to help out during real observation time with the big 40″ telescope on campus.
All this time, during high school, I was struggling with math. I hated math. I didn’t apply myself. I actually got some C’s, which shocked my parents and shamed me. I remember at an open house, my English teacher suggested that, when I got to college, I might find that astronomy wasn’t a good fit for me…the reading and writing in her classes came to me without effort. But I thought that was just silly, because I was clearly going to be an astronomer.
And off to college I went. My first quarter, I took Astronomy, Physics, and Calculus (and started a 20 hour/week job in the astronomy department, doing mind-numbing work for a professor emeritus who really had no idea of what to do with me.) I think I got a B, a C, and a D. That same quarter, I discovered binge drinking and hangovers. It’s a wonder I got grades that good, honestly.
To say that I struggled through college would be a great understatement. No matter how painful it became, how obvious it was to everyone else that I was in the wrong major, I would not give up.
I got pretty far in, and then started the electromagnetics course. I had this idea that if I just memorized the equations, I would be able to figure out how to apply them. But nothing made sense to me. When the first midterms were handed back to us, my score was “0”. That was zero points out of 100.
I dropped the class. I decided that I’d do better the next year; I’d take five years to graduate after all, as many did. I took some extra math in the meantime, because I had a crush on a grad student who I thought would help me. I did well in those courses, partly because of my interest in showing off, and partly because, at a certain point, all the numbers drop out of mathematics and somehow that seemed easier to me.
Next fall, I tried to take electromagnetics again. But it was more of the same. I never would understand electricity or lightning! I didn’t even make it to the first midterm…I just quit going and officially failed the course.
I decided to change my major. I went to my advisor and told him of my plan. I knew it was going to be a lot more work, and that maybe I wouldn’t even be able to swing it financially. But he looked at my record, and with some clever substitutions (“History of Astronomy” instead of “Electromagnetics”), I was able to graduate. I got a B.S. in Astronomy. Everybody was happy. Right?
Well, my friends at the bar I worked at said they would miss me, because somehow I talked my way into an internship at Hayden Planetarium in New York City. I definitely wasn’t going to graduate school, so planetarium work seemed like the only option to make use of my degree.
New York was a great experience for me. I lasted about seven months there, living in Manhattan, working days for the planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History and bartending nights at a club, “The Ritz”, where I got to see some of my favorite bands and swiped drinks for myself. If I had any energy left, my museum ID got me into any other museum in the city for free; I haunted MOMA and the Whitney whenever I could. I started looking more and more like a punk, which didn’t go over great at the museum. Eventually, it was all too hard to keep up. I also started having panic attacks. I finally admitted to myself that I really had no interest in astronomy. I missed my boyfriend terribly…he was living in Columbus, and I was grateful to move back there to be with him.
There was enormous freedom in making that decision. But it also felt like I was letting people down…my parents, and everyone who had helped me with jobs along the way. And, perhaps most painfully of all, it hurt to think that my college experience had been a waste. I worked hard and suffered for that degree, lousy as it was. It cost me a lot, in more than just dollars and time. But our path is our path. It shaped me in ways that I may still learn to appreciate.
I do know this: when I see parents celebrating the ways their child is unique, a part of me worries. Does that child understand that they are allowed to change? And when I hear about encouraging girls to go into math and science, I cringe. What about just not discouraging them from going into anything? Because I was on the vanguard of that girls-in-math-and-science wave, and I feel that, as a girl, I was very very susceptible to doing things for approval rather than out of my own true nature.
What was it that got me into all of this trouble over astronomy? It was my own need for approval, my own way of manipulating the world to love…or at least approve of…. this dumpy, clumsy girl with glasses. Because I myself didn’t think what was really inside was worth loving, and so I lost track of it.
And now I’m 46 years old and I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
Recovering
October means the approach of the Northern California rainy season. It was a year ago this month that I came to the goat ranch to talk about renting…the morning after the first big storm of the year. No one was here when I arrived; it seemed desolate. A large tarp on the yurt billowed and flapped in the wind; evidently put on in the wind and the rain as best they could, it gave the place a feeling of disaster. Something in me wanted to live here, but I worried about the situation.
Nonetheless, I’ve lived in this yurt for nine months now. During the first few weeks, I spent a lot of time on re-securing tarps and listening to loud flapping in the night; the tarps are required because the roof of the yurt has so many leaks. The first storms I weathered here were scary, but I soon experienced the stability of the yurt structure for myself and learned to trust it. After all, yurts originated on the wild and windy Mongolian steppe.
Yurts have a lattice framework for the wall supports. The beams from the ceiling are connected at the top of the wall by a steel cable that circles the yurt. The other end of the beams are connected to a center ring at the top. A traditional yurt “skeleton” operates on a system of opposing forces that create a very strong yet portable structure. The resulting shape is also extremely stable in high winds. My yurt (well, really my landlord’s yurt) was hand-made by a local who used it for a while, then sold and moved it to the ranch a few years ago. It’s 22′ in diameter (379 square feet).
Here’s a time-lapse video of a Mongolia yurt, or “ger” as they are called there, being set up. The basic structure of my yurt is essentially the same:
Modern western yurts are usually different than their Mongolian cousins in a few ways. The materials are different, usually vinyl or canvas instead of the traditional layers of felt and sheepskin. The heating source (a wood-burning stove in my case) is usually found on one side and vented through the side wall; in Mongolia, the stove is found in the center and vented out the top center ring.
Here’s a time-lapse video of the setup of a manufactured yurt from Pacific Yurts:
The interior wall of my yurt is different from others in a very significant way. When you step into a typical yurt, you’ll notice the lattice framework of the walls right away. 
But the wall of my yurt has an extra layer of bamboo screening installed over the lattice framework. In between the bamboo screening and the lattice is a layer of sheep wool from a local ranch. This acts as insulation in the walls. Of course, most of my temperature fluctuations happen via the uninsulated roof, but the wall insulation helps. It also means that I have the pleasant texture of bamboo to look at; to me, the one drawback to yurts is that the lattice walls can make me feel a little caged. In the photo to the right, you can see the lattice wall of my yurt in the window opening, and with the bamboo screening of the interior wall. For comparison, check out the swanky photo gallery from Pacific Yurts.
I’ve had a lot of time to think about this yurt and how to better prepare it for this coming winter. Tarps deteriorate in sun and wind, so it was clear that we needed to re-cover the top with a new tarp. I really wanted to use a tarp from Billboard Tarp Warehouse; they sell recycled billboards, made out of a heavier and more durable material than regular tarps. But my landlord deemed the cost too high. So I just got another heavy-duty silver tarp. I was able to find a 30’x30’s square tarp…big enough to cover everything, but no annoying overhang like the old rectangular tarp that was quickly being shredded.
So yesterday, a wonderful group of friends came to help put the new tarp on. You would think I’d be accustomed to asking for help after the past year, but it’s still tough for my prideful self. Fortunately, I have great people in my life who make that easier on me. Especially my brother Tony…he is always there for me. I’m grateful to all of them, both for their efforts, the delicious treats they brought with them, and (perhaps most of all) for their sense of humor.
Everything went great. Our team quickly got the tarp in place over the roof…the hard part was over.
We spent the rest of the morning and afternoon getting everything tied down securely. I’m very happy with how snug it all feels. I have better access to my windows, and am surprised that it feels much more quiet inside…the roof is definitely moving around less. After a few sunny days, I’ll go over it again and tighten down any places that might have stretched or settled, but I can tell already that this is a big improvement.
I’m looking forward to spending another winter in this big round space. The energy of living within a circle is very good for me; I feel that it is a very healing space. The soaring ceiling is especially calming for me, because I tend to be claustrophobic. Most of all, I love that I can hear everything happening outside…the birds and other critters are my companions here. Storms are dramatic and I feel their energy sweeping around my cozy circle home. I love living in a yurt.
Recently, I’ve caught myself a few times telling people, “I’m happier than I’ve ever been.” It astonishes me to hear it coming out of my own mouth, because just a year ago, I was more miserable and sad than I’d ever been. And I laugh when I realize I’m saying this while happily living under a $129 tarp.
Life doesn’t always go the way that I think I want it to go, but more and more I find that if I take a breath and surrender to what life really is, it ends up being better than I could have imagined. I am deeply grateful for my cozy re-covered home, and even more for all of the incredible loving people in my life, near and far. And, dear readers, for you. Thank you for coming along!
It’s Not About the Food
I have a really clear memory of kindergarten, of standing in line at the door to the school, waiting to go back inside after recess. I was trying to talk to the girl in front of me when she stopped me cold. “I can’t be your friend because I don’t like fat people. And you’re fat.”
Even then I knew she was verbalizing something I’d already felt from other people. That didn’t make it any easier. But that feeling is something I’ve carried with me through life, even during the times when I got closer to or even achieved a “normal” weight.
I often felt like the adults in my life tried to push me in opposing directions simultaneously over my weight. I endured lectures about self-control and the simple, rational solution of eating less food. But when I tried to eat differently, perhaps trying out a diet book, I was told, “you’ll eat the same food the rest of us eat.” Or, if I managed to lose weight, special “treats” were presented…low-fat versions of ice cream or other goodies, that in reality only set binges off for me. In retrospect, it’s easy to see how food wasn’t just food. Food was an symbol of control, power, and, of course, love. No one was consciously trying to make things difficult for me; they were trying to help. But my problem wasn’t food. My problems were about things like control, power, and love.
In high school, I figured something out. I realized that the adults really weren’t watching as carefully as I thought. The chaos of everybody trying to get ahead, trying to keep up, the din of the constant radio and TV—all of these things created an atmosphere where I could retreat into myself. Not being noticed had always been a strategy, and I was getting good at it. Books especially were a solace; a good story could create a bubble of relief around me.
Running was a big craze at the time, and I had a crush on a boy on the cross country team. It seemed like a good way to lose weight. So I took up running. But, because of the crazy way my own brain works, just running wasn’t enough. So I quit eating. In the morning, it was pretty easy to get out the door without breakfast. And at school, it was easy enough to skip lunch. In the afternoon, the school bus dropped us off and I’d go straight into the house, change clothes, and go for a jog.
After that, I’d make tea. For a teapot, I’d use a 4-cup pyrex glass measuring cup. I’d put three teabags in it and then prop myself up on the couch with my homework or a book. Mom usually left instructions for getting dinner started, so I’d do that, too. At the dinner table, I’d take the smallest portions I dared, and skipped dessert. Everyone was happy.
I felt good during this time. Very light and airy. It made me feel very pure, in a spiritual sense. It was like becoming an angel.
It takes a while for weight loss to show, especially if you’re wearing the same clothing. One day, as we were getting ready for church, I found a skirt and blouse I hadn’t been able to wear before, but could wear now. I looked at myself in the mirror and knew I had changed.
When I went downstairs, I wasn’t able to escape notice any more. My brothers and sister even noticed. “Teresa got thin!” My mom and dad beamed. Everyone was happy.
During the next week, it was open house at school. I looked forward to wearing the same outfit, but worried that I’d already gained weight back. I’d started to slip on my eating. But of course, in reality I was still the same size; it had only been a couple of days!
I got lots of compliments and attention. My teachers were happy for me. And the boy I had a crush on talked to me a lot that night.
But something about all that attention worked against me. I couldn’t sustain the dieting anymore. I retreated back into my food underworld.
I would go through more phases of this as a teenager and young adult. And I would go on “sensible” diets created by giant corporations, or eating plans outlined by breathless authors who always seemed to hold the key to slenderness. My path in life has taken me through all of the big three eating disorders: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder. I always felt unlucky that anorexia was the least of these three for me…those were the lucky ones, I used to think…at least they get thin. But I know better now. I wouldn’t enter that hell again for anything in the world.
I’m not cured of eating disorders by any means. It may be like alcoholism: that I’ll never be “cured”, but can walk a path of recovery instead of being at their mercy. I can say that life is better than it’s ever been for me, particularly with eating. I don’t weigh myself anymore. I eat what I want, when I want it. I think more about the choices I make and what the food is going to do for me as fuel for my physical body. There are “good” days and “bad” days with respect to eating, but the good days are outnumbering the bad days. And when it’s a bad day or stretch of bad days, I’m more likely to remember to journal, to write, to do art, to get out in nature…and those things all help. I’ve lost some weight over the past few months; it both delights me and terrifies me. I try not to look at it too closely, because that’s fuel for the eating disorders. The size of my body really isn’t the important thing. That may not make sense to most people, and that’s ok. It’s taken me nearly five years of therapy and a lot of work to understand it myself.
The paintings that I’ve been posting here recently, those in the red thread series, are very much about my disordered eating, addictions, and a path to recovery and healing. Like many other addictive behaviors, eating disorders are a rejection of life, either by starvation or by dulling the senses into torpor. They seek to cut us off from our body and hearts; by giving us a sense of control, they separate us from our life force and our passions, especially those that might be frightening to others. They try to separate us from our true nature and destroy our feelings and ability to connect with the outer world.
It’s not about the food.