Featured Artist: Sam Day
Written by: The Shadow Queen’s Daughter
A few social media stories and a reel ago, I posted with a little flex; bragging that “I’ve helped myself and others reclaim their inner artist…”, going on, talking about the root chakra.
MORE ON THAT LATER.
For now, my focus is to tell a tale of a tattooed woman in my neighborhood. I can’t say that I brought her to her inner artist…but, I can say I brought her to into “This Survivor’s Gated Garden, of Mine.”
The Garden:
It is a little piece of earth outback of the dwelling where I now reside. I’m back “home;” after returning from a 4 year - “hero’s journey;” a stay in the cosmics of California!
The Time:
The moments spent in California.
A period that I spent recovering myself from familial trauma with an intention to reduce the impact of its inheritance onto the family that I made.
The Homestead:
I’ve never been able to live anywhere for long…
Not by my own choice.
Until now.
I got half the say and 100% the right to stay…this time.
The Table:
We sat together around a wrought iron table with bench like chairs, this tattooed neighbor of mine, outside,
-for I was not yet willing or ready to let anyone “new” onto the scene;
behind my homestead or heart guarded doors.
My Hysterectomy:
All I could do at this time was sit anyhow. My hysterectomy had been scheduled.
It took all of 4 weeks from the moment I forced the issue: I knew it; it was time to take it out and remove the pains of my past.
The “Pains of My Past” (POMP):
The POMP had caught up to me. This is a common scenario among those who live with lasting effects of PTSD…complex or not.
I know it first, second, third and fourth hand…when the 5th and 6th generations “show up,” I’ll know more…
So, back to the talk and tales.
The Tattooed Neighbor:
We sat out back, in the dead of last Chicagoland’s winter into the early spring, on Wednesdays…around a wrought iron table with bench like chairs:
She was allowed in.
Into the garden.
To sit.
Across from me.
To look within.
But only after the first “interview” was had;
on the slight corner of Wilson.
At the local train station;
Nestled within a coffee shop in the center of town.
Being in a place that moves quickly, can help me to get out of uncomfortable environments without taking the socially awkward hit if things go south; this way you see, I can just dip.
This is a tool I’ve learned to use when “trying new things or people” out.
Leave room for exit if the surroundings don’t suit me; meet my standards or the collective vibe makes me feel low. Simply put, trust my gut.
It is a lot to make associates, or friends; relationships in general you know…,
sometimes, for a person who has experience or perceives experiencing trauma.
I’m speaking of myself here.
About my process and tendency to be extremely emotionally selective. If emotions are energy in motion, then my time is my biggest asset. I figure this based on the premise that time is a means of measurement; and humans mark it.
Being present in the moment is my biggest asset. And let me tell you why. It is the key to efficiency;
in doing my part to heal for my legacy. If not for them; then for me.
Therefore, I must choose to spend & use it wisely -this energy in motion measured in drips and drops of seconds, minutes and so on…
And because I mentioned the practice of Gut Trust a bit prior;
Ultimately, it is my gut trust practice that leads me to decide.
To stay or to dip…
To leave or commit…that is.
The Train Station:
Although I was the conspicuous one interviewing; over the guise of coffee; I believe it safe to say that we were both, “taking notes” on each other…
Back at the Homestead:
By myself and in a different space…
Around the same time frame…
Moving In & Moving On:
Mid May.
Settling back into Chicagoland was taxing. Especially so after my robust stint of running wild, untamed and free through the countryside on my way to the cliffs of southern California. Expansion is a necessary part of propelling oneself forward in life…or so I’ve deduced.
The Landing:
Early February.
Within a month’s time of landing, I had:
A hysterectomy; a major dance project planned; my first senior-college bound kid to graduate and get ready; AND I was finally willing to sort, purge, and move the furniture in my “apartment.” To hurry my healing along.
My Apartment:
Semi Current Time.
Is more like a studio or flat by definition, these days.
It’s simply a quick reference, a re-frame word that I associate to my new living environment; my personal, post-divorced space; an “in waiting” area with closet, bathroom and tons of space to be who I am. In private. Giving me a place to come back to over and over again from wherever and whenever I travel; be it mentally, emotionally, physically or astral-ly.
Now with this new name and frame of mind; my human brain and heart can recognize it as a positive reordering of things.
The Family Bedroom Transformed Flat:
Loosing track of time- eventually it all blurs together.
The Bedroom:
The one where my former husband and I made, birthed and co-slept our family into what it is today.
So much life has happened between the sweet slumbering days - to the terror filled nights - to now.
Moving the Furniture:
My inner coach said, would be an excellent action step.
My inner doctor said, it would help my brain recognize and appropriately register through visual stimulation and cues; that healthy, informed consent and intentionally driven choices were happening; this is called change. And it is safe.
My inner mother reminding me that this was all autonomous. To be done on my own time. In my own way.
To think.
My body, mind and emotional parts all online.
Communicating openly…
Further strengthening me inside and out. My newly formed neurological pathways. The ones that help me recover from it all.
All those parts of me that I rediscovered while running wild out there; marked on my skin with ink so black and thick there could be no mistaking it; with oceanic breezes in my California kissed hair. Appearing as though I didn’t care.
My therapist felt it wise; it might help finish the process of grieving given my astrological chart and way of thinking; my expression of self; in a manner that makes sense to me and sometimes others.
Grieving what?
…the loss of the marriage.
Oh, yes.
That.
Back to the Original Story:
When I was moving my chest of drawers filled with sand and seashells, collected form east coasts, west coasts and a few beaches out of this country that I was blessed to visit…
Seashells,
These I feel are messages from my mother, open to my interpretation…
When I was moving this chest of sand and seashells filled with messages from my mother, a photo slipped to the ground.
Watching Myself Back Then:
Bent over hands and knees, solid desiccation sounds in all of my aching joints; hurting more than “typical;” likely linked to the perpetual feed of cortisol to my system; during the original adverse childhood experience and for decades after….critical times; seeping into my makeup; aches and pains due to years of witnessing broken bones, (just once for me), slapped; twisted body parts and just generic hurt inside; all that “remembered” and more in the seconds while I feverishly fished this damn photo out from the abyss of dust bunnies.
It is wallet sized.
It is of my grandmother. The one who raised me after the taking.
It is black and white.
She is sitting on a bench.
She has a friend beside her.
It is vintage AF.
It needs a frame before it moves back into the new bathroom.
It’ll be a while before that happens.
So much in and around me is currently, yet again, under construction.
Change can be extremely difficult for people like me. But I’m doing it. Continuously. Just like my tattooed neighbor…
The Photograph:
Sitting upright on my ankles, sneaking in some flexibility through seated yoga;
I blow the pieces and particles of the past 18 years of living in this home - off the picture.
I place it back into the bowl of seashells it was swimming freely in.
A Bubble Pops Up.
I drift.
I can’t help it;
It’s the sign of a traumatized mind.
I write, I record … to help it.
The Bubble Contents:
I wondered who the woman would be, sitting on the bench, next to me, in a faded photograph when my granddaughter was on her hands and knees asking for guidance…
Another Bubble Takes Form:
An image of the Tattooed Neighbor of mine.
Of her.
Me.
Talking.
As allies of some sort.
Featured Artist:
Sam.
She’s the artist I feature this month.
The honor of her art: attached to my words.
This Woman:
This woman, tattooed or not.
I suspect, was an artist before seeking time and entry into This Survivors Gated Garden of Mine AND I further suspect, she might be willing to sit with me again; even if, it’s in the dead of a Chicagoland winter, outside, around a wrought iron table with bench like chairs, making the best of the dismal sunshine, testing the waters, understanding without saying, that we’ve both been through some heat in our collective past.
Heat:
Enough to keep us warm, for a little while.
Coming from somewhere.
This Silent Confession:
This silent confession through action;
showing up, despite the coldness in and all around us;
witnesses to the crevices of our psyche and souls.
This intentional choice of showing up;
alone;
one to one;
Comes with mutual and utmost respect, reflecting in all corners; shining light into recesses, never before considered; of ourselves and each other.
We Women, On Fire:
We spoke.
We speak.
In many different tongues.
In many different ways.
Back to the Wrought Iron Table with Bench Like Chairs:
That time…
I could only sit.
But we pushed on.
Through.
Our initial, uncomfortable yet strangely familiar meeting.
Each of Us:
Resting together; after the last one;
perhaps in a roundabout way; welcoming the freeze.
The slow burn of a thaw.
The Thawing Out Before the Ultimate Heatwave:
The heat of our inheritance; the one that comes with accepting the past; the heat we must feel to transform.
There we sat in late February into early March preparing for more…
Change:
This time…
Together.
No longer needing to be alone, unless chosen so.
Bonded:
With a purpose.
And by choice.
Forming something worth telling about but challenging to describe.
Perhaps it’s the feeling of authentic, age-old connection.
With a flare of safe self-expression.
Now’s The Time Notes:
Transition is hard.
Find constructive ways to express it.
Integration is a process that is always in progress.
Help yourself by helping it along.
Be efficient.
Spend less time, money and energy in the long run by listening to your gut.
The Most Recent Time:
Now, for those of you who are wondering;
about that Tattooed Neighbor of mine;
about if she ever made it in; behind the doors of the dwelling on the Homestead. Beyond the gates of the garden.
Yes, she did.
This Time:
We sat in comfortable chairs with cushions; and they also rocked; teacups in hand.
For me, four years after initially calling my family history of alcoholism; and all the abuses that came with it; into question.
The Results:
Resulting in a scene nowadays, of peaceful coexistence in multidimensional ways.
…
The Table:
The wrought iron table.
With bench like chairs.
I asked her to draw things that we talked about there, in This Survivor’s Gated Garden of Mine.
She produced this.
Tara and I, we think it’s fire!
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