I was covering a World Peace event in the Virgin Mayor’s
town, she went to an arts event in the town next door.
I still don’t know who mailed me the information about her salary,
but it fills in some of the missing pieces, although losing her job means she
may have go to on disability – another sharp drop in salary.
She’ll be poor again until she can find a comparable job at
a comparable salary.
It constantly amazes me how hard she tries to get ahead and almost
always comes back to being relatively poor.
She apparently got dressed up to go to art event recently,
most likely at MOMA, but this was something different.
‘I went to see my brother and his friends at a small art
fair a few blocks from where I live,” she posted, noting that she had been sick
for three days with some viral infection that kept her out of the program.
She spent the sick days watching Netflix documentaries and
strange French films.
She said she doesn’t do well when she has nothing to do, her
crack hamster spinning all kinds of things such as “what are you going to do
with the rest of your life, even though she is doing much better with her
self-care, and might have left the house even ill, but for the constant hacking
Guilt still finds a way to creep into her brain.
She forced herself out onto the sunny streets for the walk,
arriving breathless.
The attendance at the art event was sparce, attended mostly
by the artists with a few customers, but she said she enjoyed the change.
She said she chatted with the artists and a few friends, and
realized she had a dread of her new freedom, after having put most of her
energy into getting herself well, and exhausting proposition.
But a neat side affect has been a rekindling of her creative
passions, a key – according to her counselors—to her recovery.
This includes the social side of involvement in the arts.
“Since I’ve been home, I’ve dabbled in photography, brushed
up my resume and sent it out,” she said and tried to keep up her writing skills
as well as her networking. She even did some freelance work, editing someone’s
book (you have to wonder if this involved our former temporary boss, who has
been sending her chapters of his book for her to read).
Unfortunately, she is still waiting to get inspired for her
music and painting.
A friend of hers told her to use her free time to get
creative.
She thought about painting or picking up her guitar –which she
said has accumulated way too much dust from disuse, but she has yet to be able
to tap into it.
Oddly enough, she left the art fair feeling a bit alienated
from the community, after having dropped out in order to find time to heal.
While she tries she is not superman and she feels just a bit
off when she got home and dropped onto her couch, trying to figure out what to
do with the rest of the day.
The bright sunlight through her parade of windows did not
help. She said she got inspired by darker elements, such as rainy days. Even
then, she had the art set she had purchased during her time at the clinic
staring her in the face, increasing her guilt.
As pointed out earlier, she had gone to Newark to photograph
the cheery blossoms there, the first photos she had taken with her professional
camera in months, and hoped creativity would beget creativity.
When the rain finally came, she put on some soft music that seemed
to go along with the sound of the rain, and tried to paint something, some
woman in a kimono holding a water bucket, restoring the peaceful feeling she
always got from doing such things in the past.
It made her feel connected again, and so inspired was she,
she signed up for an event at the college she graduated from, telling herself
she needs to take things one step at a time.
She hopes she can trust the process of transitioning and
hopes she has the patience to stick to it.
I hope so, too.
