glass, wood, quilts, and grief

i write for an online magazine-style website on a broad range of topics. photography, poetry, the history and geology of Cape Ann, architecture, art, and, yes, i write about grief. i received an email from a reader who was reflecting on one of my grief articles, Hitting “the Wall,” who said this:

It is hard for me to understand how you could be so sad and write something so full and beautiful. It's like a photonegative. I am seeing some glimmers that you might be starting to break the surface of your loss. You create such beauty, I hope that you would heal and continue to create such beauty. ……... So I truly hope that this is that wall that you will break through, and not the wall that keeps you from moving on.

i have been reflecting on this while i worked on a quilt today. the quilts are art. i am an artist. i write a blog titled, “The Art of Grief” but it was not meant as an advertisement for my art. i meant it as a metaphor for the art it takes to live with sorrow and the work it takes to strive to accept the scars it is going to leave.

then, as minds will do, my thoughts leapt to what it takes to create art, the particular mediums i use to create my own particular art.

stained glass: first, the colored glass is made using the float glass method. a continuous ribbon of liquid glass in a molten tin bath flows unhindered under the influence of gravity. glass has natural impurities but to get other colors, minerals or purified metal salts are added. then the top surface of the glass is subjected to nitrogen under pressure to obtain a polished finish, or something close to that. when i draw a design for glass, i have to stay aware that glass will only cut one way. curves can be done, but within the physics of glass. i draw wax lines on the glass and then cut it, snap it apart, and place it on my drawing like a puzzle piece. to weld the glass together, i cover each piece of glass with copper, flux it, and then heat the solder, melting it on the copper thereby joining the glass pieces to create my design. in short, fire, glasscutters, and more heat is what it takes to make a window.

carved wood: i get a piece of wood (or as photographed below, i am allowed to utilize a wooden beam) and select a tool to carve in or away the design i want to reveal. which tool i select depends upon the gouge or cut i wish to make. veining, fluters, chisels, skews, back bent or long-bent gougers, the main gist is that each one of these tools cuts deeply into the wood. i brush away the curls of wood that i do not want in the design, and they are tossed on the floor for later disposal. i literally cut the wood apart to find the vision i saw in it when i first picked it up.

quilts: i can make baby quilts for families whose babies have outgrown their adorable little clothes, wedding quilts out of brand new fabrics bought specifically for the occasion, and quilts from college t-shirts for the young man or woman who is graduating. i also make quilts from the clothing of the deceased. in all these cases, i have to cut the fabrics and clothes apart. i look at the piece and decide how it best fits into the design i have drawn. the only difficult quilt is the memory quilt. to do what i believe is honor to the clothes; i have to learn about the person who is no longer here to wear the clothes. to be blunt, someone has died.

my Dragon died and i am off alone on a flight i never wanted to take. for the rest of my life, there will be times when i go into myself to find him. he is my love, my inspiration. he is the one i always wanted to impress. i would sew or paint, photograph or carve, or build a stained glass window and could not wait to show him. i wanted to see his delight. i wanted to see his approval. i wanted to see him see me. and he did. he saw me before he knew what i did, but when he saw what i could make, it thrilled me to see him be in awe of me. no one has ever been in awe of me. it was so nice. and he knew my tattered self-esteem needed it. he never ever put me off. he always set aside whatever he was doing to come see what i had made.

i really miss that.

i need him so i have to go where he still lives - deep inside me. to express all the complicated feelings that go hand-in-hand with this sorrow, i am compelled to create things that i hope will withstand time.

to create all this art in these different mediums, if you look close enough, i have to cause damage. i have to break glass and then melt solder to bind the pieces. the wood i use is veined, gouged, and carved. the quilts are created by cutting apart the fabrics and clothes. each verb is a destructive verb. and that is sort of what life, and death, have done to me.

i kept thinking about what was written in the email, that i am sad yet my writing, to this person, is beautiful. it is hard for this person to see how it can be done. first let me say i am always humbled when anyone finds value in my words much less beauty. i write from the deepest well of sorrow and yet i know that some of the greatest works of literature are founded upon enormous sadness. i am in no way comparing my writing to the likes of Lewis or Twain or Beston who are only a few who have written eloquently on grief.

i believe all who write from the source of any intense pain and sense of loss write from their hearts and from that beauty and hope can be seen as we all struggle to accept what has happened. it is always my hope that sorrow does not keep anyone from expressing their thoughts. i have always believed that in shining a light into the darkness, the darkness cannot hide its cruelty. exposing it and acknowledging it means it can be dealt with and, with effort, controlled.

death took my husband. we had a deep and intense love. we flirted daily. we touched each other constantly. we talked all day every day. the handful of times he left the country to serve his country were our only separations. i am bereft without him yet i have to find my way. my way is hiding myself behind my art.

along this life without my beloved Dragon, i am discovering the hidden truth about grief - it alters a person at the very foundation of their being. whether a person appears to have "moved on" or is "getting better," at the core of them, they are changed. damage has been done to them, much like a woodcutter’s tool is damaging the wood that once was. a part of them has been carved out of their lives and they are different. this has to be accepted at the very least by the intimate survivor of the deceased. it would help if friends and family could see and accept it as well.

the author of the letter to me mentions the hope that i am “breaking through the surface of my loss.” i am still swimming. it has been 14 months now and the times of going under, to continue the metaphor, do not come as often, but they are still there. i have "gone under" twice yesterday and once today. having said that, i can see that i am improving.

i have heard it both ways. “The greatness of the love of the couple helps to heal the survivor more quickly.” and in another book by another expert on grief it was written, “The depth of the love between the couple can hinder the one left behind in getting over their grief. It may take years for them to claim true happiness again.”

see? no one knows. i do not know and i am living it. i do not know what is to come for me. i know only that i am now damaged. but i can still remember love, and express it. i can try to make something good because he lived. i have known a love i know will never come again. i can express it through my stained glass, my woodcarvings, my photography, my writing, and my quilts.

i have no idea what "moving on" means. where do i go from here without him who meant my whole world? if i am "moving on" it is a different person than the one before the moment of his death.

as for hitting the wall, it is a wall that will always be before me. i will come across over and over as i continue to have to live with my Dragon. it was there during my daughter’s wedding. it will be there again when my son marries. i may see it on a random day, some beautiful fall day with swirls of leaves falling in a crisp wind. the wall will be there each Christmas Eve when i lay down alone, year after year. and i may hit “the wall” when i am faced with my own death however it comes. if it is in any way a lengthy process, there will be times when i am left alone and i will see it as an insurmountable obstacle. my fears of dying alone, since he is not here to sit beside me, will make that wall seem to rise up into infinity. and i will have to climb it alone.

for now, i continue to walk forward through this different life alone, one step at a time. i will continue to create art and to create it, there will be, in a sense, some destruction. i will continue to write and it will be founded in pain. it is more a thing of who i am than what i do. i get ideas. i have to create them in whatever form seems to express them best.

from destruction can come beautiful things. fire creates glass. carving wood can give it a shape and form that is magical. fabrics and clothes have to be cut to sew and quilt a lasting, tangible memory. some of the most profound writing comes from authors expressing what their pain feels like. sadness can be a catalyst for deep introspection and out of that can come writing that can help others find their way.

and that is all i am trying to do. i hurt because i miss my husband. his death changed me. i am continuing. i am creating art. it is art born out of my grief. but i am enduring it. i feel burned, drowned, carved, and cut apart. but i love him. i want him to be proud of me. i do not want my children to worry about me. the art of grief is what i am doing with my sorrow. it is all done with my Dragon in mind.

stained glass

After a day of hurting deeply, avoiding life altogether, sewing without break, womanNshadows finally moves. She gets up to sit at the compter. She draws the keyboard closer:

“We are told that our bodies are our temples. Our eyes are the windows to our souls. I know how my Dragon saw me, but I try not to let myself wonder what he would think if he saw me now.

I built the temple inside me of ancient stones. It is one story but has lofty ceilings. It is filled with photographs and tapestries that I’ve made. The pews are covered with comfortably old, soft, and faded cushions of burgundy velvet and the kneelers are well worn. Crocheted throws and quilts are tossed here and there. Scarves cover tables and on them are old wine bottles with drippy candles, the wax built up all around, stones from beaches I will never get to see again are collected in bowls and pots, driftwood, and shells are everywhere.

Everywhere I lived was like that in reality. My apartment is like that now. It is in my mind and my heart to trust old things that have endured and to bring softness and respect to them with all the things I’ve made. It is in my heart and my mind to save the things I find like rocks, shells, and driftwood. Since my insides are like this, I bring it outside to the world my temple resides in. My temple was once warmed, first by my youthful dreams that life quickly taught me were unrealistic, then by my children whom I cherished and protected from the evils outside and the evil that lived inside our lives, and finally by my Dragon. I was safest and warmest during his reign. Light shone brightly through my eyes and I smiled and laughed.

I have stained glass. I’ve been designing and making it for years. I love that it is the opposite of everything soft that I also work with, fabrics, threads, and smooth, smelly oil paints. Glass is hard, brittle, colorful and has to be coaxed and cajoled into designs. You have to treat it with care and understanding of the elements that created it. I draw a design out on paper and then sharpen it. Glass can only be cut on a curve so far and then it has to stop. For example, you cannot draw a heart and cut it out of glass like you can on paper or fabric. It breaks. You’ll break your heart. The symbolism should not be lost in the simplicity. There is power there. There is a marriage of sorts when you choose to work with glass.

The walls of my temple are metaphorically lined with stained glass that tell the story of my life. Childhood. Teenage years. Young adult. Married and raising children. Divorce. My Dragon. His death. And my life now.

By the time my Dragon found me and married me, all my windows had cracks in them or had huge pieces broken out. It would be uninteresting to you for me to tell you how each one got broken. I patched and soldered as fast as I could but the stones kept being thrown at me. I could not dodge each blow that came. No one can. We all bear the scars of our lives. My scars came from flying glass. And now that my Dragon has died, I feel the rain of stones on the remaining shards of colored glass that somehow managed to hang on to the mortar of the window frame. My roof also is in need of repair. It has holes in it and I’ve placed buckets to catch the drips falling inside me, falling from my eyes, the windows to my soul. There is no break in the clouds outside though and I am tired of the rain.

I am leaving the shock of my Dragon’s death. I am on the edge of the fog that I’ve been living in. I wish I were further back in. I am getting hurt quite often now by careless remarks that are dismissed as coming from the unthinking grief of others, or I “am sensitive and took it the wrong way.”

“I wish I could find the time to be alone like you are. You are so quiet, such a good listener. You are the eye of the storm. My dear, you are positively stoic.” {Yes, word for word.} “I know that has to come from living such a solitary life. I need to be more like that, but I just hate being alone. I envy you being alone so much. My life is so busy with friends and family. I stress so much. I have so many friends that worry about me. I talk, talk, talk all the time and I never do the self-examining thing. Maybe if I did, I’d be further along with my grief. It’s been 3 years though, oh, I bet that scares the hell out of you. It hasn’t even been a year yet for you.” And then she laughed. “Oh, well, you can handle it. You’re strong enough to do everything they tell you not to do the first year you are grieving. You are alone for days on end.” {Yes, word for word.} “Well, thanks for listening. I’ll give you a call in a month or two, you know, check in and let you know how I’m doing. You’re always the last one I call since you don’t have a car but you’re my faithful friend. I always know you’re going to be there.”

One widow whom I’ve seen at the group only once but she calls periodically gifted me with the end of a piece of soap she cut off. She’d unwrapped a new bar for her shower and cut the end off for me. She also took three cookies out of a sack, wrapped them in wax paper and said, “Everyone likes chocolate chip.” One gifted me with a book and told me to ignore the inscription to her friend inside. “I bought it for her but she already has a copy and I know you read.” Another something happened that I find I am simply too hurt to describe. At first, when she stopped by, I was so humbled, grateful, and vulnerablely happy, but then she said something that hit me in the back of the knees. I was stunned and had no idea what to say. It was her tone and her expression. I wanted to go look in the mirror to try to see what it is about me that people feel almost compelled to say these things. I simply froze a smile so it wouldn’t slip and thanked her. I thank everyone. Every thing that is done “for” me, I say, “Thank you.” Thank you, thank you, thank you. I cannot thank you enough for these bits and pieces thrown my way. Smooth stones that supposedly have no sharp edges but hit me with the same pain as per their weight and velocity. {It’s science. I don’t make the rules. It is what it is.} Pieces of glass litter the floor inside me and in the yard just outside me. Thank you for thinking of me. I honestly don’t know what to make of it. Let me say that again. I honestly don’t know what to make of it.

I have decided that I can never go back to the group. I cannot go back and stress waiting to see if this widow or that widow will walk in and look at me. I do not want to look at their faces and wonder what they are thinking. I am too alone. I am too vulnerable. I am far too exhausted existing without the Dragon. I do not understand this inability to hear themselves say these things to me, give me these things, and not see that it is devastating.

For me, these gifts can be compared to someone building me a fire and then picking up the hottest, brightest coals with tongs and putting them in my bare hands to take back to the apartment. It burns, but what can I say to, “There, now you will be warm.” It appears that each and every one of them fully believe they have done me a great service.

In the 10 months since my Dragon died, November was my busiest month for human contact. Fifty-two hours. I got to be with another human being for fifty-two hours that month. Thirty days. Twenty-four hours in a day. Fifty-two hours out of seven hundred, twenty hours. It was nice. The least amount of time spent with another human being so far was October. Fifteen hours. I won’t do the math, but out of thirty-one days, the Lord of Social Behavior and Human Contact allotted me fifteen hours. There is nothing I can do about it. There is nothing anyone who reads this can do about it. You cannot throw a stone at it.

I have two windows left in my temple. A window that is the angel I posted in a previous writing that is my

Dragon’s favorite. It shows hope. The other one is this one.

The rough, anguished hands are mine. The rose is my life slowly dropping its petals. Beauty and the Beast redefined. My Dragon knew what it represented, and what it still represents.

My Dragon has died. He no longer prowls to protect my temple. The echoes of his snarls have long since faded. If he paces and snarls now, no one hears. I try but I don’t know if it’s hidden behind the anguished cries from my soul or the fact that he is no longer close to me, but off exploring his new domain, that keeps me cut off from his spiritual self. His life , his job, was one of secrets. He couldn’t even tell me all that he kept deep inside. If he is off in a body that no longer aches, if he has the freedom to be all over Heaven, then he trusts me to make my way without him. Besides, a year is but a moment in Heaven, a decade but a morning. He probably doesn’t know how much I hurt. He doesn’t know that I am more alone than I’ve ever been in my entire life. It is an existence that I speak to but there are no words to paint the picture of what it’s like hour after hour, day after day. Six days and then I get two, maybe three hours with someone. My daughter. Then another six days goes by. If I desperately need something she is there. But she is newly married, her work schedule has changed, and I will not burden her without some heavy cause. She needs her time, too.

“You are lucky that you are alone so much. You don’t have to put on the face.” “I wish I had some time alone.” “You’re lucky your kids are grown and you can be alone so much.” I have not suffered a catastrophic loss while raising children. I can only imagine. My first child died at 19 weeks. There was no one to put on “the face” for. Now my Dragon has died and again, there is no one to put on the face for. I am as alone as a person can be who has not committed herself to a cloister or taken a vow of silence.

But after experiencing this Christmas, this first one without my Dragon, I think that I will have to stop being so desperate for company that I let myself be treated like I have been. I will not even try to explain. I will simply fade from view. I know no one here will truly care. Well, maybe one. But the end of a bar of soap and three cookies wrapped in wax paper as a gift; that she thought I would be so grateful for that, that I will answer the phone when she has the time to call me again in a month or two? No, I will not always be there for her. There are only so many petals on a rose.

In my temple, the stones still stand. There are quilts and tapestries on the walls. Driftwood and stones,

drippy candles that I make and shells are littered about.

Afghans and pillows litter the chairs and sofa. Books are everywhere, and my sewing. I have two stained glass windows left. One is of an angel that symbolizes the hope for a life after this one when I can be reunited with my Dragon in a Heaven that recognizes the sacrament of marriage. The other is of hands that show a life of pain striving to protect its soul housed in a single rose. These are the last two stories of my life.

In my temple there is room for the few souls who come sincerely, reverently, and respectfully. I cannot take any more stones thrown at me. I will not tolerate it. I’d rather be alone.

If you approach my temple, if you look inside, you’ll see a solitary woman whose hands hurt. They are sewing. There is no one else there with her. Two little dogs lay quietly beside her, and there are dragons. Everyone you look, there are dragons. Pewter ones, one she carved from wood, painted dragons, and embroidered ones. Dragons in every medium you can imagine. Their shadows flicker in the candlelight, huge on the stone walls, towering over the woman. Looking down on her from the lofty ceilings. Sometimes they seem to be moving, but it’s only the flicker of the dancing candle flames. There is no real dragon in the temple any longer. And that’s why she sits and waits and sews to pass the time. She’s waiting for him to come back for her. She is waiting for her time to leave this temple for another one in another place, one she cannot imagine.

But right now, during this time in her life, her art is all she has. The art of grief.”

womanNshadows pushes back from the keyboard and goes back to her sewing.