This post was written last year just after Mother’s Day. So this is not a rendering of current events. I got very sick last year and stopped creating and writing and pretty much doing anything but trying to survive. we are now one year later and thriving… Peace be with you and thanks for reading about my trauma healing journey and my art.
8 years ago I envisioned myself on a beautiful homestead, perfectly manicured with a garden that is the envy of every home and gardens subscriber with witch of the Wild West dreams. I saw myself dancing in a long wrap skirt around my fire pit ,communing with friends, long wild hair down my back,( and of course a killer body, because why not) we can have whatever we want in our dreams.
I think it’s safe to say, we are a bit behind schedule. Though I’ve had glittering moments of all of those dreams sprinkled among the perceived failures it still feels so defeating sometimes to feel that nothing is working out how I dreamed it would, yet it’s all working out but to a rhythm completely different from the fast measured hurricane existence I hoped for when I crossed the state line. Instead of the cadence of a Sousa march, some days feel like the funeral march instead. Solemn but pressing forward, toward an end that none of us gets to escape.
The stars at night, are big and bright, deep in the heart of Texas.. or so they say.
Thru discussions with my friends on the homestead journey, I’ve discovered that the pipeline from trauma survivor to homestead owner is littered with a sea of good intentions and crushed on the shore under the weight of our own totally unreasonable expectations. I think we arrive on this land with a will to conquer and mold it into all the things you think will finally convince people of what you knew all along. You are strong, you can control your destiny, and no matter how many people gave up on you, you are finally worth something… the proof is all around you. You made a thing, and you did it all by yourself. You didn’t need anyone. You can stand atop your mountains of organic veggies and lavender bundles in your boho overalls and reign victorious over your kingdom. It stands to reason that this is why a lot of them also fail. No matter how cool your chicken coop is, If you don’t fix yourself and manage your expectations you too may find yourself crying again to your horses and your mare is already sick of your shit from the last time. Penny has a very distinct “ get it together woman!” Face that she makes.
My therapist along this journey has said many times that comparison is the thief of joy. I’d blow her off, yeah right, maybe you never have been judged if your home isn’t Betty Crocker perfect but I have. The fear of that judgement closed way more doors than it opened. While I craved community I also avoided letting people in. I don’t want the narrative to be about the struggle. I wanted it to only be about the wins and how amazing it all could be. But that isn’t the truth. Even with all the right things and the stars aligning just as they should, doing what I envisioned in the beginning of this is a full time job. News flash, I already got one of those. That job has also been a soul crushing experience in the last five years since the pandemic.
Nothing has gone according to my plans. My plan was to arrive, stuff my trauma into a compost bin and get on with life. My plan was to skip the hard work of healing and arrive on the cover of Mother Earth news to the envy of all my so called friends. I didn’t need anyone, after all, I’m fucking super women.. or didn’t you get the memo? Instead I got a whole slew of life slinging mud at me, multiple deep dives into my psyche, a ton of mistakes and a large psychotherapy bill that didn’t really do much to solve the actual issues at hand.
Rainbows and rain storms are a rare beauty in the wilds of west Texas. When they happen I take myself outside till I’m soaked to the bone and try to capture the beauty the best way I can. I find myself walking in infinity swirls speaking prayers and spells into the air and grounding myself in the healing energy of the land. A few years ago as I traced that familiar pattern I heard a distinct voice that said , “this one is gonna hurt. But it is necessary.” For the next three years as we survived blow after blow of real life shit, I would catch my breath and say okay.. that’s it right? That’s the last thing this journey is going to take from me right? Like hey up there.. are we good? Can we draw up a truce, because I have no more heart for gun draws at dawn. Shoot me already, I’ll just play dead.
I would look around at the scattered bones of my homestead dream, so many things left yet to do, projects to finish, and judge myself for not being “ there” yet. Not just judge, hate. I would hate myself for not having everything perfect. There where no beautiful lavender fields at sunset, in fact every single time I’ve tried to grow even one plant it died a terrible death. The vision I had is not what the land wanted.
Sometimes it feels that I’m dragging everyone around me thru this impossible fairy tale. With all of the vision stripped away I can’t even tell them how this queen of all things wishes to be pleased in her fairy tale because… not even I know the next sentence nor can I realize the next chapter. I was trying to wrap my vision around an unwilling canvas. Time seems to be slipping faster than I can grab it thru fingers that are bent with arthritis and unable to even close a fist . My dreams never factored in my husband needing a liver transplant. It never accounted for me having a brain tumor, being diagnosed with debilitating Rheumatoid arthritis or surviving a pandemic. My plans envisioned generations of my line playing tag in the pasture and swinging in the front porch swing I made years after my bones are dust.. never in a million years did my plan include living eight years without a front porch let alone a porch swing. So many of my dreams look differently and the fairy tale I had planned isn’t getting any attention. Yet, It still feels free. There is still a pride here that no one can take. I said I was coming here to heal… oh and heal we have. Addictions broken on the wheel, family curses crushed under the weight of our sheer determination. Our entire identities stripped down to the bare bones of our existence, and humbled heavily beneath the star littered universe above us. It continues to be a journey. It’s a worthy cause, a hero’s wandering down the path of discovery to enlightenment and wholeness.
When I started this blog I thought every week I would be gaining your praise for my brilliant accomplishments and basking in that hurt kid glory of finally being seen. I was going to offer you a glimpse of what grit and recycled materials could do. I was going to finally be showing you a perfection that I had built up in my heart that would finally grant me entry into this illustrious club, the club of just simply being seen, heard, acknowledged. I was on the trauma to homestead pipeline Which I didn’t even know was a thing till I got on Tik Tok. Everyone who knew me from the block could say, hey look at that kid, she really made it.
It took a long time for me to earn my “ We do not care” club membership. Somedays Im till not sure I belong among the esteemed masses. I am however learning who I am authentically. And I know that when I do art that comes from my soul nothing I had all perfectly pre planned can measure up to what the heart creates. Since this has been a deep season of curse breaking and introspection, the soul has been busy making room for the art. The closet was quite full for all of us. The growing up experience my kids are having here in Texas is such a vastly different life than the children we raised in Little Rock had. They have also lived thru trying to learn in a pandemic, deal with a crazy stressed out mother while she led a nursing home, and a dad just trying to get us all thru it alive. I always feel that my husband never gets enough props for the quiet and consistent support he provides daily. It is a support I have needed much more in the last year than I ever thought I would be comfortable with as a human. In all situations, I’m supposed to be the strong one, but boy have I struggled. It’s a good thing to finally have some answers medically for myself, but the adjustment to the pace and dealing with everything this new normal requires has been very depressing. Im not used to having to recover for three days for one day going hard in the garden. I’ve spent a lot more time than I care to admit mad and allowing that self loathing to permeate my earth suit.
It’s so easy to find every single flaw and to ignore the magic that already exists. It’s so easy to feel so isolated and absolutely alone. Not wanting to be a burden of grief, and not knowing how even if you wanted to. Since being here we have dealt with the deaths of our parents and grandparents, and the copious amounts of healing that come along with that.Losing my mom was messy. The political landscape is a mine field. Because I was so convinced that I didn’t need anyone, I didn’t reach out for anyone. So you cry in the bathtub and give your cares to the only thing you have real beef with.. the universe. You can call it god, Jesus, whatever figure head feels good to you. I’ve come to believe it’s mostly the same. All are expressions of the universe in which we deal daily with human problems. We all struggle with the failures of bodies, the injustice in humanity and the traumas we pushed to the bottom of the pile, hoping to never be seen again. We all scream, even if it truly is into the void. Sometimes its in the pasture when no one is home, sometimes its into a pillow when no one is looking. Pain seems to be the one invisible string we can’t get away from. But following where it leads is often the only way to untangle the webs of lies we start to believe about who we are, and eventually lead us to where we need to go.
While recovering from an emergency appendectomy on Mother’s Day, fuck you universe for that one. My babychild graduated highschool . Im so infinitely proud of them. They have grown into a person that I wish I could have been at their age if I wasn’t trying to wait tables at steak and shake to survive. They are confident, fiery, just and beautiful. My best friend made a trip here in support. Though we were struggling financially because of my sudden surgery things were still happy. I expected a turning of the tide. I wasn’t wrong but it was not of course in the way I expected.
My beloved pal Atticus, our trusty farm dog and my constant pasture companion got sick with terminal cancer and we were told it was so advanced, he had maybe days to live. Again.. fuck you universe. My Atticus was my besty. Greeting me every morning when i get home from work, and the best snuggler on cold days until i fell asleep. He was just a big quiet and protective presence.
The reality that Atticus is a big dog sets in as I’m trying to support my sweet furry friend in his last days. Luckily, one of the dear friends I have made here offered to help me find someone to dig his grave. I was proud of myself simply because I mustered up the courage to ask. She rallied the troops in a way I’m not ever sure I’ll be grateful enough for and we got it done with good ole community collaboration. Neither chad( waiting on a liver) or me ( post surgery) where in any kind of shape to be doing this alone.. As we were waiting for the crew to arrive, all those insecurities started to creep in. What if they think I’m a horrible person, what if they think my house is flop house. What if… what if.. what if I don’t measure up. Isn’t that the kicker of it all. Finding fault even in a beautiful gesture of community. I was scared to death that I could not hold in place this mask of a person who has it all together three day after an emergency surgery, barely able to move without constant pain. I was so worried that I again would be misunderstood in the one place I felt that I didn’t have to be any of those things.
My property is quite a jungle right now of natural flora. There is so much beauty laced in the wild , what started off as a few seasons of growing it to fight erosion and help heal this stripped out and pesticide riddled land became a wandering path of discovery. My friends husband said to me while assessing the grave situation ( no pun intended), “you outta get someone out here to shred this all down.” I said “no it’s intentional. I love the wild things wild. I started to point out the Indian paintbrushes, the silver nightshade, sunchokes and wild grasses, he shrugged and said.. well I guess sometimes your weeds are someone else’s wildflowers. Indeed they are.
What has brought me joy thru all of this shame, self doubt and spirals of healing are the wanderings thru the wild things. I’ve sneaked around to discover families of horned toads, dung beetles pushing, well, dung, honey bees buzzing, and the dragonflies that rest after every rare rain. The big rat snake I call Fernando ( though he does scare the bejeezus out of me from time to time), even brings me joy. I watch the occasional road runner zoom down the roads. I see my chickens peck the ground and my pot belly pig bask in the sun waiting on her daily dose of leftovers for snacks. My kitty cat snuggles me every night and no matter what, I know even with all its imperfections, no one can take this from me. It’s safe here. Safe. It’s a spell of my own making. It’s art in motion, its my heart in a house box. No ones approval is needed.
The one thing I could never have as a child seeking acceptance was a place to just be safe. That was the dream. The rest is just a journey. And its odd that in a moment where I found myself loved in community for being exactly who I am with all my flaws on display that I realized the pressures I place on myself are silly. The pathways are always shifting, the details come in fits and spurts then grow hauntingly silent as seasons pass. But the dream… that dream has already been achieved. So I’ll lament to myself no longer on the failings of a timeline I made up as a tool to judge myself and I’ll just let my weeds be wildflowers. The time of judgment has come to an end and I hope my days are now full of fool energy, where I can give myself the space to take the leaps and not always be so worried about it being perfect in the eyes of people who ultimately don’t matter and probably wouldn’t darken my door even if i had everything under perfect control. Ill never be Betty Crocker. Ill never be Martha Stewart. I can only be me. Being a bit off kilter has always been who I am. I don’t have to have what everyone else thinks is good and beautiful to dictate my happiness. Wildflowers don’t care where they grow, they are just seeds that landed in places by chance. It’s a really beautiful thing if you ask me. To be so unconcerned with the perfect landing and more interested in growing even in hard places is the realness I’ve been searching for all my life. Texas has indeed been a hard place to grow. I’ve lost things along the way I never thought I would. Trying to garden in this environment is kind of a nightmare. I’ve paid dearly for mistakes I made and lamented over things that may never know a real repair. But such is my nature to fill a pothole with a garden of wildflowers and hope. No one will ever see my worth, if I don’t. I can’t tie my existence to the weights and measures of the judgements of others. Admittedly sometimes I’m the one who judges myself before anyone else gets a chance to. Think about how many times when you go to a friends house they say “my house is such a mess”,why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we shut the door on community because we have been sold this propaganda about the 1950’s being a perfect mix of housewives, aprons with a side of quaaludes? In truth, community is the only way we survive this place. I mean a few quaaludes may be nice to soften the blows every now and then, but how do we really get thru it without the help of our friend's?
Healing isn't linear but we are getting there. So in this season of waiting, waiting for livers, for brain tumors to shrink, for arthritis to find a remission, I’m relearning to find gratitude and magic in the daily things that make me happy. My children are glowing and happy. They know that here they are safe.To know I’ve created a haven where no one has to pretend to be something different just to be seen is more important than having the perfect porch. Right now it might just be one small corner with a few pots, some morning glories, moon flowers and a few plants I’ve been able to keep alive in the chaos. But I’m going to keep on working and creating on this land that has already given me so much. Sometimes I make altars of sacrifice for the plants that met a neglectful end. I’ll continue to explore what it is that I actually want and what the land actually wants from me. What once as a carefully planned horticulture phenomenon may just now be transformed into a wandering path of native plants and the critters that come with them. If that’s what the land wants and needs from me, I am happy to oblige. Havens are not just for humans, but for any living thing brave enough to venture into the holy wild. Manicured rows of perfectly growing lavender my never be the reality, but no matter what, this place will always be beautiful to me.
So this piece is dedicated to all the wildflowers. May you always bloom where you are planted, and continue to find the magic in the mundane.
This piece is made from an old window I rescued from the first weeks of cleaning out the barn following the purchase of the land. The window glass is blown and appears to be original. The window itself you can tell is handmade, but like so many things around here I have no idea how old it actually is. I salvaged the curtain rod from a pile of home decorating gone wrong ( I bought the wrong size). The lettering and flowers are made by the cricut machine using their image and font. The yarn is recycled Sari silk that was gifted to me long ago ( along with a beautiful spinning wheel) by my friend Amy. I wove into this piece everything I hoped for us in the next season. I wove the spell together over the curtain rod so that in times of meditation you could slide the curtain and see words of affirmations, little baubles that inspire, and prisms of light. When I’m struggling with my creative spark I can move the strings around from side to side and find my power and my inspiration. I like my art to be interactive and have a healing purpose. For me this represents finally reaching a point in my healing where I can fully accept who I am and and the journey that I’m on and be unapologetic about it. Originally I had planned to put it in my bathroom because i do a lot of my own healing and processing in my big ole clawfoot tub, but the project for finishing the bathroom got hijacked by other things. When I put my studio space together I decided to place it here instead and I have found that every time I am at this space I touch it, letting the silk slide thru my fingers as I find the affirmation I need. Be Dangerous. Collide, Align, Integrate. Call back your power. Write beautiful stories.Seek and find. Radical self love. This is the theme of the comeback story, and the one I’m writing will knock my socks off, and possibly yours too. I’m no longer writing it for you though, Im writing it for me. The one thing I’ve learned on this journey is that you can’t recreate or reclaim what you lost no matter what ingredients you have. There are no substitutions. Lamenting for the life you should have had only sets you up for failure. The time has come to change the path. I was born a wildflower, a heather. Heather likes thin acidic soil, open exposed areas with high sunlight and rarely thrive in heavy shade. Heather can also survive in moorlands and bogs. The purple flowers cover the hillsides of Scotland in august. I think it is most fitting in my heavily purple home ( my favorite color) to have all the other attributes right here on my land. It seems I am meant to thrive here. Heather in spirit and truth is a wildflower and a weed. We are versatile, prolific and survive in any condition. I’d say that’s a pretty good legacy to carry with my name. Your not getting rid of me just yet.
Peace love and hair grease my friends. Till next time…..
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