slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Saturday morning coffee pot post

    So much for my daily blogging routine. Poof! Oh well. I realized at some point in the last two weeks that if I didn’t stop pushing myself with all these “shoulds” my anxiety would never stop increasing. It is a problem very deep in my core that I nearly always feel like I should be doing something else. I am also by nature a very low energy, lazy person. Between the overwhelming anxiety and the guilt I feel, it is a perfect storm for shutting me down completely. August is traditionally a time of high anxiety for me anyway, with the new semester beginning and new students coming in.

    I reminded myself that I am not an artist for a living. I do have a job that pays my bills. Art is for my pleasure and I have had artist blocks before. I always get my mojo back at some point but I always have to let it go first. Truly let it go, not try to get it back on a schedule. Hopefully my mojo will be back from vacation soon, but sometimes it travels far before I see it again.

    For the past couple of weeks I have rearranged the studio room so that one table serves as my work office and there is nothing art-related to distract me on that table. UNCG finally got my new work laptop ready and it is a dream – very small and fast and works better than my desktop computer at work. Now I have this clunky laptop back for what I originally bought it for – blogging and photo editing and personal computer stuff. It couldn’t handle all that extra work stuff. The microphone died and the video cut in and out. Now that Zoom is my new reality, that was a problem.

    It would be helpful if I could get into watching TV and movies but I just can’t do it for long. It has to be an incredibly gripping plot. Sandy will binge a whole series in a week or less. We both gave up on “How to Get Away with Murder” though. There is such a thing as overdoing it. I’m considering subscribing to HBO again for a while.

    The heat wave here was so long and oppressively humid that there is NO gardening going on. I’ve gotten a few tomatoes and I always have my trusty little volunteer cherry tomatoes. The potatoes have been disappointing – low yield and bitter. I started picking figs and for the first time ever, encountered Japanese beetles on my tree. It is a huge tree and there will still be enough figs for me and the beetles but it was quite a shock the first time they burst out around my head in a swarm when I disturbed their feeding. If I ever make it to a hardware/gardening place where I feel safe I will buy some traps. And of course that fat groundhog is still munching its way through my yard. I have not visited my UNCG plots since early summer. I can’t seem to bring myself to do it.

    Trying to decide if it is worth planting a fall garden. I would need to do it now, and it will have to be protected from furry critters. If I have to grow my own food, we just might starve to death, because the challenges are much greater than they were when I started the Back Forty in 2002.

    Right now my main focus is keeping the jungle from taking over. I really need to find some help, but I’ve had such terrible luck with it that I keep putting it off.

    Our tax refund is lost in limbo, and it’s the one with the big rebate payment for our solar panels. If we ever get it, I plan to pay off that loan. However, it is impossible to get anybody on the phone, and the online system says it doesn’t exist. This was the first time in years that we mailed it in, and we did it in early April. Probably the worst decision of the year.

    I also need to call Orbitz about my plane ticket to Ireland. They were supposed to get back to me about the amount of time I have to redeem the credit from Aer Lingus. I’m afraid that by the time I can go back the airfare will be 3x as much as my credit is, since I got such a good deal.

    I’m going to copy this part about reading “The Luminaries” directly from Facebook, but with an update that I am now on page 447. I have a hard time NOT finishing a book. It’s an OCD rule.

    “So, you know how you buy a book that received awards but mixed reviews but you bought it anyway because it seemed like something you’d like and just as you thought about ditching it it got a tad more interesting and so you figured you would keep on reading even though you couldn’t read more than ten minutes at a time before laying it down because you are so bored and now you are 393 pages in and weeks have gone by and it seems like an investment at this point but the book is 830 pages long and you wonder about the meaning of life and then put it down to reread a book by Annie Proulx that you loved when you read it in the 90s but you drank so much back then that you killed the brain cells that remembered the plot so that all you remember is an accordion and a spider and you’re not sure about the spider and so it seems like you never read it? Well. That’s me right now.”

    Back to dreaming and wishing and porch sitting in front of the fan. Here are the last photos from Lake Waccamaw that I never got around to posting. They are from sunrise on one of my last days there. I ended up staying for two weeks.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Days 8 & 9

    Silly ducks.

    Other than a visit from Lisa for a couple of hours, I spent Sunday alone and watched “How to Get Away with Murder” and read “The Luminaries.” Lisa helped me figure out how to wind the bobbin on my sixty year old Singer sewing machine, and then I got rolling with making masks again.

    This one is reversible and is for Lisa. I like this design much better. It is form fitting to the face and it doesn’t take much longer to make it. Plus you can insert a filter inside the mask if you want. I was going to put the link here to the pattern, but that site has taken down the pattern and it is selling masks instead. When I get home, I will copy the template and instructions and put them up here.

    Late this afternoon I made a similar one for myself. I think that I could get into doing more of these patchwork panels. I use one piece of cloth on the back.

    For many, many years I did not see any alligators down here. They made a big comeback starting about 20 years ago, and now I see them in or beside the canal every day. Lisa and Tim have seen small ones in the lake, but I never have seen any in the lake, and hope I never do. It doesn’t stop them from getting in the water.

    Our house is across the road from the canal and I often see gators from the kitchen window or the front door. Oh well, you don’t need to see another gator photo.

    I came extremely close to going home yesterday, to the point that I packed up whatever craft/art supplies that could take the heat and put them in the car trunk, and packed the non-refrigerated food into bags. I could have cleaned up and left in an hour if I had chosen to. Having that option a bit more easily accomplished made me feel better, and I was not so overwhelmed by all the studio stuff I brought down.

    Today I worked remotely and had a flurry of tasks to deal with as people have been returning from vacation. Fortunately I worked enough last week that it was not overwhelming. I checked the retirement website and I could indeed retire on my next birthday in February. I don’t want to, though, not yet. I’d like to be able to stick it out to age 62 at least. But it is nice to know that it is doable. Health insurance was my main concern.

    I took Lisa and Tim their new masks, and they fed me crab cakes. That was a good deal. Their little cat Sissy is my lovey bear. She is very tiny and shy.

    Talked to Sandy tonight and I may leave on Saturday, which would make two weeks down here. He seems to be doing fine, so I will try to stop worrying about him. I miss my babies, but it is very calming to listen to the waves at night instead of zombie movies in the next room.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Days 6 & 7

    It feels like I’ve been here much longer.

    Here is a short video of a gator in the canal across from my sister’s house. Thursday night I spent the night over there. Tim had gone back to Chapel Hill for a doctor’s appointment. We hung out on the pier with Rascal, one of her precious cats. He always has this intense expression on his face, but he is the most relaxed cat I have ever held. He melts into you. Rascal is an indoor cat but is allowed outside with supervision, because he is mostly very well-behaved.

    I spent a short time sitting on the beach under the bald cypress tree on Friday afternoon. The ducks are almost tame. They were really about six feet away. There was a sandpiper on the beach at Lisa’s house. The ducks are so in love with her that every square inch of her beach is covered in duck footprints. She cares for the orphans and the injured ducks. I picked up a mallard feather with the iridescent blue/green color – the feather gathering here is wonderful.

    I also poured some of the dark grey house paint into a small container and touched up some places that the painters missed. The paint went a long way, so I painted the bookboard that I brought with me. It is still tacky today, but I’m considering painting a door with the coral paint and making a lake house book. Stenciling it too.

    Last night Tim came back and we ate barbecue and when I came home I listened to Lyle Lovett and Shawn Colvin’s Facebook Live concert.

    My sleep schedule is back to normal – falling asleep around 11 p.m.-12 and waking around 8 a.m. I need to start waking an hour earlier if I can maintain the ability to fall asleep at an earlier time and not wake up all night. Not taking fish oil at night and eliminating my allergy meds has helped, although not with my allergies, of course. When the fall allergies come rolling back in I’ll have to see what I can do about those without triggering restless legs syndrome.

    It is too hot and humid to do much outside, and the midges are out again this morning. But it is not less hot and humid in Greensboro, and so I can’t decide whether to go home tomorrow or not. I don’t have to. I miss Sandy and Diego and Pablocito. I wonder how my garden is doing.

    I am pretty depressed and anxious and I think that I will spend the day alone in the quiet today. Also, I realize that I will probably be coming back here to the lake house a lot more often, just like I did when we couldn’t afford to go any place else. I appreciate that I have this escape to visit, and that I can actually work from here. I am lucky in many, many ways.

  • An anxiety interlude

    I skipped a day blogging. Every day brings its own set of hellish news, but yesterday’s news struck very close to home. For the first time, I am really nervous about losing my job to budget cuts. I am worried about MANY people I know losing their jobs and (because we’re “‘Murica!”) health insurance to budget cuts. In a PANDEMIC that is rocketing.

    PW Exclusive: UNC System Exploring Worst Case Scenario Budget Cuts of Up to 50%

    The hit to our economy from these budget cuts would be massive at 25%.

    Yesterday morning my main concern was when my work laptop would be available because my personal one is so rickety slow, and whether I would be able to avoid the bathrooms when I go back to work.

    Late yesterday I sent a form to HR with permission for us to hire a staff member to teach a class for us. He has done it before and I see this form as a big waste of time but, whatever. He waited a few weeks to send it to me. HR sent me an email last night that there is a personnel hiring freeze. There wasn’t one three weeks ago. His online class is full, and we accounted for it in our budget.

    Ominous.

    My reaction to anything since Twitler was elected has been pretty numb. Yes, I’ve been to protests and spoken up, and contacted my congressional reps (knowing that it was pointless). But the atrocity waves of 2020 are wearing me down. The main reason I am at the lake is to get my mental health back to a more functional place. I cannot shut down.

    From now on I will save the rest of my vacation days in case I lose my job. If I can manage to keep my job until Feb. 17, 2021, I believe that I can retire with my pension at 85% and hopefully keep my health benefits. The health insurance is key. Thank God Sandy is on Social Security and Medicare.

    Of course, who know what might happen with all that, with an increasingly authoritarian government who gets away with doing almost anything they want, and voter suppression active and in the open.

    Down here at Lake Waccamaw, where people held a 100 boat flotilla parade flying Twitler/Putz flags on July 4 on a STATE PARK lake, where few people wear masks inside the local grocery store, I am for the first time more afraid of these fanatics than I am of the natural predators. I backed in my car so that my Bernie bumper stickers can’t be seen from the road. This is why I could never live down here in rural eastern NC again.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Day 5

    Here is the new house color. You can’t see the door, but it is a bright coral that peeps out from behind the wooden screen door.

    I ended up working some yesterday morning and then Lisa and Tim picked me up in their pontoon boat for a ride while the water was smooth. The second photo is from the boat coming in to the back of the house. Or the front of the house, as the lake residents say.

    The wind picked up soon after and changed direction. One of the best things about being alone here is that I get to listen to the sounds of waves and owls and frogs and insects. I have barely turned on the TV and listened to very little music. The nature sounds are a big part of why I like coming down here, and when others are here there is always a lot of noise drowning it out.

    I worked on masks and when I say “worked” I mean “struggled.” I was trying to make this mask more polished than I usually sew. And without elastic. This one is big because it is for Sandy and I want it to accommodate his beard. I sewed fabric loops that were too big, so I tied knots in them and attached hairbands and a safety pin. It works. I also sewed tucks in each side to deal with the side gaps after I took this photo.

    The fabric is batik prints of grizzly bears and bison that I bought at a quilt shop on the Blackfeet Reservation when we went to Glacier National Park in 2016.

    This morning the midges are covering the grass lakeside and I can smell the sulfurous odor of the paper plant. It will be a good day to stay inside.

    I’m actually considering going home. My brain is going weird places here, and my allergies are scaring me. Sandy tends to keep my hypochrondia in check by joking and grounding me. Maybe I will relax again today.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Day 4

    It feels like I have been here longer than four days. I had to work for a little while this morning – seems like something unexpected happens whenever I go on vacation – but that’s fine. At least I can do it from here!

    Yesterday felt like somewhat of a waste because I went back into anxiety mode after being so relaxed on Monday. The painters came and painted the outside of the house a dark bluish grey. It looks so much better, although they didn’t do a great job. The front door will need another coat and a few touch-ups and trim fixes will have to be done. One of the guys did not wear a mask and the only time he made me nervous was when he painted the front door because he had it open. Also, I didn’t like it when he talked to my sister closer than six feet away. I pretty much holed up in my bedroom for most of the afternoon.

    I am fascinated with these little burrows in the sand. My guess is that they are mollusks, but I have no idea.

    I will take a photo of the house tomorrow morning when it is not in shadow so much.

    Lisa came over late that morning and we sat by the lake for a little while when the breeze picked up. That evening I walked to her house where Tim grilled burgers and hot dogs and we sat together inside to eat. We went out to the end of the pier at twilight and visited in the cooler breeze over the water, Tim in the hammock and Lisa and I in rocking chairs. It is a lovely place to spend an evening.

    Lisa just called and they are about to pick me up in the pontoon boat for a ride. It is super hot and humid so that will be a great way to get outside!

    Hopefully I will be able to post photos of masks by tonight or tomorrow morning.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Day 3

    The painters are here today. My sister arranged to have the outside of the house painted, and my cousin’s wife picked the color, which will be quite dark. I am chipping in with the refund I got from my cancelled events in July. The above is a before photo of the house. It hasn’t been painted in thirty years, and will look different than I’ve ever seen it, since my cousin would not change anything about the house. He didn’t even like for you to rearrange the bar stools or change the radio station. It was comforting in a strange way.

    I put the paint cans out on the porch, told the painters that I had to isolate because of my husband, and shut the door. Let them make of that what they will – I figure that it will make them cautious around me. Afterwards I saw one of them with a mask on.

    Above are some shots from the living room. Along with the ceiling fan that fell apart during the last trip down here. This is what all the inside walls look like – plywood. I often see images in the wood grain.

    Last night I cut out fabric pieces for masks. I don’t have elastic, but I am using fabric ties and hairbands and safety pins to fasten them. I found a bunch of pieced strips that I sewed together last year. The brown masks are batik fabrics with buffalo and grizzly bear designs that I bought at a quilt shop on the Blackfeet Reservation when we went to Glacier National Park in 2016.

    Late yesterday a strong thunderstorm blew in. Thankfully it didn’t have much rain. We’ve had quite enough here. You could see breakers on the lake all the way out, and it cooled down enough that I was able to throw the doors and windows open for a while and sit on the porch.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Ch. 2, Day 2

    Hallo!

    From the (short) morning walk, I bring you flowers and gators.

    I am working about half of the day, then I will take the rest of the week off as vacation time. Unless something crazy comes up, which is entirely possible these days.

    Don’t worry, all the gator photos are cropped. One of the baby gators gave me a start when it splashed in, but I was not that close. Gators are fast, and although I am not afraid of walking along here any more, I am not stupid.

    ^^^The persistence of bald cypress tree knobs.

    It is going to be a tough weather week. It was already dangerously hot and humid at 9:30 this morning. Right now at 11:30 it is 76% humidity and 102 degrees heat index, and no breeze.

  • Lake Waccamaw, Chapter Two, Day One

    I was pretty exhausted today from restless legs syndrome last night. Funny how it seems to hit after a really hard day when you are so tired you’re sure that you will sleep. I was up and down until 4 a.m. this morning and got up at 10 a.m. So I decided to be kind to myself and not try to schedule my day as planned.

    The morning revealed a dead gar fish on the beach and yes, I did retrieve a couple of those jawbones. I will have to boil them at home but right now I hope that they will lose their mild stink in the sun. Given my love of symbols of sharp objects, I think that they will go well in a collage or a weaving. I will be picking up pieces of plastic from fireworks off the beach for a while. There were a few okay pieces of driftwood. This is a nice one.

    I spent most of the day inside in the air conditioning because the heat index was something like 110 degrees with no breeze for the first part of the day. So humid. The water is very warm. I organized and set up a studio. I watched a few samples of mixed media/journaling videos to see if I wanted to pay for the yearlong bundle, but I think that I will pass for now, considering how many online classes I never finish. I watched an episode of “How to Get Away with Murder” and the first episode of “Dead to Me,” and crocheted my weather scarf. Spent too much time on Facebook and reading the news and ate a tomato sandwich for dinner. My nerves were so shot yesterday that I barely ate anything.

    My sister came by and we talked across the room to each other about eight feet apart. Talking inside was probably a mistake. We are both very careful but I felt exposed by my mechanic on Friday when he drove my car out of the garage without a mask on, and she and her husband met with their tax guy and she didn’t feel good about that. We agreed to not spend much time together until later in the week.

    An old friend of mine who happens to be my brother’s brother-in-law is in ICU with Covid. His cousin told me that he has just been taken off a ventilator. The little sister of a guy I dated in high school died of Covid. She was in the hospital for shoulder surgery and they think she caught it there. I found out that a friend of mine who thought she had a rare form of shingles back in February actually had Covid. It’s moved into the personal realm.

    Being alone here is a good thing. Even though I am already missing Sandy a bit, I need time alone, and I mean real time alone, when nobody is going to pop in or interrupt my train of thought. I think that it will go far in healing my nerves.

    Later the evening breeze came along with the sunset and I sat on the beach beside the waves until dark. When it got very dark, I walked out on my neighbor’s pier (he isn’t there) and looked for the comet. I couldn’t find it, but the stars were bright. I read that it might be just under the Big Dipper, but unfortunately that is over the trees in Cove Swamp across the street, not over the lake. So it may be that the trees were in the way. It was still a lovely experience. This is a wonderful place to starwatch.

    I will look at my work email in the morning, do some website and schedule work, and then probably opt to go on vacation for the rest of this week, other than a staff Zoom meeting that I am volunteered to host because I need to learn how to do it before graduate student orientation.

    Now, please, Lord, let this melatonin work tonight.

  • Sunday Coffee Pot Post

    I needed some way to kickstart my art practice, and it wasn’t happening at home. So I am back at the lake house, a bit earlier than planned, but right now is probably the best time as far as the amount of work I have to do for the real job. I will be teleworking from here some days. I need to decide what days to mark off as shut off the work email and concentrate on art vacation days. Originally I had scheduled about a week’s worth of vacation time in late July, but those plans fell into the black hole of COVID. I have lots of vacation time – I may not get many pay raises from the state of North Carolina, but they give a lot of time off instead. I have much saved up from earlier years of receiving “bonus” time rather than raises, time that I saved in case I needed it for my mother’s care. Now that is sadly not an issue, although I am relieved that she is not here to go through this pandemic in a nursing home. She would have been miserable beyond belief.

    This post is to catch up a bit on the days between my last stay down here, and to set up a blogging (journaling) practice every day while I’m here rather than do it all when I get back. I am by myself, and I’ve got time.

    First, here is some of the finished collage work that I mounted on wooden panels over the past few weeks. There is nothing really new here except that I worked into some of them with ink and pencil and pens. Many thanks to my online collage teachers: Crystal Neubauer, Melinda Tidwell, and Roxanne Stout.

    ^”Visitor” 4×4″

    ^”Monkey Mind” 4×4″

    ^”Handmade” 4×4″

    ^”Warrior Woman” 4×4″

    “Illustrated Question Box” 8×8″

    Without a doubt I have spent the most time on “Illustrated Question Box.” It has so many layers and has changed meaning for me as it has evolved. Included materials are a 1931 newspaper from Oroville, Colorado and an illustration from a book on eugenics around the same time period, and materials gleaned from paperback and hardback books that I rescued.

    Here is the one that is in progress right now:

    “Shimmering Light” – working title, 8×8″

    As a Dudeist priestess, I realize that I am supposed to hate the fucking Eagles, man, but the lyrics to “Hotel California” resonate for me right now. The image is a copy of my grandmother’s wedding photo. She died of a sinus infection in the 1930s, so I never met her.

    And I love the fucking Eagles and I don’t smoke pot, so maybe I should switch religions to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster and become a Pastafarian.

    The image at the top of the post is my back yard in bloom with evening primrose, feverfew, and purple coneflower (since I can’t spell echinacea right now). I think that I’ll put it into the rotating banner or in the background.

    The next photos are from the front garden. It isn’t blooming much this time of year, but I had requests on Facebook to post photos of it. I recognize that the diversity of greens, textures, smells, and shapes of foliage are quite wonderful, but I didn’t think that it would translate to photography. Often I sit on my screened porch and people walking by don’t see me. They lean down and stroke the herbs for their smells and the lambs ears for texture. I’ve been told that it is a green oasis on a hot day. So here is a walk past my house.

    Now I’m going to check out a few free online workshop previews to see if I want to buy them. Not that I don’t have enough online art stuff going on already! Hopefully, if my mental health doesn’t take a dip, there will be at least one post per day, if not more.