Clouds in my Coffee

Wide awake at 2:37 AM it seemed like a great time to start work on a new drawing. I guess I was still a bit sleepy so I made a cup of instant coffee. Most likely you make better choices at that hour than me but the left cabinate was open and the stevia is all the way across the stove on the right. Well, you can’t drink black coffee at pre-dawn so I looked up an there on the top shelf towards the back was this bag of marshmellows my neighbor had given me the other night. It was one of those cold windy nights that you just wanted hot chocolate with marshmellows.
As often happens what I’m thinking in my head comes uncensored from my mouth. That’s how I happen to have little packages of hot chocolate and marshmellows.
Somehow as is often the case things take on a life of their own. My left hand was doing the thinking and action so before I knew it there sat a handful of clouds drifting through my coffee.

Open Heart vs Death

I drove through the darkness of dawn full with ghosts

A friend asked me to take her to the hospital for an angygram

The doctors had told her she had a leaky heart valve and needed open heart surgery

Depressed & frightened she made out a will, wrote the names of people on the back of objects. found new homes for her animals should the worst occur

As she climbed into the truck both her nerves and teeth chattered, words spilling forth just to be doing something

I smiled, listened trying to be reassuring, comforting, a friend

After they poked her full of holes attaching tubes, causing bruising

They let me come back

I held her hand and showed her photographs of the many states I had traveled over the past year

We spoke of dreams, places to see, places to live

Making a pack to travel to Ireland after the open heart surgery in celebration

time and silence entered the space

The nurse had been called and she was wheeled into the cold hallway to await the the surgeon.

Tears formed in her eyes as I was directed to exit via the double doors

An hour later I was visited by the surgeon with a huge smile on his face declaring the electrocardiogram was wrong she did not need open heart surgery.  There were no leaking valves

Celebration

We still plan to visit Ireland

But more than that, more than that I plan to live my life

To LIVE my LIFE

To tell my stories, make my art open my heart not to death but to life

Without fear or compromise

I have a story to tell please listen