November 22, 2019

Barn on the Edge of the Pond  ©Tracey Grumbach

Dear Driftwood,

“As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.

[Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, 1963]”
― John F. Kennedy 

It is Thanksgiving again and another year we celebrate without you here but you're always in our hearts. As John. F. Kennedy pointed out 55 years ago and you pointed out to me many times in my life, thankfulness is better shown and not heard. I have always taken that to heart and I hope I am doing you proud by showing my gratitude for even my smallest blessings on a daily basis. After all, I truly am blessed beyond deserving.

We are keeping our Thanksgiving small this year since Tyler and Brenna are only briefly in town from school. Although it will be small, just seven of us, it is a huge day to be sure since all of my children will be under one roof together. That happens less and less nowadays, so I am so thankful for this opportunity.

I wish you, dear Driftwood, a beautiful Thanksgiving wherever you may be. And to the rest of my friends and family scattered about out there, I hope you stop today to count the many blessings you already have...family, friends, food, health, a job, a car, a home, electricity, clean water, clothing, etc. Not everyone has the joy of these simple pleasures, so be sure to live each day, not just today, remembering just how truly blessed you are.

Until next time,
Me

November 20, 2018

Lost in the Fog of Hope  ©Tracey Grumbach

Dear Driftwood,

“Tell me what’s the difference
between hope and waiting
because my heart doesn’t know
It constantly cuts itself on the glass of waiting
It constantly gets lost in the fog of hope”
― Anna Kamienska; "Difference"

Oh, Driftwood...what IS the difference between hope and waiting? Do you know? My best guess is that hope involves a dose of faith that an event will happen while waiting doesn't. But who am I to say? All I can say for sure is that I am hoping and waiting to get better every day. I am also hoping and waiting to see you again one day.

Yesterday was a foggy morning. I was on my way to donate clothing to our church after dropping the kids off at school and I was stopped by construction traffic. I saw this beautiful scene. There is something so incredibly intriguing about the sun coming through the fog. It is mysterious and beautiful. Dark and light at the same time. It obscures some things and yet makes other things seem to stand out. So fascinating.

I've spent much of this past week dealing with a very bad headache (on day 6 now) after starting a new treatment schedule for Lyme. I am not sure if this headache is a result of a side effect of the medicine or if it is from herxing, but either way, it has kept me in a mental fog. Fog seems to be a recurring theme in this letter. It guess it is a good description for my mind, my mood, and my outlook. 

Until next time...

Love,
Me

November 10, 2018

Free Your Mind.  ©Tracey Grumbach

My Dearest Driftwood,

“There are so many people whose minds do not belong to them. There are so many people whose thoughts have been purchased by people. There are so many people who have made people kings and queens of their thought. There are so many people who cannot sleep because of people. There are so many people whose lives are a small percentage of their own self and a greater percentage of others. When the offenses of people occupy your mind, your mind becomes the offenses of people instead of your own mind. To have your own mind and to be your own self, free your mind!”
― Ernest Agyemang Yeboah 

You missed the election this past Tuesday. You always told me how important it was to exercise my right to vote and so I do, but honestly having anything to do with the political system these days is so frustrating. I don't even want to really talk about it because I have made a commitment to replace all the negativity of today's media with my own positivity and that is just what I am going to do. I've made a commitment to post positive happenings and thoughts happening in the world on my Facebook page and refrain from discussing anything negative. I wish more people would recognize that we all have more IN COMMON than DIFFERENT from one another. Complaining about politics here, in this letter to you, is futile and depressing and I don't stand for that.

The only reason I even bring it up is because yesterday I was playing around with some of my old collage cut outs and this piece, Free Your Mind, slowly formed. Sometimes when I am stuck creatively, I like to just dump a bunch of things on the table and let my subconscious go to work. I keep it silent in my studio and use whatever materials I feel are speaking to me. As I was playing with the different pieces, the idea for Free Your Mind began to form. I created something similar to this a while back (see below) using this same cut out, but I actually like this one better so I am glad I revisited it. The idea of old thoughts, habits, mistakes, perceptions, and offenses being released from the confines of ones own mind developed into this collage piece and I think it is a direct result of listening to and watching all the close minded people in the mainstream media during the election process. Sometimes NOT thinking and just doing lets all those subconscious ideas to flow forward.

©Tracey Grumbach

Anyway, I know how independent you are, so I thought you would appreciate this piece. Until next time, Driftwood...keep drifting.

With much love,
Me

November 9, 2018

The Map of Me. ©Tracey Grumbach

Dear Driftwood,

"God knows how I got so ugly, I guess it just comes from being slugged and slugged again and again, and not going down, still trying to think, to feel, still trying to put the butterfly back together again…it’s written a map on my face that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall.

Sometimes I’ll see myself somewhere…suddenly…say in a large mirror in a supermarket…eyes like little mean bugs…face scarred, twisted, yes, I look insane, demented, what a mess…spilled vomit of skin…yet, when I see the “handsome” men I think, my God my God, I’m glad I’m not them.” 

-Charles Bukowski; Sunlight Here I Am- Interviews and Encounters 1963-1993 

Those words, "It's written a map on my face..." feel so right to me when I think about the struggles I've faced with Chronic Lyme Disease, my dear Driftwood. And thus, a perfect quote to accompany this addition to my Self Portraits of a Lyme Warrior series. You left before I was diagnosed, but I know you know the toll it took on me even before I had a name for it. Sometimes I feel like this disease has made me so ugly, inside and out, and sometimes I think it has scrubbed me so raw that it has wiped away much of the ugliness and has instead made me anew inside. Either way, the profound effect it has had in my life will forever change who I am and I am content with that.

I wish you were close so I could tell you all about the map this journey has marked on me-certainly a map that nobody would ever want to hang on their wall. But alas, you are not, and so I must hope this letter reaches you and you can somehow send me a message back of encouragement to keep on keeping on this journey to see where it ultimately will lead.

Until next time, Driftwood...keep drifting.

Love,
Me

November 8, 2018

When Mums Die  ©Tracey Grumbach

Dear Driftwood,

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams

And our desires.

-Wallace Stevens

I came across this poem the other day and I was so struck with how well it fit with this digital art piece I was creating at the time. So many people just don't get why I enjoy taking pictures of dying or dead flowers. They think I am strange and perhaps I am. But, when I read these lines from the poem "Sunday Morning" by Wallace Stevens, it occurred to me just how much beauty I see in the downtrodden, the history, the life-well-spent, the dying. The beauty isn't always about when something is at its aesthetic peak. Instead, I find the beauty in the story and history of the flower, which is only revealed in the dying process. 

That reminds me of a conversation I had the other day. After my iPhone photography class, I sat talking with one of my students, a woman in her senior years. We were talking about editing portraits and how friends her age didn't want portraits of themselves anymore because they didn't like to see themselves with wrinkles, sags, and age spots. While I totally understood what she was saying and why people would be sensitive about having a portrait done at an older age, it made me sad. I told her that I thought the beauty of portrait of an older person is the lines, the spots, and the sags. The beauty is in the story that unfolds from those wrinkles-not the tightness and flawlessness of the skin. I love black and white portraiture of older people for that very reason. She was happy to disagree with me and tell me I only felt that way because I was only 46 and that I would feel differently when I am her age. But will I? Perhaps she is right, perhaps she isn't. Only time will tell how I feel about myself as I age but for now I do know that I absolutely adore images of older people.

Remember that time, Driftwood, that I bought an old potting table that was used in someone's barn and used it as my kitchen table (after cleaning it up,  of course). You always teased me about that table and would ask me if I got it out of a junk yard. Well, twenty years later I still have that table, crooked leg and all, in my art studio. It is the history of that table, the holes, the hammer marks, the chipping paint, that make it beautiful to me and I still use it today. 

Ok, so maybe I am strange for loving beat up, old, imperfect things. Or maybe I am just sentimental and see the value in history and stories. Who knows.

Well, goodbye for now. I will write again soon. All the mums are beginning to die off here and winter is knocking. Until next time...

Love,

Me

November 5, 2018

The Great Figure Eight  ©Tracey Grumbach

Young and full of running
Tell me where's that taking me?
Just a great figure eight or a tiny infinity

Love is really nothing
But a dream that keeps waking me
For all of my trying
We still end up dying
How can it be?

-John Mayer; Edge of Desire

Dear Driftwood,

It is funny where life takes you.  Some people seem to have a life that progresses in a fairly straight line while others seem to wander in a serpentine manner, curving this way and that and then back again. Watching my children grow up and start making a path in this world for themselves has me reflecting on when I was young and considering where my life would take me. 

If you had asked me, back when I was my youngest children's age (10), what I would be doing when I was 46 years old, art would have been the last thing to come to mind. To be honest, I could not even have dreamed of what I am doing today. For one thing I had an art teacher in elementary school that basically laughed at my art work and told me, "You are not an artist and never will be." Those words rung so deep within my soul that from that day forward I never even tried my hand at art, until, of course, I was an adult. Those words, however, did push me toward wanting to be a teacher, a teacher that encouraged people, not put them down. 

Secondly, I could not have even imagined, back in 1982, when the hottest technology was the Commodore 64 computer and when music CDs had just been introduced to the market, that I would be creating and selling art on the same device with which I make wireless phone calls, browse the internet, video call my kids, and listen to music. It is just mind-boggling. I never ever would have dreamed such a far-out concept and yet here I am doing just that, creating mobile art on iPhones and iPads. I am also still teaching, just as I knew I wanted to back 36 long years ago. Some paths for me were straight as an arrow and others are still meandering in curvy lines across the map of my life.

As a mom, it is a joy to watch my adult children walk their own paths and watch my youngest twins just beginning to imagine theirs. Some of my children seem to have a straighter path than others but life events...love, jobs, tragedy, and even luck, can add some twists and turns along the way. I wouldn't have it any other way. Life would be pretty boring if we all walked straight, parallel lives...after all, isn't the greatest beauty always found off the beaten path?

Well, that is all for now. I hope your path is clear and full of beauty, wherever you are, my dear Driftwood. I'll write again soon.

Love,
Me