What Beaders Do

I bead because I think it's cool. I bead because it's fun. I bead because when I create I feel alive. I bead because when I finish a necklace, bracelet, or pair of earrings, and there is something tangible and beautiful in my hands, I feel like I have given birth to something unique. I also bead to heal.

People say that the oppostite of peace is war, but I think the oppostite of peace is creation. I heard the phrase used in one of my favorite musicals, Rent. When someone close to you dies there is an overwhelming numbness initially, but as time wears on, you seek out life in any shape you can find it. I sought life in creation. Bringing to life beaded works of art is the only sound way I know to live again in an inspiring way. The initial blurb about myself on this blog is that "I don't live my life as well as I used to." That includes not going out and doing the things that once made me happy...that is, until I realized that beading makes me happy.

Billy used to look at my work and praise it, and criticize it. I welcomed his criticism because his taste was impeccable. I never knew that such a man, this blue collar, hard scrabble, welder could actually comment on the aesthetic of beading, but he could and did. He was my best critic commenting about a necklace once and proclaiming that it looked like I hung a cracker from the center--that memory always makes me laugh because it was so true. The necklace resembled a hanging Ritz cracker on a chain of woven, colored beads. Those fragile memories are ones that make me bitterly happy.

I bead for so many different reasons that most of the time I don't even realize it's actually grief relief. Now, when I create a new piece, it has to pass the "cracker test": Does the centerpiece hang like a piece of food, or does it look like art. So Billy continues to inform even my hobbies these days and, for that, I can be happy.

Tech and the Brain

This summer has been technology overload. Although I am comfortable with most things techie, I am nervous about the new year; starting with new technologies and new students is never easy, but I am also excited about the possibilities. Diigo is an interesting way to gather great websites for kids to peruse as they are taught new ways of learning language skills. Twitter is the most bizarre but perhaps most fun social networking site. What can you say in 140 characters? Not much, but OH so much! It also has the ability to link to other websites so it's another way to make sure that my students are viewing websites that are both relevant and inspiring in some way. We can teach them to surf the web in ways that will make them productive and engaged, but it can also be social. Diigo also allows for "mark-ups" and teaching good reading strategies of sites that may be challenging and not something they would normally read. I also have become more interested in blogging in general. I began using this blog as a healing process, but it has also turned into a record of what I notice, learn, read, and engage in myself.

I want my kids to use their blogs to practice their writing in the same way that an artist uses a blank canvas to practice, play, create and inspire. During my own grief period I was unlucky in that I shut down completely. I turned off. I was unable to read, write or think for several months. Then, slowely, and much more slowely than I wanted, it started to come back. I read a paragraph at a time, 20 minutes at a time. My pace was slower, I was slower in general. My normal quick, rapid fire thinking went away and I feared it was the curse that comes with great loss, but it's coming back to me as I write this and as I know I will read tonight little by little.

I engrossed myself in an abundance of TV viewing, lying on the couch, or bed and watching nothing at all really. I didn't really watch, I simply gazed and thought about other things. But, I'm coming back bit by bit. I'm seeing colors again. I'm tasting things again. It's all part of the bigger grief picture. My loss is total and engrossing and it has changed the way I view my world, so everything is different, but I'm moving on as best I can. This blog is just another way.

Images That Remain

My parents went away this weekend and I did the isolating thing again, but forced myself to leave the house. Thursday and Friday were the worst days; I sat, ate, watched TV, tried to read and beaded a little, but not much. My energy was just zapped completely. I was watching the dog for my parents while they were away and I realized that if they died, I would become a hermit. Bad idea! For some reason, I was again back at the hospital in my memory. I keep thinking about the doctors and nurses that watched us as Billy slowly faded away. These occasions come to me every now and then. His hospital memories are very fresh still. I often wonder if I will be 70 and still thinking about him and his illness, but I never know. Perhaps I'll move on one day, but that look on his face when he decided to die is just so stung into my brain. I can't seem to look back into the 15 years we were healthy, alive and thriving in this world. I'm still stuck on his death for some reason. This seems tragic, but I don't get panic attacks when I think about that day anymore. He was lying in bed and left in a matter of minutes. The oxygen just went out of him and that was the last I saw of his life. Everytime I pass Holcombe Fisher funeral home I also remember him because that was the last time I saw his face. I would like these images not to remain, but they do in and out of consciousness. I had two recent dreams that tell me I'm healing. One: Billy is holding my hand. And two: he is in the room and walking around my bed, I could hear his footsteps. Considering I never dream of him, it is amazing that I had such dreams as these.