Pattie, my friend who own the Art Supply, had called me earlier in the week with a lead on a potential photography gig. A local artist wanted to have his work shot and would I call him? His name was James Hill. Though I didn’t know him personally, I knew a little bit about his studio because Vernon and Chris had met him and his wife on their quest to find local studio space for their business. I’d also walked by the front window of their space a few times myself and was curious, so this lead felt like a gift.
I arranged to meet James in my noon pocket. My hands were still blotchy with last-minute backdrop paint from the theatre, so I probably didn’t look very professional going in. Turns out I didn’t need to be concerned. He told me, “I gotta be honest with you. I needed you, but now I don’t. I had lost touch with the photographer who has shot my work for years and then I found his number again. I’m sorry.”
“I’ll be honest too, ” I replied. “It’s okay. I can photograph whatever is necessary, but what I really like to take is portraits. Your work and your studio are so interesting. I haven’t met your wife yet, but she seems so interesting too. What do you think of the idea of my taking pictures of you around your work and maybe we can do a story or something…for a paper or whatever. If nothing else, my blog. What do you think?”
I don’t know what he thought of it. I was gushing a little and it might have been hard to keep up. But he did let me take some pictures then and there.
So far, I only knew about this couple from a story Vernon had once related and passing the jazz-squirrel instillation in the front windows (*more on that later.) I was thrilled to be given the chance to peek in further. We talked a little about art and stuff, then I noticed a folded newspaper page with a photograph of a brain. I can’t help it, these day if I see a picture of a brain or a kidney, I always assume its a sign. I asked if I could take a quick photo of it. James obliged.
I was thinking: what a great image—something like, “this is your brain (or half a brain) on art.”
But then we started talking about the newspaper photo. “I wonder if that’s what my brain would look like,” said James. “Sometimes I wonder how much of it is good anymore. I’ve been hit in the head a lot of times in my life. And my doctor says I don’t have Alzheimer’s. But my brain and my memory fails me so often, I worry.” He then went on to give me the name of a good neurosurgeon at UC Irvine. I wrote down her name, just in case.
Who knows why we meet the people we meet? So many stories, most of them not available to us. But it always a privilege to connect when we do, and the things we find in common may surprise us.
I hope to spend some more time with James and next time, meet his wife. In the meantime, I was right about Pattie’s lead being a gift. It was exactly that today.
*Remember I mentioned the jazz-squirrels? I haven’t forgotten. These photos will give you a better idea. Enjoy!
Hudson, the youngest of the Logie clan (the family who brings us music), was hospitalized last weekend for a collapsed lung. Maki, who considers Hudson one of his good pals, was in the desert, so I texted him the news. He knew a little about this condition because the older brother of his best friend at school experienced it too. From what we understand, its very painful.
As soon as he got back on Sunday night, Maki asked when we were going up to see him. “We can’t NOT go, Ali! After all that family has done for us, we have to go. I’m going to make a care package for him right now. Let’s go after school tomorrow.” And he disappeared into the chaos of his bedroom to collect gifts for his friend.
In his Star Wars opening-night popcorn bucket, he packed: a Union Jack as well as a Norwegian flag, an old polaroid of Hudson that seems to be a running joke between them, a couple of joke and novelty books (including the Zombie Survival Guide and How to F This Test), a candy bar, a lava lamp, and a snorkel. What else does a teenage boy need? (He also packed an old DS, but forgot the games, so he took it out later.)
Hudson had surgery on his lung Monday night, so we waited till yesterday and went straight from school. It took us about two hours in the rush hour traffic, but Maki didn’t seem to mind the drive. He had a friend to get to. Hudson was weak and groggy, but he seemed to appreciate the company. They played cards and then we took a walk around the ward with him.
I must say the lava lamp did wonders for the hospital room. Maki said it brought it to ‘help the vibe.’
It was so great to see Hudson on the recovery side of a very painful and scary situation, but it was also great to see Maki acting in such a way. I don’t know for sure, but I like to think his willingness to respond so quickly to a hospitalized friend is something he has learned on our family’s journey. There have been people who showed up for us. And maybe this is how we learn to show up for others. Golden.
Hope you feel better soon, Hudson. The worst part is over, and you’ll be back making music and general mischief soon. We love you.
Justine’s kindergarten class is in the midst of a ‘show and tell’ month. Each child was asked to talk about a special person in their life and bring objects, photos, and drawings to help describe him or her. The child would have five minutes to share and answer questions. Today was Justine’s turn.
She decided to talk about her dad, so yesterday she took a couple of the photos still hanging on Vernon’s wall, then we went home and found some more. It was interesting to see her choosing the photos of herself with him, even when she was a tiny baby. She chose the pictures of us together, everyone looking so much younger. She chose the pictures of him cuddling her and Maki. She didn’t want to bring the pictures of Vernon after the accident, even though she still smiled at the ones of them together.
She wasn’t so interested in talking about his job or the accident. She wanted to express how good he was at things (Vespa, bikes, soccer, talking in an English accent) and how much he obviously liked to carry her. I think Vernon would love nothing more than to be remembered for how much he loved his family—especially to be remembered that way by his kids.
I want to say thank you to all the readers who have reached out to me in encouragement and support, often sharing personal stories of their own. I know I don’t often get back to the posts and emails, but I do read each one. I have been deeply touched to read your words. I’m moved and grateful. It’s been a very strange season-within-a-season lately and knowing I’m not alone in it, knowing my trying to process my thoughts about Vernon’s (and our family’s) situation at least makes sense to others is incredibly validating.
It’s a mystery how Vernon can sway from the edge of death (in my eyes) to progressive clarity in a day. It’s a mystery why some days are better than others. Holding all that flux in one’s head…from death to life…from grief to gratitude…suffering to joy…and then potentially back again in a moment. It’s a bizarre thing: keeping one reality close to your heart while you are experiencing the opposite. There somehow is space in the human heart to experience all of this at once. Although we try to avoid it, when we experience it (especially in honest company with other caring people) we realize this IS the human experience.
Ok…that was meant to be my introduction to a whole other set of thoughts, but I’m so long-winded, it became a blog post in itself.
Ok, here’s Part 2… (with a nice picture of Vernon today to break things up.)
I must give some credit where it is due. That really hard Saturday a week ago, when Vernon was hitting bottom, I wasn’t alone. My dear life-friend Nicole was with me. After he left dialysis without ever getting plugged in, I tearfully grieved for hours. I’m sure it felt better because she was with me. She came again on Tuesday: we marveled together as Vernon so lucidly spoke about wanting to connect with friends on Facebook and with his son. My mind was blown, but I wasn’t alone—she was there too. Sometimes it’s sitting in the confusion together. You can’t make heads or tails…but you aren’t the only one.
I got some special emails from friends this week. Friends of Vernon, others, my own. Rainbow, whom I haven’t seen for over ten years, asked if she could drive down from LA and visit me? I told her I had a free dialysis day. She’d never met Vernon, but she showed up, donned her yellow gown, and hung out with us for the two hours. She then took me to lunch and told me a very heavy story about her own journey over the past years: it was different to mine, but filled with ups and downs and prayer. I could relate completely.
photo credit: Vernon
Last night, another art school friend, Clay, texted that he and his wife were in town. How random! We met for breakfast this morning on the pier. I haven’t seen him in over twenty years, but we’d recently been in more touch because he also suffers from kidney issues. Dialysis and transplant list —what an ice-breaker after all these years, right? Just kidding, we mostly talked about the acting world and our old friends. But I was touched that in this week, several old friends from that period of my life had shown up. That period was a lifetime ago, but yet there is proof that I met some really awesome people during that time. And they’ve had struggles too. I was never alone.
Photo credit: Justine 🙂
To top it off, Melissa came today…playing guitar and singing for Vernon while she let her son run around in the courtyard with Justine. I only hoped the shrieking of children hiding under their windows was more endearing than annoying to the patients in those rooms. Melissa and I have been close for a long time, so we are comfortable moving in and out of each other’s thought lives: the painful and the joyful. She can come crack jokes and sing delightful songs to Vernon and yet at the same time, she runs a blog about the grief of miscarriage.
It just so happens that Justine has recently joined a theatre group. Its just a tiny space back in an industrial park by the freeway. I hadn’t even considered this sort of thing until a friend (who knows Justine well) suggested the connection. I tentatively brought her to the rehearsal, just sitting and watching with her, figuring it could go either way. But within the first few minutes of being introduced to the other kids, she felt the acceptance. She also felt the magic as she watched them playing on the stage. It was amazing to watch her start this connection with a new community. I remembered feeling some of that myself when I was young and then through the years: all those plays, all those weirdos I loved being around, all that openness, collaboration, acceptance. It suddenly became a good thing again, a pure thing.
So she’s in her first play next weekend. But it’s not about the play. It’s about the connections. That part never goes away…but it may go deeper than we know.
The ducklings figuring out their props/costumes. The show is based on The Ugly Duckling
I’m so glad Maki chose to visit his dad the night he asked for him instead of waiting till the next day because Vernon wasn’t quite as alert on Thursday. In fact, it took a good half hour just to wake him up enough to go outside with me. I’m attributing his groggy state to the new antidepressant treatment that was only started that morning. As frail as he is, the side effects manifest very quickly. Hopefully, this will pass and his mood will be a little more stabilized. (I do get nervous adding any new medication, however.)
Anyway, the plan for Thursday was to get him painting again. When I’d suggested it the previous day, he seemed enthusiastic about it. This time, I brought the paints I like to use at home, which are easier to manipulate than the trays of watercolor he’d previously used. Just like before, he had seemed to want to draw his environment—the table, the courtyard. There were more sitting figures—an expression of himself perhaps? Or maybe it’s me.
He still is able to access his ability to draw. Though the paintings are primitive, they are clearly made by someone with a knowledge of space and perspective. This time I saw more confidence with the the brush and his ability to manipulate the paint.
I think this is the palate dish we were using. See the little wells? Beneath it, I can recognize the woven design of the patio table (and perhaps a shadow.)
This one is more intricate. The table shows up again in purple. It has two figures: one in purple in a chair (me) and the other in yellow, reclining. He covered that up with the green paint, which could possibly be the gate. He went on to draw the box of the courtyard around the figures, adding the trees popping over the wall and what looks to me like the palm tree by the entrance to the building.
In the one above, I see a bed next to a window with someone sitting on the end of it. I can imagine it’s a picture of his bedroom. Again, the perspective and themes are so interesting. This is his world so it’s what he is painting. I might set up a still life next time, but its fascinating to see what initially comes out of his mind.
He wasn’t talking at all for most of this time, but he was more committed to each page than I had seen him yet, so I took that as a good sign. Perhaps he was feeling the flow.He did take breaks, but he would still start up again with out giving up completely. When he first started painting with Julia in January, he was very specific about the colors and thoughtful about the placement of the brush. This time, I just kept giving him full brushes of paint as soon as one started to dry up. He wasn’t bothered about the colors and didn’t seem to take much time between brush strokes. I could see the artist reemerging. In fact, in the next videos, one might think these are works of an abstract artist who has been at it for years. Absolutely fascinating.
(if you don’t have much time, skip number one and move to two…)
Then, the font designer showed up again…as well as a rainbow.
On Tuesday, I sat with Vernon during dialysis and he was as chipper as he was the night before. At one point, the word Facebook came up.
“I heard some nurses discussing Facebook, ” he said. “And I wondered if it was still a thing?”
I assured him that it was indeed still a thing, then he asked if he could look at his page. I promised him I’d bring the iPad that a friend recently donated to him and he could Facebook himself.
Thankfully, I was able to retrieve his password so I opened it up for him today, first changing his profile picture to an old one that struck his interest. It seemed fitting.
I love the between-worlds-ness of it and that he is moving.
His old friend in Norway liked the picture. I asked Vernon if he wanted to send him a message. He said he would if I could type. So he left him this: How is it going? I’m having a bit of a holiday at the moment, letting my wife look after me whilst I play some ping pong. Goodbye. See you soon.
I was moved that he wanted to reach out. I asked if he’d like to leave a message for his sister. He said: Hi Vanessa. How’s it going? We are on a holiday at the beach for the time being, and it feels weird being away, but it’s kind of fun too. Goodbye. Hope to see you soon. All my love, Vernon
He went on to comment on a couple of other pictures that his old friends had posted. Then we looked at his old photos. He wanted to see pictures of himself. Funny thing, he always HATED having his picture taken, so there weren’t that many. But when he did see himself, he exclaimed: “I’m quite good looking there” and “I like my face there.” He went on: “I like who I am!” In that moment, I felt such a peace about him, so different from what we’ve experienced lately. What a blissful place to be: “I like who I am.”
We found old pictures of him and Justine. “Keep these for her,” he said. “They will be very important to her when she is older.” I promised I would.
When we came across pictures of Maki, he said: “We need to bring him in more. He hasn’t been coming around.” (Little did he know that I have been discussing this with Maki at home. I know he’s been avoiding contact with his dad, and though I want to honor this difficult space in him, I’ve been trying to coax discussions about his reasons. He’s been dealing with it, but that isn’t what I want to express here now.)
He went on: “Maki’s at an important age. He should be telling me about the details of his life. I want to know about it. We need to bring him in more.”
I promised I would. In fact, as soon as I picked up Maki from his guitar lesson (Justine was at my mom’s) I told him I wanted to go back up to see his dad. He could go tonight or we could take the day off school and he could go with me then. He opted for tonight. I had already talked about the potential of death with him over the weekend, so I think he felt like I did: this is an opportunity, take it while you have the chance. Vernon isn’t necessarily going to be clear like this for awhile. This is a gift. This is nice.
Maki was brave and wonderful when we arrived at Mesa Verde. His dad was awake, moving around on his mattress, and most importantly, his eyes were clear. Vernon asked Maki about school and what he was doing. They just talked about basic things and interests, but Vernon, as squirmy as he was, clearly wanted to connect in conversation. As he rolled around, getting off the bed and onto the mat on the floor, Maki tried to help him. “No, I can do it. I’ll get there eventually,” he said. And he did. At one point Maki was able to help move him further onto the bed. “You are really good at that,” Vernon told his son.
He flipped and got angry and impatient a few times but was able to relax before we left. He hugged us each and told Maki: “We really should spend more time together.”
On the way home, I asked Maki: “Do you understand why I talk to you about such hard stuff? I know its not fair, but I’d rather you have the choice of being involved than have me hide these things from you. You can always tell me when it’s too much. I don’t want you to have regrets later. Anyway…are you glad you came?”
A special cover of Vernon's fav song 'Waterloo Sunset' by friend and singer/song-writer Ian McGlynn. All proceeds support Vernon's recovery! Donate what you can and download a beautiful song in return.
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