Day: November 19, 2014

As we approach the sixth month anniversary of my open heart surgery, a milestone. I met with my cardiologist today, I had an echo-cardiogram so he could look at my heart beating, he examined me and said I was in excellent shape, my heart was strong and stead, he shook my hand and said “get out of here, I’ll see you in six months.”  We talked a bit about movies and music, he congratulated me on my work in cardiac rehab and said I was doing great.

It was a turning point. I am less exhausted than I was, walking every day, riding my bike, working out in cardiac rehab (I graduate in two weeks.) My chest does not hurt, I have figured out my medications. I believe that my life is beginning to return to normal, I am scanning the world for photos, writing up a storm, feeling my oats. My post-surgery grumpiness, emotional intensity and fatigue is beginning to fade. So have most of my scars.

People have generally stopped looking at me with great concern and asking how I am feeling, and I am feeling fine. I think this marks the end of the Recovery Journal, I might revisit it once in awhile but I think I’m in a new post-phase surgery. Recovery was more complex than I thought, it was hard work and good work, and it will not be done for a long time, if ever. But I am on to the next thing. I was happy to get out of the cardiologist’s office, I will see him next in the Spring.

I brought Maria this down sweater as a Christmas present, but it was so cold this week, I couldn’t bear to see her cold, so I jumped the gun and gave her her present early, and just in time, a polar cold front is all over us this week. She loves the pink. The cold did not deter her from working on her string chair, to debut at the Bedlam Farm Art Show in June. The wind this morning was a bone rattler.

Red and I went to  the first Bedlam Farm this morning with my friend Jack Macmillan, we are trying to fix a broken door latch. It was a cold day, a beautiful day. It is getting easier to go to the farm, not so painful, I am always struck by the beauty and comfort and character of the place. Our realtor said she cannot understand why it has not sold, perhaps, she said, it doesn’t want me to leave. Perhaps, I said, the market isn’t back yet. I am a rationalist about these things, I don’t think we need any more statues or shrines or conversations with the property.

People from all over the country have driven by just to see it, many still do. How remarkable that a place has so much magic, even if no one has come forward to claim it.

I have left Bedlam Farm behind in most ways. I love it and am proud of what i did to restore it, but times have changed so much, and I know I can’t afford to keep it any longer, I can’t really manage two properties and two mortgages. Fortunately, I have a bank that one can speak to and we are talking about it in a respectful and cordial way. It is not easy, it is not painless, but it is necessary. I loved seeing Red between the two gargoyles that we have decided to leave there, they are not part of the place, part of the spirit of it. Red came to me here at the farm, he is at home there. Such a beautiful place, such a creative place.

I wish it happiness and peace.

Took this photo of Red on the garden wall at the first Bedlam Farm this morning, I thought it captured his reflective side.

Maria’s once humble potholders are steadily evolving into a new kind of art form. She takes vintage hankies and tea-stains them through a process I can’t explain, but she can. She is double-stitching and using different kinds of threads, plus she has this beautiful idea about tree potholders. I love  watching these potholders evolve, they are a mirror of her wonderful imagination and artistry. Tea Stained Vintage Potholders. Who would have thought. I am  surely not unbiased, but I think this work is incredibly beautiful and evocative. You can see more of them here. I would want to hang them on my wall, were it up to me.