Maria had the most challenging time I’ve seen in our marriage and time together. I don’t want to talk about the details; she has written about them on her blog: http://www.fullmoonfiberart.com.

I write about her, but I never speak for her. She speaks very well for herself. Slowly, day by day, she is coming back to her full and rich life, the one she patched together, day by day, for the past decade, all by herself.

She returned to her creative work, quieting the voices in her head.

This one was difficult, challenging, and complex.

It went deep and lasted a long time. She is coming back to me, and our life together and herself.

Tonight, she sat across me at the dining room table, and we laughed together for the first time in a while. I made a neat dinner – fresh scallops with wheat couscous and lots of vegetables.

I could tell she was happy with a new quilt she was experimenting with; it brought her back to her place, a creative place.

 

 

She is starting her new quilt, a Crow Quilt Red; it is already impressive. When she sees a quilt in her head, her face turns mad and wild-eyed, like one of MacBeth’s witches. I saw the look in bed this morning.

This is how I know she is getting well; she couldn’t work last week, a rare thing for her. She said she felt like hiding, so she decided to write about it.

That was a good decision; it seemed to liberate her from the pain and memory. She is learning to be authentic, which is sometimes very hard and painful.

This is good news; we can all breathe, the donkeys know, and so do the dogs.

I could see she was back. She started giving me shit about looking down (I was low), she had her chipmunk smile, she threatened to molest me, she cried a dozen or so times, and we talked about our friends and work and ideas.

She came back slowly and  steadily, “God Bless You,” I said, “you are unstoppable!” She laughed. I sang two stanzas of “Old Man River.” It didn’t quite fit, but it felt right.

After dinner, she started rolling an empty tea mug back and forth across the dining room table. This, I thought, was a Leica 2 picture, and as it happened, I was holding the camera in my hands.

All is well at Bedlam Farm.