Project Hallway

Today is the first day since I was laid-off a year ago that I haven’t done anything. I slept in until 10, knit a few rows, watched a movie. Feeling unhappy about my stagnant stance on the day, I decided to get a move on, ate some lunch, and hoped in the shower. My motivation still lacking, my mood actually deteriorated, the many thoughts in my head are coming to a bit of a boiling point, and I am feeling even more at a loss, and I think I need some of the meditation from my knitting, but can’t really find it right now. I know that a number of things are affecting my mood, and some have been affecting it for a while, since New York. Others are more recent, but have cause a lot of introspection. To start off the list, My friend has not been doing well at all. She called while we were in New York, left a message, and even though the verbal content of the message was neither good nor bad, the undertone, hidden deep within her voice had changed. From that time, she has stopped saying, “I am going to get better.” Now only repeating, “I’ve got to get better.” Emotionally but this is a huge blow, not just for my friend, for all of the involved. Something just isn’t right. I feel it. I am not alone.

In an effort to help I have been spending days at her house, and now the hospital again, helping both my friend, her friend, R., who is with her, and has been with her since day one of this adventure. While R.is physically compromised with the ability to only use one lung, she is blessed—or maybe cursed—with a heart bigger than anyone I have ever met. With the physical and emotional strain this terrible situation is putting on her, I am trying to do everything in my power to help, running errands, paperwork, physically moving and lifting things, including my friend, emotional support, listening, waiting. I see the looks on her my friend’s face when she opens the cards from her friends and loved ones, all of whom are absolutely desperate to help their friend, too. I see the tears roll down her cheeks. Each time she says that she is so happy because her friends love her, and she means it. And then I watch her put down the card, and she is back in her own mind. Miserable, without motivation to live, not seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Even though we all love her, we all want and need her to be OK, I worry that it is not enough.

My birthday was on Saturday, and it has now been a month since I have used my sewing machine. I have knit one sweater, finished one pattern, and mostly just feel like laying on my back on the carpeted floor when I get home from the house/hospital in the evening, to see if I can get the tension of of my back, spine, legs, arms and feet. It often takes a few days for the fishes of my thoughts to re-form their school. But even with time there is now lacking motivation; the manifestation of the sadness I feel for my friend. Unable to see a way to motivate her, i give her all of mine, and then it is gone when I need it, but it is worth the sacrifice.

Through the years as I get older, and especially since I just had the big two-nine birthday that I have long been fearing, I often wonder of whether or not I am a good person. Sometimes I feel proud of what I have done, sometimes ashamed, or guilty, sometimes I want to give more, but realize that I can be selfish. In this experience thus far, I have seen a side that I have only been vaguely aware of until now. For what it’s worth, I am learning that I am a good person, and that I can do things that I never thought I’d be able to do. I am stronger than I thought, have a bigger heart, have the ability to really, really put others first, and pay the toll myself, without any regret or fear for my own well being. While these are good things, I still feel like I am not doing enough, and even though I am giving her my time, heart and soul, ripping it away from Ramon right now, I am not doing enough.

Last week, after a trip to Mill Valley to deliver the second Little Joey Kangaroo Hoodie that I’d made, I found myself at a nearby mall needing to return a pair of jeans that I didn’t really need. Wandering around for four hours, I found myself in the Neiman Marcus (Needless Markup, as my friend with Leukemia likes to call it) Outlet, The Last Stand, standing in front of a pair of Dior’s that we both loved, and tried on last fall. They fit her foot a bit oddly, and with a $790 price tag, they were a little out of my range.

They had one pair. A 7 1/2. I usually wear a 7, but when I put on the 7 1/2, they fit much better than I’d remembered. Now that they were 70% off, I felt like I could finally afford them, especially since my Grandfather, who actually turned 94 yesterday, sent me a little check for my birthday. I always try to do something rational with it, and not just splurg on something I don’t need. Stupid, because it is a birthday check, I know. So, this year, I went for the splurg, because these shoes, I know will always bring me back to our Neiman Marcus shopping trips, followed by sushi and cocktails. While they are not literally her shoes, I know that we walk in them together.

Also over my birthday, and with my inability to knit, to mediate, and find the calm within myself that I need at home, the calm I give to my friend when we are together, I have managed to get my way through a book in the past couple of weeks. A feat I have mostly failed at through the first five months of this year. Of course McQueen related, I saw it at the Met, mulled over the idea, and picked up a copy of Isabella Blow: A Life in Fashion Lauren Goldstein Crowe.

Picky with my reading material, I often find that biography’s assume to much while they in-fact know too little. I didn’t feel that way about this one. I really did feel like I got to know who she was. Isabella is credited with discovering Alexander McQueen and Treacy Phillip. The way that the author talks about her relationships establishes her little recognized impact on the fashion world. The sadness that she feels at the end of her life, for me, is also something that hits close to home.

I think it is common for truly visionary artists to find themselves in dark places, including the likes of Isabella and McQueen. If he had known what would happen—she was going to commit suicide—I am sure that McQueen would have been there in a more profound way for Isabella. After a great period of difference and distance she invited him to her home to reconcile their friendship days before she killed herself. I can’t imagine the love in McQueen’s heart from this event, and the pain he felt from her death which followed. I am sure that he knew that she did love him, but she also lied to him—saying she wasn’t talking about death any longer—so he couldn’t help her, he couldn’t be there.

At the Met I remember looking at the Alexander McQueen pieces from the collection The Girl Who Fell from the Tree, Fall/Winter 2008, which “… told the rags-to-riches story of a girl who lived a life of sadness inside a tree until she found true love and emerged from the show of the tree into light and love.” It is told at the museum that McQueen was inspired by the tree in his backyard of his summer house, I feel like there is a closer comparison to his feelings about his lost friend, and what he wanted for her, and for himself out of life. I doubt that Alexander McQueen felt responsible for her death, but I don’t doubt that he carried the burden of failure from trying to help her, while it was justified, or not.While Isabella lived a rich life, as she could see, it was without others, light or love.

McQueen insisted that Isabella’s death gave him purpose and reason to live, saying, “I learned a lot from her death. I learned a lot about myself. [I learned] that life is worth living. Because I’m just fighting against it, fighting against the establishment. She loved fashion and I loved fashion, and I was just in denial.”

Sadly for all of us, he walked a little to long, a little to far in her shoes, and we know the end to this story.

Recently I have been feeling a little like a mother of the ducklings, but at least I am presented with opportunities to try to help. In addition to my friend in the hospital, both my sister and my oldest friend, E., called me last Thursday crying. I think that both of them just needed someone to listen, which I was happy to do. In respect o my sister’s situation, I have walked in those shoes before, and I found it easy to listen and share my thoughts on her situation, which seemed to make her soul feel more at ease. With E. it was a little more complicated, but in those shoes I have walked as well.

Driving back from Monterey on Saturday morning I rang E. as I knew that he was home in Santa Cruz for the weekend, and we met up for breakfast on my Birthday. I don’t know what it is, but each time I see E. I just feel happy. Perhaps it is because we have known each other for so long, even if we don’t know each other that well. Sometimes months go by without word, but it feels like we are better and better at picking up where we left off each time we see each other after a hiatus, and the trust that is there is strong. We E had called earlier in the week he told me the news that the 2-year relationship he was in has just ended, his heart heavy, and optimism weak. Over breakfast we got caught up on our lives as best as two hours can allow, sharing with me the emotional burdens he suffered from within his recently ended relationship, and the fear and sadness of his lost companion since it’s end. My heart goes out to him and I realize that as time has gone by, and we grow older, we are a lot more similar than I ever thought we’d be. Out of all of the people I knew, I didn’t think that E. would be the one that I’d remain friends with. Though, honestly, I wouldn’t want it any other way.

Living in a big city, far away, with a career in a creative industry E is having a hard time finding work, and feels alone, sadly, because he is. I remember being there myself, before Ramon. Even surrounded by “friends” things for me were bad until I made them good, until I fought for it. Even thought he is having a hard time seeing it now, E. knows that he was never in love his lover, though there is no doubt or question that E. does love and care for her greatly. I remember hearing a country song by Tim McGraw, Live Like You Were Dying, “An’ I became a friend a friend would like to have.” I am not big into country music, though I find some of it, like Taylor Swift very easy to listen to, this is the only country music lyric that has ever stuck with me. I wish that E. did live closer so that I could be that friend. Understand that this isn’t possible right now, but I wish that I could find a way to help E. fight for it, too, the same way that with I could MAKE my friend with Leukemia fight for it.

Recently learning things a soap opera could be based on, though it isn’t entertaining, only draining, I think that there are some secrets people want to keep until the day that they die, and just sometimes, when things are really bad, or they’re having a really rough go of it they slip out. Others then walk the line, carry the burden, hoping they can keep the secrets behind their pursed lips and full hearts. These secrets keep us closer together, finding ways to help us relate, help us support and help us fight. Never is it easy to walk in someone else’s shoes, the opportunity is rare, the honor is great, the work is hard and the responsibility is overwhelming. It is with the grace that we do it that defines what we are made of.

I hope that I am doing all that I can. Now, if only I can get something done for myself, and get my next knitting pattern finished. It is so close, but still has so far, and my motivation is still so low.