Or It's Amazing What You Can Do When You Don't Feel Like Doing Much.
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| Running on Empty |
I suppose I could blame my absence from the blog on the energy drain I’ve been feeling since I last wrote. Or the fact that in the past couple of months my immune system seems to have taken a hiatus and left me unprotected from the internal viruses my body harbors or the external ones passed along by friends and family. Having just recovered from some debilitating infection and before I could get myself back into my routine of gym/studio/dog walking, I would come down with something else. OK, let’s just say, health not withstanding, I haven’t felt much like writing.
And yet, it’s not as if I’ve dropped off the edge and stopped participating in life. Besides getting into the studio weekly (or weakly, however you want to characterize it), I went to see the A’s lose to the Giants at AT&T park, then lose to the Yankees at the Coliseum (depressing and energy sapping in and of itself). I sat through six and a half hours of Wagner and his Walküries, sang in the three hour production of Kurt Weill’s Street scene with OSC and OEBS, and have managed to be available for convivial visits with friends and family. All that and I even planted our Victory Garden 2011.
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| Looking down at our Victory Garden 2011 |
If you ask my husband or my close friends, they would tell you I’m overly busy, doing too much and that’s why I’m so tired by the end of the day. I’m almost embarrassed to admit naps have become commonplace. Unfortunately, most of the time, I wake up from a nap almost as tired as when I put head to pillow.
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| Energy in a bottle? |
So now the search is on for what hopefully is the answer: Energy in a pill. Advice is coming in from all corners. I’ve got the bottles of Coenzyme Q10, Juvenon, Wellness Tablets all lined up in the bathroom. The trick is to remember to actually take the damn things. Being a formerly fairly healthy human being, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have to take much in the way of medications and still be well. When I go in for a routine exam these days I seem to be an anomaly – a person of a "certain age" who doesn’t have a list of medications an arm long to rattle off when they ask, “So what medications are you on?” In fact, I’m not on anything but Vitamin D3 tablets when I remember to take them. That’s it.
Maybe what I need is a medication that will help my memory so I can remember to take the other medications? Or I could get what my mom had which helped her after she’d been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and couldn’t remember from one day to the next if she’d taken her meds. We got her this wonderful device, which was a kind of alarm clock that held each day’s worth of meds. It would ring and open up right at the time she was to take the pills, like once every 8 hours. This worked like a charm. I wish now that I’d kept it when she went into the nursing facility and no longer needed it.
One of my dear friends who is suffering from MS has found a medical doctor who also dispenses Chinese herbs. She’s been working with this fellow and has found a new “core of energy” and is encouraging me to seek him out to see if maybe he can be of help in my situation. I’m willing to try.
Meanwhile, even though it seems not much has been happening in the studio, since I last wrote I finished making the platters, which are now ready to be bisqued. I also glazed the last few vessels and have to admit I’m very happy with the outcome.
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| Pinch pot with Koke Blue Glaze |
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| Pinch pot with Textured Bronze Glaze |
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| Thrown and altered vessel with Textured Bronze Glaze |
I even sold an older 2D piece off the mantle of our living room to a good friend on whose wall it looks spectacular, if I do say so myself. Unfortunately, the frame took a beating (inadvertently dropped awhile back while being dusted) so I had to search out a new framer, my old trusted framer, Chris of Design Framing, having retired. I delivered it into the newly trusted hands of Heather Piazza, owner of Creative Framing & Gallery in Oakland – what a find! She’s not only going to be able to save the frame, but she’s actually taking the whole thing apart and redoing it so the piece once again floats rather than being shoved up against the Plexiglas. All done for a very reasonable price. Perfect!
And (with a little smile) I might mention I recently made a deal with my husband’s former business partner who has decided (with my slightly veiled threats of taking it off the office wall where it’s been hanging for probably 15 years) he might want to finally purchase my drawing. With the downturn in business, we mutually agreed that he could buy it in installments. So as of today, I get a little monthly income which will help pay for my monthly studio rent.
Hey, I can say I'm single handedly keep this miserable economy going! Amazing what can be done even when you think (and sometimes feel) you've run out of gas. I guess the answer is – not special pills, not Chinese herbs but . . . OK let’s hear it for . . . TA DA . . .
Naps.
