life imitating art.
the fun things and the diver.
Is it “life imitates art” or “art imitates life”?
A simple Google search would answer, but when’s the last time I let my unintelligence flap out in the open like this? The answer (to the original question) really depends on whether you think art proceeds life or life proceeds art and whose life we’re talking about.
Living what feels like a perpetually young and naive life, I think art precedes me. I must be imitating it. Actually, I know I am. I’m looking to art to learn how to live. And I notice the imitations more when my life is at a pause, like it is now from my big accident in the mountains.
In recovery after my accident, in my bed or in my recliner, I read A Marriage at Sea. Being injured and less mobile in your body as you’d like to be and reading a book about a shipwrecked couple lost at sea is a choice. Being injured or sick or disabled in some way is so isolating. Reading about severe isolation might not be the right move while within this specific isolation.
Without spoiling anything, there are a few sections about how bad the shipwrecked man smelled. His skin was rotting from wounds from sitting on a rubber raft for so long. I sniffed as I read. I—an unshowered patient—was starting to not smell so great, either.
I had huge wounds on either hip from my accident. I had debridement surgery on both hips and my shoulder, where they put this synthetic layer of skin all all the wounds. Because of my wounds, I couldn’t really shower or bathe, because I wasn’t supposed to get those spots wet. I was pretty sedentary for the first two weeks after my accident and I wasn’t really showering, and my body was producing some wild smells. As I read about this man’s body smelling really rank, I noticed more and more that something below my waist smelled pretty horrid. I’m not going to lie to you: I assumed it was my vagina. And I also did not care. I blamed it on the meds and the healing process and the unwashing, but when I say “blame,” again, I really didn’t give it much attention. I’m sure the shipwrecked man didn’t care that he smelled bad. He had other survival problems to worry about. I felt the same way.
A couple days after I noticed the smell, Evan said we should change the dressings of my wounds. (side note: if you’re really going to mess yourself up, I cannot recommend a nurse husband enough.) As he undid the bandages on my right hip, where the deepest wound was, my stomach dropped as the smell hit me. It was my wound that was smelling. Not my lady bits.
I panicked, thinking it must be horribly infected. I remembered back to A Marriage At Sea. Of course the smell, the infection, WAS the scariest part. It’s a sign that something is terribly, terribly wrong. Even if the husband didn’t care about the smell, the wife on board with him, must’ve smelled the bad smell and felt it was the smell of death trying to take over. I started to breathe quicker, scared.
“Oh my god, this can’t be good. I thought something smelled horrible, but I just assumed it was my vagina!” I admitted to Evan.
“First of all,” he said calmly, “I think it might be okay. It seems like it’s just dried drainage that smells bad. Secondly, why wouldn’t you tell me if you thought your vagina smelled this bad??? Something would probably be very wrong with you, if your vagina smelled like this.”
I guess I didn’t share, because HOW MUCH HUMILIATION CAN ONE HUMAN TAKE. This is a recent photo of me trying to get ready for a shower:
It’s like a Highlights search and find photo. Can you find the estrogen patches? The hospital-gifted soaps. The dry shampoo? The husband-bought lotion? The face wash from TJ Maxx? The plastic wrap for covering the wounds? The shower chair that has yet to be moved into the tub? The tiny glimmer of hope in the injured perimenopausal woman’s eye? Find ‘em all!
But my husband/my partner/my caretaker/my nurse/my friend and I laughed, together, at it all. And then Evan got medical tweezers and we took turns carefully peeling off the rancid-smelling dried strips of yellow drainage that had been trapped in my dressing. After that, the smell was gone. It was an uninfected wound. I was going to be okay.
But, yeah, no, I did also have a UTI.
I keep thinking about how when I almost died, some of my last words could’ve been, “I want to do the fun thing!” It’s too on-the-nose of a way I would die. I used to joke with a friend of mine who is in recovery for drugs and alcohol that if we would’ve been friends during both of our hey-days, I would’ve ended up dead in a very fun ditch… likely covered in confetti, margarita salt, and fun drugs. I’ve never done cocaine. I think I would’ve liked it too much. In the mountains, in much of life, I think I’ve been looking for the cocaine-high of adventure and opportunity. “I want to do the fun thing!” is a proclamation of someone about to get in a lot of trouble. It’s not what people say before they buy a house or contribute to their 401k.
Katherine Bradford had a show in Jackson and my heart leapt at the opportunity to meet her. To me, her art represents the fun things of life. I was so disappointed that her flight was cancelled and she wasn’t able to make the opening, but I was still happy to see her work in person.
Her son was at the show. I talked to him a bit and asked what it was like having a prolific artist as a mother.
“She was just our mom. She wasn’t known for her art at all while we were growing up. She only got a little famous about 15 years ago.”
Katherine Bradford is 87 now. She started doing art full-time in her late 30s.
After the show, I was talking about Bradford’s art with a friend and wanted to show them what her art looked like. After a search, this one painting reached out and hit me like a ton of bricks. I saw it and said, “That’s me. That’s my life. That’s what I do.”
The painting is called New Diver. And there are 30 different New Divers in the series.
I feel that suspension of the jump so heavily. It’s the moment right after deciding to do the fun thing. The woman, the diver, has so much farther up she should be going, before turning her body into a dive position. She seems to have jumped with no plan to dive. And yet, she is “The Diver.” She’ll get there. She’s doing it. She’s diving. Even if it doesn’t quite seem like it yet.
Quick Hits:
Jam Of The Week: James Ellis Ford – The Ever After.
(I stumbled upon this song in the best way. it feels like an undercurrent with the exact rhythm I need right now. James Ellis Ford made this song from a hospital bed, where he’s getting treated for a blood cancer. “It might seem a little odd to be trying to write dance music from a hospital bed,” says James Ellis Ford, “but I was trying to lift my mood and focus on the positive things in my life. In that moment my mind went to my little 8-year-old boy Frank and the power he has to bring joy into the world and point the way to a better future.”)Anyone Else Disappointed By This Article?
(as someone who is almost a year sober, I do really miss a lot of the community/intimate drinking culture—margaritas with friends, sneaking out for a nightcap with Evan, splitting a bottle of wine at a restaurant. but this article didn’t really hit on all that. it just talked about a loneliness epidemic and lemme tell you, I feel so much less lonely when I’m not drinking myself silly.)Last Chance For Romance On This Sale.
(I’m obsessed with skirts and button-ups these days—for ease, but also I love a creative assignment with guardrails. wanting this skirt and this top.)Excited To Burn Through This Book.
(I love when I forget and then remember about a pre-order.)This Is So Important.
(I learned later in life how beautiful and important it is to be able to admit when you’re wrong and to try and surround yourself with people who do the same.)I Had A Gorgeous Reading With This Gorgeous Human Today.
(I highly recommend, if you’re into that sorta thing.)Buckle Up For Your August Horoscope.
(what’s your 8/8 Tarot pull? I KEEP on pulling the 8 of Pentacles!)Please Don’t Let This Movie Suck.
(is it too much to ask?)GREEN DRESS UPDATE.
(have you heard of Nuuly?? my therapist recommended it after I told her a green dress became my white whale. I’m likely going with this dress. it feels a little casual, but I like myself best in it.)HA.
Thank you for being here for my overshares and my uncomfortable dives. I appreciate the hell outta you.
xxo,
Rachel.
hahhhah the UTI. I'm sorry though.