So lest you be bummed by the title of this post, let me commence by saying that it is titled after a Belle and Sebastian song which for me calls to mind the odd empty fullness that only Summer can have. My own Summer was absolutely rife with that confusion; it was both a total failure and a total success. What I meant to do was left undone, and what did arrive was full of void. This may sound bad, but it wasn’t entirely so.
“What on earth does she mean?”, you must be wondering. Beginning sometime in April, my grandmother began having serious health issues which sent her to the hospital numerous times. It was a fearful, fretful time, only assuaged when she finally ended up in a rehabilitation facility with round-the-clock care. Assuaged on the matter of her stability of health, I should say, for it also began a time of isolation for my grandfather. For the majority of their lives, my grandparents have lived with family–their own parents, their children, their children’s friends, their grandchildren (me and my brother). More factually, we have all lived with them. They have generously opened their home to us all, they have helped to support and raise and care for all of us. When my grandmother’s 52 days worth of time in the “home” as we all half-jokingly call it, began, it meant that my grandfather was alone more than he likely ever has been. And it was not good. Without getting even more personal, things were very difficult in the family this Summer. A lot of life was uncertain.
When life is uncertain, it also becomes more precious. So there were days which were frightful and days which were lovely and loving. My productivity, however, was mostly shot.
Avocado blossoms in my grandparents' yard, some orchids in the background.
At a point when things looked relatively stable, I finally decided to act upon a professional development grant which NWSA gave me: the plan had been to go to a printmaking workshop in South Dakota, but I had been putting off the nitty-gritty of the details because of the great uncertainty in my family. Ultimately, I didn’t want to lose the opportunity, so I arranged travel at the last minute and dashed off to the wilds of the center of the country.
I had never been to South Dakota before, and honestly, I was somewhat wary of it due to their politics concerning reproductive freedom–a matter of principle; I often tell myself that I won’t spend money in this or that anti-choice state, but rarely have to put it to the test. It’s likely why I chose to fly into Sioux Falls, SD rather than Rapid City, Iowa–if I was going to spend money in that state at all, perhaps I could mitigate it by spending it in the more liberal cities (the only abortion provider in the whole of South Dakota is in Sioux Falls). Hm. In any case: Vermillion, South Dakota! They have annual flowers! All manner of evergreens! Cottonwood trees! And a big floody river. Which I somehow did not see. I was staying in the dorms, though and there were many people staying there who had been flooded out of their homes, as well as National Guard types who had been assigned there because of the flood.
The workshops were run by Frogman’s Press at the University of South Dakota. I don’t think I’ve ever been around so many printmakers. It was gloriously nerdy. And filled with many printmaking jokes! Which usually no-one around me gets, so I was thrilled to laugh at jokes about chemicals, or OCD behaviors, or gloves or any other other dork thing we could think of. What I refer to as the center of the country (versus the Caribbean portion of the country, where I live) has a huge print culture. It was quite foreign to me. I felt like a rube from the boonies.
The workshops were intense: 9 – 5, with about a two hour break in the middle for presentations and lunch, but you know litho (maybe some of you do? I hope?)–it’s extra intense. Our first day had us in demos until 6:30, because: litho. There was a lot of standing on concrete slab floors, which played havoc on us olds and our knees and legs. Even so, I walked all over. I had to buy extra insoles, to put on top of my Birkenstock insoles, that’s how serious it was. I loved looking at the plants and the architecture; it’s so very different from Miami. I even saw rabbits just hopping about.
To be honest, I was a little shell shocked from all the family goings-on back in Miami, so I wasn’t in a very social mode. I mostly kept to myself for the first four days, after class hours, and that was wonderful too. I needed to be alone–I’m one of those types, introverts, who recharge when alone, and in my normal daily life, I don’t have much alone-time at all. So I devoured my solitude, slurped it up greedily, reveled and luxuriated in it. And it was healing for me. I need a sense of the empty (potent! awesome! vast! amazing!) void (space, solitude, silence, potential) of life to make me want to engage in the business of life. Recharged, I met wonderful people: fascinating, dedicated printmakers from all over. They inspired me with their knowledge, their efforts and their quirkiness. It was good.
A fake litho stone I made out of paper for a costume contest; I was Käthe(leen) Kollwitz.
I wrapped a visit to my Dad up into this voyage, so after South Dakota, I went to Montana, which seemed to be about the only cool (cold, even!) place around this Summer. I did a lot of outdoorsy things, including Yellowstone, a fly-fishing lesson, white-water rafting, and hanging out in a 1914 Forest Service cabin. I had a good visit with my Dad and step-mother, met a bunch of their friends, sketched the mountains and read a lot.
A morning view from the back porch in Big Sky, Montana
After the emotional intensity of what was happening with my family in Miami, solitude, hard work, print-geekery immersion, long walks, outdoorsiness, and reading managed to make me feel whole and energized again. There was a lot I didn’t do, a lot I couldn’t do, but what I did do was worthwhile and necessary.
This view of the 1914 Forest Service Cabin shows a room jutting out which used to have river water piped directly into it to keep food cold.
My grandmother is back home now, and is mostly okay. We had many family birthday celebrations, and a gathering for my grandparents’ 63rd wedding anniversary. I don’t know whether or not they’ll still be living in the same house in which I was raised, come December. I don’t know whether their health will hold out. Many things are still uncertain, but at least I spent a summer wasting, a summer healing.