I love my man. He’s so good to me. He amazes me continually. We’ve been together a little over two years now and I have to hand it to him. Our first date was 2 months after I finished radiation treatment for breast cancer, I had an inch of hair if that, and no breasts. I still have no breasts. And he loves me. I’ve never felt loved by a partner in my life (partly because I didn’t understand love and partly because I frequently had a poor man picker), not like this. He deserved something truly cool for Yule, our anniversary, this year.

Did I mention he’s a bass player? Sexxxxxxyyyyy.

I asked him what he might want on a guitar strap and he sent me three famous guitar logos. I’m so not all about logos but leaves and ferns and nature. But I found a way to make it work. I also asked him for a favorite quote. I was so surprised by the quote, it was quite unexpected but it had great meaning to him.

But just saying it could even make it happen.

~ Kate Bush

How cool is that??  Such a deep and meaningful choice. I love this man. He’s so honest, he’s so there, he’s so kind, and oh so beautiful.

And suddenly I knew what to do. This is my first experience doing pyrography on leather but it won’t be my last. Enjoy!

These two images go on either side of the sunburst shown in sketch below.

34 years ago I had to make a very hard decision. I was married and, within a month, pregnant. My husband was an alcoholic. I knew that raising my son either in that chaos or by myself with no skills and poverty being a sure thing were not options for what dreams I had for my son. So, even though married, I gave my son up to a family who I knew would raise him to be a man and that, if we were really lucky, that they and he would have a good time doing it.

He was born the day after the Winter Solstice and he’s always been a rising golden son to me. Even though I never saw him again after his third day of life. I grieved the loss as though it were permanent. I am also adopted (part of why I felt it was a good decision, my adopted parents were and are fabulous) and so I expected that was that. I thought of him all the time. I cried. My grief subsided over the years because I eventually stuffed my feelings as deep as I could so I could move on with my life but I still thought of him often and still have my regrets.

Last May 2015, I got a message in LinkedIn from a stranger. The only reason my LinkedIn account was turned on was because I was laid off from my job and looking for work. His photo was tiny and the letter respectful and it contained his birth date. I looked at that photo so hard my eyes couldn’t focus but I could have sworn this boy looked just like me, twins even. Further photos bore this out, we were twins until puberty hit. I clearly see how that lay off turned into my own personal miracle. My baby boy was a grown man and he wanted to meet me, know me, be my son. And I’m Mom.

I still get extremely emotional over this for so many reasons that are just too personal to state here but one of them is gratitude.

We’ve spent some lovely times together since then (we met 2 weeks later) but they live in another city and we don’t see as much of each other as I would like but we do try to make the times we get together memorable. We’ll meet next at Norwescon.

It’s astonishing how much we have in common and none of them have anything to do with how we were raised. We both hate peas, like to design houses (his are modern, mine are cob/round), and we love watching back to the earth how to videos on YouTube, which we did on my big screen last Christmas. And we yakked through them all, discussing what the guy was doing and basically completely geeking out. It was AWESOME. We’re both in the IT work world. Who knew that kind of stuff was GENETIC?

For his birthday I wanted to give him something very special. The photo above is of my son and his wife and their son (yes! I’m Grandma too!! and I adore his wife, we are all just so well suited to each other, how can you not love a woman who goes around in public with a dinosaur bike helmet???) walking down a crowded street. Aside from the cars and signs and buildings I felt this photo to be so poignant. I brought it up on my laptop, placed a plain sheet of paper over it and traced the three of them.  Did you know you can use your monitor like a giant light box?

After we had eaten dinner, I told him there was a present on the wall that you see when you walk into my home and to go find it. And I heard him gasp. Best response ever. I love him so. I wanted him to feel loved every time he sees it.

What follows are a few photos as I moved through the process from photo to pencil design to transfer to wood burning and coloring. Please enjoy!

P.S.  I’m the birch tree in the close distance and that is a sun RISE.

On this day last year I checked myself into Harborview Emergency  (the worst place I could have chosen, all the wackos go here when they have no insurance) so I wouldn’t kill myself. This is one of the reasons I wasn’t posting. I had to get some distance before I could even talk about it. I’d been gradually more and more suicidal and depressed the year after my cancer treatment. Meds weren’t working. I called first, asked if I should go home first and get pj’s and toothbrush and they said, oh no, we’ve got everything you need. You just come in, we’ll get you a room, get you cozy, and take care of everything.

They sedated me, strapped my hands and feet to a gurney in a busy hallway for 5 hours and then after another 5 more hours in the ward and a talk with a doctor they sent me home. They had lots of chairs in the special psych emergency ward where I could have quietly sat and read for those five hours but if there is no bed, you get a gurney until there is a bed. The beds are all in rooms with doors so the other weirdos can’t bother you. One guy stood just outside my door until they shooed him away. It was a horror show. It was clear I wasn’t as around the bend compared to some folks there. The doctor’s advice? “Usually after a couple hours here, most folks feel just fine and just want to go home.”

Once you tell them you feel suicidal you lose ALL your rights IMMEDIATELY and COMPLETELY and not even a lawyer can get you out. Trust me. I called. You’re in until they say you’re out. This is how they treat a breast cancer patient with PTSD.

My one triumph was that I was able to get one hand out of the straps and use my cell phone and hide my head under the blanket. Some triumph huh? Pathetic. At the time it was as good a fuck you as I could come up with.

And I guess I was glad I didn’t have a pineapple growing out of my lady parts. Must have been Pinterest. I spent a couple years on Pinterest. The first year I was so drugged out it was all, “oooh pretty, pin.” over and over and over again.  or “oooh funny” or “oooh I wish my life was that pretty”

These are the photos I found a year ago on the day that this event happened. For your enjoyment. I mean who wouldn’t want a pineapple coming out of their butt?

P.S. It’s taken all 2 years post treatment to get to a place where I call someone when I feel the spiral down into hell begin. And I get home and smoke some medical marijuana, it takes the suicidal thought jag away immediately. I don’t know what I’d have done without Casey. Why he stuck with me through all this crap still blows me away.

A subject near and dear to my heart, I’m working on a 9 x 12 panel piece. I’m really excited how it’s turning out. I can’t show it all just yet, it’s a present, but here are some close ups that hopefully won’t give it away, at least not too much. Lots of love and protection and prosperity magic going into this large stealth charm.

The first photo below is a TRIP. Those lines don’t exist on that mirror in ANY way. They simply aren’t there when I look with my eyes and feel with my fingers. What is that all about?

Cosy home alone. I couldn’t move if I tried. Happy after a lovely family reunion weekend. Dozing by the fire trying to re-read “The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.”  zzzz what?

So tired. Good tired.