Bobbing Along

Over the phone I was told: more tests are needed.

I wasn’t ready for this.

Not ready to face this. Not ready to hear those words. Not ready at all.

My studio is my chapel, my sanctuary…

My work is my psalm, my prayer…

It is in that room, with the tools that are so much an extension of my soul, that I can think.

It is there that I can ponder…

Sorting out the “maybes” and the “what ifs” and the “if nots.”

There is so much to wonder about.

So many wonderings.

I wrote these words in 2001 not long after I finished this painting. I had received a call to schedule a repeat mammogram and spent that evening in the studio, letting my hands work as I sorting out the possibilities. My mother, still very much alive at that time, was a survivor of breast cancer. Her mother had died of the disease. I was quite afraid that I was to be next.

A whole lot has happened since I painted that piece and wrote those words. A whole damn lot. I am almost amused by both my assumptions and my fears. No, I did not have breast cancer. Silly me. Had I only known what issues I would later develop! Yet, here I am. Still here. Still working. Still being a bit silly, too.

I am stronger than I thought and braver than I could ever have imagined. Thank God.