Latest paintings

 It has certainly been a long time since I posted anything............I think lethargy has overtaken me over the months, turning to a couple of years, that I have been basically housebound waiting to have hip replacement surgery.  My days are boring, though not unpleasant exactly.  Nevertheless, the days are boring in terms of activity worth writing about. (Although when did I need activity to write?)  Anyway, I am stuck in my routines, which are very limited and boring,  Lately I've been trying to find different housing again.  I simply can not afford this house and need to move into some assisted living kind of place where you pay depending on your income.  I have applied to three different places, but these things move very slowly and I wait.

Thinking about moving inspired me for awhile to move back to Bangor, where I lived most of my life.  I have since changed my mind, although I let my application to Capehart, a low income community, remain.  I have also applied to three places here in Eastport.  The wheels of bureaucracy (sp?) turn very slowly and I have heard nothing one way or the other.  During the weeks I was planning to move to Bangor I began a series of paintings of my surroundings here in Eastport to remember my life here.  Probably I won't need reminding now, and have only to look out the window.

Anyway, I am thankfully happy enough in my isolation (due to my hip, my lack of a car, and the relatively small number of friends I have here).  I have always liked being alone, and I have my dog and cat for company.  They are much more agreeable than people anyway and I enjoy my solitary life while I wait for surgery (if only I had the money to pay for more heat).  Actually even that is no longer a problem because one of my long-time affluent friends has offered to pay for my heat for a few months, and another friend who recently died at the age of 96 left her car to me.  It's a wonderful car...she was quite wealthy (and a famous scientist) and the car is really wonderful.  I can drive despite my hip (walking is my problem and I have to use a walker or two canes), so I can now get to the grocery store and my various doctors without bothering others to take me.

So life goes on in a diminished kind of way and I am content.

 This is the view I have as I'm having my breakfast. ( or any meal that I eat at the table, which is rare).  I have only to look at it and I feel lucky to be in such a place.  That is the Atlantic Ocean, the Bay of Fundy, which looks far away in the photo but is actually just down the hill.  I can walk there in three or four minutes.  The land in the background is Canada.  At the bottom of the street is a rocky cliff, impossible  to climb unless you sneak into the yard of the people (summer people) who  own  the last house on the street and have a long, steep set of stairs decorated with  "No Trespassing " signs.  Those people are rarely there, but the signs indicate that the place is booby trapped with alarms.  I imagine that the local police wouldn't bother to investigate if they were triggered, but I don't dare take the chance.  If it weren't for using a walker as I do I could climb down the cliff about twenty feet away.  I used to do it and hopefully will again.  The pebbly beach is  fairly narrow at high tide, but very wide when the tide is out  Eastport has some of the highest tides in the world.  The downtown has a huge wharf where cargo ships used to come in,   Old msotly abandoned factories line the waterfront just behind the downtown.  Lobster, Cod, and other sea creatures were the lifeblood of the town.  Even after I moved here there used to be cargo ships coming in, dwarfing the three and four story buildings along the waterfront.  Now the downtown is pretty shabby, trying to be a tourist attraction with boat excursions and various other tourist stuff, but Eastport is too far away from the mainland to attract most tourists, especially since there are no attractions either here of for hundreds of miles around.  If you aren't on your way to Canada, you don't come near Eastport........and even if you do  you would have to make an unrewarding seven mile detour through the reservation and beyond.

Well I didn't mean to go on about the town, but I do love it here.  My mind now is full of my various health issues.......not that I am nervous about them for that reason,  The huge problem facing me is getting doctors and dentists to do the things that are required before I can have surgery to replace my hip.  For over two years I have been trying to work out the logistics and trying to find dentists and doctors who will treat poor people such as I am.  Finally there seems to be some progress with a couple of things......

Well, that issue is tedious and since I began this post I have been to lunch with two friends, visited Diana in preparation for tomorrow's trip to the Dentist in Bangor, and given Elliot his supper.  One more step toward my fitness for surgery is to pull three teeth, which will happen Monday.

 It's been so long since I posted anything I know nothing about the changes to Blogger, but I will soldier on as long as I know how to click the "post" icon.  I haven't known how to post comments, either, so even though I have been reading the posts I follow I haven't commented on them.  My biggest joy was to find out that my blog friend in Michigan did not re-home her dog, as she was considering when she left the west.  I fairly leapt for joy when I read that the dog moved with her and her husband after all.  Not only that, but the dog is adjusting to his new environment reasonably well.  I'm sure he is much happier being with those he loves than he would have had he had to adjust to a new family.

As, for me, nothing has really changed other than the weather.  Maine is like two different countries, changing drastically from hot to cold and back again.  Because Eastport is an island, the water moderates the temperature.....that gigantic puddle called the Atlantic ocean.  It's like living on two different planets. It's not as hot as it is inland in the summer, and not as cold in the winter.  I once had a huge Chrysler (SP??) that had a thermometer above the dashboard.  As I turned off route one to take the causeway to Eastport I could watch the temperature drop by 8 0r 10 degrees as I passed through the Passamaquoddy reservation and on to Eastport.  For me, who really hates heat, it was a very welcome sight.  The water temperature is much too cold to swim, though every January there is a "Polar Dip" on the reservation.  Many people from town participate as well (basically people under thirty), stripping to bathing suits in temperatures hovering well below freezing (sometimes as cold as 0 or less).  There are ambulances standing by and medics to tend to the people who underestimate their tolerance for cold.  At the signal the crowd races into the water, splashes around for a minute or two, and then races back to the rocky shore.  The spectators applaud and yell encouragement. The faint of heart who stand on the shore wrap the swimmers in blankets (if they can still stand).  Ambulance drivers sometimes have to assist.  Once in awhile someone has to be taken into the ambulance., rarely to the hospital.  Meanwhile we spectators applaud and cheer.  It is a yearly ritual that is a rare friendly event that includes both the reservation people and the people who live in the town.

When I first moved to Eastport I was shocked by the prejudice against the Passamaquoddy tribe.  The longer I live here, the more amazed I am by it.  It is humanity at its worst, the details of which I wont bother to describe.  As people "from away" move here in greater numbers, I like to think that there will be a shift, but I see little evidence of it at this point.  Before I saw it for myself I would never have believed how much bad feeling there is between the native Americans and the whites.  We are accustomed to the terrible state of our relationship with the Black population, but our attitude toward native Americans is, if anything, even worse.  

Well, I don't want to belabor that point.  I am not a crusader.  I only look on in horror.

I am still waiting for my surgery, so I hobble around with my walker.  It's been two years (sigh).

All my news, such as it is.......

 

Well, it's been awhile since I wrote and I can't really say why.  Actually I have been doing nothing but painting and reading...mostly painting.  I gave up on Watercolor despite my fast fleeting interest and took up pastel again.  I was inspired by my monthly magazine, Pastel Journal.  It's something I return to over and over again, though I guess I return to every medium sooner or later.  I can't say why, other than thinking I will be better at something other than what I'm doing.  My enthusiasm is always temporary, though and I flit from one medium to another, always thinking I will be better at something other than what I'm doing.  

I have produced about ten new paintings over the last few weeks.  My studio is covered with pastel dust, as well as my clothes, my hands, the floor of my studio, and my dog.  As is always the case when I switch mediums my enthusiasm soars with each change.  I am partly convinced that it is the change I crave,  I am a person who constantly moves furniture, basking in the newness of where I sit in the living room, where I read, where I sleep, where I eat, what I eat.  My useless hip has not prevented me from tackling any piece of furniture (except the piano).  I seem to bask in the new arrangement for a few months, then start planning how things could be different (and better).  A few items are very hard to move, especially for one five-foot tall 76 year old woman using a walker, but it doesn't even cross my mind to leave well enough alone, or ask for help.  The TV is the worst thing.  I can't begin to lift it, so I line various pieces of furniture up between where it is and where I want it.   Then I transfer it one end, then the other, risking disaster the whole way. The couch is a huge thing, too, and don't even ask about bookcases.  Even the birdcage is not exempt, even the room where the birds live.  Right now they are in the living room having spent the last year or so in various places in my dining room-office. I have also recently moved every piece of furniture in my bedroom: bed, nightstand, two large chests of drawers, rug, two chairs.  The studio, of course is subject to continuous re-arrangement, about every week.

Well, so much for my wanderlust within this house.  I have begun to think about moving again. It seems to be the only thing I can do.  I simply do not have enough money to stay in this house.  The latest disaster involves my car repair.  I left it  at the garage in November, since I can't drive anyway.  It has been repaired now to the tune of 1700. dollars.  There is no way for me to pay that.  I only paid a thousand dollars for it, and I borrowed that from my brother.  If I move to Boynton Manor (a home for the old, poor, and decrepit)in the downtown area). Rent is based on income with all utilities included.  I will have very few of the expenses I have here....rent, heat, water, trash, plowing in the winter, etc. In fact, I haven't paid my rent for months, taking advantage of my SO WHAT? landlady who loves me.  She won't forgive me forever.  I was accepted at Boynton Manor a couple of years ago, but I decided I just couldn't leave here.  I love my house and its view of the ocean.  I will have two rooms and a bath, with a kitchen area off the living room.  The place is very nice, but so small compared with my spacious three bedroom house.

Well, I guess I caught up with the time I have spent since my last entry.  Missing is of course my troubles over getting my hip replaced.  I can't afford the several medical pre-requisites (dentistry among them) so it hasn't been scheduled.  It's been almost two years since my first surgery was planned.  Well, it's the least of my problems, I guess.  Luckily I roll with the punches.

I'll post a few of the pastel paintings I've done lately.  These are fairly big, 18 by 24 I think......all Eastport scenes.