So I'm giving it another try. My blogging friend Pamela suggested I add a link to my blog on facebook, which is a great idea as long as I can figure out how to do it. That way I may get more readers back here. In any case, to sum up the interval since my last post, I guess I am here in Eastport to stay. I have searched and searched for a place to live in Bangor without success. I was informed by phone on the day before I was to move that I do not meet the qualifications for residency in the housing development I had planned on. I was all packed, had hired the mover, given my notice to my landlady, etc. Then I received an apologetic call from the housing authority that I didn't qualify to live there after all. After a few days of ranting and raving, I decided to investigate private rentals. For a few weeks I called various landlords (Craig's List is not reliable..full of various types of scams) and set up viewings. I drove to Bangor full of optimism, sure that I could charm reluctant landlords into taking my rent subsidy as part payment. Well, I underestimated the prejudice landlords feel against people who have rent subsidies. I was summarily dismissed as soon as I spilled the beans, no matter how charmingly I presented myself. I returned home in a rage, which I vented by writing a letter to the editor of the Bangor Daily News. It was printed with the headline "prejudice against the poor," and seeing it there soothed me somewhat. I knew it would fall on deaf ears, but it made me feel better.The upshot of all of this is that I realize I have to stay here in Eastport. Once I accepted that, I remembered how much I loved it here. My determination to move had taken on a life of its own. I had lost sight of why I decided to do it in the first place. The thoughts I had about going back centered around recovering the life I had there. I think now that I was just feeling nostalgic, that that life would not magically revive itself. I dreamed of all the things I loved there, my friends, my horseback riding, the Art Society, teaching, my various jobs as a courtroom artist, needlepoint designer, photograph enhancer (in those days that was done by hand with tiny brushes and various kinds of inks), swimming at the Y, and most of all, school. What a great adult student I was! I have worked at so many jobs in my life, one of which was several years as an art teacher. But of all the roles I've had, I loved being a student best. I went back to the University after my marriage ended and would be there still if I could be. As it was I was there for ten years, in my glory, adored by teachers, liked and respected by fellow students of all ages. Big deal in the art community was I, giving speeches, president of the Art Society, member of three galleries Every year I traveled to New York and Massachusetts for art workshops, both as a student and as a teacher. I think I imagined something vaguely similar if I returned.
In any case, this is a different time of my life. By way of bolstering my own ego for what I am today, I'm posting a picture of a large painting I did recently. By way of a relay of three drivers I arranged with an investment counselor I used to make a company Christmas card for to get this painting to Bangor for the annual art show she puts on. The painting is big, 40x40, and it sold at the show for what for me is big bucks. Selling is by far the least of my art ambitions........in fact somehow exchanging art for money discredits the work somehow...........but this time it was enough to help me financially for the ominous coming of winter. I was sorry to see it go, and I can only hope I can appreciate it for what it turned into......cash.
I have just come back from two weeks visiting Jesse and Sabrina in Oregon. They live in Beaverton, a suburb of Portland. This is my favorite picture of many, many pictures I have of the adventure. I am fresh from the experience, and therefore full of new enthusiasm. It's been wonderful to see the northwest, the one part of the country I thought I would never get to see. I was treated like visiting royalty by my family, wined and dined beyond my wildest expectations. We spent every day seeing the sights, visiting historic places, dining in every conceivable type of restaurant, touring museums, historic places, gardens, and monuments. I became familiar with riding streetcars, buses, and trains with nonchalance. I pushed buttons for walk signals, looked both ways crossing tracks, walked across bridges. I stood on moving sidewalks in airports, presented boarding passes, went through security scans. It was all quite wonderful, and, in a word I never thought I'd utter, "awesome."
