Wakeful Nights

Something's going on internally and I don't know what. I wake way too early with my jaw hurting from clenching.  I spend the day in a fog that doesn't clear until mid afternoon often feeling like I'm in another room distant from reality. 

One 4:30 am 'wakeup' I decide to change my attitude and see this as an opportunity instead of bemoaning the lack of sleep and the effects it'll have on my day.  As I lay there waves of euphoria wash over me and I feel so lucky to live the life I live.

I figure since I'm awake anyway I may as well meditate, even though it's challenging to do so lying down. I don't want to risk getting up in case that illusive sleep state returns to envelope me....in case.

An hour of meditation passes. Darkness, slowly melting, reveals the outline of trees and plants outside my window.  And then accompanying the emerging light, new ideas expose themselves. 

Bodhi Leaf with Dangles

I 'see' a double helix in the form of a dragons with a Kuan Yin emerging out of them. I tap out the idea on my bedside iPod.  About fifteen minutes later I see our Bodhi leaf earrings now with dangling beads inside. Again the iPod receives the idea.

Maybe staying awake isn't so bad after all!  Maybe the attitude change freed up some energy, formerly held hostage by resistance, to allow creativity to spring forth.

A few days later, with the use of Photoshop and my office manager,  I quickly get the new design ready for our carvers. I can't wait to make a pair for myself!

Moments

While I was in California, I stayed over night with my friends, Judy and Jerry.  I had an unusually deep restful sleep on the upper floor of their art filled house in country. The   delightful room was filled with their six year old grand daughter's, Sophia's, toys.  I was especially intrigued with a carousel of scissors, that each cut a different pattern such as scallops, jagged spikes, or waves. I thought, "What a lucky child," knowing how adored she is as well as having creative tools at her disposal.

The next night Sophia stayed the night and slept in her room in the bed I'd slept in.  

Ever since she could express herself, Sophia has said she wants to be a dentist. In the morning Judy, by chance, asked her if she still wanted to be a dentist but she said, "No, I want to be a carver and an artist!"

No one in the house thinks Sophia knows what I do for a living - that I'm an artist and that I design carvings to put into my jewelry.  How did this happen?  Is she psychic? Are young children connected to a form of communication we've lost as adults?  

Whatever the answer, these magical life moments thrill me and I sense are connected to the conduit of creativity and staying present.

Thank you, Sophia.

There's Magic A Brewing

I haven’t written for a few months. Life got a hold of me and off we jetted to my annual exhibitions at the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show, the largest trade show of it’s kind in the world. There are over forty venues all happening at once in this hopping University town. 

"Lightness of Being"

Crazily I do two shows concurrently and it is only with the help of dear friends that it’s possible. Kirsten Long, former ballerina with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet Company, is my ace sales woman. Alan Spence, our chief engineer, charms clients into buying when he isn’t fixing something or couriering carvings between shows. Our happy customers tell me what lovely people I have working the booths. 

Tucson is exhausting and exhilarating all at once. I resupply as well as sell my existing work and take orders. It’s a two-week thrill of hard work punctuated with kudos for our quality and creativity that lets me know I’m on the right path and motivates me to continue pushing the creative limits. 

In this international circus I buy mammoth tusk and jet from Russian traders, beads from Indians, Chinese, Afghanis, American’s and Pakistanis.  I sell my pieces to people from all those places in addition to England, Mexico, Argentina, Ecuador, Japan, and Europe. 

When I’m not in the booth, I’m hunting for new components to add to our line, like Gary Wilson’s small half geodes, just right to bead or embellish with carved mammoth components. I’d discovered them in 2012 and strung an amethyst geode with flat lavender pearls and sterling silver disks. After wearing it a few times before the show I grew quite attached to it, but it sold the first day. I regretted it immediately. 

"Lavender Lush"

When I went to Gary’s booth for more geodes I inquired if there were any similar to the one I’d sold. After a look through the trays it seemed a lost cause. I picked out several others to be held until the next day. 

Gary was available when I arrived the last day of the show. “I bought an amethyst piece last year that I loved. Do you have any others?” Gary searched but also came up empty handed and I figured if the owner of the booth can’t find it, it must not exist. 

I pawed through his booth looking for new ideas when his sales woman said, “Oh here are some trays that haven’t been put out yet,” and there catching the light was the other half of the piece I’d purchased the year before.

“I can’t believe it’s here!” I exclaimed, tickled to have found it, “I’m keeping this one for me!” It felt like magic was a brewing just as I’d surrendered to letting this amethyst beauty go.  

If you want to check out Gary's work:  

http://www.garywilsonstones.com

Would some one out there please post a comment? I need to check that the comments section works.

Confluence of Ideas

I’ve just returned from a trip to Luang Prabang, Laos where the peace is palpable, the food delicious, and the scenery lush and exotic with the mighty Mekong River merging with the smaller Nam Khan at the end of the peninsula. This was my fourth trip to this World Heritage town.

Temple Door Decoration

As always I photograph ideas where ever I go finding earring designs in temple decorations, necklace ideas in store fronts, and painting visions in my dreams.  Other artists creations get my juices flowing and idea sketches flavor the pages of my notebook.  

Ken, an American, who has lived in Luang Prabang for over five years, was a novice in a monastery for a year. Now he makes spirit houses out of found and created objects.  These have a life of their own, or taksu as we say in Indonesian.

I brought one of his creations back to Bali, carefully packed in a handmade paper box. I call it ‘The House of Smiling Spirits’ because it makes me smile whenever I gaze at it.

Ken Yarbro's Spirit House

Creativity is where ever you find it - in the swirl of a glazed ceramic tile, a plaster bas relief decoration over a doorway, a cloud cluster, a reflection. 

As the composer Richard Wagner said, "I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired."   

These vibrations are loud and strong in Luang Prabang, Laos.  

Second Endings

I wrote at the end of April that I’d finished the memoir I’d been working on about my husband’s and my life in Bali and traveling the land of Alzheimer’s. I felt empty and really missed the writing challenge and wondered what would come next.

Well, it turned out not to be finished! I met an extraordinary woman, Vicki Lein, a vivacious writer of songs and books who volunteered to read ‘Piece by Piece’. She had brilliant ideas of what needed to be cut and what needed to be expanded on. And I was thrilled to do the work as she stoked the fire of creativity.

Now I’ve finished the third draft and instead of feeling empty as I did in the Spring, I am excited to have time to pursue other writing avenues, including my new blog called 'Alz World' (www.alzworld-susantereba.blogspot.com). These are stories and discoveries along the Alzheimer trail that I hope will inspire other caregivers of loved ones with this terrible disease.

If you want to be inspired by Vicki, check out her web site:

    http://www.outrageousvisions.com

And as always, the creative process includes new designs for “World on a String’ and gearing up for the shows in Tucson the first two weeks of February. Life is ever full and abundant and I feel such gratitude for that. 

What do you feel grateful for? 

Dream Time

Whatever you can do or dream you can

Begin it!

Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

                                                                                              -Goethe 

The 2012 Ubud Reader's and Writer's Festival has come and gone. The individual writers, the panels, and the influx of ideas from all over the world were inspirational or thought provoking or both. 

At the 2007 festival, a writer said, "If you want to write, get published anyway you can." He lit a fire. For years I'd dreamed to do a cookbook with one page in English and the facing page in Indonesian. Within a month this writer's words moved me to start 'Food Glorious Food', a recipe column in the Bali Advertiser. I view the column as my dream cookbook - two recipes a month.  

And now at this year's event bloggers stirred my inspiration to start a blog based on twelve years experiences as a caregiver for my husband with Alzheimer's Disease. I've been thinking of doing this for a couple of years but questioned if I had anything to add to the very good blogs already on the web. 

This is another creative outlet plus we caregivers need to read each others stories. It's my hope that 'Alz World' will give added support.

You can check it out at: 

http://alzworld-susantereba.blogspot.com

Driven to create and live my dreams, I hope others will be inspired to live theirs. 

Benediction

I've just returned from the States. It was my first time there in many years during the last-of-peach-season-warmth.  I usually go in the winter for the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show. This time I luxuriated in copious amounts of nectarines, plucots, figs and, of course run-down-your-arm juicy ripe peaches. These are the things I miss living in Bali.

I went to attend a wedding, and because it was still warm, to empty my storage trailer- too cold to deal with in winter. It was time to face what I'd been dreading - the deconstruction of my old life with my soul mate, Bob, now living deep in the state of Alzheimer's Disease.

I knew for years that he would never use the three generations of tools stored there, or wear the packed away clothes, or admire my art work that used to mystify him. "How do you come up with these images?" Mr. Plain Vanilla would query with each new painting.

For years I avoided dealing with the inevitable pain that would come with this clearing out. It had niggled at the back of my mind until finally the emotional weight of the objects contained in the trailer tipped the balance and wouldn't leave me in peace.

Found buried in my art drawers were colored pencil drawings that were clearly mine but strangely I had no recollection creating them. Nestled in the pages of their notebook was a card from Bob written in Malaysia in the early 90's.  It said, "I love you and our life together. I'll follow you to islands and places till I drop in my tracks. When I do drop, please don't stop traveling your path. I'm enjoying finding my path, growth, awakening with you. Love, Bob."

It felt like this card was a blessing to move on, to dissolve the old life, knowing the memories of the love we shared would always remain. That love inspires me to do my best to make his life lived behind the curtain of Alzheimer's as comfortable as possible and now with this treasured benediction to sashay down my own path opening to new possibilities.