The waterfall / a slightly delirium

 

I came out from underneath this thing / Been sick so long with whatever it was I don't remember clinging to wreckage and yet...here is the now. 

what this was like? The bike you fell off of. The fire burns all the way up to the edge of the forest, and all the trees stand silent like outposts....The inverse of everything real is also true. The rain visits today. Yesterday was a heatwave. Yesterday Bob had been here forever, Now he's gone, the tears come down. Reality sets in. You could see all space and time, There is no one to bump into in the kitchen while regaling that while you make spaghetti, Toast instead. My unconscious mind is a hundred thousand waves of cascading white and pink noise flung against one another until all time as we know it obliterated. Or it could just be interference and clouds. 

OR this is sone new place. The next thing from now. My muse observes from some place off in the distance. We are the right pollinator and flower. We cannot be tasked with springing up for every esoteric need. 

Also...I'm grateful. My brain is so utterly traumatized when I went to 'speak' the way I felt about Bob it came out like a metaphor about having to destroy to begin again. I couldn't;t make anything new until I 'destroyed' what it was, 

I don't know where this new future is headed. I don't know where my head is. 

How does that old song go?

The Embrace

2010

 

Or Not...

 Everyone is hurting, IT cannot be undone. Time is change.a light finger on the betting wheel is wise.

2014. This is the only time I got Bob Drunk enough to dance in public. 

Fall is here. Bob is gone, but he's everywhere, Paul's heirs demanded a death certificate...I don't even have one of my own. I think about them stubbing their toe badly, and laugh while I rise to grab a half-finished margarita that's been lukewarm for hours on a dresser where I fell asleep while finagling my new Marin county vote-by-mail ballot. I meet with a rep for the lawyers office tomorrow. Something helpful, I guess. All the tie in there world, and maybe enough money...

,,,and no one to show it to...anymore. The eternal trade. 

Just point me out of these clouds, if you could, 

There a certain blue velvet quality to what is happening. Almost espionage: I have to go through things to figure out what the heck is going on while other people undermine me to try and find out first. I love games. I hate contests, and this isn't the time to experiment.   

MY brain aches to sleep but can't. Somebody calls on a telephone I don't answer: 

asking me if I did enough...and I don't know if I didn't or not. 

Untitled misery

 I'm tired.

A week that should have held me up brings down to some estate bullshit. Bob would be rolling in his grave. 

I am doing my best to be empathic and meet people's needs and still being tired and wondering if the other side of this is better. Now someone else is going to own 50% of the house I live in.. for doing nothing more than being friends with the abusive prick who was married to my late husband. I just...errr...want to go mad.

Is that ringing in my ear supposed too sound like that?

What the hell is happening? 

People are Trash

 Proof positive that people are fucking scum. Bob has been dead just short of a week. The guy called the morning AFTER bob died-before they'd ever announced it publicly, reminded me at the funeral to 'call him' and now is leaving me multiple voice mails and texts. I don't even have the fucking death certificate and they're trying see how much cash they're getting? Ever loving fuck!

Where are we now / Some other place / Somehow

4 years ago I was gearing up for my first show in 12 years, brimming with creative glue. Now, I'm a widow and scattered and feeling like I just got caned at a British boarding school. The house is empty and my the maw of my mind yawns wide...and then I see this image in my memories...it's weird having your subconscious regurgitated out to you by an algorithm. I'm talking to people. Crying in private and pressing buttons on thins and eating stuff. so many plates to make spin. 

Visual Consensus / 12 x 16 / Mixed Media + Paper

 

Staring at starless Black Skies

I now know why Mollie, Tweed and Nathaniel were constantly searching for Mack, Josquin and Sheldon when their animal friends were gone. Something intrinsic is missing. Things seem dulled, feelings of connection are set adrift. 

I know what you were looking for, and why you couldn't stop looking for it. 

The boat is unmoored. The waters are uncharted. 

"Bob...where are you?" I kept saying out loud to no one today.

"What's happening?" 

"Where am I?" my brain answers. 

Where indeed. 

Spring 2024 / Good Memory

Robert Bruce Gutterman03.29.1952 - 10 .11.2024

thank you for singing with me one last time

 

Cancer / Demons / Music / Updates

Fuck. Bob is back in hospital. Again with a slow onset of vague symptoms. ER today with bloodwork, chest X-rays (showing blood clot in one lung-totally new thing. Oh yay!), Cat Scan(showing changes in mass) and finally an MRI showing clearly a new tumor beneath the old site which supposedly explains the myriad of new symptoms which has sprung up these last few weeks. And 5 hours in the Er. This comes with significant changes in his physical ability. He has facial paralysis and an inability to fully close his left eye, swallow properly. He's at Marin General where doctors are monitoring him closely. 

So much to process. We came home early from a vacation to Bodega Bay on Friday morning. Our first a while. Cancer intercedes with any plans you might think you have. Glad I'm a paranoid nag. The attending MD said thank goodness you got him here when you did. More radiation again. Bob doesn't want surgery again. I don't want that for hi either. I don't want any of this. I have a colonoscopy and an endoscopy scheduled next week. I'm just trying to get through this until then. I'm okay. 

Alternate take / Hot Take / Hot Pepper / Pepper-Tree

 

In The Rays

 

Black Out / Midnight

 

My Brain / In Dreams

 The week, by most reports, has been shit. 

The wildlife and the wild life. No sleep. That's fucked up. Anxiety ridden days mixed with technicolor hallucinogenic nightmares when I do sleep. Bob is a mess and a full time caregiver situation. Everyday is a new problem. I cannot get him to actively take part in his care in private. He is a 'bad' patient by any metric. I make him set blood glucose alarms. He sets the phone to vibrate and leaves it on the bed. Some nights I find him eating ice cream in the middle of the night with a sky high reading. Some days he's barely responsive his blood sugar is so low-its been 28...borderline diabetic coma. So low I'm having to slap him awake while getting him to drink orange juice. Then I Sit there while he tells his doctor his blood glucose is 'under good control'.  Its fucking maddening. I'm working so hard to keep him alive and he's just utterly undermining efforts to take care of him. Half the time I don't know what to expect. I have to remind myself he's got brain damage. There's been radiation. Chemo too. Maybe I just need to let the old Bob go because he isn't here anymore.It feel awful saying it. the constant low grade trauma is like being cut 1000 times. The thought of dying in my sleep has crossed my mind. It's horrible even thinking it. I can't believe I am writing it down. I just wish this wasn't happening. I don't know how to help my brain. I can't hire anyone to do that. 

In the middle of the night, I woke up and wrote this:

You can

you still will

Like candles in the wind takes time

Everything you do takes time

The clock is all too familiar, and yet

blue is the color

Blue is the color of my love's heart

Upon heart

upon heart

the rest devolves into a drawing of me and Bob. 

Pulling Inches / Punches / Nudes prudes and attitude

Effective! / Lies With Words / Things I've Heard

 

Everything Is Fine / The House Is On Fire / Unpoetry

 "When your turn comes to leave me, will my free-will have failed?"

"We sit here crying, about opposite things in opposite rooms."

IT could have been heralded by a 100,000 trumpets, instead its nattering and annoyance. 

(Unpyschosis)

The week is like a slow motion cain crash singing a song, When things got tough I was so kind to myself and we watched the girls go / Look at them go / look anthem girls go / This isn't the same sub pop sticker I sent you in the spring is it?/ I never looked this wrong in a dress before / would look this iceberg blow itself out? / look / look at it / its / dreaming about something to scheme in living in the house where we go home when the go girl go / when you look at her / go now / go now / downtown / go downtown / symbols / esoterica / Erica / from erotica fruit on the bottom ladies downtown freemonetation clown and from down down down down down the downtwqoeses twoesne van bandit van synod snow from one snow drum snowdrop snow drum noe to senowtu ...............................

Cancer

 My husband, Bob, had a seizure on January 26th. Since he had no previous history of seizures, a CT scanned was performed and the initial scan showed an obvious mass--we sat together and watched the hospitalist bring the image up on a monitor. Further MRIs that evening revealed a distinct tumor. This was successfully resected during emergency surgery on Wednesday the 31st. While the surgery was fairly straightforward (as brain surgeries go) the after effects of the surgery were…to put it mildly, not fun. Again, mercifully, they were mostly temporary. He’s still the same sarcastic, slightly ribald guy I fell in love with (and am occasionally embarrassed by in public). He was in and out of the ICU and the Recuperation Unit in a matter of days.

For a plane crash, this has gone as best it could. We were home and near a hospital when it happened. He didn’t fall, hit his head or die of a stroke before the tumor was discovered. Mostly I am beyond relieved we were together, he wasn’t out alone, or driving, and I could quickly get him help. Just an hour before the seizure, we were in rural Bodega Bay, miles from any hospital. If the seizure had happened even 5 minutes later, we would have been down several flights of stairs where the timing of getting him to an ambulance would have been exponentially more difficult. Because of how it happened he has a chance to recover.

The not great news is that this is a glioblastoma. No one wants to say scary words like ‘brain cancer’ but that is what it is. This means yucky stuff like chemo and radiation are in our future. We’re well aware of what is ahead. Everyone wants to know more. Bob and I both have a hundred things to think about and comprehend--but we have help. A lot actually, from so many people. Thanks go to my friends Robyn, Shannon, JD, and our many friends off FB, including Irene, James, as well as Bob’s friend (and best man) Mitchell, Bob’s brother, Rabbi Les Gutterman, and our neighbors, who’ve provided crucial support to me and to Bob during this period. We could not have done this without help. People brought food, helped with shopping and sat and hugged us while we bawled like children. Like all 'acceptance' speeches, I'm sure I'm leaving people out.

The list is long. A huge shout out across the medical spectrum (Nurses, Doctors, Surgeons, Specialists, and Therapists) that provided the best care for us and got us through this period. My thanks are endless.

Helpful: Love. Patience. Good will. Vibes. Prayers. Putting good energy out into the universe. Cookies. Cat Videos. Whatever helps.

Not helpful: Intrusive or troubling contact. I’ll delete anything on either of our pages which is upsetting or inappropriate.

What's important now: Bob needs to focus on getting better and move on to the next steps in his recuperation. And no, we’re not talking about diagnoses and timelines. We know what the doctors have said. We know what we know. Anything else is conjecture and our business alone. It could have happened to anyone. It’s just happening to us. We’ll take the foamy tops of these waves off as we go surfing. This is the starting line.

We love you.

Ghosts Came In The Night

The mask is quiet,

But edges slightly closer.

I lift the black sheet up

To look underneath

And invite the black rover.



We’re tasked with giving up,

When our cup has been enough,

And age or disease takes us over.

And we meet our rub.



I library in haste

A cake seasoned to taste

All men left alone in some kind of zone

Legends fail to atone.


Trying to reason with pain

Is like trying to capture rain

Or pretending to see facts

But feeling instead emotions

You’ll never get it all,

Or feel you did it right

They’ll be no one left to haunt you

When we’re all ghosts in the night.

Art / Leaves / Katzenjammers / Xymox

 

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