Our bodies, our selves...

Most of you know that I have been away from the farm for the past 3 weeks.

My sister had an accident using her lathe and sustained a missile blow to her face and left eye - the missile was a kilo of mesquite.  When I got the message of her accident Wally helped me to pack and get on the first bus to the U.S.  When I arrived Lynne was recuperating from having her face reconstructed through the torn lower lid of her eye and from inside her mouth.  I was told how good she looked.  I was thankful that her brain was not damaged and that I could recognize her by half of her face.

I have been updating family and friends via email but for those of you who would like to catch all the details , check out her site:  lynneyamaguchi.com  Read her blog and see her art.

A month prior to Lynne's accident I heard an interview with a British photographer, Giles Duley, who had lost his legs and arm from stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan. He was the official photographer for the Paralymbic Games in London this year.  After hearing him interviewed I was curious to see his work.   In a striking self-portrait, he poses as a limbless Greek statue.  Despite his shattered body his inner self, the person heis and has always been, was evident.  He is Giles, he is beautiful.  It was also a profound way to show what war can do to a body and a statement of equal power, that despite such a horrific injury, his life shines on.

As I write at Lynne's dining table, I share the space with one of her works entitled:   "Self Image:  What Really Broke".

"Self Image - What Really Broke"

It is a triptych of broken mirrors patched, taped, glued and re-paired in various ways and curved around a perfect, silken-smooth and polished, turned vessel.

We see out of our brokenness   Others see us through their brokenness.  But if we see what the creator has made, in truth, it is perfect.

These thoughts dove-tail with other thoughts, that of my own slow-changing, aging body, the sag and crepe that I see in the mirror these days.  What is happening to me?  I am the same - I am here, but who is this?

In the city I am part of the myriad of reasonably fit, middle-aged, modern women.  I think we must be a majority of the U.S. population because we are everywhere!  The careful hairstyles, the tasteful and trendy fashion, the sleek new cars and granite counters all snag me self-conscious, a remnant nature of the fall that in principle I reject. It is a tyranny, and besides, it makes me feel not-good-enough.

Of course, I know better than to step onto that treadmill.  Still, I want to be ready with a re-imaging of myself for the years ahead.  I want to see deeply, be wise and timeless and perfected by the cutting tool of life's lathe.

Cherry vessel from "Self Image - What Really Broke"
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I'd like my life to have the effect of Lynne's work of art or Gile's photo.

We are wired for meaning and isn't that an important ingredient for happiness?

Then I hopefully, unknowingly and happily anticipate what is ahead.