Last evening I had a BDN. That’s “Bad Disc Night”—not “disc” as in computers, boom boxes, or DVD players, but discs in the lumbar region of my body.
Joe and I like to go to bed early with our books and George Winston. George is not actually present in person in our home, but we have 3 and 1/2 hours of him on our IPOD mounted on a boom box. We play all kinds of music in the daytime—from opera, to requiems, to symphonies, and Celtic harp. But at night only that poet of the piano, George Winston, will do.
Last night even George, my achey/bakey (a flannel bag filled with feed corn and heated in the microwave), and my prescription pain medication were no help. Bad discs!
I was studying a newly purchased book: ART MAKING, COLLECTIONS & OBSESSIONS, by Lynne Perella. This book, packed with pictures and inspiring text, contains “An Intimate Exploration of the Mixed-Media Work and Collections of 35 Artists.”
I read, viewed, and savored page after page of wonderfully funky stuff—shelves and boxes crammed full of tantalizing junk, plus art and unique groupings fashioned from junk by imaginative minds with skillful hands. But even the delectable contents of my book, in tandem with the above-mentioned remedies, couldn’t tame those bothersome lumbar discs.
The book finally catapulted me out of bed and into the living room. Suddenly I just had to create something—a little vignette on the coffee table by one of our sofas. I gathered odds and ends, puttered, and voila: the above table laden with some of my (many!) favorite things.
From left to right behind the platter of shells you will see: the corners of two 1917 nature books with gorgeous watercolor illustrations given to me by a precious friend, Georgian, who married my Dad when he was a 95 year old widower; a watercolor sketch of Joe fishing, quickly done by me as I sat behind him in the boat while dipping my paintbrush in the lake; a Cheerios® mug containing not cereal, but rather a baby jade plant; and my watercolor rendition of a wolf cub howling his heart out.
On the mirrored platter you will find: a variety of Atlantic Ocean shells and some coral; a 1920s crystal door knob; an elegant little notebook given to me by our daughter, Judy; a battery operated tea light in a green glass votive dish; a piece of tattered lace; and (left front) a diminutive, ornately framed photo of my two sisters when they were young—Ardis who was 8 years older than I, and Shirley, the sister who died before I was born.
After creating this scenario of beauty, and surveying my personal “art making” with much satisfaction, I went back to bed and also to sleep—raging discs notwithstanding,
Margaret L. Been, ©2011
Living Abundantly with Illness and Chronic Pain 