Out of the Gutter Art

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  • Orange Baby

    Orange Baby

    CHAPTER 4

    THE SAGA CONTINUES

    Morning Mindmeld c.SUSANTMARTIN2022 (sold)

         I got off track in the last chapter…  

       Too many offshoots and alleyways. Let’s move along a few years to 2020…Pandemic lock down, I’m working on Zoom with some friends. Suddenly, Donna breaks in with a plea,

    ” Would anyone like a Maine Coon kitten?”

    All the girls pipe up with ooohs! and aaahs! The idea of a warm, fuzzy kitten is SO appealing, so comforting in this lonely isolation. I was down to just one outside cat, Frenchy. She was pushing 16, Fogerty and Ollie had died the year before. In the interim, I had also lost 2 of my beloved dogs to cancer and old age. My remaining little Shih Tzu, Kleo, had become much less active as she aged. Perhaps a kitten would be a nice addition to my little homestead.

       My little “not a Maine Coon” kitten as delivered within 3 days. Super fuzzy, a golden cloud, he is a special boy. I name him Zignatious Horatio Needlefingers, and I fall in love. The new routine wasn’t too bad. One catbox, one kitten, one dog to feed and vet seemed manageable.

       Things rapidly changed. My kind heart was about to be sorely tested. Approximately one month later, I rescued a half-grown boy cat who I found crying his little heart out in my neighbors front hedges. It was after a “fireworks” holiday; he had obviously run away in the horrible onslaught of noise. My biker neighbor had been feeding him lunch meat, but he needed proper care. I bundled him into the house and he quickly became the Zag to my Zig. They were now happy playmates. But the vet bills and catboxes had now doubled.

       WHY DID I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THE SAVIOR? WHAT CHARACTER DEFECT MADE ME A SUCKER FOR LOST ANIMALS?

      

       Looking back now, I understand the pattern. I had been a mother to my alcoholic, abusive husband. The caregiver for my beloved Mom during her illness- even before. She was so needy all my life, telling me she “lived through me”. Finally, being mother/ caregiver to my dear Dad. Caring for his every need as his madness progressed into a second childhood and excruciatingd death. All those years of caregiving through all those events made me feel needed, wanted, and useful. Loved.

       The convoluted and traumatic relationships and disfunction had left me with a void, a pit inside me. And I was filling it with warm, furry little bodies. Ever the caregiver, ever the mother. My self-worth depended on having people and/or pets to care for. 

       It would get worse.

  • ORANGE Baby

    ORANGE Baby

    AKA The Crazy Cat

    Chapter 3

       I didn’t want to become the “Cat Lady” of my new neighborhood. I had gotten off on the wrong foot, on day one, with an off-balance dope fiend who lived directly across the street from me. While attempting to acclimate my kitties to their new home, they had escaped the trailer, bounding joyfully through the neighborhood at 100 miles an hour.

      Oliver was a long and lanky boy of dubious Russian Blue heritage. Beautifully Grey and a little odd, he would saunter up to just about anyone. Frenchy was a lovely Calico of the clouded kind, petite, demure and a veritable hellcat when she was cornered. And then there was Fogerty…

       Fogerty deserves his own paragraph. He was a descendent of the Banyan Drive rescue crew, one of the kittens my Mom had meticulously documented in her “Book of Cats on Banyan Drive”. He was born in 1997 , brother to Munson , son of Teddy. He was very old when we arrived in Tampa. But very spry. To the point that the local Vet argued that there was no possible way he was 20 years old, even if I did have documentation.  I gave up trying to persuade him.

       So these were my three cats at my new home. Mine, in the sense that I inherited them. I promised Mom on her deathbed that I would care for her cats after she died. And I was keeping my promise. I was not capable of loving them properly at that time. My heart was too fragile to let any love in. So I fed them, watered them, and talked to them. I watched them settle in, watched them play. Even let one sit on me, now and then.

       But they weren’t allowed in my bedroom, no, that was sacred Shih Tzu territory:

        My pets, my dogs, my loves.

  • Orange Baby

    AKA: The Crazy Cat

    Chapter 2

        Relocating to Tampa after my Dad had died was a horrible experience. I had run from the house I inherited when my Dad died. I had been primary caregiver for both of my parents; their deaths six years apart left me traumatized. Aching for maternal love, Tampa seemed the right choice. Two elderly aunts, (Mom’s older sisters) lived there, as well as my cousin Sadie. I desperately wanted them to want me.

      It warrants a whole other book to describe the dystopian and farsical experience of selling that house. Suffice to say that I had made a rushed, pressured and very poorly thought out decision to sell when I did. I had 2 weeks from the day of sale on April 30th to move out, with no new home to move into. It all became an endless, exhausting exercise in anguish and compounded grief as all my family’s most treasured possessions (which were all I owned of monetary value) had to be carted off to the auction house. A treasured mantel clock made in 1798 was sold for ten bucks, as I watched in horror. The rest of the sale was equally tragic.

       On May 15th I moved myself, my three Shih-tzus, and the last three of Mom’s surviving cats into our tiny new home. A dilapidated 1970 single-wide mobile home situated on a tiny parcel of dirt which I now owned, lock, stock and barrel. In the middle of the most notorious druggie  neighborhood for 30 miles.

    This was ok, I told myself as I helped unload the tiny moving truck and uncrated the animals. At the end of the day we were all inside our hot and humid home, with windows that didn’t open and an air conditioner that sounded like a helicopter firing up. It would be ok, I whispered to the frightened cats and dogs, desperately trying to convince myself also.

       Mother had become a cat rescuer after we moved to Florida in the early 80’s. I was so busy doing cocaine and going to jail that I somehow missed the beginning of this trend. She and I had a very unhealthy codependent relationship going on: I was a ruthless addict using her up emotionally and financially, all while my Dad still lived in Pittsburgh. So it was amazing to me to find out she had 11 cats, 9 of them living in the house while the most feral lived outside. Their numbers fluctuated as she rescued, spayed, neutered and vaccinated the new ones she tamed and caught. This was before the days of any rescue organizations, the  financial burden was entirely her own.

       Many recoil at the thought of “catladies” and hoarder situations; I wasn’t keen on the quantity at first either. But they were all so loved, so well cared for. Clean boxes, carpeted cat trees everywhere. No smell, no fleas, no problem. She was entirely dedicated- they filled the void my addiction had left in her life.

       Over the years I was there , then gone again. I tried AA, NA, geographical cures. On and on to eventual marriage and living a few states away. After more trauma and abuse I was allowed to move back into their home at age 35 after my husband was sentenced to 15 to life. Again, I had no problem with the cats, in fact I helped card for them. I even added to their numbers, since I brought 2 of my own when I came home from SC. Kitties everywhere, different ages , all colors, all beautiful! I got clean on September 19, 1999. Life was good, we were learning new ways to get along and heal. The future was bright indeed!

       One day I used the bathroom right after Mom, I freaked out when I saw the bowl filled with blood. Unmistakable and there was lots of it. Lots.

       ” Mom! What happened?!  Are you hurt? ” I grasped her hand, saw her fright when she realized she hadn’t flushed.

      She was hesitant and tried to dismiss it. I was adamant that she told me where it had come from. She finally confided in me that it had been going on for a long, long time. I was horrified.

       ” You have to go to the doctor. Mom, you HAVE TO.”

       She balked, crying , ” Bonnie had a colonoscopy. She told me how painful it was. I’m afraid!”

       Taking her soft hands in mine, we sat close on the edge of her bed, her beloved Munson cat purring next to her.

        “I will go with you. I will be there every step of the way.”

     

  • Orange Baby

    AKA The Crazy Cat

        It was a rainy February night, cold for Tampa Bay, when I found the kittens. There were 2, frightened and crying. One came to me readily, I thought it was alone until I heard another faint “mew” from the bushes that lined my front porch. Peering into the darkness, I could see the pitiful thing, muddy and shivering.

      “Okay, then…you’re ok…” I muttered, fumbling back into my trailer with the soggy babies. Flipping the kitchen light on, I set them unceremoniously on the counter to see them better.

        The larger of the two was beautifully marked. Swooping swirls of dark orange and white in a tortoiseshell pattern, with a bold white blaze between expressive gold eyes. Four little white boots and an extra long tail with a funny little bend at tip, like a question mark.

        ” The question is, where have you come from?” I asked.

        She peered quizically over her sister’s back at the kitchen appliances. Her little sister was not as fortunate in the “looks” department.

       “Oh my, you’re a little sad sack, aren’t you?” I picked up the tiny muddy kitten and my heart melted. She was as plain an orange tabby as ever there was. No white on her, not anywhere. Just a dingy yellow-orange coat, and tufty at that…

  • Carl, the Wolf Spider

    Carl, the Wolf Spider

    And other Random Thought Balloons

    My Recent Mayan Doodling

       Do you ever wonder if you are sane? I do. Quite often. It’s really relative, if you think about it.(and I do). Because I do have relatives with dementia. But that’s not the “relative” I am referring to. (See what I did there? Pretty clever play on words, eh?)   Reality, Sanity, Imagination, Unreality, Insanity. Don’t they all really depend on what we define them as? Sure, a learned man, a psychologist, these folks really know.

       But for me, inside my mind, I only worry when I have trouble thinking about things. Things in my daily life that other people in my world seem to be able to do, things I struggle with. Bills are a bigee.  Huge issue. I can see the amount I have in the bank, but I just keep sending payments without looking to see if I used all the money up. Like, if I don’t look, then maybe the money will magically cover the payments!

       I don’t think that is sane. Nor is buying ice cream knowing I will eat the entire container, no matter how sick it will make me, which will , in turn,  cause me to be angry at myself. Round and round the Insanity rolls.

    “A THOUGHT MONSTER ESCAPES”

       Do other people dwell on every interaction with other humans they have ever had on a given day? Repeating the scenario and mentally kicking oneself over a mispoken.phrase, a potentially misunderstood glance? Do others wish so hard for a “normal” sleep schedule but deliberately sabotage their efforts by drinking Mountain Dew and eating 6 cups of popcorn at 3 AM? ( Oooh,.that sounds really good, but it’s only 1 am!)

    “Speaking of Yucky Things” c.STMartin2018

       I rattle off a litany of nonsense during my therapy sessions, right after I go over all my real issues,  mentally making note of what pressing issues to discuss…When I hang up all the important points rush back into my brain.

    “the Many Manic Moods of Susan Todd!”
    My Art Lamp!

    LOSING IT !!

      I am ANGRY that I can’t think properly! I want to blame someone for my craziness. Hereditary,  from Dad’s early onset Alzheimer’s. Or the unknown blood donor whose blood I was given at my birth in 1964. That surely did it! What about Mom’s agoraphobia,  depression, hatred of my Dad? Mom’s mom had Alzheimer’s also, and wasn’t there a crazy Uncle? Wait, I’ve GOT IT: my ANCESTRY goes back to the Plantagenets!! Those INBRED ROYALS!!

       I’ll be ok…I won’t give up on trying to be a wee bit better each day at navigating life. I have to go easy on the me that has had 3 major head injuries, resulting in ongoing vertigo and headaches. Post concussion syndrome is a beast. So are the residual effects of years of emotional, sexual and violent abuse that was perpetrated on the child I was, and still am, mentally. Nor to be taken lightly is my Bipolar Disorder and the side effects of the medicines that decrease the symptoms. Or so many other pain issues I deal with daily.

       When I go easy on myself, and take time to reflect on the beautiful gift of life that God has given me. And the undeserved forgiveness and mercy he bestows daily, then my heart is eased and it doesn’t matter quite as much if I have some confusion each day. I am grateful.

     

  • The Work Progresses:

    Exhaustion Ensues

    Very VERY Tired
  • Floating

    Floating

    The Dance

       Dance of life never ends

    Ebbs and flows, comes round again

                   Love, loss, joy, strife

    Husband dies bereaving wife

                  Child is born, flame ignites

    Plays, then works, attaining might

                Dawn rolls into darkest night

         She loves, in love, loves inspite

       Many times is love heartbreaking

            Relentless savage Time keeps taking

    Life rolls on, joys to be had

       Sping brings laughter

    Heart is glad.

    Creation astounds me,

    Love abounds in Thee,

                     Your mercy sets me free…

    Beauty surrounds me…
  • A Message to Myself

    A Message to Myself

    …from a year ago…

     I have been crying again. here, there everywhere. Are these tears sure indicators of a heart? if indeed they are, is it a good one? A kind one? A redeemable one?

     Who knows the answer, but my God. I used to think I knew who I was, I thought of myself at various times as funny, cute, cool. Other times as evil, stupid, ugly. perhaps at the same time

     I just cant find that girl anymore. Perhaps I’m in the Bipolar empty place. the desert I disappear in. Where drifting sand blows over my pale flesh until I cant even find myself. it’s the vacant time that comes when the air is let out of my happy balloon. All the excitement of my recent accomplishments has evaporated, and there is nothing left

    .

     My friend Beverly, who died… she knew when I would come to this place. She was an Air Force Veteran, and she would call me in the morning : “Get up Soldier! Splash some cold water on your face and get over here!” I counted alot on her strength to pull me out of this vapor lock.

    But shes gone, for now.

     I have to find a way out on my own. But then I really already know the way, because she also reminded me that I’m never alone. I always have help. and He is stronger than my heart and knows all things. He reaches down into this dark place to offer me His hand. I dont have to sit here in the dark anymore.

    °Z

     I dont have to be profound, or special. I dont have to be pretty or anything. I just have to trust. He knows me. He knows who I truly am. And He will never abandon me.So I wont give up, or wallow anymore in self pity or loathing. Not now, not tonight. Ok

     I dont have to know my name, or my past, or remember anything except that I belong to God. He sent his perfect Son here to die for me, he loves me THAT MUCH. i know this. And now I feel safe, and loved, and Im not empty nor afraid right now.

     Thank you, Dear God.