“Hi Honey, I have not seen the article yet. I just saw your email and wanted to get back to you. There is no one way. But Picasso said never forget to draw like a child. I exercised creative license with that quote. These are some thoughts I have.  When painting with watercolor focus gently on the water part. Let the water i

 be the creator.  Take a wide brush even  cut.and brush the whole paper with water  Then   put color on the wet paper with a brush. Let it run. Have a rag to blot with to discover the negative space some times you discover clouds, sea foam and hundreds of things as you play . See what it wants to be.  Tubes of color are easier to use. Find out what the best size paper to start is.  Can be small or smaller big or very big.   You might want to have different surfaces and textures to take the paint off. All this is about playing. I f you want to paint more realistic do that. Let the energy move you. Put your mind aside. Let your hands move from the heart.  Never judge or throw it out.Put it away. As you continue  pull them out like old friends. Move the drawing upside down, or cut it in smaller squares and a collage. Don’t forget each drawing supports the one before it. They are cobblestones in the path of your journey.  You are a builder. So you build.

I Love and miss you.

Mom”

‘day notes of secrets’ walks through the mystical layers in grief and healing. from the beginning loss becomes mixed with love and its negotiation. and later love although playfully romantic also becomes full of demanding presence & empowerment. follow this journey through the fine moments of grief to the saturated moments of healing as we embrace in acceptance. 

HOW IT WAS WRITTEN

my mother was a dancer and majored in colored pencils. she worked in non-profits and volunteered on several boards. she was a lifelong TM mediator. my mother never signed a dnr. she never gave up power of attorney. and she spent hours researching homeopathy with her eyes on the computer to treat her ALS. she began experiencing symptoms of ALS during the start of the covid shutdown in early 2020. she was finally diagnosed in 2021. for those new to ALS, it is the “progressive degeneration of the motor neurons”. when the motor neurons die, “the ability of the brain to initiate and control muscle movement is lost.” this begins with the tongue and outer extremities, leading to complete paralysis. there is no cure. the last function of the body to become paralysed is the throat and the ability to swallow, but during this time brain function remains ‘relatively’ normal. the ‘ice bucket challenge’, lou gehrig, steven hawkings, and steve gleason are notable advocates of the disease. 

my mother aligned her first symptoms of ALS when a broken ankle refused to heal. she walked with a cane, but had an immense amount of time she dedicated to her art. she completed two large sketchbooks, spending countless hours with the finest point felt-tipped pens illustrating all landscapes and contexts. later, every day she would ask me to scan them. I still hope to some day. when her hands atrophied, she could do very little. it was not until, with research and the assistance of a grant from the Gleason Foundation, we were able to get her eye tracking software. in complete paralysis at the age of seventy-four, my mother learned to speak again and her art extended through her writing. via the computer, she was able to speak, write emails, research on the internet, and even order off of amazon. it was both amazing and tragic. beautiful and terrifying. I was not aware of how far the ALS had progressed until I arrived from bangkok to franktown, colorado, july 4th 2021. 

before I arrived my mom started sending me emails she called ‘GIFTED MEMORIES’; pregnant with me, childhood memories, our house on wyandot street in denver, and stories with loved family members; animals and persons. in bangkok, may 2021, covid was still escalating but the borders remained open. I was reminded of a trip my mother had taken to saint louis to visit my godfather charlie derleth, a brilliant arist and teacher. he had given her a watercolor lesson and the kitchen was covered in them; bright canary yellows and blues dripping brick into lavendar. a week before I had bought watercolors. and asked her for a lesson.

BACKSTORY CONTINUED

Part one and Part two.

I hear her voice. the message is actually my approach to most of my writing, but im not sure if she was aware of this. how ‘day notes of secrets’ was assembled. during my mom’s hospice in franktown, I applied for and was assigned the 30/30 tupelo press challenge (thirty poems in thirty days) for october 2021. I posted these to facebook so I assume that she was able to read some of them, although she was having more difficulty. one of her orders from amazon was a roof for a shed. without the shed. time was very confusing for everyone. october, unknown at the time, was my mom’s last month in hospice. I spent most of my own time with caruso, a chocolate lab springer spaniel mix on the hammock outside or hiking. some days the house was only moaning and whimpering; as she had no nerves left in her tongue. 

bangkok at this time had shut its borders and was now in the full swing of covid. inbetween tutoring a middle school south korean student, and having weekly shabbat dinner with old denver friends; I existed. it was a different landscape that hurt too bad to be real. too surreal to be a trap. too painful to feel in the moment. as the writing challenge progressed, I began using strokes of all of my favorite collected ‘life’ moments: from south korea, thailand, germany, and china, all the traveling between, and now my mother’s hospice. the poems grew from a herd of deer passing shoulder to shoulder in the morning frost, to a still lake in yangon, to a story of growing up in a volcano town told to me from a hike guide in bali. gems of worlds in small words or phrases. improvised and literal. and out of all of this; love. a character of organic desire; the only hope that I could fathom in this degree of loss. 

halfway through october 2021 on the 16th, my mother past away. every morning I woke up and made eggs in the kitchen. the day before I had bought an hummingbird covered anniversary card and coral colored roses for my parents anniversary. it was unnervingly quiet. she waited for me to walk upstairs and then she passed. and I kept writing. this eventually became ‘part one’ of ‘day notes of secrets’. after she passed, we held the service and memorial, and then as if orchestratingly timed, the borders to bangkok reopened. the thai town itself was still mostly shut down, but slowly reopening. in a close reflection of my own life, I allowed the desire on the page to ‘build’. exponentially expanding around me, desire and hope and time and nature became the place to attend; part two. ‘day notes of secrets’ is layered, delicate, a time dream body contemplation of the fragility of cycles of experience. our ability to handle loss and how surrealist juxtapositions of reality tapestry this landscape in both linear and non linear ways. desire results in the evolution from pain to healing. and transformation caresses the natural karmic narrative once harmed in the past. it is the willingness to trust the words ‘paradise’ and ‘I love you’ and feel this transcendence. 

‘day notes of secrets’ is layered, delicate, a time dream body contemplation of the fragility of cycles of experience. our ability to handle loss and how surrealist juxtapositions of reality tapestry this landscape in both linear and non linear ways. desire results in the evolution from pain to healing. and transformation caresses the natural karmic narrative once harmed in the past. it is the willingness to trust the words ‘paradise’ and ‘I love you’ and feel this transcendence. 

two of my mothers flower illustrations introduce part one and two. and I have created an instagram page @cambra.okelly using her original artist pen name she used as a gift card illustrator in the 70’s.

I heard eternity described recently as a recycling of time as every new present moment. several of the poems are accompanied by cinepoems. for these you can follow my instagram pages @jillianmukavetz or @arielsoceans or youtube @jilliankellymukavetz.