SuzeSez

It has been too long....

2011-09-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

This blog, when I just attempted to access it, brought up a September posting, which surprised me no end, given that I just KNEW I had not posted in many months. My little single brain cell was working so hard, smoke was coming out of my elegant ears. The mystery was ultimately solved when I noticed the year ---2010. Clearly sloth and procrastination are some of the deadly sins that have beset me of late.

Here is one of the things I have been up to lately. After many years of doing all manner of art, I am attempting to return to the basic, formal, discipline of drawing. Not for any reason other than to bring back some of the discipline of design and hard work I feel I may have lost. It is frustrating and sometimes glorious work, depending on whether or not I can "get" it. To really get better, I find I need lots and lots of uninterrupted time. This is as rare as rubies these days.

The pictures is an album cover I did for my son, Bryce Kairoff. His album was called "String of Tears". He does this hip hop, free style sort of stuff, some of which I actually like... Hey, I am in my early sixties!!! I think that compared to other stuff of this ilk he is pretty good on some of his stuff. You can give a listen by going to I-tunes and Amazon, I think.

I am also attempting to work on creating small accesories for the wedding and other celebrations trade. I do have somepictures which I would be happy to post someother time. Trying to do a website has always been one of my big challenges and I generally mess the whole thing up... but then, it will still takeme months to complete the clearing out of my studio.....

love and peace and most of all health insurance to all....sopha

Christmas letters and self discipline

2011-01-28T16:43:00.000-08:00

I have been absent from my virtual self on the web and this blog for quite some time now. Once in a while I get into these snarky, semi-unpleasant hermit - crab moods.

Hermit crabs are actually really cute pets. At the time that the Willows Preschool was around (1985 on), such things were not yet considered to be being mean to poor little animals and so we had several in our classroom. They aren't exactly highly interactive pets, but that makes them very low maintenance as well and so they were pretty good to have in the classroom. Much easier than our rat, Maizie, who ended up dying under the knife when she had to have open heart surgery. That is a story for another time.

I have been neither low maintenance nor particularly cute, and therein lies the tale of my absence. Every year, we receive several Christmas or non-denomenational "seasonal" letters, and every year I am tempted to write one that reflects some of the more difficult parts of our lives, but somehow it seems mean and cruel. On those years, I withdraw and stay quiet.

I even missed the book reading for the second book my old friend Valerie Trueblood has had published. Her first was called Seven lives if I recall correctly, which I rarely do, and I do not know the name of this second one, but I will run out and get it as soon as my budget cleans itself up a bit.

More, and cheerier, or something soon. susanne,aka sopha davenport

Frustration, aggravation and loss

2010-11-28T18:32:00.000-08:00

I realize that the above title is hardly one that promises cheery reading. I will try to toss a bit of fun in here. I seem to be having problems in getting this blog to do the things I want it to. Same for my life at the moment. I have written two other entries here which are not showing up...and several emails lost in outer space. This little entry is a test entry. The picture is a place where I slept and felt love and loved previously and now am unable to make contact with that person. For privacy's sake s/he shall remain nameless. Sadly due to a misunderstanding about my absence from both life and the computer, I stand to lose this friendship. This is a horrible thing to contemplate, as I have been through some hardships in the last two months, and I can only pray and hope that I will not remain banished from several hearts, including that one forever.

More intelligent and less personal stuff later, sopha davenport

Parenting children with mental health issues

2010-10-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

Well, one thing one can do is to make somewhat flamboyant hats and wear them about town.....sure wish I knew what I did with this hat. It had hours worth of punchneedle felting in it. Oh well, so my for my keen memory.

On being the parent of a special needs child, while trying to straighten your own life out: chapter 4986, section m.

(Note: despite my twenty or so years of clinical experience working with others and their children, this and any following pieces on this subject, are bases more or less on my personal experiences, and, as such, should be considered the writing of a crabby, retired, ex-quack with a bad back.)

parenting / special needs / support system / support team / behavioral goals...and on and on and on.

Words, words, words and more words.

When we most need words to provide us with some clarity, our failure to use them carefully confounds us all the more. The outcome is frequently the oppposite of what we need; misunderstanding, obfuscation and confusion. It has never been the intention of parents or professionals in the field to work toward this sort of outcome. Having been on both sides of this particular fence, I feel that part of the difficulty stems from how each group (teachers, parents, therapist, psychs...) use the language of their training. Professionals can be sadly unaware of the difference in meaning of a word. Parents often feel that the problem is theirs. Sometimes, they may not start out feeling that way, but are certainly given that message enough that they begin to doubt their own experiences.

************************* sorry, I must pause here. This is a much longer post, all hand written out and edited once or twice. Eight is what it takes for me to write really well! I am very tired tonight and it is time to sleep according to my body. I will post the rest of this in a day or two.

Responses and comments are always appreciated and I encourage you to disagree or agree or simply tell me you don't know what the heck I am talking about. Go for it!!

I will soothe myself all the way to sleep, before putting on the breathing machine by working on a lovely red hat that is currently telling me how it wants to be. MMmmmmm, it is a lovely felt thing that sits like a cloche on one side, then moves into a series of waves on the other side. I can already see that I will have to restrain I overdeveloped nature to decorate the heck out of everything. I guess sometimes simple is best.

Wishing you all the joy of a great week and may your living room be tidier than mine. Peace, love and health... sopha d.

advice from a retired psychotherapist

2010-09-21T20:49:00.000-07:00

retirement (for me) means a return to simplicity

At least that was what I had always imagined. I had also imagined that they would have to carry me out of the office on a gurney. I loved my career, even after twenty years I had not grown bored with it and there is a great deal of sadness as I am forced to leave it due to health reasons.

I still consider myself a knowledgeableperson when it comes to matters of therapy, psychology, child development, couples and so on. All I have done is let go of my license and malpractice insurance, as well as my rather cozy office. This means that I cannot engage in therapeutic work with clients for monetary compensation. (No, therapists have never been permitted to barter!!)

I love writing about some of the weird stuff that crosses my little ADD brain and I love writing about people and life and art. In checking stats, something I have never done before, I found out that the highest stats were a time when I posted something with ADD in the title. This makes me think that people have so many questions about therapy that they would like to ask, but often do not know where to go.

In the last twenty years of practice, many of my patients were first timers and really had no idea about who did what, depending on the letters behind their name and or what they should ask. How does therapy work anyway? How does it work with kids? When do I put my seemingly strange or unhappy child into a therapeutic relationship with someone? How do I know that they know what they are doing?

I do not feel ethically correct in giving specific clinical advice, or diagnostic advice on the internet. It is difficult enough to do it well with the person in front of you, but I am more than happy to answer questions and give a try at suggesting solutions for behavioral problems.

I will see what happens. If things on this blog stay the same, then I will leave it as is and you will get to see pictures of the things I make as I now, finally, after waiting most of my life, get to engage full time in my "shadow career". The artist gets to come out into the light. This week I have been working on some interesting hat beginnings. I will take pictures and show them when they are closer to being finished.

If it seems that splitting the blog into two is better then I may do that. I need to hear back from some folks, otherwise my lazy self will make the decision. peace love health and an absence of soliciters at your door this week. sopha davenport

Being able to do what you do not really want to do... is...

2010-09-20T23:14:00.000-07:00

Power and independence, baby, power and independence!!!
Here , finally comes the simple conclusion to the convoluted verbal mess I made of trying to explain about plunging the toilet.
We live in a temperamental house. It chooses to have things work or not according to its whims du jour. All the things in this house that are in any manner machine like (ie.having more than one piece) or technological (requiring some kind of electrical power), have taken on the attitude of this house.

I have grown used to the size of my garage door mysteriously shrinking when I try to back my car out, particularly on a day when I am already a bit stressed.   I have also grown used to "teaser" power outages that only last long enough to require resetting the time on everything that blinks otherwise. Sometimes I wait, but the house is clever and just when I have given up and taken care of all the blinking things, it will of course do it again. There are days when I do not adppreciate these cute games.

One of the other games is to plug the toilet for no obvious reason. Like any home, there are times when there is a reason, which, being the delicate creatures that we are, we will not discuss. For a very long time, I had difficulty plunging the toilet and would, after several useless attempts, have to call my husband in to try to fix it. Of course, it only took him two seconds. He never minded either. Independent woman that I have attempted to be during most of my life this was bugging the _______(you make the obvious joke here) out of me.

My dear beefcake did attempt to assist. First he got me my very own plunger. This was a teeny weeny baby plunger and I was initially offended until her explained that it would work better with the female upper body strength... ok, fell for it and tried. Did that work?    of course not.

My husband is a gooooood man, so he found me a very weird looking purple, sort of pleated, massive plunging instrument. Now, this one had several things going for it. First, it was purple, my favorite of colors and it was just so weird looking that I figured it had to work. It is easy to impress the daughter of an engineer with weird looking stuff. Did it work?

YES IT DID!!!! It did for rather a long time and I felt strong and independent, running out of the bathroom with my purple monster plunger proclaiming my success. It isn't that I like messing around with toilets, but I would rather live with them and I want to live with them functioning well and be able to fix ist should they fail to.

Two weeks ago, when I began this little rant, my purple monster failed me and I had to ask for help and watch as my darling took the tiny baby plunger and in his usual two seconds cleared things right up.   Do I divorce him? Perhaps I could practice secretly, but with what?

Maybe I should return to finding my independence in work of some kind. Retirement makes one weird. Therefore, I am working on a few hats again.   I will show them to you as I finish them.
Peace, love and co-operative plumbing to all, sopha chesterfield davenport

The rationale re: toilets and anything else..

2010-09-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

You may recall that a while back I was attempting to get at the subject of plungers and the sense of personal independence. I will admit in truth, that with so many things that my little wandering brain picks up at the side of the road, the beginning of my thinking did not indicate that to you at all.

beginning or end

Here is where this whole little ball of wax (ooh, gross!) began. I am now a skosh over 60 and depending on what my apparently low end body is doing, can feel like I am 16 or 160. (Nooooo, I do not have any desire what so ever to discuss any one of my stupid chronic ailments. There, aren't you relieved...)

So, back to the story: Early one afternoon, preparing to leave preparing to leave for the closest thing as a hot date I have these days : a visit with my dentist, who is mostly interested in my molars, I spent some time dipping into my bowls and baskets of mystery preparations.

(note to my husband: just in case you might by chance read this...baby oh baby, you are my hottest of hot dates, still after thirty years, but I have a story to tell. )

As PT BArnum has been given credit for quoting, mistakenly, I think, "there's a sucker born every minute." This I suppose is a partial explanation of why I would spend so much as one cent on creams and elixiers promising to make me look forty years younger and come out looking like Julia Roberts. I have never in my life looked like anything even remotely resembling Julia Roberts.

Still I recall a time in my life (extending into this, when I am sane), when I can slap on a little blusher on my somewhat pale face, call it "instant health" and head out the door. Now my primary concern was to floss well enough so that my charming and utterly non-judgemental dentist would encounter nothing larger than a chicken or dead longer than Jimmy Hoffa in the spaces between my teeth.

....time to stop now. I promise to continue this tale of woe tomorrow. At the moment my husband reminds me that it is tragically past my bedtime with lovely and plaintive "yoo-hoo's" from down the hall. Who could resist?

love, peace and health to you. sopha chesterfield davenport

toilets and world peace

2010-09-03T23:39:00.000-07:00

I certainly hope you did not think I would actually show you a toilet!!

You are getting larger type these days because, 1) I am getting old enough to have difficulty seeing some of the itty bitty print that is to be found in some of the blogs and other things that I receive via e-mail, and, 2) Charlie, the chewing hound from hell, ate my computer glasses. Not actually all of them, but enought to have made them useless. While this was originally borderline cute, and we were tolerant once we understood that he was much younger than we had first been given to believe, it is now getting to lose it's charm.

"String of Tears" -- age and hope ?

2010-09-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

It has been rather a long time since I have posted, and time and circumstance are to blame, as I refuse to take any responsibility despite the role my daily sloth and idolence have had here. I'll not bore you with tales of woe, illness, broken computers and all the other things that can get in the way of creating and being true to the creation of even an adequate blog.

It is my sincere hope that things are, while not exactly taking a u-turn at autobahn speed, at least changing course at a speed that would not shame a snail. I have been attemping to rework the picture part of this blog, given that blogger has now given us more options with which to play, or, break our computers. You may have fun watching my ineptitude as things change, then, when I find it horribly ugly, or impossible to read, change again.

I did retire from my private practice as a psychotherapist after twenty or so years and have much to say about that. What I would like to do with this blog ultimately is to split it into three without actually splitting it (yikes a holey trinity). I would like to devote one section to talking about mental health, illness and all the states in between. I can give some counsel, but only within very, very strict parameters. In other words, no advice really. The second part I would like to devote to anything that has to do with finally at my age (60 +1) to devote myself to creative expression. In other words, to be one of those artsy fartsy types. All that art school stuff forty years ago should be used before I croak!!

The third is a subject that I have always had difficulty speaking about, but is one that needs to be given a voice during this time in the world. I have already mentioned my immigrant status. I am a legal citizen, but that isn't always enough to make for an easy transition. Stories of my mother, they are.

My mother loved hats, and so do I. This was one of my favorites until Charlie the madly chewing dog decided to add his own artistic twist to it. Oh well, I love making hats, so this givesme an excuse, no?
Peace, love and hope to all, sopha davenport Special prayers of any kind to A and B that they may soon be able to laugh at my side again. s.

madly updating

2010-05-30T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have been checking out some other blog hosting sites, as I sometimes get frustrated with some limits here. Despite the fact that it is probably all my own fault, I thought I would look at a few others. So far I looked at Tumblr. and typepad.com.

It also seems that Facebook has unfriended all but one of my friends. They did that, not me!! I will try to fix that as soon as I have enough patience.

Picture on top is our new no-name dog... Bob, maybe?
peace to all, be gentle to each other.   sopha

Another lost post from the immigrant girl

2010-05-29T20:53:00.000-07:00

Hello, first of all, before I go to the promised writing please allow me to share my lovely news. After having to put our former darling, "Ralph" down, we have waited almost a year or more to begin looking. We found our current furball this weekend and find him to be both a joy and a responsibility we had forgotten. At the moment we have yet to settle on a name and are having a quiet debate on kennel training or not...

It was five o'clock in the morning the darkness of night just beginning to loosen it's grip (no, for those of you who recall old movies and such: "the sun did (not) spit morning into the sky!!"

The touch of light, not in the sky, but a glowing transparency of the air could have come from the lights of the city coming closer.

It could just as easily have been the beginning strains of the light of the day about to dawn. For those of us on the deck in that early hour, it made no difference. The fog did as it always does, softening hard edges and swallowing all extremes of sound. It was as still as the snow.

There was a touch of magic about the luminescent stillness. For the first time in 10 days, the heartbeat of the ship, the constant thrumming of the engines had stopped as she slowly moved into New York harbor.

I have one picture of my two brothers and I standing on deck wearing the orange life jackets, which were a requirement. I hated them. As a small child, they were always too large for me, exagerating my natural clumsiness. They were predictably damp and musty smelling and, had obviously been worn by hundreds of other strangers before.

Discomfiting as it was, I was such an obedient child, it would never have dawned on me to complain, let alone refuse to put on the awful orange thing.

In any case, this particular morning, our ship, the Queen something, fell silent as she was gently pushed into the harbor. Knowing nothing of tugs then, and their normal sound dampened by the fog, it seemed the ship was being pushed by an invisible hand.

Hundreds of people were on deck, all on one side. I was fearful that the ship might tip over with everybody not evenly spread out. It was fine as a herd of people politely and gently crammed themselves against the railing to see the Statue of Liberty bathed in green light.

Our memories change according to our desires, needs and imaginations, but all I recall was a continuation of this great silence as we drifted by her that morning to come, finally, to the shores of America.

(want to hear more of this stuff or more from the other ladies? Do let me know, please.) Sanni / sopha chesterfield davenport

The Missing Posts

2010-05-17T00:00:00.000-07:00

These are my favorite pillows in my house and I take great pride in having found them second hand and being able to purchase them for a pittance. The rest of the couch is charcoal colored and they bring me great joy without fail, as they liven up the room with their Miro designs and unrestrained color.

That was actually just a side thought.....................................
One of the things I wrote some time ago was to try to explain how I want to present myself as I write this. The truth is that I have as many facets as any other person, but not everyone names them and allows them to express themselves as openly as I do. Let me just say that I am not emotionally troubled or lacking in mental hygiene (there's a concept!!); I simply allow myself to play and try to encourage others to do the same. Here then, is my aging explanation of the different voices you might encounter here.

This hat is a hat that sopha is working on and trying to finish. It was one of my first tries with using punch needle felting and patterned chiffon on a piece. I will try to remember to take a picture when it is completed.

MANY FACES--MANY FACETS--ONE BIG MOUTH

(This was first written on a Sunday sometime around Thanksgiving last year)

Despite my belief that very few people actually read these postings, I have, of late, received a few responses that are spurring me on. Additionally, I have lately had a bit of time for me to think. Thinking is generally a somewhat dangerous thing for me to do, given the wildly roaming quality of my thoughts. In the past, I have considered thinking to be a private sort of activity the outcome of which is heavily censored. This habit of self-censoring and guarding one's boundaries has fit it well with my career of choice as a psychotherapist.

I am now over sixty and doing a sort of semi retirement. It is forced upon me in great measure by some chronic health problems, but allows me to change a few other things in my life. Perhaps it is time to stop censoring the fun voices in my life and be open to having them read by others.

(these, by the way are the beautiful baskets they hang in the city of Monroe. Until we had to move offices, one of these hung right outside my window---nice.)

When I first began writing this blog I chose the pseudonym "sopha davenport". My explanation was that this was what I would consider the more whimsical, creative, interesting, artsy, yet still sensitive part of my nature. I thought it would be more interesting than the lazy, boring, frequently overwhelmed part of my life.

Shortly after reading the initial draft of this statement, I saw clearly that there are more facets and voices than just these two. They are all me, but are shaped by my current mood, thoughts and circumstances of my life. Everyone has this quality and can easily find their facets. Defining them is sort of fun and kind of enlightening.

So, allow me to introduce some of them to you:

There is Suse-a girl with big brown eyes. That is what all her relatives always said about her. They also teased her about how skinny she was and smart and made jokes about how that skinny body could possibly hold up that heavy head. Suse can tell you stories about being an immigrant to the US, having an alcoholic father, her mother's breast cancer and lots more.

Then there is Sopha Chesterfield Davenport to whom you have already been introduced.

Then there is the not quite Dr. Psychobabble Suze brought to you by Hot Water Shrinks, a non-existent mental health agency. She has the occasional useful thing to say about odd things. None of this should be mistaken for actual clinical advice.

Last but not least is Prunella Pitt, the resident grumpy old lady. She is settling her softening and expanding butt into my life with the same implication of staying a while that a dog signals when he circles his chosen spot three times before plopping down with a sigh.

At the mid/old age of sixty +, with an aching back, Prunella feels she has earned the right to call out anything and anyone that irritate her.

I would love to see other voices join this chorus, but they should be yours....let me hear you sing.

be well, feel loved and peace to all of you from this little group!

long overdue writings

2010-05-16T22:41:00.000-07:00

Long, long ago, I saw a print of a collage done by an artist whose name escapes me at the moment. He was doing work during the turn of the 18th to 19th century I think. In the middle of the collage was a small piece of cut out magazine advertising that said simply "suze".

Since that time I have learned more about the aperitif that bears my nickname and kind friends have given me some SUZE stuff. I have an ashtray, a glass, and a bottle. Recently I found a deck of cards marked with SUZE on the back of each one. Some of them are quite beautiful.

So now I add this to the list of things I am looking for. :

world peace
some peace and justice anywhere where it is lacking
a new dog (we had two bichons--from the pound, so they were no doubt mixes. I am basically wanting a drop kick dog.
suze stuff....without having to hit e-bay
all my friends to be well and resurface
vim, pep, and vigor

I have been absent to some degree from my blogging responsibility, and am saddenned to hear that two of my favorite bloggers will be taking a break from blogging. (They are Kim Miles and Beading Stars)

I hear my husband making noises from the other room that indicate he is missing me. It is our bedtime. I will turn off the computer and go there where I will type in the essay about coming to New York that has beeen sitting in my handwritten notes book for two months now. see you momentan

Splitting myself while becoming whole

2010-05-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

On my way out today to pick up some medication, I thought how important it is for me to edit what I write and post and not just do a kind of flow of thought thing. My thoughts are much too disorganized. I am thinking of somehow dividing up this blog into several sections, dealing with different options:
Mental health issues including ADD, and neurodiverse syndromes like Autism Spectrum disorders.
Art, craft and living a life of an artist. Finally being able to work more than teeny, tiny part-time of this "shadow career: of mine.
Philosophy, friendship, life the universe and everything.
Just misc. stuff as it occurs to me.

It would be helpful to know where any reader interest may lie. I will try to make the Title reflect the catechory and then give a short one sentence synopsis of what I may be writing about. Somebody give me some feedback. love and peace to all, sopha chesterfield davenport

May is here again...

2010-05-04T19:12:00.000-07:00

I was going to start this entry/post with an apology about having taken so long between my virtual communications.

However.....this is the spring that I am deciding to do my best not to apologize for things automatically. I encourage you to read an article that my young former student and now friend wrote. It will make the remainder of what I write make a bit more sense. (One can only hope) The link is as follows:http://www.commondreams.org/view/2010/04/23-0

I think that if you have difficulty linking directly from here, you can just go to the common dreams site and find the article.

This kind of picture with many colors is not untypical for me. I tend to take this sort of thing with my camera. With the very same pencils I attempt to draw. Almost without fail, any drawing that is able to connect with the viewer has some element of sadness or ambivalence about it.
Although I am generally of the opinion that artists should not talk about their work too much, in some cases, the artist needs to examine their work and understand why it is what it is. Here comes the story:
     We all have secrets;those that we keep from others and those we keep from ourselves. If we are lucky and have the courage to live an examined life, we may begin to understand those silent ones that lurk in the back closets, within dusty closets in the back recesses of our brain. These are the ones much deeper than that you secretly watch "Housewives of Maine" when you are alone.

One of mine is most easily seen by looking for it's footprints or seeing just how it has re-arranged my life while I wasn't looking.

I am an immigrant to this country and often, when asked, "Oh, where are you from?", the inside of my head,speaking to myself corrects the grammar while the voice that deals with the words for the other person tends to say, "oh, France." Sometimes, because I know it is only half-truth, I will use a "conehead" voice and then it feels less like a lie.

I do not like people who lie and I do not like untruths, so I am in a bit of a bind here.   In all honesty, I was born in France and lived he first five years of my life there. I have more memories from that time than one would think,but there you are. Another fact transforms this into a not quite subtle lie. My parents are German, as is most of my family, and they were all of the generation that allowed if not encouraged the Holocaust to occur.

War and catastrophe are evil players and have the power to transform anyone into victim or oppressor, and the other way around, and disallows those who would be neutral. My entire generation was told by our parents' generation that this is not true. I know that I was told again and again that nothing but neutrality was the ground that they stood upon. I imagine a small island, crowded with people arguing who might have been to blame......

As I grew older, I knew better, and so, like many of my generation, I took on the burden of the guilt and shame that my parents refused.

The other who faces one, does not permit the illusion or pretense of neutrality. It demands from us all that it is due. I spent my life working hard for social justice as I best could and with that came this unfortunate and silly habit of apologizing for things in which I had no blame.

I have come to the conclusion that it is time for me to lose this unwelcome habit, which taints all I do and say with the stain of untruthfulness and just do what I do and not worry too much about it.

True empathy is silent and moves me to action while the maudlin sympathy that comes with "sorry" keeps us stuck not knowing how to make the world and the lives that share it with us shabby.

I have to stop now, as I continue to nod off onto the keyboard. My current symptoms of whatever is afflicting me.   Love and peace to all, sopha chesterfield davenport

How can I miss you...

2010-04-12T22:03:00.000-07:00

when you never come around? I am coming out of one of my periodic battles with several over my chronic ailments at the moment.... so a picture is all you get. I promise to write actual semi-coherent words sometime this week...

The translation of the name of this book is "Miss Lost in Dreams"...sometimes these words are difficult for me to translate as their meanings are so much more than just another equivalent to me.

Wishing you all health, joy peace and plenty of time to dream this week. Sopha Davenport.

What's in a name?

2010-03-21T23:03:00.000-07:00

It feels to me that for about ten (10!!!!!eeeegahhhh) years now, my life has somehow lost its middle ground. There is an absence of the spectrum of experience upon which a life should run, rather, I have a sense of only high or low. (no, I am not bi-polar and not referring to that kind of

difficulty.

The phenomenon to which I refer is something that I am quite sure is a consequence of an overload of something; stress, tasks, responsibilities, worries, change, expectations.... The list goes on and on.

My life is rich with experience and I am spoiled by a wonderful husband. I have generally been able to work how I want to. I have not habitually set easy tasks for myself, nor do I hold back on my expectations of the quality of my work. Still, I have never had to work on the "slime line" or been stuck with the feeling of having to spend my life earning my living that way. (There was a period of about five years in my twenties, but that is another story......)

So, one of the things that keeps popping up in this too, too fast life, is the matter of a name for the business of art -- my art. When my colleagues and I set about to find a name for our group of therapists, we agonized and spent a ridiculous amount of time on the issue. I think we finally just settle on something rather generic, although my husband was rooting for either Acme Counseling (beep,beep) or, my personal favorite "Hot Water Shrinks".

Now I have to try to find a name that will work both face to face and on the web for a bit of a range of stuff. It seems that every time this issue pops up, I work at finding something that in one or two words can wrap up and give a clue who I am, what I make and what kind of relationship I would like to have with my customer. For several years now I have tried, found something that feels ok, but when I look, it already has a strong identity behind it.

What is the point of all this not meant to be whining? I think that the poignant and important moments occur along the spectrum of experience I mentioned. They, by definition have a certain amount of heft balanced by their subtlety. The looking for a name for a business, while of some significance is really not very important at all. It is an attempt to feed my own ego without facing the fear and challenge of changes happening too fast and in too great a number.

The reality is that I am this:

and this,

and this:

and not really this I guess,

but a whole chaotic bunch more. I think I am a nice and good person. I wish you a life as stunning and bright as a rainbow over water for all its miriad joys. (be well ms. p.)

love to all, sopha davenport

Not much of a weekend...

2010-03-14T17:12:00.000-07:00

First, let me acknowledge the person who has just recently left a comment and asked me to reply regarding an entry I wrote in November regarding Attention Deficit Disorder and a whole bunch of other stuff. In reading it again, I realize it was a bit of a jumble. I would love to respond to you and attempted to, but am not sure you will get the message, so, in case you do not., please leave your contact information on my personal email.... actually, all comments go there first and are seen by me privately. This way you can let me know if you want your response kept private as well. I would love to hear more from you about what you think. I have many opinions and many of them are flexible as soon as I get more facts.
I am off back to lying down again. All I can say is Drat!, my birthday weekend has been marked with some illness and I have found myself too tired to do more celebrating than to snuggle up in bed with some lovely gluten-free pastry. It could be worse, so I am not complaining. Love and all good things to all of you. sopha d.

five days of migraine is finally over, so soon..

2010-03-11T23:21:00.000-08:00

Why is my darling geisha doll attacking me? Perhaps she did not like my changing out her plastic eyes for beautiful faceted amethyst ones....

Why are these Peeps in jail? What will happen to them?

have a great pseudo spring. love to all. sopha d.

change, choices and landlords

2010-02-20T15:59:00.000-08:00

In our household we have this rather odd tendency to name things. The comfy black leather chair in the corner from Dania (my favorite modern furniture store!!!!) was named Eleanor in the store, and that she remains. So, when someone calls out, "where are you?", a possible answer is, "here, in Eleanor". The name stayed because Eleanor Roosevelt was an admirable woman. Should the chair have been called "hitler" on the tag, I doubt we would have bought it, nor kept the name.

Furniture and cars are most subject to this tendency, so we have "El Monstro", a large wardrobe, the "slug room", and on and on. My current car is a Sonata and much as I wanted to drive the "silver streak" -- no such luck. I drive the "S-notta" instead. At one point we had two cars that were both red, and so "big red " and "little red" were born. Little red was a wonderful car of mine, I loved it, but as my office is a fair distance down a very dark road, and I commute home at night, it's tendency to start only when it wished to do so, rather than when I needed it to, became a bit of a problem. We kept it around, because we have always lived the sort of lives where we had two "iffy" cars, and it was nice to have a spare around. After a time, however, it was time to let little red go. It was hard to say goodbye to all those memories, but it was even more difficult to watch the poor thing deteriorate in the street in front of the house. (Me? Anthromorphize things? naaaaa!) Time went by and it was time to replace big red with another car for my husband and "Mr. Bailey" came to live in the garage. We were holding on to big red, due to my beefcake's attachment and due to some hope that someday our son might actually pass his driving test. So..... time went by.

Time went by.

As time went by, there were a few things that needed fixing now and again, and my husband found someone down the hill who seemed to love the car as much as he did. Imagine our surprise when we had found out that big red had spontaneously combusted in the middle of the night while sitting the the man's parking lot.

Never, ever question just what form someone's grief may take. The loss of this car was not the loss of a car, but memories gone, wishes of seeing your child drive a car that has so much history for you......so much more.

The above photo is one I took of the from fender. Straight out of the camera. Then, never able to leave anything alone, I had to fool around with photoshop with it. Here is the result.

I have several other pieces of writing that I can post, but not today. I am semi-retiring from my career as a psychotherapist in order to pursue a more full time career in the arts. This is a very difficult thing to do, and should anyone have an interest in these changes, I would be happy to write about that.

I also, as I have mentioned, have ADD and would be happy to write about that, should anyone have any questions.

Then there is my history as an immigrant into this country as a young child, just silliness, losing friends to awful diseases, sleep apnea masks and how much I sometimes hate mine, and, least but not last how I will address my work as a artist/artisan/business person.

Comments would be helpful. If you are having difficulty leaving comments, then please let me know by emailing me at sophadavenport@gmail.com or susannewichert@comcast.net.

Thanks, blessings, joy and good health to all. sopha d.

When will I ever get these things right?

2010-02-14T16:03:00.000-08:00

I do apologize,,, the blog, Beading Stars that I referred you to has the following url... http://beadingstars.blogspot.com/
Sometimes I think I must just make these things up in my head.... I am sure I have given out the wrong url for mine more often than not. s.

Passion? yes/ compassion? where?

2010-02-14T15:49:00.000-08:00

This poster comes from the website of a person whom I not only hold dear, but who is a person of great intergrity and compassion and, knows what she is talking about! Please go to her blog, http://beadingstars.blogger.com/ to read more of what she thinks. This is well worth your time.

We here in Washington State have had our governor make a decision that is doubtless meant to reach some sort of political end, but the result is to cut out medical for the weakest of our society, poor children. Developers still seem to get their tax breaks, uppermanagement types still get their bonuses, but the children will die for lack of a visit the the pediatrician. There is little to be said.

My family and I have been subject to a major blessing. It may be shortlived or may be long lived; there is no way of knowing. Our daughter, * Iggy, has been released from the state mental institution several days ago, and this is the first time in twenty years that I have heard her sound so solid, so much like herself, that I dare to actually crack open the callus surrounding my heart, in order to be there for her. I will write more about this as it goes and as I check with her regarding how much of her story she would like revealed publicly.

One of the things she told me was interesting though in light of budget cuts. This was not her first period of time being committed to this institution. This time, she said, was different. Before, at meal time, patients could go back for seconds, even thirds unless they were on a diet. This time, no seconds. You got what you got and that was it. Before, they always got cake after dinner. Now, no cake. "You have no idea what a piece of cake means to you at the end of the day in a mental ward", she said.

When we vote to cut taxes, to ensure that those with their huge houses and suburbans, the big cars don't have to pay more for their licenses, we rarely know the small human stories behind them. That is what we should hear and know and what our legislators should hear and know. Nobody wants to. Would you vote for anyone who made you face these issues? You should.

Love, peace and health to all. sopha d.

PS. If you have any notes of encouragement for my Iggy, you can send them to me at sophadavenport@gmail.com and I will print them out and forward them to her. She has no computer, but even the kind words of strangers will help her in the battle with her demons. Thank you.

dout veng ? huh?

2010-02-09T22:22:00.000-08:00

A new language? No, not really. I was just waiting for something and started playing around with the words gratitude and aggravation. I took out all the common letters and was left with doutveng. I am tired and it is late but I think I did it correctly. If you can come up with something that means something with these letters, I will send you a prize or gift of some kind. No big thing of course.

My mother loved white lilacs more than any other flower on earth and so, as the season slowly approaches, I begin to think of her more and more. Just looking at this picture, I can all but smell it and picture both of us sinking our faces deep into boughs of them, letting all the world's troubles drift away. Despite my relative shyness, I never had a problem knocking on the doors of strangers' houses asking if I could have some of their white lilacs if I passed a yard blessed with them. They do not grow well in my yard, the lavender lilac bush struggles to continue to live and on occasion puts out a small show, but then I think, my mother having passed on, is in a heaven in which the clouds are all made of white lilac.

Plum, my friend, so happy to see you writing again.

more from me another time. peace love and health to all. sopha d.

The morning sun

2010-01-28T20:26:00.000-08:00

.....the morning sun
won't shine on me
on such a broken day

It tints the sky a sadness pink

i want to melt away

For some time now I have felt like this rather bad attempt at poetry, dating from my twenties. I think almost everyone who has not yet destroyed it, has some such writing around from the time they were teens and/or young adults.

I keep these old note/sketchbooks around, not because my entries in them are worth much to anyone else, but because there are times in my life when it is valuable to revisit those times and feelings in my own life. (I can only fervently hope that nobody finds them and reads them after i die...i am trying to retain some sort of reputation at not being completely dopey.)

In those days, I recall just how easy it was for me to drive myself into a depression with not much cause. Others, in looking at my life may have thought there was cause, but in reality, i was doing quite well. There was just something attractive in occupying the role of the melancholic.

Now, forty or so years later, i no longer find that position at all attractive. In the last couple of years, I have lost friends and acquaintances to all the things that create these losses. Cancer and one or two other illnesses have been in the highest numbers at this party, but in looking at my life it is clear that there are other culprits that take us away from each other. Changes in lifestyle, marriage, children, illness (in my case-rarely serious, but annoyingly chronic),distance, misunderstandings and a list that could go on for pages.

I am bored with this melancholia, despite the fact that I do look good in black -- slimming, you know. I am also bored with writing this blog colored by it.

I was asked, when I wrote for a small mag. to write a short collumn on the matter of "letting go". Parts of it are relevant not just for me but for so many others at this time. I think of the losses of the people of Haiti and then realize that we have yet to complete the job of putting back the lives of those who lost so much in Katrina. How many years has it been, and who ever speaks of it? This is a kind of letting go that we are all good at and it is not good for the world. However, I promised a change from the melancholic and so here goes.

In the winter, many of us are compelled by the obvious changes in nature around us, to take some stock of our lives, goals, relationships, etc. For this collumn, I have been asked to write something about "letting go".

This question is like a lovely (gluten free - i guess) cheesecake for me. I could easily think and write, ultimately reducing the poor thing to crumbs. Although this approach leaves out no minutae, and thereby might speak to all, it would all ultimately become meaningless, ideas lost in the chaos of more ideas. I worry about carelessly turning such a valuable question into that kind of experience.

Brevity is not my strong suit, but I will try.

Last year, I had to face the fact that I am an incredible hoarder. I am a hoarder not so much of things, but I have some issues there too. I have been battling this concern all my life, yet I find that I easily move things along into another life when it is their time. My hoarding is of a different kind, one that many of us have known since childhood. I cling to relationships, memories, ideas, goals wishes and views of myself, views of others and the big one---sameness. I do not want things to change and will often hold on tooth and nail to pretend that they have not. I can think of no other explanation for the size 6 jeans in my closet! Failing this first strategy, I may then move on sullenly to some sort of accomodation.

Culturally we are given the sense that it is "incorrect" to admit that age or infirmity of any form can limit one's life or cause one to be different. (I will avoid my usual screaming rant here..) The truth is that time and the traces our living leaves on our hearts and bodies forces us to give up some of the things by which we may have formerly defined ourselves. (Shallow is perfectly ok in my mind..) For example, no matter how creatively fashion forward I may have been at another time in my life, four inch heels are totally out of the question unless I want to put my back out.

I find that I am forced to look at myself through the eyes of others and surprised at what I must leave behind. Throughout the decades, I have had some wonderful and close relationships that ultimately suffered from mutual neglect. During that time, the course of our lives have wrought the kinds of changes that, though slow, are enduring. (This could be called the water drop on the rock model).

Letting go of the comfort of who you are in the eyes of another is one of the most painful and difficult of human emotional experiences. As a therapist and as a human being --well semi-human, I know enough to know how little I know about each individual's experience through this.

The marvelous thing about our winter ruminations is that they are infallibly followed by another spring. We remember the flowers from last year and are perhaps surprised by a few new volunteers as well. That becomes an easy time to put away these resolutions and thoughts you made earlier to try to ensure no letting go. Perhaps the only one you made was to try to discover the roots and locations of your rigidity. Leave it and if need be, leave yourself some notes somewhere.

There is a marvelous quote by Mohandas Ghandi that sums up where I want to get: "Happiness is when what you think, what you say and what you do are in harmony."

Here's to diving in, taking the girdle off life and showing up every day in a different costume!! love and peace to all. sopha davenport

My friends are safe, but...

2010-01-25T14:24:00.000-08:00

Pardons for this short posting, I have too many things to do these days and am feeling too restless to write well. My friends have returned from Haiti and are well. Haiti however, like the legacy from Katrina goes on and on and on. It is so easy to forget once our personal link with tragedies is broken. Let us never forget those who have more troubles than we do. Blessings and peace to all. sopha d,

Finding the time. Is it really lost?

2010-01-17T18:19:00.000-08:00

I began writing this on Friday evening Jan 15, 2010.

Last Monday, I noted that I was three blog entries behind. This can only make sense to you if I explain that I write these missives out longhand in a lovely old ledger with lovely smooth paper using my favorite fountain pen. I simply cannot write anything worth reading at all using any other method. Although it sounds snooty, it is not meant to be. I think because of how my brain is wired with both ADD and synesthesia, I need a certain physicality to become involved in certain kinds of activities.

Another reason for maintaining this method of writing has to do with my hope that I can edit what I write into at least a tolerable quality of writing. Previously, when writing for people who paid me and had deadlines, I was know as the seven draft girl.

I was going to write a bit about how the constuct of SHOULD impacts our lives, but since the earthquake in Haiti I have other things to write about. None of this is edited.

Many, many years ago, a wonderful woman named Amy persuaded me and my friend Randi to open our own preschool and daycare following the model we wanted to do. In some ways it was a bit like the Reggio Emilio model only done on $400 starting money. We also were dedicated to the idea that children could be taught social responsibility and other ethical issues could be addressed with children as young as three.
If you knew Amy like I know Amy........you also know that it is fairly impossible to say "no" to her. This is why soon her son Jesse and ten or so other children were all enrolled at the Willows. Time went by, the kids grew older, but Amy remained on our advisory board and Jesse still went strawberry picking with us.

After five years we had accomplished our goals, which were miriad and I will not list them here. It was time to close the Willows and I accidentally sort of came to write a book detailing our experiences with helping children learn conflict resolution skills. (KEEPING THE PEACE-PRACTIVING CONFLICT RESOLUTION WITH PRESCHOOLERS).

More time went by and Jesse was ready to marry Sarah. They did not have a great deal of money to spend on a wedding dress, so I offered to make it. At the time I was unaware that she would be gone for a month in Haiti during the time I needed her for fitting, but even though I helf up the wedding a few hours I was forgiven. The dress was beautiful made from vintage kimono and pale green silk charmeuse. I was to have gone to the wedding, but not having slept for 48 hours in order to finish on time, I watched her walk from the balcony on Jesse's arm and she looked just like the mermaid she had wanted to be.

They had a child last year. As with all children, he is of course beautiful. Sarah has been in Haiti and so Jesse took Miles down to see her and they got caught in the earthquake. If you have more interest in this story see the Seattle Times coverage from yesterday.

There is nothing more important to write or think about. That earthquake, like so many of these catastrophes seemed so far away to me until I heard Jesse talk (in an interview over the internet) about being deputized as a nurse, being overwhelmed by the cries and screams of people still trapped in the rubble. It now feels very personal. I encourage all of you who read this (two people??) to do what you can. Donate, help out, whatever is in your power.

I cannot tell you how much I appreciated my warm down comforters and clean bed last night.

peace and good life to all. sopha d.

shameful I know!

2010-01-08T00:51:00.000-08:00

...to continue a writing after one month of nothing with three small dots could be considered the height of temerity, however it is the easiest way to get the point ----aaaaargh!!!------really, no pun intended, across.

It feels important to me to complete the ideas in the writing I began about Thanksgiving in November. I had begun to describe a feeling of being beset by a cloud of small problems as irritating as a mass of small bugs swarming one's sweaty face late on a summer day.

Clearly, not all those matters were gnat size. A few elephants and hippos were in that swarm as well. They have not gone, continue somehow to try to fly up my nose, interestingly as the day nears its end, just like when I used to go camping. I never did like camping and I do have a large nose, just to clear that matter up in your imagination.

Luckily, we humans have such a thing as perspective and the ability to modify and enlarge it. Speaking from a neurological viewpoint, our ability to enlarge our perspective, thereby changing our value judgements about the events and circumstances in our lives and ultimately shifting our position emotionally is called neurological plasticity.

This term actually refers to a long term process in which the brain continues to prune and grow neuronal branches throughout the lifetime on the basis of experience, in a sense, thereby also shaping experience.

As an artist I like circles and intellectually I can be quite fond of a circular argument that actually gets us somewhere, not unlike a wheel, so this idea has captivated me for some time now.

Perhaps you are thinking that by now, I have rambled so far afield even I cannot find my way back again. Just remember as you read the following, that should some misguided piece of intellectual flab be hanging loose here or there, you can get your own virtual duct tape and make thinkgs all pretty and smooth. Here goes:

I like to take this big time, well granted research phenomenom and mix it up with ways to come to my own senses when I am lopping off pieces off my life with that sharpest of swords, known as SELF PITY. Self Pity is a beautiful knife. She looks as light as a feather and when one looks at her one thinks that the shining and glistening color that is not just on the surface but goes deep into her must surely enter the colorless and faded thing that you have become. She promises a glowing lightness of being as translucent as a sunset or better yet, the sweet freshness of a sunrise.

It is a lie and so I entered the Office of the charming Dr. Lee on a cold drizzly Seattle morning with my left side useless and aching. I thought,"Try to practice some grace. When you have a stroke some of it will feel like this and experience is a goog thing."

I went into an office with my favorite colors, windows with trees outside, easy eye access--my favorite! and found a rich thick stack of all manner of magazines. New ones!!!! I was then offerred a water bottle and handed a list of things to check. Of the 100 ailments listed, I only had to make one mark!! Not bad for 60 I thought and began to lay my shiny sword down. Somehow, she was not as shiny now. (Taupe carpet, ya know)

During the exam, the lovely Dr. Lee asked me to push with my hands and arms against his as had as I could. I took a breath, pulled in those flabby abs, found a little chi and gave a push. I surprised the young man. Again, not bad for 60. There is nothing serious or permanent wrong with my shoulder/back. The problem is getting used to sleeping with a full face mask from my sleep apnea machine. A referral to physical therapy and when I came out the air was still cold and drizzly but oh, the smell of the pine needles! How had it not been there before?

I just now realize, I must have left Self Pity behind in that office somewhere. Good night. Peace to all. more to come. sopha davenport

Thanksgiving, thanksgetting, giving thanks part 1

2009-12-09T16:05:00.000-08:00

Part 1

I will write as long as I can with my one working arm and the other not working as well. When it gets cranky it likes to ache and go numb. I trust that you will pardon me for stopping when I must, and allow me to finish that which I have written out by hand, to be transferred to this post. If you do not like sequential postings, please stop reading now and wait until I do the last one, which I will label as such.

....Sadly that was as far as I got with part one. Pathetic actually. So now, several weeks later, let me try again. This material and these thought may seem outdated, but I have hope that good ideas do not lose their meaning with time.

Here is the original piece, written around the time of the Thanksgiving holiday and the few days following.

THANKSGIVING AND GIVING THANKS

A few days ago I did not feel much like giving thanks. I had several unpleasantries nudging themselves into my life. I admit most of them were worse for those who were the primary bearers of the woe, yet being secondary can be rotten as well. Several people for whom I bear great and deep affection were ill and/or dying. My husband was ill, with a lesser illness, but a greater crabbiness. I too was ill, with stupid symptoms including the inability to use my left hand, and possibly a more severe case of crabb-ature than my husbands. The amount of whine I was contributing to the home was stunning and would have taken my breath away, had I had any.

I had turned the age page to 60 in March and suddenly I felt it. My dreaded and undiagnosed "sleeping sickness" had come back. The result of this was the awful shrinking down of my days to a few short hours. No matter what time I tucked my little self into bed, I could not rouse myself before noon, 2:30, 5:30!!! Because my sleep apnea mega-machine was thought to be the cause of my left arm problem, I was not to use it for a while. Hence the sleeing.

So, this holiday named "Thanksgiving" felt like it had nothing to do with me.

Read on please, before you judge me to be a totally self-centered, whiny, loathsome creature.
We don't like to admit it, but at some time or another, most of us have had, or will have some such time. People will tell you things like , "God only gives us the burden we can bear", and you will want to slug them in the face.
In this culture there is a strong bias against the expression of grief or sadness. We tend to call it "moping" or "whining".
Culturally it is simply not considered correct to refuse participation in this particular holiday/celebration, much less to express any negativity regarding any aspect of this and those that come in the following months.
.....end of part one. Duty calls me to another task. I hope to finish this later this evening.
love and peace to all beings. sopha

beans and something, i forgot

2009-11-09T22:39:00.000-08:00

Ok, sorry, I did it again.. ratherthan preview, i POSTED THE darn thing.My arm is so painful at themoment, I CAN do no more... not even correct my mistakes. Here's proof of just how handsome the child is... susanne/sopha d

Grief, beans, love and other things erotic

2009-11-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE THINGS EROTIC...

..It being my son and all. He is lucky in that he is one of the most photogenic people I have ever come across. The unlucky side of that is that, of course, his crazy, artsy-fartsy mother insists on taking odd pictures of him with string on his face.

Young master Bryce is a budding musician ---- pity us the parental units---. He has talent, which I feel is somewhat buried under a rap style, but his wway with words can be astonishing. Like me, he suffers from ADD and we do not like it when things do not come out perfectly the first time, but he is learning. Let me see if I can put a link in here....apparently not without checking. We also attempted to sign him up as a subscriber, and he showed up last night, but somethng with the subscriber function appears to not be working as well as itshould. (I admit it could be me!) Replies can be sent to me at my private email. Currently the best bet is susannewichert@comcast.net

To ADD or not to ADD

2009-11-06T23:07:00.000-08:00

Among all the other things that I have been attempting to do/complete, are some dolls. I saw them the other day, sitting together in their bowl, just waiting for me to bring them to life. It was one of those interesting things to look at, so I took a picture. (take a picture, you can stare longer!!)

Last night, in a rush of some sort of misplaced ambition, I wrote a very lengthy post, which I then managed to delete rather that post. Takes real talent to do that. Let's see if I can recall any of my brilliant thinking. I do not drink, so that had nothing to do with it, I promise you.

Attention Deficit Disorder

I doubt that there are few people in this country who have not at least heard of this disorder. Doubtless there are as many manifestations of it, as there are folks who have it. I happen to be one of them. (Oh look, a chicken!) *with credit to the wonderful folks who came up with my favorite T-shirt!

I have worked in a private practice as a psychotherapist for almost twenty years now, and, probably due to the other fifteen or twenty years I spent working with children as an early childhood educator, have become somewhat adept at knowing how best to work with children who have neuropsychological problems. That is to say, not just the children, but also with adults who have spent a lifetime without knowing why things are so hard or have been given an incorrect diagnosis. When I work with children, clearly I also work , or at least attempt to, with all others involved in the child's life.

The rules of confidentiality and ethics keep me from chatting about this in any sort of explicit or gossipy way, but not only can I discuss myself and my parenting experiences, there is an awful lot of general knowledge worth a bit of dialogue.

Having ADD and not being diagnosed until the age of forty (two decades ago, yikes!!!) gives me an interesting bit of insight into the relationship between this and other such disorders and, what else----creativity.

I don't think I have ever been without a few too many thoughts in my head and so, as always, I have lists of things that are worth chatting about. Here is just one afternoon's partial list:

1/.synesthesia/creativity, and being different. How do they all work together?

f2. a quote I read by (I think I have the name right): Sunday Hendrickson "If we're treading on thin ice, then we might as well dance." My stupid notes are nor worth a darn... this was a car note, I can tell--apparently the author is Jesse Winchester, musician.

3, Collecting: magazineclippings, stuff that might someday be "media" and so on.

None of this can be done by myself, well I suppose I could, but it does get boring, so I ask that those of you who do read this on occasion, subscribe, give me feedback and encourage o thers to at least take a look. Please.

In any case, the more, the better... I am horrible at recalling the correct url, but I think it is still http://sophad.blogspot.com/ Or the sophadavenport is all the way spelled out... You can see I need help. Blessings, health long life and love to all. s.

Cancer

2009-09-25T22:35:00.000-07:00

This is a very old picture of me. I find it one of the few that I like, because one really cannot see much and so I find I have little to criticize about how I look or don't look. Ah, vanity.

This was taken at a time when I still enjoyed hanging out in bed. I was able to enjoy it, because it was not imposed upon me. Nor was it something that I was finding to be an all too common imposition for others that I knew and for whom I cared.

Now, on those few days when I do feel like I can get up easily, I can actually enjoy some time laying there and reading.

But I wanted to write, not about my difficulties, or the many numerous afflictions that we as humans are prone to host. I wanted to speccifically about cancer. There are few people I have ever encountered who have not had some close relationship to it. In my case, it has afflicted several members of my immediate family.

Both my mother and my brother suffered from it. Perhaps it would be better said that they suffered from the cure, but they lived.

My mother's breast cancer made itself known in the early sixties and the treatment at that time was brutal. She was a most remarkable woman and made every attempt to hide the pain and difficulty that she had following a radical mastectomy and radiation treatments. I recall her talking to me in the last months that she was alive, decades later, waiting to die from congestive heart failure, about how the exercises to keep from losing the use of her arm after all the muscle tissue had been removed, was the hardest and most painful thing in her life. (My mother's life had been extremely painful and so it came as a surprise to me.)

My brother's cancer has not made any reappearance in a very long time and we seem to have forgotten about it most of the time. Because I respect him and feel it is his story to tell, I don't wish to write about it here without speaking with him first, but I am so grateful that he is alive and the proud Papa of two beautiful boys.

I have felt somewhat useless lately for reasons of my own, but in that down time have been hatching a project that I think might be helpful. I have much more to iron out as regards that, but I do urge all of you to do what you can to help make this world a healthier, safer and more peaceful place. Let all beings live without suffering. susanne/sopha d.

Sometimes it pours...sometimes nothing.

2009-09-21T23:26:00.000-07:00

Having just posted yesterday, it seems a bit much to post again today. Despite the reality of my task list, which would have had me work without so much as a bathroom break today, one of my tasks did lead me to a pleasant diversion. I was not going to follow it but the siren call was simply too great.

The life of ADD has become more difficult as I have grown older. I have less energy, therefore less time to complete tasks and far, far, less resistance to distraction. It can, at times feel like a very lonely journey as we hide out failings and our insecurities (part and parcel of the whole thing).

I do make attempts to cherish where even these formerly unwanted things take me these days. Today, the actual task was to get the rocks, stones and pebbles that I had found and washed yesterday off the kitchen counter. (Just for the sake of clarity allow me to say that they were originally found on various beaches throughout the last twenty or so years with various of my children. )

They were nice and clean and dry and I could have just tossed them all into some container, but that would be rather unlike me. Instead, I took a pleasant half hour, swiftly defenestrated GUILT, where it landed in the bushes, unhurt but persuaded to stay away for a while. Oh what wonderful rock and stones!!! There are little, teeny tiny ones and then somewhat larger ones. Every single one of them has a story to tell. There is a slew of smaller green ones, which I think may have come from the Oregon Coast, but I am not sure. So many shades of green!!!! And, so much in each and every single stone that it forces me to recall friends and acquaintances. Just as with the stones, they tease me with the surface indications of their stories, but to learn more, will require sitting time.

Right now, it is time to put on my sleep breathing machine. I hope tonight I get the straps right and avoid the headache I gave myself last night. Things are only progressing slowly, but I will try to have faith. It was funny the night I scared the ###### out of my husband!!

More another time. Love, peace and happiness to all living beings. s.

mental health and tthe possibility of hope

2009-09-21T00:54:00.000-07:00

So much time has gone by since last I posted here, and even more since last I found myself happily deadheading the flowerpots on my deck or disciplining the unruly bushes in the front of the house.
I stopped writing for a while for reasons with which I may choose to bore you later. But for now, I am only just emerging from a time of loss and sorrow, not to mention fear. Cancer that nasty word and demon of a disease is hurting and trying to kill three of my friends. One of them will be dead before the next spring. She is kind enough to talk about this honestly and only when she wants to and I am learning something, I am just not entirely sure exactly what it is just yet.

I decided to make several choices. I would say commitments, but that work implies my having a partner who might benefit in these projects. Choice is a better work and frees me from the idea of meeting or failing to meet expextations.

For a long time, I kept things out of this blog. For one thing, I was fairly sure that I was somehow simply writing to myself. While this is an exercise that can be useful to anyone, I hope to be able to write well enough and spanning enough subjects, in breadth and depth, to be of some use or entertainment to others.

I was planning to divide the writing up into several areas. For a long time, I have always kept my life as a psychotherapist private, in the interests of confidentiality, but in writing for the Polishing Stone, found that my own experiences and knowledge do not have to impinge on the confidentiality of any of my patients. Therefore, I would like to begin to write about that experience and would appreciate comments in return. This is not meant as a forum for giving clinical advice, but mental health (what an odd way to describe being happy) has much in it to chat about.

I also feel that as I struggle to retire from one kind of life and enter and try to build a full time life as an artist, I would like to write and interchange ideas with folks around these issues.

Third, I long ago began to write something called "101 Stories about my Mother". She was a most remarkable woman, who is mirrored in the women I find around me now. Truly, there are many stories.

Last, but not least, there are always my unsolicited ramblings....

I am writing this late on a Sunday night, having written drafts and getting nowhere all week, and finally choosing just to let this go out, with not so much as spell check.

Bless you all and please, come back and let me know you are here by subscribing. susanne/sopha

the disappearing act

2009-08-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

I just wanted anyone who cared to know that I am still alive, have ad a bit of a bout with poor health and no energy but am looking forward to a renewed effort at working on this blog. There are three subjects that both interest me and in which I (not so humbly) attest to have a certain amount of knowledge. Typing without my computer glasses is not one of them. They are as follows:
1.family dynamics, child development from a social emotional point of view as well as non-punitive parenting skills. I call this "dirty parent tricks", at least when it comes to teens. He, he.
2. Artsy fartsy stuff. AS a woman who has never met a medium she did not like and manages to make anything she encounters medium, it can be an interesting, if cluttered life. I wonder what I can do with the goop the used to attack the electrodes into my hair last night during the sleep study. There is a lot of it left and it has a wonderful slimy consistency.
For me artsy fartsy stuff had settled on jewelry for a time, but I am now branching out into doll making, and wedding accessories as well as wearable wedding attire for us auttumn chickens.
3.that sort of leaves the whole rest of the world.
Any and all feed back is appreciated and I hope to be fearing up to sloth on steroids speed around winter. Love and peace to all. sopha davenport

two new pictures

2009-05-22T16:58:00.000-07:00

Today, although rich with thoughts running around and bumbing into each other at some kind of steroid induced Brownian motion, so fast and so heavy I would not be surprised to see some sort of word sludge come out of my ears... eeeuuuugh!, I am somewhat impoverished when it comes to matters of time. I could also mention the absence of solitude as someone or another keeps knocking on my office door every thirty seconds causing me to sound more and more like a harpy and less like a loving mother.
So, what I am giving you is two pictures. One is a scan of a drawing/painting/thing? I did. I am attempting to move from my more representational images to painting stuff like rocks I like...and this is what came out of a photograph, memories of a beach and a sleepless night. The second is when I took the scan and started messing with it with Photoshop (no, I do not have a clue as to what I am doing, but I love the liquify tool! I am trying not to continuously use it on photographs of others, much as it cracks me up. ) If there is anybody out there, let me know, do you like one better than the other? I think the handmade one is better in hand. So it goes. Sopha D.

Wacko Women...

2009-05-18T14:16:00.001-07:00

I am lonely here at this blog as I suspect there is nobody to read it...truth to tell I am hardly that interesting. Sometimes I miss some of the groups I once belonged to, but they were either too large or too demanding of production or one thing or another. Oh wait, I am the lazy bum...that was it. I am thinking of starting onE possibly called WACKO WOMEN WHO DO A LITTLE OR A LITTLE, BUT ARE PROBABLY CREATIVE AND HAVE A WICKED SENSE OF HUMOR.
On the off chance that anybody is reading this and would like to think about it, let me know. You do not have to be a woman actually. I am very flexible about these things.
Oh, what does the Dalai's card say today?
Shoot, he is hiding in his box under drifts of paper, but he will not elude me... here, here your Holiness... I need you... Just a moment.... go get a snack or something while I track down the smell of incense.........

Found him!!! Here it is:

If you harbour ill will, it has a negative impact on yourself. You may lose your appetite and good sleep."

Peace and love to all you beings out there... sopha davenport.

parenting mental unwellness

2009-05-17T21:21:00.000-07:00

Today began with joy and celebration and has once again ended here, at a wall I cannot move. I have done this before and finally managed to turn around in another direction. This time, the wall is different, aren't they all? I am not finished yet, wishing to share the garden I imagine is inside. I am so very tired. What irony! I am a good therapist, but can do nothing for my own children. The following is a poem (good or bad- yo be the judge) I wrote when the first child went finally lost to us.

Is it really you
who stands east of here
having ridden the wind
and
been carried by my left hand?

Two golden and silver rings
celebrate those carried before.
Just two:
as eyes, as ears, as a pair.
For you, having chosen to ride
on only the smallest finger
straddling a weak knuckle
there is no ring pale enough.

&

The east remains to my left
I dare not turn full face into it
in the hope of moving it from that side

I might see
that you have sung
no songs
into the mountain crossing air
instead
stand back to here, facing a large and roaring ocean.

by susanne wichert.

I wonder, does anybody read this stuff? Doesn't matter really--tonight it helps to write it. Good health, peace and kindness to all, love sopha.

Stuff and the stuff of which memories are made

2009-05-15T17:19:00.000-07:00

Someone gave me a lovely box sometime back which contains these swell cards, each of which has a quote on it written by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

In my strenuous efforts to clear up my home office, I once again came upon it and hope not to lose sight of it again.
Here is the card that was on top today:

Smile at others and keep the world smiling.

Interestingly, my husband is I think is one of those special human beings has his own way of acting this out: When someone says to him : "Have a good day.."; He will often reply with: "you first!" or "after you!". Most folks get it and manage to smile.

More later if I have time, after I clean up the mess I left from making a garden in a box. What is a garden in a box? Stay tuned and you can find out, but only after I find my camera and it has shown up at the door of its intended recipient. In the meantime, enjoy your gardens, whether in a box, a yard or in you head. Love to all, Sopha D.

Analog Woman

2009-05-14T17:08:00.000-07:00

I have attempted severeral times now to post in this poor little blog, only to have the result of writng masterful essays which then get erased when I attempt to illustrate them with a picture. Well, actually, it isn't just placing the picture; it is putting WHERE I WANT IT!!!!!
This is the reason why you may have looked lately and seen posts that were nothing but titles. Oh well. Today, thinking that I could find the drafts somewhere, I was planning to put up the brilliant thinking (ha!) that I had put down. You, dear reader, are lucky for the gods of anti-drivel have erased my encapsulated thoughts from both my computer and my mind.

Looking at how easily I become frustrated with, for example, not being able to place a picture where I wish it to be, however, makes me stop to think how age is part of this and how my own personality is part of this.

Most people who know me, know that I have ADD (attention deficit disorder). I have made my own choices about how to handle this and am doing ok with it more or less. This year though, I began a project of simplifing my life (who didn't??) and going through my stuff and getting rid of that which I did not need. Given that in a fire of earthquake we would have to climb over what my children call "junk" and I refer to as "media", it seemed like a good idea.

Much pain comes about from this process, but I occasionally have an epiphany. (These are somewhat different than the one that my son had one morning when he had come up with a brilliant new idea. He was in mid-adolescence at the time...you figure out some of the things that might cause. He ran upstairs, wearing only the boxer shorts in which he sleeps, unbuttoned, threw his arms up over his head, chest out and yelled..."I have had an epiphany!" What could we say but, "we can see that you have, dear.")

Mine are rather more quiet and I tend to share them with nobody (I can learn from example after all) and then write them down somewhere in the form of a rule. The first one this year was as follows " It is not necessary to have someone who needs the stuff that you are trying to get rid of. You can just give it to the second hand places and quit trying to do the universe's work." Can you imagine what would happen if we all kept doing the work of the higher power, universe, God , You fill in with your preference. The goddess would get bored and could make all kinds of trouble, much worse that that which afflicts us now. Therefore, I am letting the goddess decide what to do with stuff after I let loose of it.

I had a second rule, I wrote that one on a post it too. Of course, I forgot it and have lost the post-it. Darn! Welcome to ADD land.

I will now leave you for the day, hope I don't mess this up and go back to cleaning up after having made a garden in a box for a friend. So much fun. My husban says I am wacko. But of course. Sopha Davenport

QUOTING ALBERT

2009-05-11T16:29:00.000-07:00

.....Quoting Albert Einstein is easy. Quoting many people, wise and otherwise is easy as well. Living up to the quote that one finds compelling is an entirely different thing altogether.

Here is the quote I love allegedly from A.E.:
Out of clutter, find simplicity.
From Discord,
find harmony.
In the middle of difficulty lies Opportunity.

I found this lovely quote on the January page of a new 2009calendar. I thought it would be a good leitmotif for this year, as I had already decided to eliminate much clutter from my life in order to be able to exercise my own creativity better. For me, the exercise of my creative bits require a bunch of stuff and a lot of space. I was encouraged in this effort by my loving family who was experiencing the dreaded Suze project creep once again. There are entire cities that are no more having succumbed to the project creep -not all mine of course.. I you poke around those old ghost towns in the west carefully you will find the signs: half completed quilts, stuff with macaroni two thirds of the way glued to it, crocheted saddle covers..oh you know what I mean.

the second time around,,,

2009-04-25T23:33:00.000-07:00

The day started off just fine today and most of it was filled with joy as my husband and I impulsively decided to paint the living room (finally) after making some moves to re-arrange the furniture (also finally). The formerly while wall was not only far from it's previous fresh ivory color of at least seven years ago, but was aslo marked by spots where we/perhaps more I/ had painted or taped up various shades and hues of colors that I thought we could live with and that would let everyone know what good taste we had.There was one sort of dull plummy sort of color that had taken dominance as I was rather fond o f it, but my darling Spamcake kept insisting that it was too dark.
So off we go to the store to get paint and after not nearly as much sqabbling as usual found a color that we both liked. THe first stroke of it onto the wall revealed it to be---just about the same color I had been mixing with my little guaoche sets!!! Now we are done with the first coat, neither or us can move except to groan and tomorrrow we will have to complete the task with a second goat. This has been sitting in my draft box for a while and, no we did not do anything in the living room with goats. This brings the usefulness of spellcheck to mind...altlhough it would not have caught this one for sure.
It does, however, point out one of the weaknesses of how I choose to live my life. I too easily allow others to interrupt me, leaving the draft file full of halfwritten things and a blog unread.

altered posts

2009-03-01T21:25:00.001-08:00

This has been pretty much how things have been this week.... I wrote a clever post and it has now vanished into the ether due to my accidentally pushing a wrong button. I am entirely too tired to share my "wisdom" -- ha! tonight, so pretty pictures will have to suffice. I will try to write tomorrow. Promise. sopha d.

A belated day of love and contentment to all

2009-02-15T13:20:00.000-08:00

The idea of having a day in which we let those about whom we care is love (valentine's day). However, during many of my younger years, not only did I feel it was a "created" holiday for commercial interests, but it also felt like a day of exclusion. I was certainly without a honey most of the time.
So, how about if instead we make each and every day a day in which we let at least one person in our lives know how much and why we care for them and are happy to have them in our lives. Happy everyday to all of you three people who read this blog. love ya. sopha d.

reading time

2009-02-06T17:05:00.001-08:00

I suppose I should make time to take the rest of the shiny things down from the few remaining walls. I find myself as engrossed with many things, in particular, reading. I was forced to abstain for a number of years and feel like I am now attempting to make up for lost time. I have already quoted from one book, The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. Originally I bought this book for our waiting room, as it is the sort of book that one can simply browse through and put down at a moment's notice without feeling like one has missed the ending and/or (as we say in the therapy biz) "not come to closure". So far, it is still too interesting to take it to work. I will, on occasion share items as I find things that are interesting. At this point I have the distinct impression that many of the English phrase origins are either based in vulgarity or history -- men's history.

The Fool's Full Plate

2009-02-03T16:24:00.000-08:00

I took this picture as a bit of a joke, of course at a time when I should have been doing something else. Just as right now, I really should be doing something slightly more productive.
I will therefore make this short and find some more time later in the week. I am struggling my way out of the ADD pit, into which I have allowed myself to slide for the last year or so, resulting in my finally going out to buy office paper and finding it remarkable how beautiful the sun is today. I have been staying indoors and making myself crazy attempting to catch up and create order. I am now listening to and doing the very things that I suggest to my clients and am close to being out of the sucking quicksand.
I love to read all manner of weird books, and one of them on my current pile is The Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins. I thought I would be orderly about this and go alphabetically and sure enough it did not take long before I found an interesting word I had never heard. The word is "arschgnoddle" (now, German being my first or second language, I should have known better than to press on, but I did. It said: "see fartleberry". I looked that up (In this very same book) and about lost my breakfast. Gross! It is too gross for me to even use it as a curse word. But the day is still lovely. sopha

aaargh!

2009-02-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

sorry, will write more, but right now, a nasty headache has me in its grip.... I must turn off this and any other screens. s.

PHARMAKON : a new time

2008-11-06T14:19:00.000-08:00

It is a new time....I wish I could have written yesterday, but it was not to be. When I go to work, in order to be non-intrusive, I keep most of my politics in my back pocket, and so yesterday the enduring smile on my face was all I could put out there to express my feelings of joy and hope about the election of President (to be) Obama.

I happen to be reading (among several other things) a book that deals with Jungian ideas. The name is The Scapegoat Complex.
The reading is slow, but one of my office colleagues has recently completed further study in psychoanalytic approaches to therapy and I thought it was time for me to return to some of the readings in order to be able to talk to her about our work more productively. She has, through the years, taught me much, and I wish to continue to learn from and with her.

I mention this because it brought me to thinking about why this election had me in tears for several hours after I got home. These were tears of joy and hope.

As an individual not born to this citizenship, I sometimes feel that I should criticize less and sometimes more. I realized some of what I had been missing in the political life here.

A quote from the book: ..."psychologically, scapegoating is a form of denying the shadow - by projecting it onto others." ....Shadow can refer to....." attitudes, beliefs, behaviors and emotions we do not feel conform to the the idea of omni-perfection with which we define our idea of God or the Supreme Other. (as a beginning student of western Buddhism--20 years or so--I find that I cannot really find the correct word for the universality of one-ness, but still feel that the same holds true.)

We can have such difficulty accepting that all our humanity, whether we welcome it or not, is part of a compassionate, accepting universe. Therefore we find the scapegoat which allows us to repress, reject and make unconscious the unwanted (in us) while projecting those qualities elsewhere.

For a very long time now, our politics, in line with the rigid Calvinism upon which this nation was founded, have sanctioned an atmosphere of scapegoating.

The speech given by Pres. Obama on being confirmed the evening before last, was a new kind of speech. It was something we have not heard in far too long -- a voice of hope and clarity, devoid of scapegoating. Now, it is up to us. ...and to quote that which has been happily quoted much in the last few days---yes, we can.

My postings have been less frequent than I would have them in the last six months or so, due to illness, but I am hoping that I am getting better and will have time to post more.
Please let me know that you are reading this, lest I feel foolish, and return to paper and pencil journals. If you read this, please let me know who you are... tell me about you and argue with me if you wish.

Also anyone reading this who has any good recipes for things to eat that conform to a celiac (gluten free), migraine prevention and diabetic diet.... help me out. It will be much appreciated.

May you and all beings be well and live in peace and joy.
sopha davenport/aka/drsuze/aka/susanne

The virtual gardener...

2008-11-02T20:56:00.000-08:00

I, who used to spend several hours a day in the garden despite soggy weather, armies of slugs and crabgrass that felt like it had developed a personal distaste for me, am watching another fall come. This will be the second summer that I have left it all just about untouched. There are those plants that go on and seem to do just fine without my attention, but others have succumbed to my bad back and neglect.

I have always thought the garden had much to teach me, and I miss the lessons that take place in the quiet. I had worked on my yard for years and at the end of every summer, the result was the same.....all the things I wanted to do, remained undone.

I oddly still think of a year beginning in September when the schools start--you would think I was a teacher or parent or something....; so this year as we have passed All Hallows Eve and are making our dash toward Thanksgiving (culturally I mean), I find myself climbing over the effort I began sometime back. It feels like forever, so I cannot even say how long.

We decided to get a new couch and thereby "redo" the living room, causing all kinds of storage uproar in the other places in the house as well. Everything had to come out so that it could be purged before being put away and I find I am still at it and sooo bored by it. I think this year the garden is teaching me that there is no deadline in these matters so great as to neglect friends, family and oneself. I come to this slowly. It took a bit of illness and pain and discomfort to get me here, but I am slowly easing into things with the grace of a neglected garden.

In that grace I hope to find some of the passion I have lost lately, as well as my blood sugar monitor (helpful, if you have been told to monitor your blood sugar!!)

A long time ago I wrote something about how relationships are like the different plants in the garden and the wise gardener does not try to make any into something they are not. But, still one must attend to the needs of the plant/relationship. As I have had my head in trying to find myself among this chaos, I hope that all those of you that I truly care for remember to consider yourselves among the peonies. They are my favorite, although they had to be carefully tended initially, they now willingly go on and show me their splendid miracle in the spring. So are all of you my peonies and though I may have neglected to treat you as well as I should, I wait patiently until you bid me come to attend to you by your unending patience underground and scented flowering.

I promise to try to post more frequently and to take the time to edit these comments a bit more that they be enjoyable to you and allow me to take pride in my thoughts.

The picture of Kwan Yin (one of many spellings) is one of several that I have been collecting in an effort to bring something of "hers" more graphically into all parts of my life. My favorite is a small statue I have on my desk at work. It keeps me present and aware of my "shen pa" (spelling???) as Pema Chodron would advise.

Wishing you all a most pleasant week. I am off to bed to finish a hat. Yes, of course we have to sleep with pins in the bed... that's life. sopha davenport/aka susanne

The wedding thing...

2008-09-20T15:13:00.000-07:00

The article regarding the wedding dress I made for Sarah is in Cornelia Powell's online magazine "Weddings of Grace". I believe you can get there from here by using http://tinyurl.com/6Zwkhk

Thanks Allegra for your help with this.
If anyone has an interest in what I make now you can contact me by leaving a comment and your email address on this blog and I will get back to you... sopha d.

Little birds cont.

2008-09-20T14:55:00.000-07:00

For some reason, I find that if I try to look and see how the entry I am making is looking on the blog, I cannot go back and add on to the initial thing I was writing..... so.... this is Part 2 of the entry below..(I hope)
I pulled into the parking lot and asked someone just what was going on. I thought perhaps it was time for the aliens to come down, although why they would choose the front lawn of an old elementary school in Monroe of all places would be a bigger mystery to me than the idea of aliens.
As someone explained to me, the large chimney on the school is part of the migration route of a certain species of finches. This happens every year for about a week. It has gone on since the school was built. What happens is this. The birds fly in the sky above the school. More and more of the tiny birds gather until the sky seems covered with them fly here and there. Then, as the dusk gathers the evening around it, at some invisible signal they begin to gather themselves and slowly the formation of a tornado of small birds all flying counterclockwise begins to form.
The formation becomes tighter and tighter until those at the base of the tornado begin to enter the chimney. To do this, they must turn and fly down tail first, as they spend the night like shingles atop each other for warmth. Birds contine to come and come and come. It is the most astonishing thing I have ever seen.
I also love that people take the time during this week to watch a show that is quiet, no loud music and bright lights, just amazing nature. sopha d

Little tiny birds

2008-09-20T14:37:00.000-07:00

One of the things that I love most about life are the surprises. There are good ones and bad ones. Clearly the bad ones are, on first meeting not as welcome as the funny, affirming, or enriching ones. I have had two major surprises this week, one of each kind. I will tell you about the latter.

I was driving home from work about seven in the evening. In the small town just outside of Seattle, WA, where I have my office, it was beginning to be dusk. I was in one of those apathetic, half brain dead kind of moods as I drove past the old elementary school. It seemed odd to me that there were about a hundred people or so either standing, or sitting on lawn chairs, with and without binoculaurs, looking at the roof of the school. I was about to drive by, then I thought I saw someone I knew and pulled into the parking lot.

Thanks!!

2008-09-18T11:57:00.000-07:00

Thanks Allegra for sending me the links to your site as well as to weddings of grace. For now they should be in your comment, but after I take my shower and clear up the kitchen I will move them into links... thanks so much. What would I do without all of you who help me out in these matters Sopha D.

Birthdays and sweet boys

2008-09-16T14:49:00.000-07:00

Today is September 16th, four days after my son's twentyfirst birthday. He is a very special child in so many ways I cannot count them all, but he is the last child we will send forth into the world to create his own life (eventually....).

On his birthday he received the usual odd sort of assortment of things that we cobble together when we think of someone we love. I was moved to tears, when he was moved to tears, not by the spiffy new, red cell phone, but by the plate with his four year old handprint that I had cleaned up and mounted with some other items in a shadow box. He was also given two magnets with quotes and his favorite went something like this "It is not as important to go out into the world and do well, as it is to go out into the world to do good". Not only have I doubtless mangled the quotation a bit, but I have forgotten the writer. A book of poems by Rumi was also among his favorites.
Perhaps, no matter what, we have raised him a little bit right, or, perhaps his spirit has survived our parenting and all the other nastiness the world threw his way. A lovely birthday.
Wishing you all a wonderful new year.

You may wish to visit a website produced by Cornelia Powell, called Weddings of Grace. No, of course I don't have the url, that would mean I have suddenly become totally organized. But then, you know how to google don't you? You just put your.......

Oh, lost in old movie memories... my pardon. One of the articles in her newsletter is about my friend Sarah and her "mermaid" gown. (I just love being called a designer.) No more said.
sopha davenport

counterfeit or real life?

2008-06-28T17:31:00.000-07:00

This winter has been a long and difficult one for me, When I think about it, it spans from last June until about now. The winter that is a year. Therefore my title, is this life real or counterfeit--movement done by sheer will and need without my heart and soul invested in the doing? All my life I have had difficult with the occasional bout of depression. (What..you thought mental health professionals never have these issues? Au contraire, Lucy!!! It is these experiences that encourage us into these careers and make us either very good or very bad at them.)

There are so many of us that, I think, are not meant to live in the society as it now is. Particularly at my age.. 58..59? I forgot. But, things are becoming real again, as I can see my peony blooming away. It has been sadly neglegted but has nonetheless given me the gift of its spectacular bloom. I thank all who must be thanked.

TIME AND PIGS

2008-03-19T20:47:00.000-07:00

I wrote this weeks ago and could not figure out just how to get it out of drafts and posted. I finally learned this sort of backhanded way...so, my apologies for this writing being several weeks old. I will finish my thoughts on the many meanings of gravity on the weekend. thanks. sophad

Time and Pigs
Time and Pigs Thinking of time and pigs last night while waiting for sleep to still an overactive mind. We are convinced that one flies and utterly certain that the other will never. How, I wonder did pigs get into that position? There are so many things that are, when you give the matter some thought, considerably more immobile and unlikely to fly. There are buildings, boulders, mountains (although we give them credit for being im-movable), and, sadly, there is my dear friend Sherrie. I haven't seen her for a while as I live here in the Northwest and she was forced by circumstances to move to Boston some time ago. She has MS. She has had it for a long time, but it only recently, in the last year or so became the cruel monster it is now. She cannot fly literally in any physical sense. No running and having that feeling that you are going fast enough to leave your body behind. It has taken that inch by inch but with an unrelenting viciousness that boggles the mind. She has fought to retain the use of her legs with a will the like of which I have never met. The sad truth of life is that sometimes will and love are not enough. If they were, she would be running barefoot through green grass at this very moment.The flies of MS time took her balance, so even when her legs were strong enough, she was in danger of falling at any moment. A walker or a can will only do so much and they are a greater intrusion than help when one is moving in a home filled with stuff. Your fat friend, may have the illusion that she will catch you if you fall backwards down the stairs, but you know all there will be left are her little hands and feet in, of course, fabulous shoes, sticking out. That too!! MS robs you of the ability to wear fabulous shoes, unless you are lying down. No fun at all. Then, about the time you sort of get used to that, it decides to overrule you when you give orders to your limbs. You say to your right foot, "go that way." ----- but, noooo! MS decides to make it go someplace entirely different.To add more insult to injury, you are given medications that make you gain weight simply by breathing and you, who have always kept your body in the trim, are adding ten pounds a month. This is now not easy weight to haul around. It is sadly, still not considered justifiable homicide to strangle any medical staff who tells you that, "why no, that medication, does not put on weight. You must be eating more than you think."(hi honey...hope you are feeling sort of ok....)I have reached the age where there is always the chance that any friend I have both close and far away, is one that I might lose without notice. I have not ever really liked group functions, primarily because I cannot have the sort of conversation I want that bonds me with my friends and so I treasure the rare day having lunch in a restaurant and then looking at glass at Bedrock. Sometimes it feels that it can never be enough. And yet, I have lost often enough that one would think I would be better at it. I remain what I have been all my life -- the sort of person who stands and waves long after the car is out of sight. Thank you Allegra and Barry for the most precious afternoon and evening you gave me on Sunday. Although the time went too fast, I think we were the ones flying. sopha d. [Photo]

part 2 re gravity

2008-03-17T19:49:00.000-07:00

A while back, when I took writing up again, a bit more seriously this time, it was not as easy as it had been when I was in my twenties. (Earlier this month I had my fifty ninth birthday) I don't bother myself too much with the why of it, but it has become my habit, to leave no word unexamined. It takes me to far more interesting places when I do that, so I plan to continue.
One of my favorite books for this purpose is an eighteen hundred's thesaurus written by a man named Mr. Crabb. I purchased this book for a dollar or so many years ago on Chukanut Drive on our way from Seattle to Bellingham. Mr. Crabb opens up a world of word usage the like of which seems all but lost to us now. We are all the poorer for it. But, at the moment, Mr. Crabb is hiding so we will have to do without him.
My first step was to look up the word gravity in my old (1948) english/german dictionary. French and German being the first languages I ever learned, looking at the German and French equivalents of words, sometimes allows me to feel my way into words in those languages. I can often do this with english as well, but why not make things richer if you can? So, what did I find out? That will be part 3. I think I am still the only one who reads this thing, right? --so I may as well take my totally exhausted body to bed. More tomorrow, I think...sopha d.

gravity has increased...

2008-03-17T19:27:00.000-07:00

It seems that in the last few months, there is a small circle of space surrounding me, traveling with me--an invisible shell--in which the forces of gravity have increased a noticeable amount. The thought originally came to me, as, for what must have been the thirtieth time in one morning I either dropped something, or an object fell for no other apparent reason than being in my proximity! The current improvement, for which I feel immense gratitude, is that at least things are no longer falling on my head. Because I have had some difficulty with getting things to show up on the blog and remaining in my blog draft section despite my pleadings, I am going to post this in bits. So this has been part 1.

frustration with everything

2008-02-29T21:42:00.001-08:00

At the moment it would seem that the more I attempt to have this thing post the drafts I have written....brilliant work of course...well, they were not meant to be drafts!!!, the more it makes older post go away, so in order to read them you have to click on the link-ie pencil thingie.

There are a number of you, who I count among my friends, whose blogs are much more fascinating than mine, but at the moment I fear that if I write them on this blog page, they may disappear altogether. I want to hang on to you!!! sopha davenport

SuzeSez

2008-02-29T21:37:00.000-08:00

SuzeSez

2008-02-29T21:36:00.000-08:00

SuzeSez

2008-02-29T21:34:00.000-08:00

SuzeSez

2008-02-27T17:06:00.001-08:00

Technology hates me

2008-02-26T13:59:00.000-08:00

I don't know why my last post ended up with this upload link instead of the whole post.... It is a long one, so if you wish to read my ramblings, why push the button please. I just cannot rewrite it... thank you. sopha davenport

2008-02-26T13:49:00.001-08:00

change/no change

2008-02-22T18:47:00.000-08:00

This morning, while loafing in bed, both my favorite and least favorite activity depending on how "stuck" I feel, an advertisement came on. This is of course to be expected. Some skinny older guy, who I admit looks like some of my older friends was jogging along what looked like the undeveloped part of Mulhulland Drive (forgive my spelling--it has been a while). The gist of the thing was that being old was not the kiss of death of something and that even at the horrible old age of 58 you could take your life back into your hands, one step at a time. After a while apparently you would then look skinny like him and run around in baggy shorts at five in the morning. That was fine, until it struck me like a thunderbolt.... 58!!!!!, wait a minute, I'm 58 and still waiting to get a little older before I get really serious about consistently taking the calcium and having that bone density scan. (Let us not even discuss the treadmill looming in the other room.)

What does this mean? Heck if I know.... but I was thinking how we change, and the world changes and something inside of us refuses to change. When these are in proper balance, life is rich, challenging, meaningful and, well, life. When they are not, which often occurs when we leave these things unexamined, we run the risk of slowly dying while still walking around.

A number of years ago, I had an unusual opportunity to go to Beijing, China with one of my bestest friends. For five years we had run a business together and when the business closed, our time together shrank radically. This chance to spend two weeks with her was wonderful and since I had a real love affair with all things Asian through my romantic western vision, I was ready to go. The trip itself was so many things that I could write a book if anyone was ever interested (which they are not). However, on coming home, I became ill with a mystery illness. I was extremely tired most of the time and given all manner of medications. In August of 2002 I wrote this:

I have been struggling with coming to terms with the awful feeling that life flows by me, so quickly and so un-noticed.

I find myself left with nothing more than the repeating experience of waking at 4 am with yet another day gone by. It is the true existential anxiety toward death. I am relieved to find that it is in part a side effect of one of my medications.

The events of the summer forced this chemical unconsciousness upon me--for the sake of my blood pressure and the sanity of those with whom I live. Strange that their living more comfortably should be bought by my living less fully.

It is odd how day can feel so much more full, long, meaningful, joyful, fearless, even though my back aches, the same problems exist, my still the same unknown length or brevity...but having been awake to it, I don't feel that dread. This medication treated my anxiety and oddly enough caused severe dread for me....

As a therapist, this is a window into depression that is well worth thinking about."

Enough for today. Comments are welcome.

oh my oh my

2008-01-24T22:34:00.000-08:00

Time has flown,my computer blew up or at least got ill enough that everything got erased.... I will write again soon. Anyone whose blog I was reading may have to relink with me please. Thanks my dears. sopha d.

project creep

2007-12-21T22:06:00.000-08:00

Friday, December 21, 2007

What is "project creep" you may ask....more about that later.

The other day, while driving to work, I found a radio station that is new to me. Not to anyone else apparently, but to me. It is one of those lovely "starter" public radio stations that still runs by virtue of folks volunteering and sharing their interest in a particular type of music or issue. (For those of you in the general Seattle, Everett area, it is 90.7 out of Everett.) I hit the station while browsing just in time to hear a comedian say several things that made me laugh out loud. The one that has been stuck with me since then is the following: "Depression is anger without enthusiasm." (If I could remember the man's name I would surely give him credit.

What makes this comment interesting for me, as a practicing psychotherapist is that the old adage is "depression is anger turned inward." Somehow that never quite did it for me as it seemed like a bit of a hopeless view. When I got to my office I "shared"..... eeeeeek....no, no, what I did was I told my colleague who thought the idea was worthy of some thought.

It now dawns on me that the thing I like about the enthusiasm quote is that it implies more than just getting enthusiastic about being angry. In its simplicity it also implies that there is room in the human heart, no matter how flattened or prickly, to experience some sort of enthusiasm for something beyond one's own troubles.

Mine of course are many...enthusiasms far beyond the possible time and energy I have been given to spend in this world, but among them are.... SHOES. Imagine my happy surprise, when in looking for the gifts I may have stashed at the far back bottom of my closet, I found my favorite pair of magenta suede pumps with the bow in the front. I guess the gods and goddesses do occasionally reward the slobby housekeeper. Sleep well all and may peace be a gift we can all share . sopha d.

Writing to myself...not necessarily a bad idea...

2007-12-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

So, as I write to myself, I am trying to fill out all the questions... who am I? What do I like? and so on. This is a little like writing a journal, but done so publicly is an unusual exercise. Perhaps this is good for a shy person like myself.

One of the things that I clearly love and always will, are shoes. There is I realize a frivolous part to this aspect of my nature, and, although I own more shoes than most people, many of them are as art appreciation.

This shoe is what I would consider the almost perfect shoe. I don't think I could wear it, but the beauty of it lies in its balance and minimalism. Of course this is a shoe I cannot afford and is made by a very old shoe company.

One of the things that I have been known to do (under the name of DrShuze) is to "redo" shoes. Anybody interested in seeing the peacock feather shoes?

good night for now..sopha davenport

ya gotta start sometime.. maybe

2007-12-16T20:15:00.000-08:00

December 16, 2007--sunday evening...and as usual I find myself wondering why I did not get my entire list done. I do actually advocate making at least part of the list at the end of the day, but today I feel I am being particularly egregious. My office floor (home office) is covered with paper and here I am setting up a blog.

I have always made fun of bloggers. Who am I to think that my musings and random thoughts would be of interest to anyone....?

However, a friend of mine, who sadly, lives too far away for me to jump over to her house has begun one. Having been squuezed by life in such a way that she could no longer write to those of us who adore her individually, she has chosen to start a blog. I am so glad to see her writing...the particular grace and wit with which she is able to string words together... I am attempting to return the favor.

We will see how it goes. The image is mine. I photographed the fall and then played with photoshop. You are welcome to download it for personal use, but please give me credit. (my real name is susanne wichert). Please also do not swipe it for any commercial use... thanks.