The Yellow Dress

I inherited the yellow dress from my mom, probably because after the fourth pregnancy, she could no longer fit into it, or maybe she just thought it would look cute on me. It was made of a soft, sheer cotton with white rick-rack on the sleeveless arm holes and hem and the waist was cinched with a cloth belt. I was about twelve when it was hung in my closet for wearing to church.

When I heard the news that my uncle had died, my instant reaction was to rebel against attending his funeral. I announced that I would not go. I didn’t want to be in a room full of weeping relatives. I don’t believe in funerals, I protested. You either love someone while they are alive or you don’t. I didn’t feel close to my dad’s large family and I couldn’t imagine my uncle any other way than handsome, funny and charming. He had the same black wavy hair and blue eyes as my dad but he wasn’t married nor did he he have children of his own. He made all of us feel special. In fact, out of all the aunts, uncles and cousins on my dad’s side, he was the only relative I liked. The Brown family was made up of hard-working, beer drinking, gossiping German blue collar workers and Grandpa was a drunk. He always smelled like beer and being next to him made me feel sick. I was an intellectual bohemian artist with my nose in a book and my head in the clouds. Uncle Tom had made me feel comfortable in an acutely uncomfortable situation. I thought to have a funeral was the wrong way to honor his passing but I didn’t have the concept of “celebration of life” at that time. It was my first encounter with death and my response was to refuse. The refusal was a facade to hide my shock and sorrow.

I argued and tried to resist but my parents insisted that I show my respect and accompany them. There was no way that they were going to let me stay home while they all went to the funeral. It was unthinkable.  I knew the casket was to be closed due to way the body had been damaged in the car accident. This fact was another reason I thought a memorial was stupid. You couldn’t even view his body, anyway, he was no longer there. If I had to go, though, I would wear the yellow dress.

My parents were trying to get my three siblings dressed and ready and didn’t have time or energy to fight with me any longer. I can’t remember their reaction but I wore that dress to the funeral. I don’t remember anything about the service or the gathering afterwards, although I’m sure there was one, with plenty of beer. The only thing I remember is that I knew Uncle Tom could see me in that light-reflecting yellow dress. I knew it would make him smile. I knew I would never wear black to a memorial if I could help it. I would go as myself, my dynamic, feisty, alive self.  

Pasa doble

Did he love me more than anyone else? Didn’t he ask me to stay? But he didn’t beg me to stay. In fact, he was both sad and relieved when I decided it was time to go. And so was I. Admit it, we were in over our heads, partners in an unreal pasa doble. Not able to dance to our own beat and yet out of sync. I was in love with the impossible and the hope of home coming dissolved the further out to sea he swam. It was the alcohol, finally, that did it in. At first it made everything shining, a patina of transcendence. To sit at the restaurant drinking mojitos while the Buena Vista Social Club CD played, watching the blue sea fill the horizon. Suddenly a deluge, a tropical storm, dumped its water, churning up the bay, invisible in the wall of rain in front of us. Thank goodness we were safe under the roof. No windows, just an open room and the loud violence of that outpouring of water, the echo that roared from all sides. How we laughed! His latest partner stared at us, puzzled by the innuendos and the bark and dip and the sudden locking of our eyes in understanding. No one else knew what we had been through. We wanted to draw blood. There were secrets between us. It was impossible to let go. We were bound soul to soul. And so I had to leave, to extricate myself because the behavior had degenerated from silly cocktail happy hour to so many martinis the devil came into him. A threatening malevolent presence. He could be mean. He was still flirtatious with whoever was sitting with him (sometimes it was me!) but he would turn, at the last minute, and venom would spew out. Would we make it home safely? Would he be able to handle the creeps who came out of the woodwork sniffing at his pockets? Oh, the pretense of money, of being wealthy, of success! It turned out later that he was more vulnerable than he realized. That was my cue. But I had already drifted away, began my journey back to sanity and safety. The leap had unfurled my pain to a deeper dimension where healing could begin or I would drown. Finding my way back from the underworld, connecting back to life and family, getting home without his presence to distract me.

Dancing solitaire. Dancing without a net.

excerpt from Feisty Women

This summer I promised myself that I would scan the complete manuscript of my novel Feisty Women as it had been written on a word processor and not on a computer. I am about half way through. My goal is to send out query letters to agents and editors and yet, every day, time zips by and it hasn't been done. Teaching, coordinating the youth program at church, fb and emails, submitting grant proposals, editing an anthology....all these things must get done and by late afternoon, I am tired of the screen. I have no excuses. I always admonish the participants in my writing classes that time can be and must be found if progress is to be made. I share the story of writing another novel in 15 minutes a day while employed as a nanny. Take my own advice! Here is the first chapter of a novel I feel is a parable of what is possible. An elderly woman takes in a younger woman and eventually her home is filled with people of all ages. Her insights as her relationships grow enable her to recognize her failings with her own children. Take a read at this preview and let me know what you think....

Feisty Women

By Wendy Brown-Baez

Chapter One: Dreaming

   

      Every day I watched from my window.  Before I knew who they were, I watched them walk by in the street, women who walked past my window almost daily.  I noticed their beauty, their grace, their youthful stride. Not that they were more beautiful than other women. It was something else, a purposefulness that was also full of tenderness. I wanted to meet them and yet felt afraid, ashamed almost.

     In contrast to their youth and loveliness, I was old and ugly. My skin dried and blotched with age marks, warts, skin tags and the dried salt of tears. My thin hair wispy on my shrunken head made my ears stand out like flaps. My bony hands and shoulders and pouches under my eyes. My fragility compared to their vitality. My thin body could no longer support me in the dance of life was carrying me inevitably toward the dance of death.

     Those girls, those women walked--no, strode, danced, trotted, almost flew through the streams of people, the sunlight glancing off their jewelry like sparkling fireworks going off before my eyes. Those girls, those women--who still had firm breasts and rounded hips, thighs rippling in jeans, hearty feet in boots, and brilliantly colored scarves! Those women bedazzled me, in my brief glimpse into their world as they passed by my window, tugging along a small straggling child, yanking sharply the leash of a furry dog, carrying sacks of groceries, shaking their heads, smiling at no one in particular, pleased with themselves, pleased with life. And I, old, ugly, misshapen, strapped into this horrible stiff metal and leather contraption with wheels, hands uselessly folded in my lap, eyes dimming and limbs stiffening, rejoiced in their beauty. I was not jealous. I yearned to reach out and caress them as you would an inspiring work of art. I did not know their names yet, so I gave them names: Passion, Grace, Faith and Delight. I yearned to speak with them, to hear the music of their voices, to enfold them in the peaceful harmony of the measured tread of time.

    How could I know it was my longing to be heart to speak aloud the multitude of memories that swelled up in me day by day, swelled unspoken and unheard, memories, stories, treasures of a long-lived life. I yearned to invite them in to my own small fragile world. "A cup of tea?" I would ask. "Or do you girls drink coffee? Cookies? Chocolate chip or ginger snaps? My teeth are too brittle for them. I bought them for you. They used to be my favorite. Or perhaps the pumpkin bread or the strawberry tarts would be better." Not the same as homemade. I used to bake quite well but these would have to be fetched from the bakery...

     And so my mind would ramble on, dozing in my chair by the window, dreaming of tea parties, and laughter and friendship.

      A light touch on my shoulder. "Mrs. L Mrs. L." It was Felicia, the paid care-taker, 2-9 shift. Her brown plump face was expressionless, impassive as she wheeled me around to a small card table set for two, the long formal dining room unused for many years. Sometimes we ate in the kitchen, but too often it reminded me of my inability to cook or bake, which I had loved to do. The joy of braiding the challah every Friday night and baking sweet cakes and pastries. I wondered if Felicia was worried about her husband again. He beat her sometimes, I knew. Even for a blurry eyed old woman, I could see the bruises. On those days, she was unusually quiet, brooding perhaps about leaving him. Or him leaving her. I did not know, she didn't confide in me. Our relationship was strictly business.

     “What’s for dinner?' I croaked, my voice harsh from disuse. I shuddered to hear myself asking the same inane question every night.

     “Chicken breasts and mashed potatoes, Mrs. L," Felicia explained, carefully spooning the gravy liberally to drown what I assumed would be instant mashed potatoes again. I sighed, remembering baked potatoes, fried potatoes with meat, french fries crisp and hot, potato latkes, and I longed to say to her, ”You lazy girl! Do you give your family instant potatoes?" But I knew it was hard for her. She had kids and an unruly husband and she didn't need to be scolded by me over the potatoes. So I bowed my head to say Grace.

     I insisted on saying Grace always. If you're not grateful, you don't deserve to eat.

     Felicia cheered up and started to chatter to me. She was usually cheerful and pretty friendly, just a bit stupid and cowed under by men and the system of things, poverty and lack of education. I liked to hear the sound of her Spanish accent. I wished my brain was young and flexible again and she could teach me Spanish. But I didn't grow up around Spanish speaking people and none of it sticks with me.

     My mind wandered from dinner to my window watching that afternoon, before I dozed off. I saw “Faith" today, looking more serious than usual, her face turned to the ground, hands deep in her coat pockets. It was a wool coat, I believe. A navy wool coat or was it brown? And a bright red scarf under all that long hair. Faith looked sad, Faith needed a friend.

     "Mrs. L-desert tonight? I make tapioca, just the way you like it'"

     Felicia used that voice that meant I was a stupid old lady lost in a dream world. I glared at her, but she was already standing up to gather up the plates and silverware. But I did love the way she made tapioca, whipping the egg whites and serving it with fruit and whipped cream. I forgave her the potatoes.

     "Yes, Felicia, I would love some." Somehow my tone was always formal, although this woman must undress me and dress me in my pajamas, help me on and off the toilet, hear unladylike burps and farts. By nine, when she was ready to go, I was in bed.

     The longest shift, the night shift, came in quietly. Natalie was a quiet person, her presence comforting when I was sleepy and annoying when I was wakeful. Every night she read to me. She spent the most hours in my home, but paid me the least amount of attention except when I was sleepless and restless. She calmed me with hot tea, foot rubs, and sometimes songs.

     Some nights I longed for a ride through the park on a horse carriage, like my husband and I did every summer on our anniversary. Or to go out on the town, passing lighted bars and cafes where the sounds of laughter and music and smells of liquor and smoke wafted through the door when someone came out. When we arrived at our favorite place to dance, The Silver Moon, we found it filled with women in brilliant evening gowns and men in dark suits and bow ties. The sounds of glasses clinking and laughter flowed around the band playing a rhumba while couples moved on the smoothly polished circular floor. We took our places among them, graceful and sure of ourselves.

     Sometimes my body felt like a straitjacket, gnarled and bony and useless. I suffered because I could no longer dance, could no longer stay awake until dawn, my husband's hand on my back with secure strength to lead me and guide me through the crowds of friendly and sometimes flirtatious men and friendly and sometimes snide women. All that was left was a memory.

©Wendy Brown-Baez 2013

There are many forms of death by Kevin Hershey, writer in Writing Circles for Healing workshop

There are many different forms of death

 

There’s the death of the bright yellow tulips

brought to my grandmother on Easter Sunday

already browning in their vase by Tuesday.

The death she awaits, as her green eyes grow foggier

each day staring toward the ceiling, looking for the place she knows she will go next.

This will be the death of the last immigrant

death when her green eyes close

and cease to reflect the green hills and gray seas of her home

and death of the stories she might never have told us.

 

There’s death in the piles of unread newspapers by her entry

faceless, nameless, technicolor death in oil-rich nations or marathon massacres.

Death was in the brown leaves that crumpled on the grass last fall

buried beneath a blanket of snow

only to resurface this spring, wet.

There was the death of that deer on Highway 61

who dashed out of the woods

and now she’s crawling with flies.

Hundreds of deaths all over the windshield

smudges obliterated by sprinkling skies

above the lakes next to the road.

Sometimes we call death

passing or crossing over or moving on

when it’s really just death

but sometimes it isn’t death at all

 

My hair was already dead

when it fell off my head

as chemotherapy caused the death of me from the inside out

a million little deaths in my cells that I could not even imagine

The backyard compost was full of death

when I scattered it with black shiny locks

greening orange peels,

the slimy pieces of onions we carelessly discarded,

old autumn leaves,

coffee grounds from many mornings ago.

My dead hair mixed with our dead waste.

It made a bed for next year’s tulips.        

Kevin Hershey returned to his hometown of St. Paul after completing college last year. Currently, his life is dedicated to full-time soul searching.

There's the Light (Writing Circles for Healing workshop participant)

                                        There's the Light from My Grandbaby

                  There's the light from her smile that greets me each time she enters the room.

                  The light of morning that moves on her face like invisible eyes blinking.

                  The light from her eyes as blue as the ribbon tied in a bow around her white face.

                  There's the light from her laugh that makes me a child after she wails and cries then

                  stops as if she was saying, I fooled you again.

                  There's the light from Van Gogh and Cezanne so perfectly arranged it moves my

                  blood to boil in my heart and sends little bubbles up my spine                                                                                                

                  and stimulates my mind for creations that I create.

                  The light from the moon that spreads in holy halos from its edge.

                  There's the light vanilla smell that emanates from her cheek against mine as we 

                  wrestle for the toys. 

                  There's the heat within the sun like the heat from her hands as she hugs my neck.

                  

                  There's the light through the shattered windshield after the wreck.

                  The light of winter’s skies, gray and still as the casket’s canopy.

                  There's the light reflections off my broom faced wrinkles as they gather as my mind

                  grows old and holes perforate my brain and block the memories of her.

                  There's the red light from a cat’s eye the in middle of the night Edgar Allen Poe.

                   There's the absence of light below the earth where the bugs and spiders clean the bones.

                   There's the empty light without her, without god, without soul, just an animal waiting for death.

                   There's the holy light of belief that relieves me as I lay down for my last sleep.

                Also, there's the light of god seen through the tunnel 
 that beckons me to her and to heaven 
 and to all my missing relatives and friends 

 that fly together on wings

 of wind to a better dimension of time and space.

Mark's statement: In '98 I contracted a serious case of colon cancer so I moved back here to be with my family.  After many months of treatment, the cancer went into remission; there has not been any since. In 2001 I was accidentally shot with a large caliber rifle and spent  months in the hospital near death many times. It has taken me 50 operations and 7 to 8 years pulling myself back together fighting chronic pain and infections. It is a story in itself of fighting through physical and mental trauma. I was always an artist ever since I was 5 or 6 when my brother and I started to draw to escape an alcoholic father and poverty.  I was always the best artist in the class and was chosen to do murals and art projects for the class. Through the years I've spent my time painting and writing poetry and short stories

 Mark East was a participant in Writing Circles for Healing presented by Wendy Brown-Baez and held at the Wellstone Center in St Paul. Wendy Brown-Báez is a fiscal year 2012 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota State Legislature from the State’s art and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the  people of Minnesota on Nov, 4, 2008

  

Artist Initiative grant

I have about 6 weeks left of writing workshops sponsored by the Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant.  In April I will be at Springhouse Spiritual Center where I will lead a class in Spiritual Memoir and Saint Louis Park Friends of the Arts creative writing circle.

This month, I am at Abbot Northwestern Hospital Heart Institute support group on Mondays, The Bridge for Youth on Wednesdays, Writing Circles for Healing at The Wellstone Center on Thursdays, and back at Stillwater DOC on Fridays although this is not part of the grant. I also am presenting a free training session for advocates, social workers, healers and therapists to demonstrate my technique at Cornerstone on April 6.

Each workshop has been unique and I have discovered what works and what doesn't. The youth at The Bridge may enter the room with an attitude of resistance (what? another group we have to attend?) but after a couple of rounds of writing, reading and realizing that they are free to speak their minds and not be judged, they want to participate. Unfortunately, by then, it is time for their next activity. But I have heard heart-breaking and affirming poems and stories as they move forward into self-awareness and standing up for themselves.

The women at Harriet Tubman were enthused and the program director told me it led to conversations with others about themselves and why they were at Harriet Tubman,  opening up as they shared their stories and their wisdom. Breaking patterns of addictive behavior and leaving abusive situations can be a long hard road. I suggested that they post the affirmations we wrote in a place where they could be reminded that they are headed towards wholeness.

At our first session at Cornerstone, one woman had a deep reluctance to share but agreed to allow me to read her words. As I did, she wept and the other women assured her that she was on the path to self-awareness and healing. The hurts these women have endured are hard to write about and yet, to admit that they have been hurt is necessary for the healing to begin. A break due to President's day threw off our rhythm but the writer who persevered is filling up notebook after notebook.

The workshop at the library had a different focus as writers wanted to work on writing skills. We discussed setting, character, and plot. One of my favorite prompts is to write about an ordinary activity and then have something unexpected happen. Or to detail a character doing an ordinary activity in public and then have another character approach with a secret that they feel compelled to confide. How does the first character react?

At Banfill-Locke, many of the 14 participants had been primed by taking Julian's Drawing by Intuition class, already connected to their creative imagination. I am always amazed at how a prompt can elicit so many different responses. "I am going to start living"....from Edward Hirsch's poem "I am going to Start Living Like a Mystic" led me to write:
I am going to start living as if the past is a bucket of stars. I can take each out and decide to put it on a shelf, paste it on the ceiling, or return it to the bucket. I'm going to start living as if each failure, each dead end, each detour was intentional experimentation....

At The Wellstone Center, I have the most unusual group I have ever worked with: all men. It is the first time this has ever happened to me, most workshops are filled with women!

The Saint Paul Almanac community editors workshop was the most exciting. We did the timeline exercise and heard brief stories from each participant, testimonies to the courage and determination and resiliency of the human spirit. At The Bridge for Youth, one young man said he didn't have anything to write about and I reminded them that we each have a story. As one famous writer said, if you have lived to be seven years old, you have enough material to write about for the rest of your life. But those I am working with have big stories: stories of immigration, abandonment and rejection, life on the street, escaping abuse, finding new direction, pursuing education, pursuing healthy choices, overcoming poverty, racism, and someone else's opinion of who you should be.

I give my writers permission to be honest on the page, permission to write badly, permission to pursue what comes up from their subconscious. As Natalie Goldberg says, go for the jugular. (If something comes up in your writing that is scary...it has lots of energy.) This is where the juice is, the passion that will ignite your writing. Writing is a practice, I tell them, just like any art. You need to practice to get better. And the more you practice, the better you will get. It is also work. Writing will break you open, make you see things you weren't aware of, show you a reflection of your heart and soul.

At Abbot, we wrote about what we yearn for and I found myself writing about peace: peace in the Middle East, peace in North Minneapolis, peace between my grandsons, a theme that has always been important to me and yet one I haven't tackled lately. For homework, I asked them to write to their hearts. I can't wait to hear the dialogue they create with their hearts. Then I will use the prompt from this: 

If anyone strike my heart, it does not break, but it bursts, and the flame coming out if it becomes a torch on my path. --Hazrat Inayat Khan

There’s a lovely Hasidic story of a rabbi who always told his people that if they studied the Torah, it would put scriptures on their hearts. One of them asked, “Why on our hearts,and not in them?” the rabbi answered, “Only God can put scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and then when your hearts break, the holy words will fall inside.” 

--Anne Lamont in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith

What is written on your heart?

What is the flame that lights your path?

 

Wendy Brown-Báez is a fiscal year 2012 recipient of an Artist Initiative grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. These activities are funded, in part, by the Minnesota State Legislature from the State’s art and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the  people of Minnesota on Nov, 4, 2008.

 

 

 

 

Soul Retrieval exhibition: Art of Transformation & Healing

 

An exhibition of art-poetry-dance

  paintings by Ashley Dull and Julian Coffman,

  poetry scrolls by Wendy Brown-Báez and Athena Kildegaard,

and Sacred Dance by Amy Sabrina

March 9 – April 6

Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts

6666 E River Road, Fridley 55432

(763) 574-1850/ info@banfill-locke.org

 

Opening night Saturday March 9

Artist reception 6—8 with dance performances by Amy Sabrina

Sunday March 10

Moving into Wholeness workshop with Amy Sabrina 1-3 pm

Panel: Art That Heals 3:30 -5 pm with Amy Sabrina,
Julian Coffman, Michael Kiesow Moore, Wendy Brown-Báez

Saturday March 16

Natural Art: Drawing from Intuition with Julian Coffman1-3 pm

Writing for Healing*** with Wendy Brown-Baez 3-5 pm

Workshops: $7 each or all three for $15

**This activity is funded, in part, by the Minnesota State Legislature from the State’s art and cultural heritage fund with money from the vote of the  people of Minnesota on Nov, 4, 2008

Friday March 15 @ 7:30 pm

                                        Poetry reading

with Athena Kildegaard and Wendy Brown-Báez

Books available for purchase

Group Artistic Statement: Art is part of our personal journeys to find healing and wholeness. We have discovered that art transforms us as it transforms our experiences with creative insight. As a group, our purpose is to share that journey through diverse techniques so that the audience may find resonance and insight, inspiration and harmony.

 

 The Artists:

Ashley Dull

Growing up on a small farm in picturesque Northeast Iowa, Ashley has had a desire to create since she can remember. Ashley earned her Bachelors of Arts degree in Fine Arts from Luther College in Decorah, IA. Working today as a young and emerging artist, Ashley is located in the Twin Cities area. She is currently showing her art at local and out of state galleries, Kelley Galleries, Hudson, WI and Woodbury, MN; Wilcock Gallery, Excelsior, MN; Minnesota Landscape Arboretum, Chanhassen, MN; Tamarack Gallery, Stillwater, MN; and gave her first solo art show Fall 2007. www.artbyashleydull.com

 

Julius Coffman is a self-taught freelance artist who has been creating professional illustrations for over 20 years. Julius is the author and illustrator of the book When a Grizzly Bear Comes to Babysit and collaborated on the poem for the Red Bird Broadside series “Sunday Afternoon.”  A student of Normandale College where he studies theology and psychology, he lives in Minnesota with his wife Heidi, two dogs and a wallaby named Roo.

The Poets:

Athena Kildegaard grew up in the Minnesota River valley. She has since lived in Sydney Australia, Chicago, Austin, Texas, Oxford Mississippi, New Orleans, Guanajuato Mexico, Roskilde Denmark, and now she lives in Morris, Minnesota. Athena is a part-time lecturer at the UMN, Morris, teaching college writing and creative writing, and team-teaching environmental ethics. She also free lances as a script writer for Pioneer Public Television. Athena has received grants from the Minnesota State Arts Board and the Lake Region Arts Council. Her poems have appeared in several anthologies and one high school text book.Her poetry collections are Rare Momentum and Bodies of Light (Red Dragonfly Press), winner of the Minnesota Book Award, and new release Cloves and Honey (Nodin Press). www.athenakildegaard.com

 

Wendy Brown-Báez is a writer, teacher, performance poet and installation artist.  A transplant to the Twin Cities from Santa Fe, NM, she has lived in Mexico, Spain and Israel. She has published poetry and prose in numerous literary journals and she is the author of the full length poetry collection Ceremonies of the Spirit (Plain View Press) and chapbook transparencies of light (Finishing Line Press). Wendy is the creator of Writing Circles for Healing and received 2008 and 2009 McKnight grants to teach writing workshops for at risk youth which developed into an art installation called In the Shelter of Words. Her 2012 Minnesota State Arts Board Artist Initiative grant enabled her to bring writing workshops into a series of non-profits. She is the after school writing instructor at Face to Face Academy and is a member of the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop. Wendy has performed from Minneapolis to Mexico, in bars, cabarets, cafés, galleries, bookstores and cultural centers. www.wendybrownbaez.com

 

Dancer:

Amy Sabrina has delighted in creative expression her whole life. She attended Rhode Island School of Design and graduated with a B.F.A. from the University of Minnesota. Amy has received Minnesota State Arts Board grants, A McKnight Foundation Artist Fellowship, and an East Central Arts Council Individual Artist Grant. Her painted pottery can be found in museum and private collections throughout the world. A teacher, dancer, and healer, Amy lives at Sweetgrass Farm in Dalbo, Minnesota. Since 1995, Amy has been involved in dance as an instructor, producer, and performer. Dance performances in Minnesota include Wyoming Area Giese Memorial Library, Unity Christ Church (Golden Valley), and the St. Paul Public Library.  For Amy, dance has been a primary doorway to healing, transformation, and ecstasy. www.amysabrina.com