Meet Levi Denham

Bought this bugger Thursday morning in 10 minutes over the phone through a trusted friend (I HIGHLY recommend Phil for any auto-buying needs).  Raymond and I left Friday evening for Minneapolis, drove through the night in the old rodeo truck as temps outside dipped more than twenty degrees below zero.  I watched an amazing slow motion North Dakota sunrise - the bold sunbeam squeezed skyward by crisp cold air just before the sun blazingly burped into the sky a moment after this photo was shot:

I very quickly bonded with my "new" rig during the 15 hour ride home. Ford calls the color, "Blue Jeans Metallic." Levi seemed an appropriate name and "Denham" happened because I know how much Cliff would have liked this truck.  Throughout my twenties, Cliff would tell me to "hurry up and make money Honey so you can adopt a child" - which I alway imagined to be a girl but if it were a boy - I threatened to name the child Levi Denham.

Each of my last two trucks spent nearly a decade with me.  I certainly hadn't planned on my truck getting totaled (I put $1200 into having the front end rebuilt less than two hours before a lady ran a stop sign and totaled my truck).  I don't believe Levi spent much of his life being a truck but less than 24 hours after bringing Levi home, the truck began its new life by hauling a large sculpture down our steep mountain across icy interstate roads to the Yellowstone Art Museum for an upcoming show and auction.

Home Sweet Home

Oh my goodness.  We all need to sit down for a long cup of tea or a big glass of wine as I've sooooo many stories to share...!

I meant to write.  Sooner.  More often.  But lordy life walloped me with complexity at the same time I was whipped with jet lag (much worse jet lag on the return than going over).  Just a quickie list to give you an idea:

Studio furnace gasped, sputtered and quit (over and over) a few days before my return from Bhutan.  I had to gimp it along, restart and restart the poor bugger while keeping a fire in the stove for the following week.  Raymond had to keep blowing our road open for three service visits while we waited for parts during a SUPER cold snap.

No truck.  My truck was totaled just a few days before I left for the fairy tale kingdom of Bhutan.  I've owned 3 trucks in the last 30 years.  Insurance companies and shopping...

Solstice in Yellowstone.  What a blessing to be at Old Faithful with my new (OFFICIAL) family for a few days of pure beauty and total delight.  The snow coach delivered us back to civilization a day before Christmas Eve.

The holidays.  Mix of celebration and mourning.  Cliff and mom a big part of my heart and soul.

Lotsa post-holiday life stuff as the sale of my mother's condo was settled, a new (used) truck purchased, some intense post-dog-attack yuckiness in the formal (formidable) world of attorneys and insurance companies, the delivery of a sculpture to the Yellowstone Art Museum and a total (much needed) revamp of my studio.

More (of course) has transpired in the four weeks since my return.  I am still processing the magic that happened overseas even as I begin plans for my return.

Yaks...!

Big yak attack just below Cheli La pass. (gosh I love these cute buggers - there is something kind of bunny-like about them...)

Truck Love

"I love the construction trucks" I said to Big Tashi our driver during my first week on the job site in Bhutan. "You should love a man, not a truck" he said.

Sparking possibilities...

She was very shy but circled closer and closer once her brother excitedly told her what I was up to. I'm not certain but several of us us discussed it and believe I am the first female to carve in Bhutan. The beautiful fairytale Himalayan country is impressively embellished by a long history of traditionally trained carvers. One of the caught this candid moment while he was on a ladder outside:

The Takin always grins

"Madam is so happy today," Norgay said with a broad smile this evening as we were all packing up our tools. He was genuinely pleased. I looked around at the other jolly Bhutanese carpenters who were looking at me, nodding and grinning along with Norgay and I laughed - not at anything in particular - just because...The darkness of the last two days has lifted. I carved and cried and felt my way through a round of intense emotions. Though no one here actually saw me cry, I was never alone (as so many of you pointed out to me). And so I share with you the perma-goofy-grin of a critter called the Takin which also happens (of course) to be Bhutan's National Mammal - a perfect pick for a country with a declared GNH (gross national happiness). I aim to make a pilgrimage to see a Takin in person. When I shared this photo with Raymond a week ago his response was, "I want one" which is one of the zillion reasons I love the man I married.

As the Prayer-wheel turns...

Each morning as I stand in the back of a truck and bounce up the primitive road-under-construction to the job site in the trees, we pass this sweet sparkle soul who sits in the same place in the same clothes catching the early morning sunshine while spinning the same prayer wheel. Spinning and grinning. Except yesterday he wasn't there. Yesterday I flip flopped from feeling very zen and adaptable in this overwhelming experience to simply feeling overwhelmed. I have been sharing with you the delicious good juicy parts but truthfully - between the blue sky, trees, vivid colors and bright sparkle peeps, there is a bumpy road with equal parts dust and muck and progress-delaying giant rock piles.So it goes... Between the giddiness, the glory, the inspiration - I still grieve. I deal with darkness, doubt, fear and frustration. I miss Cliff horribly - he has been my rock during the ups and downs of creation for over 20 years. Cliff could ALWAYS see in the wood the image and what needed to be done when my overworked mind could no longer see. "That ain't right Honey," Cliff would say but then he would look at my carving while carefully looking at the image I was trying to carve. He would take his time. Sometimes he took what-seemed-like-forever. Eventually he would point out the elusive-to-my-eyes problem. Cliff was always right. Always calm. "Don't cry Honey" he would say. He would tell me what I had gotten right as well - artists are so hard on ourselves and much of what I do as a carver is pressured by the fact that I cannot put wood back on (not in a purist sense) so relief carving has the intensity of surgery or super-difficult rock climbing. Pretty much all the conditions I have become accustomed to working under for the last several decades are lacking on this project. Compromises on top of compromises are testing my mettle. Cliff would step in when things weren't right around me and fix them - like a quiet leprechaun. After another restless night and a pre-dawn meditation session I aim to conjure up the quietude of the sweet little prayer-wheel fella. Spin. Breath. Spin. (photo taken by Christopher Spogis)

Happiness Abounds

A few mornings ago this bright beaming nun waddled up to Ken and I while we waited for our driver to pick us up at the bottom of the hill below the resort. The bundled up nun had a piece of gum for each of us. She didn't speak a word of English. I insisted she have one of my Newman's Ginger chews but she shook her head, spoke in Dzongkha and pointed to her mouth. I thought maybe she was saying she didn't have the teeth for it but she took a piece and wandered quickly away. Yesterday the smiling nun showed up again with a fistful of candy. When she placed a piece of "Liebe Milk" candy in my hand I said the Dzongkha word for "thank-you." She said in clear English, "I just love you" before she turned around and walked off with that contagious smile on her face. I dropped my pack and ran after her to get this photo. She squealed in surprise when she saw us in my cell phone camera. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and squeeze her but she was quickly off again - walking and smiling. Moments later I climbed into the back of the truck with a pack of cheerful Bhutanese carpenters. Each morning I stand behind the cab to take in the endlessly fascinating views and gulp the fresh Himalayan air. Yesterday I grinned giddily with a gift of candy in my mouth and an overwhelming sense of love, wonder, joy and purpose.

Thanksgiving in the Bhutanese Lodge Kitchen

Pumpkins don't exist in Haa but apples aplenty had me thinking I could whip out one of my mom's apple pies for the gang but I kinda wimped out at the prospect of baking pie in the bukari (woodstove) so I came up with a stove top apple crisp concoction and had a BLAST cooking in the lodge kitchen with "the girls" (we've adopted our Bhutanese lodge staff of young sweeties). Rob Ryder took the photos.

So thankful I could cry...

I've a 13 hour head start on Thanksgiving as the sun rises quietly above the beautiful Haa Valley. I've much to be grateful for but here is one personally powerful gratitude: After a long 18 month challenging journey with PTSD following the harrowing dog pack attack last spring - yesterday was a milestone which leaves me feeling humbly, intensely thankful-to-the-point-of-tears. I finally wrapped my wrists, pulled on my work gloves, ear protection, dust mask and protective eyewear and went to work with power tools...!!! PTSD pounced on and snuffed my creative confidence - for some reason I became terrified of power tools (along with other terrors previously unknown). Many small steps and several large leaps via various approaches, practices, patience, support and determination led me forward to this place where once again I can carve - not the same as before. I am changed and changing. Thankful for all I feel - the depths and degrees of darkness, light, love, compassion and ...simply....being...

Lofty Heights and Soulful Depths

Two weeks of spiritual, artistic, scenic, meditative inspiration and healing.  I feel more-than-blessed.

While I have zillions to share and stories abound - my internet time is limited.  Although internet is more accessible than one would think in this remote Himalyas valley, I am most often without the internet (which quite frankly is totally ok with me).  Contradictions abound and astound - but rather than being frustrated, I am amused.  For instance, plumbing in my room at this quaint resort freezes each night yet the beautiful staff girls who dote on guests who sing to themselvehave their own cell phones.

Today I completed the design for my carving.  Phew!  I say "Phew!" for several reasons.  I am rather out-of-shape creatively since life events and PTSD from the dog pack attack last year have kept me from creating.  Then too - EVERYTHING here is different.  Even simple things which I take for granted back home (like paper) are cause for a convoluted treasure hunt.  Don't get me started on tools....!  Well just to give you an idea -  back in Montana I pulled the aluminum framing square out of my suitcase at the last minute when Raymond insisted that certainly framing squares exist in Bhutan but it turns out "not so much" (the standard Bhutanese answer for many inquiries).  But I love it. 

I am slurping up the vivid culture like a hungry child.  Total immersion (another reason why blog-time hasn't happened much).  But I do manage Instagram and Facebook posts nearly daily so please follow me there.  Even if you don't participate much in either Social Media worlds, everything I post is public so you can follow and look freely.  The Bhutanese people are not slaves to time - "maybe after sometime" is also standard response - to everything.  

I like it.  Meanwhile, I will write another blog post sometime.  Maybe.  After.  Some.  Time.

Featured in the news

Sooooo....

The night before I left for Bhutan, Q2 News featured me.  I have tried to embed the video here but some weird tech glitch or perhaps the tenuous internet service in this remote region squashes my efforts but you can follow the link..

http://www.ktvq.com/clip/12884536/livingston-artist-transforms-trees-into-art-countrys-king-requests-her-work

LOTSA adventures to share since I embarked on this poignant journey.  I am posting frequently on Facebook and Instagram and will do my best to write and share on this blog when I have Internet and time.

Stoked.  Humbled.  Open.

Off to adventure...

Soooooo...... Best intentions of keeping you up to date literally slid sideways as a careless driver T-boned me when running a stop sign in an intersection, totaling my truck, battering my body and rattling my core just one day before the dedication party for the Bison Bench at the airport and five days before departure on the BIG adventure/Bhutan project.  Raymond took this photo of me at the airport early the morning of my departure to Bhutan:

My husband the bullfighter

Dust. Snot. Sweat. Dirt. Skill. My husband is a bullfighter (as a hobby) which means he gets paid to protect the fellas who ride bulls. Raymond simply loves impressive bulls - especially a rank pen of bulls bred to do what they do with impressive aptitude and cunning. Raymond cares about the peeps who attempt to ride bulls and he's gotten so damn good at bullfighting in the years we've been together (as his wife I believe I can brag 'tho Raymond is humble and would never brag).  His cousin John Ansotegui put together this short sharp video recently from a local event.  Raymond is wearing a black hat and blue shirt fighting bulls with a  young partner named Ty Simenson.  Raymond's little grin at the end makes my heart flutter... [embed]https://vimeo.com/187770594/ad727e1212[/embed]

Sweeping and Weeping...

Last night as Raymond shut the door on the empty storage unit I broke down and cried. I expected to feel relief. The storage unit seemed such a burden of stuff - a HUGE project - a chore I didn’t want hanging over my head/heart/bank account. But it was so……..empty.

My mom treasured that couch. She refinished those pieces of furniture for my little girlie bedroom. Mom was beautiful.  She baked bread and pies and cookies and cinnamon rolls.  I have been essentially losing my mother for twelve years since Alzheimer’s began its attack. I witnessed and cared for her while she lost her mind. I handled with grace the graceless moments. My heart remained buoyant in the muck so how the fuck does sweeping out an empty storage unit squeeze the breath out of my heart ’til it feels like the pile of dust at my feet?

Six years ago I swept the cement studio floor of my brand new studio; the “first sweep.” I thought I would feel pure joy. But as I swept...I wept. I slid down the wall in a corner of my brand new gift of a studio, sat and cried.

My father died earlier that year. Quick and horrific, pancreatic cancer chewed him up and spit him out. The thought that my father did not know about the giant gift of a studio from a patron who believed in my talent made me sad. I wanted him to see it. I wanted my father to see….me.

Sweeping and weeping; simple acts of cleaning scoured my heart.

Reconnecting with you...

I haven't been much of a blogger while feeling my way through sooooo much life, love and loss these past months. Challenging is hardly word-enough to describe events since the dog pack attack last spring.  Grief is healthier felt than oppressed.  I have cried buckets of tears over the loss of my mother and Cliff.  I have been scared to the point of puking in attempt after attempt to navigate the horrific pot-hole-ridden road of PTSD.  I have not created much of anything in the studio but I have lived so much outside the studio. I got married.

I managed the emotional task of sorting through the myriad of things left behind by mom and Cliff.

The list actually goes on and on but the point I want to share is that now and then I thought of you...!  Honest.  You entered my mind after many of the beautiful, funny, interesting, news-worthy moments (which have been plenty).  I have so much to share!!!  Grace and Gumption have stood by my side during crises after crises.  Thank goodness for Grace and Gumption, they team up to point me in a colorful direction or paint a crazy-beautiful skyscape or hang a fat oozing moon or tickle my senses or slide a random bit of beauty and lots of love into moments just when things seem unbearable.  I also have Raymond, who's strength, patience and love bless me day and night.  Of course there is Tala.  Smile-inducing energetic little bugger who entices me to pull on hiking boots or running shoes even when my body and mind don't want to.

Meanwhile, I just want to say hello.  I'm back on the blog...

Cliff's birthday...

Awe Cliff. We took this selfie before "selfies." Before we had power in this cabin you built by hand (with trees from this land cut on the old tractor-powered sawmill). The cabin I moved into over twenty years ago, afterwhich you said, "You doilied it up Honey" -not because I actually had a single doily in this cozy home but because I took down the giant elk head that hung low enough above the old plaid couch to bonk us on the head. I hung nude paintings by Freeman Butts of myself and Stacey Herries on the walls, cooked on a gas stove instead of a wood stove and kept up the place better than "mountain man clean."

Today would have been your 69th birthday.

I miss you more than I've words to express - tough to type through tears. You hated it when I cried but you were a constant caring witness for sob after sob, no matter what time of day or night, no matter the reason (or no reason). Your unconditional love and companionship made me a better person; and that's a damn dumb way to try to say what a gift you've been. I still don't know how to manage without you. I can't believe you are gone. I love you so much dear Cliffy. Happy Birthday.

Happy Birthday dear Mother

My beautiful mother would have turned 76 today. Let me share with you one of her last gifts to me - a magical moment last month... [embed]https://youtu.be/kU5Jrxzrc9k[/embed]

Rest in Peace dear Mother...

Alzheimer's stalked my beautiful mother for twelve long years. Her own father died from Alzheimer’s. During my grandfather’s progression of the disease, he did not know his own wife of fifty years. Yet somehow - no matter how many parts of my mother's mind the vicious disease claimed, mother has always known me. She forgot where her mouth was, how to eat and what to do when I helped her onto the toilet but Mom did not forget that her daughter was going to get married. Mom loved the man I planned to marry and somehow rallied beyond the limits of body, mind and spirit to witness our wedding. Her doctor and I realized back in April that mother was hanging on for the wedding but as her condition deteriorated, it became necessary the first of May to enter her into Hospice care so that her live-in caregiver and I could continue to care for mother at home. Raymond Ansotegui and I considered staging a wedding so that mom would not have to wait to be free from her ever-present anxiety. We wanted to spare her the frustration, humiliation and dark depression that plagued her via Alzheimer’s. But my gut was pretty certain that something about the energy of the event was beyond our ability to stage. Two days before our ceremony mother was convinced all day that it was night; the day before our wedding mom slept all day, which she had never done but the day of our wedding Mom rallied beyond her "normal" state of confusion. She was more present than seemed possible. Just the logistics of getting her to our outdoor mountain wedding obviously drained mother but following our ceremony she was reluctant to leave. I have been told there was not a dry eye during the impromptu moment when I tenderly kissed my mother and told her “I love you,” just before Raymond took my hand in front of our guests at the juniper altar we made to honor my dearest friend Cliff. My high-anxiety mom was more calm and content for a few days following the ceremony than we've seen her in a year. Then she was simply “finished.” The day after our last wedding guest left, just five days into my marriage I packed and scooted to my mother’s for her final chapter. Good karma blessed me with a loving live-in caregiver for mom this past year and added a blessed bonus of the caregiver's spirited spiritual sister during mom's final two weeks. I dubbed Linda and her sister Debbie "The Angel Sisters." Together the three of us tended each other and my mother so that during mom's final eight days and nights she was never alone. We played old hymns, read aloud, sang, kept mom clean and comfortable. We laughed and we cried but mostly we beamed love. The gift mom gave me of her potent remarkable presence on my special day is beyond endearing - the stuff of magic - a treasure. Her gift powered me through the long bedside vigil and will remain a vivid miracle of love.My dear mother, marvel of grace and beauty. I love you. I hear your beautiful singing voice when my heart plays the lullaby you used to sing to me, the same lullaby I sang over and over to you while you lay dying: "Now the light has gone away Father listen while I pray Asking thee to keep, Quiet watch while I sleep."

Rest in peace dear mother, Betty Jean Reinhard, August 13, 1940 - July 21, 2006

(photos by Jonelle Pollock)

Ritual for Cliff

A big bird landed with a loud flutter in a tree at dusk Sunday night. "Is that an owl?" Wynn asked. The calm strong HOOT answered her question and sent a flood of warmth into numb cold-with-grief bones. We had just turned back from the river after sharing yet another crying session. Cliff grew up on the banks of the Yellowstone - the river his backyard. Literally. One spring he and I waded the river with furniture over our heads when it flooded his parents' house. Dinner by the river was Raymond's idea. "The owl will be here when we return," Raymond said with confidence when our waitress announced with a friendly yell that our appetizers were ready. We climbed the stairs to our table outside the Yellowstone Valley Grill and shared a meal so impressively delicious it coaxed joy into deep sadness. We celebrated our love of Cliff and his love of life. After dessert the three of us walked past the fire pit to the bank of the river. The owl hooted in darkness, we lit candles, Raymond pulled off his boots, waded into water more-than-refreshingly cold and launched the floatilla crafted with love. I marveled at the magic of place, the strength of love, the ability to endure and the encouraging enchanting befitting presence of the owl.