Jaci Dawn

We have several Praying Mantids we are watching. Earlier in the year, we purchased a “ootheca” (OO-he-kah) and placed it in a little cage in the Hawthorne. An ootheca is the egg mass produced by a praying mantis. I don’t know how many mantids hatch from one, but the fact that we have at least seven we are monitoring as the first frost threatens tells me we hatched enough to survive the summer. This is exciting for insect nerds like my husband and I. We’re hoping at least one of the ones we are watching produces an ootheca full of viable little mantis eggs.

It has been a summer of healing. I have reluctantly embraced healing. Losing a child is unlike any other sorrow I have encountered. It is more painful than the summer I lost my mother and my best friend. Ironically, that sorrow has helped me through this summer. I knew what stages of grief to expect and I understood they don’t come in any given order. They just happen. Repeatedly. And while people will come up beside you to hold you, in the end it is up to you to reach out and begin the process of healing.

When Mom died, I found a bug-eaten staff (a limb) in the forest. The beetle paths on the old wood were fascinating. Soon after, I found two crow (or, perhaps, raven) feathers on the forest floor. I collected those feathers and attached them to my new-found staff and dubbed it “Two Crow Feather Woman”. Years later, that became the name of my art studio: Two Crow Feather Woman Art.

This summer has been hot. I spent mornings in the flower beds, weeding and pruning, and dead-heading. I let some flower beds fall into wildflowers and mayhem. Summer, for me, is always about the flowers and the green growing things. I tend to neglect the art.

I accidentally stumbled upon a comment under a public post I made on Facebook (I really try to stay off that social network). An old friend of mine, someone I thought I had lost in the ebb and flow of friendship, posted a comment about how her son had recently passed. He was a year or two younger than mine. They weren’t friends, but this woman and I were. The phone calls that followed were cathartic. I knew her pain. She knew mine.

Our daughter came to visit over Labor Day weekend – her brother’s birthday weekend. We did no more than sit and talk. Our eyes leaked a little. My daughter-in-law spent the same weekend with Levi’s ex-wife and the three children who now live in Texas. It was bittersweet: Levi had wanted that kind of connection while he was living and it was denied him.

I had three commissions through the long hot months. All horses, my first love. The healing was beginning. But it was at a beer garden that the healing really began to take hold. I love beer (my mid-drift will confess to this). Twenty-five pounds of beer belly must have emboldened me. There was a small “pop-up” art show at the eastern end of the beer garden. No booth fee, just a handful of artists who were getting together once a month to try and sell their art: honey, leather goods, acrylics, jewelry. Very informal and not at all like I have been used to: juries, assigned spots, booth fees.

I felt emboldened and asked to be included in the next month. It was a crazy extrovert move for an entrenched introvert. That first weekend, I sold two pieces and got a lot of compliments.

This past weekend was the second show. It’s not so much how much I sold or made but rather – the connections. The advice. The encouragement from other artists. The people who came to look at what I was selling and who talked to me. The teenagers and the pre-teens. I still lack the words to explain what seemed a miracle to me: that I was not only out of my element but I was able to network. Small potatoes if you are an extrovert.

Huge steps for a grieving introvert.

Through it all, my husband. He’s grieving, too. He lashes out. He hides his pain. But he was there on those two days, cheering me on, helping me set up and tear down.

Summer is over. Frost is imminent. Hallowe’en is approaching. I am turning 65. Our son is gone (it doesn’t seem possible!) almost a year now. I know where all of my grandchildren are. I have gained two “daughters” : my daughter-in-law and her sister-in-law. And art is what keeps me alive.

A special thank you to everyone who has reached out multiple times in the past ten months. You know who you are.