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The current issue of cardaddix just came out and I have a card featured!
It's the newsletter associated with ACEO MAGAZINE aceomagazine.com/. Subscriptions and individual issues can be purchased at the website.
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Have you ever wondered where the famous line "For of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: "It might have been!" came from? John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892) wrote those words in his poem Maud Muller.
For me it sums up the sadness of a life not lived to the fullest... I think at some point we all take the gift we were given for granted.
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I'm reprinting the poem here to share it with people who have never seen it.
Maud Muller
by John Greenleaf Whittier
MAUD MULLER, on a summer's day,
Raked the meadow sweet with hay.
Beneath her torn hat glowed the wealth
Of simple beauty and rustic health.
Singing, she wrought, and her merry glee
The mock-bird echoed from his tree.
But when she glanced to the far-off town,
White from its hill-slope looking down,
The sweet song died, and a vague unrest
And a nameless longing filled her breast,
A wish, that she hardly dared to own,
For something better than she had known.
The Judge rode slowly down the lane,
Smoothing his horse's chestnut mane.
He drew his bridle in the shade
Of the apple-trees, to greet the maid,
And ask a draught from the spring that flowed
Through the meadow across the road.
She stooped where the cool spring bubbled up,
And filled for him her small tin cup,
And blushed as she gave it, looking down
On her feet so bare, and her tattered gown.
"Thanks!" said the Judge; "a sweeter draught
From a fairer hand was never quaffed."
He spoke of the grass and flowers and trees,
Of the singing birds and the humming bees;
Then talked of the haying, and wondered whether
The cloud in the west would bring foul weather.
And Maud forgot her brier-torn gown,
And her graceful ankles bare and brown;
And listened, while a pleased surprise
Looked from her long-lashed hazel eyes.
At last, like one who for delay
Seeks a vain excuse, he rode away.
Maud Muller looked and sighed: "Ah me!
That I the Judge's bride might be!
"He would dress me up in silks so fine,
And praise and toast me at his wine.
"My father should wear a broadcloth coat;
My brother should sail a painted boat.
"I'd dress my mother so grand and gay,
And the baby should have a new toy each day.
"And I'd feed the hungry and clothe the poor
And all should bless me who left our door."
The Judge looked back as he climbed the hill,
And saw Maud Muller standing still.
"A form more fair, a face more sweet
Ne'er hath it been my lot to meet.
"And her modest answer and graceful air
Show her wise and good as she is fair.
"Would she were mine, and I to-day,
Like her, a harvester of hay
"No doubtful balance of rights and wrongs,
Nor weary lawyers with endless tongues,
"But low of cattle and song of birds,
And health and quiet and loving words."
But he thought of his sisters, proud and cold,
And his mother, vain of her rank and gold.
So, closing his heart, the Judge rode on,
And Maud was left in the field alone.
But the lawyers smiled that afternoon,
When he hummed in court an old love-tune;
And the young girl mused beside the well,
Till the rain on the unraked clover,
He wedded a wife of richest dower,
Who lived for fashion, as he for power.
Yet oft, in his marble hearth's bright glow,
He watched a picture come and go;
And sweet Maud Muller's hazel eyes
Looked out in their innocent surprise.
Oft, when the wine in his glass was red,
He longed for the wayside well instead;
And closed his eyes on his garnished rooms
To dream of meadows and clover-blooms.
And the proud man sighed, with a secret pain,
"Ah, that I were free again!
"Free as when I rode that day,
Where the barefoot maiden raked her hay."
She wedded a man unlearned and poor,
And many children played round her door.
But care and sorrow, and childbirth pain,
Left their traces on heart and brain.
And oft, when the summer sun shone hot
On the new-mown hay in the meadow lot,
And she heard the little spring brook fall
Over the roadside, through the wall;
In the shade of the apple-tree again
She saw a rider draw his rein.
And gazing down with timid grace
She felt his pleased eyes read her face.
Sometimes her narrow kitchen walls
Stretched away into stately halls;
The weary wheel to a spinnet turned,
The tallow candle an astral burned,
And for him who sat by the chimney lug,
Dozing and grumbling o'er pipe and mug,
A manly form at her side she saw,
And joy was duty and love was law.
Then she took up her burden of life again,
Saying only, "it might have been."
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,
For rich repiner and household drudge!
God pity them both! and pity us all,
Who vainly the dreams of youth recall.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
Ah, well! for us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes;
And, in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away!
The card is an image I took in a graveyard in basking ridge New Jersey. The base of the card is mat board cut into aceo format.
I've used this image before.
This card is about when it's all - everything and everyone - it's all just too much. How at some point you can't take a thing more - a good thing, a bad thing...anything.... not one thing more. And you know all that works to make it better is collapsing in on yourself. Curling up. Not hearing or seeing anything else until you are ready...
The card was done on a base of mat board cut into ACEO format. Through the main image you can see the base papers and I think that that gives even more of a feeling of vulnerability... The figure is not only curled into a fetal position but you can almost see through her...or partly...like she's fading away. On top of the image are webby papers, gauzy papers and glass beads. There is a haze over her. Its more obvious in person...the scan shows more of the figure than you can see when you look at the card.
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Know what's sick? aceo
The mentally ill commit crimes on television that diabetics do not. Has an episode of Law and Order ever focused on a defendant's irritable bowel syndrome?Or has a raging sinus infection ever been a mitigating factor?
Nope and nope....
Bipolar Disorder isn't an identity, or an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for me, it's a chronic illness. And I'm a person... not an illness with a person hanging off a label. It hurts that I can pick a random police drama and, with reasonable certainty, see someone with the same diagnosis on trial for a heinous crime because the mentally ill commit crimes on TV that people with carpel tunnel syndrome don't.
The portrayal of mental illness in the media is endless generalizations; generalization upon generalizion until the kernal of truth is lost. We see creepy, scary folks that eat bugs. The homeless. The stalkers. The people who pee in doorways while reciting the Gettysburg address and make you want to take another way home. Those that are news worthy when they run naked at major sporting events. Movies with fun-loving inpatients who your kids would love to hang with...
What's worse? Stigma or sideshow over-fascination? Despite the media's portrayal; we are not all bug-eating door-way peeing naked streakers or hopelessly hip inpatients. There is a middle-ground to live with bipolar disorder and most of us are there; boring as hell.
Stigma is about shame. Stigma can only go on in the dark so I try and answer questions people ask me:
"It's called Bipolar Disorder, rapid cycling with mixed episodes. Uh-huh. That's a mouthful. Yes, I've hallucinated. No, not often. It's been years, I think.... The funniest one? Well--It's hard to classify the psychotic as amusing but I suppose the funniest one was when the linguine with clam sauce was talking. It did too! No, I swear. Well. What it was saying is a hard one. No matter how close I moved my ear to the plate I still couldn't tell what they were saying. I ultimately decided the clams weren't talking to me but amongst themselves."
I am willing to talk openly about my meds:
"There are a lot of drugs. Mood stabilizers like anti-convulsants that epileptics use. (I feel on safe ground here because a drug used for epilepsy doesn't pack the drooling-stigma-punch of Thorazine.) There are drugs for depression. Oh, and the anti-anxiety drugs, the sleeping pills and anti-psychotics are used (The last one can be a bit tricky. While people say they want information, I lose a lot of folks on the anti-psychotics.)"
The drug side effects:
"Some make me tired. Confused... Liver failure.... Acne.... Hair loss, except of course on your chin...where it grows.... Weight gain. No, this one didn't make me gain weight but I gained 80 pounds on a different one. Yes, that was a lot of weight. No, your right. Haven't lost it all."
When people ask if I see and hear things "like TV crazy-people do," maybe they don't want to know. "I'm just like you, silly! No one really has those kinds of thoughts. " Well, no one they know. No one with a son in their kid's school. No one behind them in the 10 items or less grocery aisle...Or shops for shampoo at the same drugstore. Or waits on line behind them at the ATM.
Hopefully, being open and comfortable about myself will lessen stigma over time even if it makes my world a little uncomfortable for a moment or two. Or nine.... Granted, copping to hearing clams speak amongst themselves isn't something most people are ready for but most people aren't ready to change their minds about anything without a little push.
About ten years ago I went to a seminar with a speaker who couldn't make a strong point without swearing. And he made a lot of points. After about an hour a proper-looking woman got up and said she wasn't accustomed to hearing that kind of language. The speaker bolted to within an inch of her face and let loose a string of expletives with a ferocity unequaled to anything since the big bang. The audience held it's collective breath and after a minute the speaker screamed at the now pale woman, "Are you f-ing accustomed to it yet?"
It was a point well taken, with me anyway. People live at their own comfort level until they are challenged. Being that in-your-face does have a place but it isn't usually necessary. Just living visibly in the bipolar middle-ground can be enough. Even if people seem a bit queasy at first about talking shellfish I hope living openly will widen the middle-ground and give me a bigger place to live over time.
How many times have you kicked yourself for saying something when you should have bitten your tongue? How many times have you hit send instead of rereading that hot tempered email just once more? How many times has what you done in haste come back to bite you in the ass?
Many, probably.
The sad thing is we never seem to learn. Well, lots of us.
I took this picture in Cape May, NJ and I thought I was taking pictures of a non-discript area of the hotel. A glass-enclosed outside walkway. There was enough light because the sun was just setting ...so I was shooting pictures but not paying much attention to what I was doing (typical).
When I got them on my computer I was shocked. Not only couldn't you see much of the hallway but you could see the blazing sunset reflected in the glass. Had I been paying attention at all, I might have noticed. When I was walking away had I turned and looked over my shoulder I definitely would have noticed because I would have seen the bigger picture. But when I was shooting I was so hyper focused on the hallway beyond the glass I didn't even see the sun setting on the window....in fact I didn't even see the window.
I have a feeling that when you shoot off your mouth... or email a letter you later (probably sooner) regret it's a lot like my not seeing the sunset. You get so hyper-focused on one thing you can't see the bigger picture. Even if its as big and bright and obvious as that sunset.
You feel hurt, or indignant, or put upon, or dissed, or angry...or what ever...fill in the word.... and you lose site of everything else. Like later for example. What will happen later? And how will you ever take the words back? And maybe you mean this now but will you in an hour? And how would you feel if your boss...wife... husband... daughter....Dr. Phil....Judge Judy....ever saw what you wrote? Cause you know it's going to make you look 'less than' not the person you wrote it about....
Supposedly hind-sight is 20-20 but maybe if you pay attention to experience forsight can be too?
Most people think that life's got them. That they are stuck... trapped in situations that they can't get out of... Hamsters on one those wheels.... In bondage to their jobs.... partners.... bills... obligations... wants... needs....
I think the truth is closer to what you won't let go of, chains you to it.
I think we spend our lives wishing for something else all the while dragging what we don't want around with us... always looking over our shoulders to make sure what we have and don't want is still there, wanting something else but never getting so far away from our comfortable misery so we can't see it.
I think there are a lot of reason people have for doing this ...probably as many reasons as there are people. Some people fear change and living in known pain is better than an uncertain future. After all we know how heavy the chains are... What will it feel like without them? What will we do with our hands? What will we do with all the time we spent complaining? I think Lily Tomlin was right when she said, "I personally think we developed language because of our deep need to complain. " People sure so love to complain!
I think some people really don't believe they can get off the hamster wheel and that dooms you from the start. If you think you can, you can and if you think you can't your right too. It's sort of the cosmic version of a pre-nuptual agreement. Sort of like your saying to the universe... Well I think I can sorta do it...probably... most likely.... but if I can't would you mind mitigating my damages? Might as well tattoo FAILURE across your forehead.
Plus there's a lot of letting go and trusting involved in getting what you want - from yourself and others and letting go isn't something most people find easy. I don't, anyway.
I think most of the stuckness in my life is me.
The card looks better than the picture - the card is uneven in height and very glossy so shooting it and scanning it is difficut. This has been an issue with any card Ive done that been a collage pretty much! This one is no different! The card is an aceo blank of mat board and a highly textured black paper (crinkly)... I only used one background paper and it looks like patent leather - its really cool. The chain is a silver plated small linked chain and it all bound there with thick acrylic sealer.
I saw these stones when I looked down.... they were a few inches from my feet on a beach in Cape May, NJ. I almost just squashed them into the sand by walking on them and would never noticed how beautiful they were... How soft looking, how polished.... how worthy of notice.
Maybe it's always like that. Me. Life. Maybe I always assume what I want off in the distance.... and thinking what I need must be over that next hill.... and I know what will make me relax and appreciate what I have is in that newly published self-help book.
But maybe life is always like the experience with these stones. Maybe I already have within my view and reach everything I need. Maybe what's over the next hill doesn't matter because the only thing you really have is the presant... and maybe what's in that next self-help book really is the same thing that was in the last self- help book, with a new cover.
Maybe there is something to be said for living fully in the moment.
This card was done on mat board cut into aceo format. There is a collage done with art papers under the main image and its all sealed with multiple layers of acrylic sealers. I like this card, its pretty and calming.
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