Fragile Strength

We contain within us a duality that is not evidently apparent.  We are both very fragile and also very strong.

At times, only the fragility is apparent and at other times the strength is overwhelming.  Where do we stand with both?

A good friend of mine was leaving a shopping mall heading for her car when suddenly she was hit by a vehicle.  A very young woman of  only eighteen was late for her work at the mall and hit her in her hurry to get to work on time.
My friend had to be taken to the hospital and checked and she ended up with broken ribs and a broken ankle.  She could not go to her work and she was home-bound and full of pain and frustration.  She felt very vulnerable and fragile.  Yet her spirits kicked in making her inner strength emerge.  She was capable of healing her wounds that were a lot more than the obvious physical damage.

She is not alone.  The earth is loaded with great examples of human beings that were hurt in their fragility but found the strength and inner power to transcend their situation and go on.

I am now being surrounded with many friends who are experiencing a very hard time.  Some have cancer, disease of some sort and some have sprained ankles, some are sick spending time in a hospital.  Lots of pain.  I witness all of that and know that only their inner power carries them beyond the body ailments.  I do feel sad when my thought goes to them and it happens often.  I feel inside me the moments of immense fragility and realize that being in a body makes us destroyable or at least susceptible to all kind of disease and accidents.  The nature of being humans.  Our mind and emotions can also trigger a full moment of fragility and utter vulnerability.  This happens more often than we want to remember.

At the same time our spirit can carry us to great height over the disease, over the discomfort or over the strain in our minds.  We do have a brain that can think or be redirected and a great ability to transcend what our body experiences.  I know having been very ill myself.

So our days are dictated by our feelings. They oscillate between either the pole of strength or our pole of mere fragility.  States that can emerge at times or can stand apart while we stand in the middle.  We are beings of fragile strength and get to deploy both emotions at all times.

Copyright 2013 Micheline Brierre    

Gratitude

Most days as I go to bed, in the dark, I go through my routines then review the day past.  I look at what I did or did not do very well and review what I could have done better.  This is like a mental play over the facts of life and internal resolutions. I store in my mind the things that I consider lacking in my participation, my remarks, or my response.  I try to see the good of what often comes my way and see the reason behind what has been.  For instance, an article sent to me by a dear friend who holds a very different view of the world and is contrary to my beliefs. I started to think of why she sent it to me and came to the conclusion that she wanted me to have similar thoughts to hers; and she cares.  How could I get upset?

Our life is full of little and big events that show us the way to growth and also to help us pay attention to the intention behind each action.  Ours and others. I have been focusing for a while to the importance of gratitude.  I wake up each day (so far), take breakfast to my dining room, eat then focus on what I could be grateful about.  And there are plenty of things starting with the fact that I am alive, breathing, creating, writing, moving and reflecting; many things to be immensely grateful for each day.  Not mentioning loving and being loved.

Gratitude I believe is the key to a sense of well being and a feeling of great abundance and peace. I keep a small little book that I was given that has a beige real cork cover and write in it some of the things for which I feel most grateful.  Often it is simply that I am grateful for being alive and sometimes it is for my daughter having called me or a note from my grandchildren, friends or my sister, or snow when we need so much moisture here or my husband who gave me a great shoulder massage that I badly needed.  Life brings us so much joy if we are able to receive it or simply pay attention.  And we do not need to travel to the end of the world to find its rewards.

My husband and I went last week to a park here in the black forest covered with light snow in parts.  We both walked in the quiet of the forest and I observed all kinds of life in the middle of winter down at the ground level.  Besides the carpet of pine needles, there was lichen, little trees making their long journey to the top of the canopy and sometimes paw prints of some animals that dwell there.  I came home with such a good feeling having breathed the outdoor air mingling with the smell of the pine trees above me. The feeling of having been close to the mystery of nature and life.

Was I grateful?  I was elated and the feeling still is with me.  So I try to make room for a bit of gratitude in my days and enjoy the abundant results.  I could focus on what is missing but I choose to focus on what is there in front of me and that is gratitude.

Try it, it will change your outlook on living.   

Copyright 2013 Micheline Brierre

The Alligator in the Bedroom

He waits for me at night.  When I wake up from a deep sleep and leave my dreams behind to go to the bathroom, I walk a few sleepy steps out of my bed only to find -- to my horror -- a big alligator on the floor, at the entrance to the bathroom.  He lays dormant apparently and I slowly recover from the scare, suddenly breathing hard, to step quietly on his head satisfied that he is but a long shadow cast by my vanity chair.

This happens many nights. The shadow startling me many times.  The night is full of illusions playing on our nerves.  It also plays on my fears, but my worst fear is certainly finding a snake writhing on the floor in the house.  

I had to confront that fear once.  My husband was away on a trip so I was alone in the house.  I came in through the garage, having parked the car outside, looked down the stairs to my left only to find a live snake also looking at me!  Suppressing a scream, I looked at the creature with a desperate horror trying to figure out in a jiffy what to do.  Only one small flight of stairs separated us and he was facing the laundry room.  Perhaps he was as surprised as I was because he was not moving.  Just looking at me.  Panicked, I suddenly hurried upstairs and thought it out.  How was I going to sleep that night when a snake was in the house capable of moving ANYWHERE.  He could come to my bedroom, coil around my neck.  I was petrified.  My heart was beating in fright.  I peered from behind the wall, nothing.  He was gone!  I stopped to think again.  After a few minutes, I got a huge roll of wide tape that I use for shipping jewelry and art orders and slowly and quietly descended.  Perhaps he came out of the laundry room through the drainage hole made in the floor to let water out in case of flooding.  Otherwise, I could not figure how he got in my house.  So, I tiptoed to the place where I saw him last and cut a length of tape and stuck it from the bottom of the laundry room door to the carpet, hoping to contain him. I sealed, I hoped, all accesses to the rest of the house.  I slowly retreated and wished with all my heart that I guessed right.

My night was spent awake, eyes on my door wondering about and fearing the apparition of the snake coming up one floor to my closed bedroom.  I think that the simple idea of a snake spending the night with me in the house was enough to make me shiver in fear.

The next day, I was up at the crack of down and went to look.  To my huge surprise, the snake was glued to the tape at the bottom of the door, full length, unmoving and apparently dead.  I was too scared to touch it so waited a few days until my husband returned to peal off the dead snake and tape and give me back the use of the laundry.  My hero.  Although I was sorry to have killed the creature, I was thinking that I did something to face my fear.  It was, in a way, an act of daring and it taught me a huge lesson.

Our fears no matter where they come from are not overwhelming and can be handled and confronted.  We are a lot more resourceful than we think.  Be it alligator or snake, our minds can come up with instant solutions to relieve our worst fears.

Now the hole in the laundry room floor is closed a with a fine metal mesh and I can sleep a full night -- in peace.

Copyright January 22, 2013 Micheline Brierre

Hard Summer

It was a hard summer. Many horrific happenings in the state like the shootings in Aurora in Denver and so many fires in state and out West.

Here a huge wild fire suddenly started in Colorado Springs where I live and to our horror the wind pushed it suddenly down the mountain into town and it burned three hundred and forty seven homes and killed two people.  The air was filled with smoke and debris and the heat of the days was intense. 

I was sad.  Too sad to work the first days and so often finding myself looking at the images on T.V.  I could feel the tension in the city.  I received countless emails from family and friends and spent my time at the computer.  By the time the fire was contained with the hard and dedicated work of more than one thousand firefighters, it was declared the worst disaster that ever hit the state of Colorado.  I was humbled.

It reminded me of a few other disasters that I lived through.  Plane crash, terrible earthquakes in South America, hurricane Andrew in Miami.  All events to remind me - and all others - that nature is unimaginably powerful and faced with it, we do not mean much even though we often think of us as top guns.  The fires here left me really focused on what can happen and does happen so often as we read in the news or hear from other people that made it through a disaster.  So many humans die of natural related events and we can only acknowledge the vulnerable state in which we live.

Which means I thought a lot about death.  Life is finite and death is a part of life.  It does not matter what we believe, or what age we are, one day we cease to breathe and that is the end.  Are we ready?  Death is the big unknown.  A territory that is so unexplored as to be totally foreign despite what all humans have written about it. Where do we go? Do we survive death or do we plunge in total oblivion into the nothingness of non existence?  Is there a God?  Do we reincarnate?  Do we go on to perfect ourselves and come back as better beings?  Do we matter as humans?  Is our life worthy, not worthy?  Do we survive death and live forever-after in a form of bliss we often dream about?

What do you believe?

Belief dictates our way of life, our actions, our ability to act and to think and feel.  I like to think that I will come back a much better being, enlightened, cleansed and renewed. The thought makes me smile.  After all, nothing like going through the unfathomable door of the unknown so many humans have talked about and debated since eternity. Death will certainly bring answers.

Being friendly with death enables us to better live, to appreciate the subtle forms of life and its many expressions that evolve every day under our eyes. The  little things as well as the important ones who are dear to our heart. Life as it comes daily and brings the joys of all the things we are familiar with.

I was once at a friend's home and offered to do the dishes. She told me "no, it is my meditation." It was great to see this simple act of cleaning the dishes as profound a happenings as a meditation can be.

I plan to greet my days with the humble approach of daily gratitude and as Casteneda has written in one of his books "carry death on my left shoulder."

Copyright 2012 Micheline Brierre 

Champagne for My Mom

So much has been said about Mother's day that it is hard to talk about anything new.  I feel left alone to be a complete adult on this earth since many years ago my mother died.  Even though we lived in different countries, we kept a lively correspondence and I remember traveling to the old island when she died and with my sister going through all of my mother's things to find boxes and boxes of old letters of mine written on blue and fine paper all enclosed in their envelopes and a testimony to my whole life and hers. I was stunned.  I was sad.

My memories of vacations in her home were a day to day accumulation of joy.  I reverted to being a child again since she made all the decisions about food and things and her maid Ghislaine knew everything that pleased me and how I liked to eat anything.  She catered to all my desires under the watchful eye and directives of my Mom.  I did not have to think.  In a way, it was like a long meditation when we talked about all and nothing.  She often asked me "don't you want to see a movie, a play, go out?"  My pleasure was just to bask in her attention and being like a little kid again able to forget the challenges of living in her treasured presence.

I was spoiled.  I was received by her at the airport and later in her house toasted with champagne. Her favorite drink.  On her death bed she asked for a glass of champagne.  What a way to go! I remember when she was a few minutes away from dying, I went to wake up my dad who was taking a brief nap and he knew instantly. He spared me the words. We walked hand and hand to her bedroom.  I admired her body, her beautiful skin, we used to say she had a perfume skin, so fit to retain the French scents she applied on it. After a few minutes she was gone and no tears would fill the void. 

I look at her photo now and wonder where she is, where she has gone to and the silence is my answer.  In Haiti, long time ago, the ones who had lost their mom wore a white rose for Mother's day and the fortunate ones who had their Mother wore a red one. The tradition is still alive in my imagination and maybe that is why I never buy or plant white roses.  The pain drips out of their petals to invade my soul.


Copyright 2012 Micheline Brierre

A Time of Renewal

Not long ago we celebrated Easter.  A time of renewal and rebirth.  It is spring time here and all over town the cherry trees both white and pink are in bloom and my forsythia is all yellow and most every plant alive is coming out of the ground.  The city is slowly greening after a dry winter and a drought.  But the perennials are not shy as their sturdy stems peek from my flowers beds. The lack of rain does not seem to disturb them.

I am wondering what I want to renew or see reborn in my life.  I am aware of such transformation having happened many times as I went along my days.  I still remember when my cousin and I, both of us artists, decided to organize an art exhibit outside of Haiti.  It was novel for us as we only used to show in local galleries. But we were young, had plenty of dreams and were quite affected from the terrible and oppressive dictatorship of Duvalier.

We contacted a few friends, moved a few mountains to get out of the country and shipped all of our art work to the Carib Hilton Gallery in San Juan Puerto Rico.  Neither one of us spoke Spanish then but were warmly welcomed by the director and all the staff.  We had to find an apartment, find our way through the city and most of all, we had to sell some of our art to survive.  I was eighteen and loved the freedom, the absence of horrible killings, of whispering in the dark or looking over my back.  I did not miss the blackouts, the heavy atmosphere that existed before under such a dictator.  After a few days, I thought I had reached paradise.

With our new friends, we used to go to the beach on weekends.  We carried lemons and knives and swam to the nearby island that was just a rocky kind of place in the middle of the ocean.  There, we collected quite a few sea urchins and cracked them open under the direction of our french friend and cut our lemons to pour over them.  They were as good as oysters and we turned very brown and hot under the sun until it was time to swim again to return to the mainland.  Our life had become so different, so carefree that I realize how great we felt and that our life in Haiti, despite family and friends, was not the way to be.  I made up my mind then to return to Puerto Rico and that was the beginning of my life abroad.

It was a real rebirth.  I had many challenges to face, but I had new horizons and found many friends to share the time I created for myself. It was the beginning of a new life and some years I visited Haiti for a few days or a few weeks at a time to see my family and  friends.

Now living in the mountains, I want still to create jewelry plus go back to drawing with pen and ink.  I miss the dark flow of the pen as it glides over the white paper and create shades and forms as if some magic was happening at the end of my hand.  I like the simplicity, the unforgiving honesty but streamlined approach of just using a pen loaded with ink and my paper that I can also carry anywhere.  My studio can stay at home and yet I can be creative with such uncomplicated elements wherever I am.

I became aware of this need by looking through my things and finding a little collection of simple pen and inks that I did some years ago.  I completed some of them and they are ready to frame.

Life provides us sometimes with a reminder.  I find that it was so for me who found the reason for my renewal and the rebirth of one of the many mediums I love.

What about you?  Do you want to find a whole new but old love you want to bring back to your life or find a whole new one? What would make you happy and feel reborn?  Life gives us many opportunities to do so but first of all, ask yourself many questions and the answers will be all yours to ponder.  I will wait to hear from you.

Copyright 2012 Micheline Brierre

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Carnival in my Memories

Many countries celebrated carnival not long ago.  I am so used to spelling it Carnaval (the French way) that I have a hard time accepting the English form of a word that evokes so many memories and many of them are quite mixed.

In Haiti, it used to be a yearly huge thing.  In my family we planned our costumes and most of the time I ended up as a pirate, maybe because unconsciously I relived the life of this old pirate under the orders of Napoleon who traveled to Haiti, fell in love with one of the natives and started the beginning of our family.  I remember  drawing carefully with a black pencil a line of some imagined elegant mustache on my upper lip and draping a sash around my waist while ample sleeves of white cotton fell on my arms. I was transformed into a fierce buccaneer with knives and sword on my waist.  I was menacing, at least in looks.  I used to dress my friends and dribble gold specks on their hair while I transformed my sister into  a fawn ready to roam the slopes of our nearby mountain.  And we danced like crazy.  All hot nights at Choucoune, the night club en vogue at the time.  I loved it.  I even remember one night of Carnival when we danced all night, ending the ball at the beach, sipping on coffee and worrying my parents to death (I realize, now that I am a long time parent and grandparent.)

In the afternoon we used to gather on top of a friend's house on the Champ de Mars, the big park close to the National Palace and watch as each group of dancers paraded around a float where the queen and king would salute from their height while around them people would dance ardently, wildly gyrating while the music blared leaving me nearly deaf.  Group after group competed to be the craziest dancers in the crowd, loud and probably somewhat drunk and I wished then to be back in the quiet of my home with my books or brushes in my studio. Carnival was becoming too crazy. Too loud or too wild.

While living in Peru, my husband had business to do in Rio and it was Carnival time. Was it a coincidence?  I prepared what I thought was a very fancy outfit with a long skirt, slit on the side, a bra-like top, all in satin hot pink with jewelry and hairdo to match.  We watched the schools of Samba with dazzled eyes realizing that what I was used to in Haiti was a pale version of Carnival.  It was an incredible, awe inspiring spectacle that we waited for as each school of Samba announced itself with its own music, its own amazing costumes and singing with percussion and passion.  A sound we could hear coming around the corner and announcing a total feast for the eyes.  The elaborate, unimaginable, magnificent costumes, the bodies and legs undulating to the sound of the drums had me in a trance myself.  It lasted all night and I stayed awake to watch it all, completely mesmerized and astonished.

But the ball the night after was something else.  I got to wear my costume and packed into a car with some American couples from my husband's company and we all went anticipating an evening of dancing like in any well-behaved night club.  We were wrong.  Poised on a balcony we watched the immense ballroom as it filled up and by ten o'clock it was packed with the most extravagant unimaginable costumes I had ever seen.  It was obvious that it took them a year to prepare such elaborate and often diminutive costumes and headdresses versus mine that took me only a day to create, and looked like a nothing and forgettable pale dress.  Around us were a group of women clad in so little as to derange the minds of the men that accompanied us. With wild eyes they were looking at them and obviously were drooling, senses ablaze.

At the table next to us was a beautiful woman with some tiny little red lights magically lit on her naked nipples, a small beaded V covering her sex, and otherwise naked with a huge green feathered boa around her neck; she got close to total drunkenness as were most people and of course, could she dance!  If you want to call the amazing motion of her waist and rump a dance.  Her laughter was also an irresistible draw.  Pretty soon, my husband was dancing with her and so were the pale, mild men who were at our table leaving us women wide-eyed looking at each other with astonishment and disbelief.  It ended up with the green boa woman spread on the table, legs open, while some of her companions held her with delight. When they popped a camera to remember the sight, I nearly jumped in fright for her.  But she only laughed!  It lasted all night.  Once you got in the ballroom, you could not get out.  Somehow at dawn, we managed to leave and collapse in the car, exhausted with so much stimulation while my husband was green with little feathers that littered the car and later our hotel room.  I will never forget!

My memories of carnival were mixed.  Some enchanting and some obviously not so. A friend of mine sent me a video of the carnival in Venice and I loved the amazing old world, imaginative masks and costumes and it made me dream.  I keep seeing myself drawing the elaborate frilled tulle, gorgeous rich embroidery and lace framing the many white masks with pearls and crystals glittering from marvelous headgear by the Adriatic sea.  In a way, we espouse a new identity while we hide carefully under the masks and veils and it gives us the liberty to act so very differently than we would in real life.  A chance to borrow the image of a new self and be the person we would never dare or imagine to be in normal life.

Carnival, this very old feat, can be inspiring and give us a chance to be a confident double.  But for me, it is now safely in my memories where I can just recall it while quiet and purposeful in the mountains of Colorado.

Copyright 2012 Micheline Brierre