We moved her to foster care. It was surprisingly easy. Not much to take - a dresser, a bookshelf, a chair, a nightstand, the coffee table with tiles she made. The furniture, except for the book shelf, we moved last weekend and she didn't even notice it was gone. The chair came from the storage locker.
We arranged for Leola's cousin's daughter, Deila, to take her out for the morning while we packed some of her clothes, personal items, knick-knacks and pictures and moved it all into her new room in the house with the Romanian family in the Multnomah Village neighborhood of Portland - about a 20 minute drive from our house. The house is beautiful and the family friendly, warm and wonderful. Jon and I spent a couple of hours hanging her clothes and putting them in drawers, putting up pictures and arranging her stuff to make the room as cozy as possible. Deila brought her to her new home from the morning's outing, which included lunch and a trip to the hair dresser. Jon was waiting for them. I had returned home to pick up a few more things, but was delayed by traffic due to the closure of I405, so I wasn't present when Deila brought her in and the news about her new home was presented to her. Jon said she initially was fine with it but when she saw her room she said, "You tricked me!"
I arrived with a couple of boxes of her things which I brought into the room where the 3 of them were pleasantly chatting. I could tell Leola was wound up form her day out with Deila and was a little hyper. As I unpacked her hat boxes and the lamp, she asked me, "Did you use my car to bring this here?" Uh, no. "Well where is my car?" It was easy enough for Jon to distract her onto another subject.
Deila left first. Jon and I stayed for a while chatting with the family and Leola. Then I left. Jon's burden was huge. He said his mother talked to him rationally saying, "I understand why you did this." Maybe she did. Who knows. Ironically, the day before we moved her, she told us that it was time for her to go. She said, "I've been here long enough." Of course, she meant she wanted to go home, where ever that is, but it sounded to us like she was ready to move out of our house. Be careful what you wish for.
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About Me
- Julie Blackman
- For me, making art is many things, but mostly it is an emotional journey. Each painting I make evolves from its original inspiration – a particular place that I found so exquisite or inspiring that I felt compelled to interpret its reality in my own way. In “Naked Chronicle” I share this intimate journey so that you may take away some understanding of what happens during this process we call making art. It can be a dark struggle and is often not pretty, but the rewards are many. “Naked Chronicle” sprang from an earlier blog of mine called “Naked Metamorphosis” which was a raw unedited journal of my transition from teaching full-time, to caregiver for my mother-in-law with dementia, who had moved in with us at the time I retired. A few months later she was moved to foster and my blog dried up for lack of material. Writing the blog had been both therapeutic and enjoyable. So was born “Naked Chronicle” – a bare story of making art in all its exposed magnificence. Whether you are a fellow artist, scientist, dog groomer or postal worker, you can travel with me on this expedition into the creative process.
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