Ms. Whitney Houston put herself out there last week on GMA. Beautiful as ever. Sounding great for so early in the morning. And the songs…I wish I had been there in person from the get-go. Sometimes I feel useless. That’s when I stop trying to second guess God’s hand in my life.

No Tweeting here. Maybe some chipper chirping. Just a series of odd thoughts, or random ideas about my life as it is… as a caretaker. I can’t really call this blogging since internet access is limited to an obsolete cell phone and the time it takes to “eraser end” tap to write and edit one sentence is three times longer. Plus my thumbs are worn out from popping open cans of liquid nutrition to feed my one and only patient, my Mom. Let me back up. Simply said, Mom had a stroke the day after being admitted into the hospital with irregular heartbeats. So here we are, still dancing around each other… the music changes daily. Most days I just follow her lead. Physically she’s doing better since she’s been on a G-tube. Some of her energy has returned. The stroke had the biggest impact on her ability to process her thinking and speech. There are dazzling moments of complete comprehension mixed between hours of being disconnected… short circuts attempting repair. Like a four legged spider reweaving a web.

For the last two years I’ve been walking the path between artist and and caretaker. The challenge has, as a daughter and artist, been about energy and an inability to develop a reasonable balance. An all or nothing approach ends today. Doing what I can when I can… with an awful feeling of not doing enough weighting me down. Or grounding me. I haven’t been grounded since my daughter’s teens. Karma?

He watches, bouncing portside, laughing loudly as his brothers dance from stern to bow, kicking up clouds like skiffs on crashing waves. I hear them call…no shrouds for us, as they tack a starlit sail heading toward the lighthouse. I wish i could post the art that…