Love as Art

 

Slow and deliberate strokes
Upon the canvas
Give distinction to
The incredible painting…

 

Colors vibrant and
Muted alike, dance
With each viewers
Envious eyes…

 

Never Satisfied with the
Creation of this Love,
The artist considers
Her next move…

 

The next step to her masterpiece
She shall try new paints,
Or perhaps different brushes,
Even still, a fresh subject.

 

Someday satisfaction
Will endure;
While colors fade
And canvas tears.

 

 

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There’s a strange phenomenon that I am becoming acutely aware of lately.  It involves the random airing of particular songs that come onto the nearest radio during the most opportune moments. The most poignant, I am sure, have gone unnoticed; though as my awareness is heightening, I am recognizing these synchronistic moments occurring  more and more. Either the universe is conspiring to reveal something, or quite possibly I am going bat-shit crazy.

 

At the bar the other night, I was talking to this gorgeous girl who was vacationing on the island with her friends from Manhattan. They were there celebrating some sort of post collegiate spring break reunion.  At the peak of our slurred conversation she told me about her irrational need to always wear her favorite Yankees T-shirt inside-out for home games against Boston.

 

Just then  – Stevie Wonder’s Superstition came on the juke box…. Being a Boston sports fan, and having my own illogical beliefs about what I can do to help the teams win, it was perfect timing.  My earlier decision to not wear any underwear (to help the team) was not in vain. We watched the game together and the Sox were up when I headed home later that evening.

 

This morning, I was talking to Jamie Sullivan about her time on the island.  She told me about how her parents used to bring her here as a kid. She reflected on how those early experiences led her to pursuing her escapist fantasy with her now husband Johnny. They first came to St John when they were 21 and just out of college. As she talked, a similarly well timed tune made its way from the ragged looking FM radio propped up on the kitchen counter. Kenny Chesney’s Girl from Boston played across the static of the local radio station. We both sat and listened. According to Jamie, the song could have been written about her…It somehow made perfect sense.

 

Jamie is a thirty six year old woman, originally from West Roxbury, Massachusetts. Since the inception of the hospice, Jamie has utilized her sociability and love of the culinary arts as the head chef, hostess- extraordinaire, and part owner of the facility.

 

Jamie and her husband Johnny, certainly never could have envisioned their lives would have unfolded as they did, but Jamie seemed truly content. She had purpose, lived in paradise with her soul mate, and selflessly gave herself to healing the residents’ weary hearts – one fresh baked chocolate chip cookie at a time. Her philosophy was that if you kept the smells coming from kitchen inviting, then people would feel real nice about coming home.

 

Apparently this was also the way Jamie met Johnny back at Northeastern. She baited him into her dorm’s kitchen by wafting the smell of fresh baked brownies right up to the men’s floor he lived on. Obviously Jamie also was a believer in the adage about getting to a man’s heart through his stomach.

 

For all intents and purposes, Jamie is the matriarch of this extended family. She loves everyone with a the selflessness of a mother, the fierce advocacy of a sister, and the loyalty of a best friend.  Johnny is one lucky guy.  As their Love appears to have been created in the heavens, I bear in mind that so too is thunder and lightning.

 

In the past months, their “lover’s quarrels,” have been picking up in frequency and publicity.  Jamie confided in me that that she has been stressed, and feels like she’s been instigating trouble with Johnny. She couldn’t come up with a good reason for why though. We talked for a while about it on the way into town to go shopping for the day’s grocery needs.

 

It must have been the eggs… Once we started to examine the boxes for an appropriate dozen, Jamie began to think out loud. “This book I’m reading says that I am getting caught up in ‘senescing experiences.’ It says that I am imposing an inner turmoil to help resolve my ambivalence towards becoming a great chef with my own restaurant, versus my hope of being a mother and raising kids. I think that’s why I’m getting so worked up with Johnny; he’s so aloof about it all.”

 

For maybe the fiftieth time since coming to the hospice, I felt like I had stumbled into a conversation that was way out of my wheelhouse. From what I’ve heard,  Jamie had followed her dreams by getting married, and then coming to the island… Now that she was here and settled, and beginning to see that the territory she was in was no longer the same fertile ground for change, she was now engaging in a reappraisal of her situation.

 

I suppose on some level this was happening to all of us –  residents, staff, natives, ex-pats, and tourists alike…

 

All of us are constantly moving forward through these new cycles of change and personal evolution.  We progress onward,  exploring new possibilities and finishing up old business in the way of our future. Sometimes it gets hard to keep the momentum of this personal inertia moving when we’re alone.  If we are lucky, then we can ally with friends and loved ones to get a push to keep us going ahead…

 

It felt good to be Jamie’s friend, even if it just meant listening…

 

When we got back to the villa we unloaded Jamie’s Jeep, and brought the groceries up to the kitchen. This area is Jamie’s sacred space. There is no tolerance for disturbing the peace… To prove it I still wear a now bruising welt on my arm inflicted by Jamie’s sharply whipped spatula. I received the stinging red surprise after instigating a water fight last week while on dish duty. It was awesome.  I definitely didn’t win, but it was a glorious post dinner ambush that caught her and Johnny off guard.  It was all in good fun, but shit, that girl’s got quite a backhand,– I wonder if she plays tennis.

 

As we unpacked the gorcieries, Phyllis and Natalie came strolling into the kitchen. The were prepared to sit and inspect our local grocery purchases.  There is always someone hovering around the center island here, pulled up at one of the counter stools (“just supervising”), or more often actively helping Jamie out with her culinary duties. The two residents had plans to help Jamie cook dinner tonight…

 

“Helping with dinner” usually involves the older ladies sitting and talking Jamie through the process. Though Jamie’s an excellent and acclaimed chef in her own right, she also does a beautiful job playing dumb for the ladies amusement. They both have their unique recipes that they share in order to craft a few meals for group dinners.

 

It is clear how much this simple act of cooperation means to all of them… The passing of stories, traditions, and love across this kitchen counter is absolutely the best appetite stimulant anyone could create. Quite possibly the conversations in the kitchen also the most ideal social outlet for them as well. I suppose there is something universal about this room that brings people together.  Though cachectic and anorexic, and often feeling isolated in their own suffering, the residents always have better nights when they get together i to participate in the creation of a meal.