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| Yikes! Spider bite month! |
In early April, I was bitten by a spider. It was the
same night of a happy occasion, the celebration of my son’s 21st
birthday. I’ve been bitten by many things in my life: bugs, dogs, cats, horses,
very young humans, and certainly other spiders, but never a spider bite like
this. In this way, the life of an artist, one like myself that
“navigates between disciplines,” is the same as that of other humans. We've all had experiences that have abruptly altered our plans
and then we've had to deal with it.
In my case, I was bitten by a seemingly benign spider of
gracefully simple design, like that of an XKE Jaguar of the early 60’s, the car
acquired as part of the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New
York. I remember studying the small but perfect oval of the spider’s little
body. As an artist you appreciate shapes. He was brown with
legs long in proportion to the torso. His entire circumference, including legs,
was the size of a penny. At least this was what was going through my head as I walked to the bathroom to
gather some toilet tissue to pad my hand as I picked him up and also to ease the pressure on the little guy as I placed him safely out the door. I’ve been doing this for years. Since the
back doors were swollen from the rain, my left hand had to work hard to pull it
open causing my right hand to release slightly allowing my little friend to
wiggle free and crawl up and over my right thumb.
I noticed absolutely nothing at that time. It wasn’t until
late that evening, after guests left the party, I’d cleaned the kitchen, mopped
floors, said good night to my brother Carlos and his friend Kathleen who stayed over,
that I decided to play my new guitar. I do that to settle down. I’m a picker,
so my right hand was very busy as I played my own songs and those written by
others. Working up the blood flow in my hand, I noticed that my thumb really
hurt as I finished, but didn’t give it much thought. Then the night came and
with it a pain that filled my hand with heat causing my thumb to expand to
the volume of an internal organ. I didn’t sleep much. The next day the swelling
and pain migrated to the rest of my hand. It was then I browsed the Internet
viewing hundreds of spiders finally locating this nicely and humbly designed
one. It was a brown recluse.
While the experience was and continues to be intense, and
yes I did see a doctor, I was spared the part that disintegrates your skin
cells. So, the bad news came with good news. Life is like that. The result,
however, meant that the “waters” I’d been navigating as an artist between
writing, drawing, and music had to temporarily pause. Not being able to have these creative outlets left me a bit lost.
It was especially hard not being able to write, but
obviously my hand is now better. The thing about pain is that you don’t sleep
much, so the day blends into night, early early morning, early morning, afternoon,
and then it starts all over again. My twenty-four hour periods became an infinity
loop. Sleep interruption and random extreme pain has other side
effects. For example, I began to leave the house very little, didn’t engage many
people other than events I either planned or that had a clear beginning and end. Food was not interesting and creative ideas could not be realized because my
stamina was that of a nursing home patient. It was as if I was imploding into a
little black hole of brown recluse migrating symptoms. I won’t go into what it
does to your thought process, but it further fogged my faith in human
development as a species. In other words, I was bummed.
What has prompted me write to you this particular
morning is the inspiration derived from viewing a
foreign film entitled Sidewalls and
directed by Gustavo Taretto. Young urban protagonists Mariana and Martin are
terrific and played buy actors Javier Drolas and Pilar López de Ayala. The
screen writing is particularly genius in its descriptions, insight, detail,
gait, voice, use of metaphor, and relevance to our contemporary lives. It
mirrored so much of what I’d been experiencing as a borderline recluse. I
enjoyed witnessing the various steps the protagonists took to resolve
their sense of isolation. The movie Sidewalls
is wise, humorous, witty, believable, and most importantly, made me laugh which
made me elastic again. I’m elastic again!
I can guarantee that you’ll love the film. If you’ve
felt knocked off your center or feeling alone when you are right next to other
people, it will give you a shot in the arm and faith in the larger scheme of
things. Yes, I’d been bitten by a brown recluse and had to deal with the
pain and funky mess it made in my head, but this movie kicked me out of a thick fog. Check it out. It will grow in the open wedges
of your senses and take sprout. It’s on Netflix. You’ll be left
smiling and inspired.
In writing this I’ve also just realized
something. In helping the spider outside instead of squishing it, I suffered
for nearly a month. That was a puzzle to me. You see I have a belief system
grounded in Indigenous knowledge that does not place humans in a hierarchy
above other living beings, including spiders. This belief system also accepts
that these other beings may have a message for you, and when obvious as this
painful month-long spider experience, the significance of that message is
elevated and not to be ignored. It took me a whole month to receive a simple
but important message from this potent little messenger. He basically shared that when I
go to help people, or little beings, I must make sure I protect myself a bit
more from a “bite” that frightened folks can make as I help them with
challenging transitions. Given my former and recent experiences with other
humans, whether family or work, this nudge from my little spider friend was
particularly relevant. Understanding this also allowed me to avoid developing a
of fear spiders and to use more protective tissue padding when assisting them out of harms way.
Even though my hand still feels some pain, I smiled once I figured this out.
Tonight I played the guitar after a long-month pause.
Tomorrow I hope to hang some paper to begin another drawing. Below is the recent
portrait I completed of my son Kanichi. It was a gift for his twenty-first
birthday and finished the day before my spider visit. It will feel good to be
up on the ladder again and working a new one.
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| Portrait of my son Kanichi (approx. 5 feet x 4.5 feet) |
Message and inspiration were the quirky gifts in April. We'll see what May brings.
My best to you and don’t forget to check out the movie Sidewalls.
Lorraine
blog: lorrainegarcianakata.blogspot.com
web site: http://lorrainegn.com/
Copyright ©2010 Lorraine García-Nakata protected under U.S. and International Law. No part of this site maybe reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without prior written permission of the copyright owner and artist, Lorraine García-Nakata/Lorraine García. This includes all rights now in existence or which may hereafter come into existence, including but not limited to authorship, documentation, lectures, or any other creation or presentation by Lorraine García-Nakata/Lorraine García in any artistic medium, print, audio, electronic, video, CD ROM, photographic, digital, film, and any other medium.
blog: lorrainegarcianakata.blogspot.com
web site: http://lorrainegn.com/
Copyright ©2010 Lorraine García-Nakata protected under U.S. and International Law. No part of this site maybe reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without prior written permission of the copyright owner and artist, Lorraine García-Nakata/Lorraine García. This includes all rights now in existence or which may hereafter come into existence, including but not limited to authorship, documentation, lectures, or any other creation or presentation by Lorraine García-Nakata/Lorraine García in any artistic medium, print, audio, electronic, video, CD ROM, photographic, digital, film, and any other medium.