Chapter 4
Learning to Embrace Who and What I Love
Two years after graduate college I made another important decision to marry Tony. Some people in my life were not able to support us in this decision. I followed my heart again. We created and shared much joy and love in our life and faced our challenges together. We were grateful to raise two beautiful, loving and gifted children, Sean and Tiffany. As a working mother, I grew and nourished two gardens of creativity: one being our growing family at home and the other the healthcare clinics where I worked as an occupational therapist. Nurturing the creativity of my family and the people who I was assisting to heal, became my way of living out my purpose.
I continued to explore what I loved and used art and creativity in my work as an occupational therapist and later as a university occupational therapy faculty member. I realized that when people connected with what they loved it helped them in their growing and healing process. I tried to create environments at work that would give people the opportunity to explore and engage in creative activities they loved. As a university faculty member, I taught occupational therapy students to use their creativity to be effective and caring health professionals.
I met and worked with many amazing, inspiring artists who dealt with and rose above their health issues. One of the most memorable was Mona Chabra, a beautiful, talented 10 year old girl with a wonderful sense of humor. Mona was one of my first patients in my first job at a children’s rehabilitation hospital near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She was experiencing a disease that kept her from walking, talking clearly, and using her hands to write. When I left my position there, she touched my heart and gifted me with this incredible poem she had created.
When I returned to Pittsburgh eight years later, she invited me to the Cathedral of Learning to show me a book of poetry she had created as a part of the University of Pittsburgh High School Honors Poetry Program. She was on her way to attend college at Edinboro University where she earned four degrees, including an MA degree in Communications and Media Studies. Her story and poem have been a source of inspiration that I have shared with others throughout my life. Almost 45 years after we first met, we were blessed to reconnect and discover we were both mothers and grandmothers and writing our second books. What synchronicity!
Most of my adult life, I was somehow able to keep the creative healing artist alive within me despite being a very busy working mother. Although, I would rather have worked part-time and been able to give our kids more support and attention. Our family faced a lot of challenges during these growing years. These included health challenges, the death of loved ones, prejudices expressed in schools and community activities, unethical employment practices and layoffs in the workplace, numerous severe weather events, financial stressors, and unfair housing practices, to name a few. No one really taught us how to deal with these kinds of challenges, but we pressed on, stayed together and did the best we could.
Our vacation time became one of our primarily ways of coping and relieveing stress. Tony was able to get into a tennis professional exchange program in Jamaica that accommodated our family to stay at beautiful all-inclusive resorts while he provided his teaching services to give the Jamaican tennis pros relief. It was great experience for us and he enjoyed it, but had to sacrifice not getting enough down time to truly relax and restore himself.
Being surrounded by the surreal blue waters of the Caribbean beaches, eating the delicious Jamaican cuisine, experiencing the island Reggae music and dance, and peacefully watching the sun rise and set over the ocean were all incredibly healing and restorative. Being there inspired the artist within me to create the Caribbean Irie Series. ‘Irie’ is the Jamaican word for ‘every little thing’s gonna be alright’. I was revisiting the calming effects of beauty in nature and transforming them into art images of beauty. Here are a few of the paintings from the series.
Irie in Rio Brac - watercolor
Irie at Grand Lido - watercolor
Irie at Boscobel - watercolor
Irie in Ocho Rios - watercolor
Continue to Chapter 5: The Next Level of Art as Healing