John Wiercioch
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Reflections on the Art of Living

The Lift

7/21/2019

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The Lift


The ride up to Smithsburg, MD for me is always filled with the anticipation of fun times and good energy. In large part because it means I’m going to visit my dear friends Sarah Polzin and David Gibney who offer both. Last Saturday began that way. I’ve happily made the trip numerous times. David was holding a reception in Hagerstown for a wonderful new body of art work that I’ve had the pleasure to see evolve over many years. We have been good friends on our shared art journey for over three decades now, which has naturally included many life journeys: through losses, new relationships, new body parts, deaths, divorces, marriages, and many joys and adventures intermixed. While we both have had our struggles, we’ve become trusted supports for each other along the way, which is its own very special joy. I’ve always loved David’s attitude: embracing challenges, courageously forging ahead even when things don’t go as hoped, always assisting others, and trying to savor the best in each moment. I love him, and for years we’ve ended all communication telling each other so, and truly meaning it. It pains me to consider some avoid this word or have come to fear this emotion.


After smoothly cruising 233 miles, as I pulled within two miles of their home, my warning lights on my 20 year old Volvo declared “Transmission needs servicing.” Not happy news. When we sorted out the code the following day it was clear the car’s tranny was dying and I needed a tow to a mechanic. After a lengthy AAA wait, a fellow named Barry (changed his name here out of respect) arrived and was apologetic for the delay, his previous tow was apparently “a nightmare.” I had nowhere to go, as Sarah & David’s beautiful home is a sort of artist’s idyllic dream space, so I was fine. I hopped into his truck’s cab once the old Volvo was on the rollback and we headed on the 30 minute trek to the mechanic. 


I innocently asked Barry where he was from; for the next half hour his unexpected gift to me unfolded.  “Oh—I’m from here but only been back two months. I was in Fl. You see,” (perhaps sensing I was really listening and interested) “the thing is my 28 year marriage ended two years ago. Nothing I could do to stop it. I tried. It killed me. So I decided I had to get away for a bit. See, I’m a trucker and heard there was work in FL so I went. Didn’t even know anyone where I settled, but I knew I could get work. Done it for decades.” 


I was in the 7-11 and this lady was blocking the Slurpee machine, taking up all the space. So I teased her about it. We had a nice connection. I ran into her several times the next few days there. She said she was addicted to Slurpees. CJ was her name. So we got talking more. She was young and I just enjoyed having a new friend where I didnt know anyone. Nothin’ romantic—she wasn’t much older than my 25 yr. old daughter for cryin’ out loud.  We was both living nearby the 7-11. 


Pretty soon she was upfront that she’d also been a more serious kinda addict, and had relapsed several times but was now clean for a few years. I’ve had my own issues and  could tell she was clean. She hated that she’d burned bridges with all her family and couldn’t win them back. They lost faith in her. She was tough and skinny but didn’t look addicted. She was rooming with an older guy who was protective of her, but not in a weird way. She had me over for dinner and it became a routine we did between my work trips, we’d share dinners. The old guy was always watching me and skeptical. CJ said he talked shit about me, but I didn’t care, I was always just her friend.


She felt really alone in the world, like no one really knew the “new” her. Soon, she also opened up and told me she’d had cervical cancer. And she was really scared about tests coming up. With no family to lean on, I was glad to be around for her. She cried on my shoulder about all the past mistakes, and about being scared about the test results. They finally started to come in, and they verbally told her 99% in remission, pretty sure. Wow! We were so happy! We celebrated as good friends—just embracing and hugs. I never slept with her or nothin’. 


It was coming up to Thanksgiving and I felt I needed to be with my kids a bit so I took some work up here in MD again, but CJ and I were tight and kept in touch the whole time, texting everyday several times. One day about noon suddenly she didn’t respond. It didn’t feel right. I kept trying and called. Nothin. It was silent for days. I was worried, but had to work. I never had her old guy roommate’s number, so it took a few weeks to track him down. When I finally got through and asked about CJ, he said: “She killed herself!” I was devastated!”


As we rolled his tow truck into the edge of Hagerstown, Barry wiped his eyes. 


“I mean, I couldn’t believe it! I felt so guilty and terrible all around! And just so sad! I couldn’t even imagine what she felt or had happened...” His voice got soft. “It was already weeks later and I had to hold my job and there seemed nothin I could do. I’ve had eating disorders my whole life and had it in check for a long while but after that I stopped eating for five days straight. I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t work. Finally had to go to the ER and rehab before I was able to get myself back on track. I was miserable and so confused.


Holidays passed and I was a little better. Outta the blue one day I got a cell call that said “Florida” number.  I usually never pick up outta state, but somethin’ told me I should. There was this raspy voice I couldn’t understand. I kept trying to hear it and finally I heard: “This is your girl!” I said what? Which one? “How many girlfriends you friiggin’ got!” Then I finally figured out it was CJ! I was in shock shaking and started crying! I finally said they told me you was dead! She said, “Who would say that?!” I told her and she started bawlin’. We cried and cried. But we were also SO happy! I got down there as soon as I could. 


A tumor had been missed and grown undetected for weeks. She went from a bad pain one morning to an internal bleeding rupture. They med-vacked her and gave her 6 units of blood. More when it landed at the hospital even before moving her. She went into a coma and flat-lined several times. 26 units of blood altogether just to keep her going. When she called me they’d just taken the breathing tube out and her first words were “Gimme my phone I gotta call Barry!” That’s why her voice was so raspy and I didn’t know it was her!


I stayed right with her from then on. She was a physical wreck, but she got better. Enough that we got to get her to my apt. I looked after her everyday. She got a little better. But then she kept saying something doesn’t feel right. I told her she was just scared. But she sensed it. Sure enough the cancer had come back and suddenly they gave her two months. She only got three weeks.” (He wipes his eyes as we pull into the parking lot.) “Her fucking family didn’t show until the last few days. I got mad at them! I kinda lost it. She’d begged and begged them to take her in again for years after she was clean! But no! Hospice was already there before they were! I was with her when she died— she was rail thin.


So I came back here again, about two months ago. It was real hard at first, but I’m doing okay. And I know in my heart we were supposed to connect. Here’s what she looked like when I first met her.” {I look at his phone and see a beautiful young woman in her late twenties, with a childish smile.} 


“Anyways I had to find a way to just go on. And turns out I met someone here now. Someone I’ve actually known for years, heard I was back. She says she always liked me and wanted to be with me but stayed clear because I was married. We get along real good. She’s got four kids! Her one son’s autistic and his awful dad abused him. How can people be that way?! He normally don’t like men, but he likes me. Little by little each of her kids has told their mom they like me. That makes me feel real good cause I really like them all. I just try to be a good person and do what’s right. Mom’s cautious and wants to know if I’m gonna stick around—but I’ve already gotten so attached to her and the kids I feel like their my family. Even her HS daughter told Mom last week “Barry’s good. I hope he stays with us.” it’s like my second chance. It’s all I want. I’m not plannin’ on goin’ anywheres. This is it for me.”


He drops me off at a car rental and since I can’t hug him in the cab, I hold both his hands and thank him for sharing, and for being just who he is, and for this amazing gift that he passed to me: to listen to our hearts and do our best to honor everyone we love, as our shared time is lessened everyday. Tell them you love them, mean it, hug them, celebrate our precious time being together in this moment, while you can.
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Shadows Can Never Block Light

7/7/2019

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I suspect all of us have struggled at one time or another with some aspect of our selves, our “shadow,” that we hide from view. It’s been my experience that when we welcome our imperfections, face them in the light of honesty and sincerity, we diminish their control over us and empower ourselves. 


“Shadows Can Never Block Light”
18” x 18” Mixed media/panel
www.johnwiercioch.com
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Independence Day

7/4/2019

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I’m not really independent at all. I found myself thinking about these two beautiful souls the last few days. They literally bookend my decidedly interdependent life. I love this photo, and what it reveals. And I dearly love them both. 


My father transitioned over seven years ago yet I’ll forever feel his vital presence. I have decades of wonderful memories. Unlike many dads, when asked for advice, mine was less prone to insist on the strictly logical decision. Sure, he’d talk sensible fatherly stuff about work issues and finances when appropriate, but in my memory he was more likely to reframe the issues at hand in terms of one’s feelings. Always in the end evoking in me the sense that whatever I chose to do would work out, so long as I followed my heart. Coming from a challenging depression-era upbringing, and being a WW II vet, with minimal formal education, this was remarkable in many ways. His intuition had guided his rich life along a magical path, and so by example he taught me to listen to mine 


Like many, sometimes I stubbornly liked to convince myself I was an independent being, and that we’re all just solo travelers, plowing ahead on our own. I liked clinging to the idea we can control our journey. Yet when crisis hits we are often humbled by reality and the falseness of such an inflated ego. I reached out to my dad for guidance over the years, and even after his passing I find myself doing so when in perplexing or challenging moments. Recently, after following my intuition in a relationship, on several tearful nights I questioned having followed my open-hearted compass; in response, I felt his calming, patient presence. It somehow reminded me that engaging in a genuine compassionate life is never about directing anything or anyone, or being in control, but always more about kindness and trust.


My dad loved people of all ages, classes and types. Despite my often self-protective, make my-own-way through life attitude, I’ve come to understand that a most profound aspect of being human is the trust we earn through being connected to others. Naturally slightly introverted, I’ve also learned the hard way that at times my avoiding communication or action was based on a fear of not being able to fully control an outcome. Contrarily, this aim to control only perpetuates or exacerbates the issues at hand, inevitably stifles growth. 


My father was small of stature with a huge heart. He routinely “took chances.” Love requires a dose of courage and a willingness to be vulnerable, a stepping out of our falsely-protective shadows. There is an inspiring beauty in how genuine love melts fears in the warm light of open honesty and acceptance. Admitting our imperfections nurtures us. Still, as we all are evolving within our own time frame, I’ve also come to accept we’re not always all strong enough in the same given moment to shed the armor or coping masks we adopted for protection. Fortunately the potency of love is not constrained by time, and essentially is ever-patient. In every case, we all grow best when we’re showered with it liberally from infancy into our senior years.


My father was the most patient man I’ve ever known. He was passionate, and vital, yet I recall him getting really frustrated or upset on only a couple of occasions; even more rare were the instances when he was angry. My son generally shares the same temperament. I think to all three of us, anger seems a foolish waste of energy. There always seemed far better ways to use our time and gifts.


There is a magical quality in offering the gift of genuine love. Unlike a material gift, it’s not something one can own. Receiving and giving love can not be about measuring or ownership as if it’s a static commodity. It’s a process involving a fluid, vitalizing energy, and sharing in it is participating in the process of life in a way that allows us all to grow. At times some of us have more bountiful harvest to share, or others are more in need, and others may be more able to receive. Trust builds and evolves through such sharing.


As infants we trust and participate in love instinctively. Like experiencing sheer joy, to love is to openly reveal our selves in a process of engaging with others. When we are overjoyed, we don’t try to hold back. It becomes harder to love this way when we are adults, but it’s possible. Hopefully we retain or can recover some of our childlike trust and temper it with some wisdom borne of experience. It seems to me mature love is a conscious awareness of, and felt safety in, exposing our full vulnerable self with another, knowing our courage will be honored. I like to see it as an ongoing reciprocal process: gently assisting each other toward becoming our best selves. 


The act of loving can only be lessened by demands and diminished by expectations. Rather, I feel mature love neither dictates nor has anything to hide. I think there are many conspiucuous qualities between people sharing such love: sincerity, a sharing of pleasant and unpleasant feelings, tolerance, gentleness, deep listening, and respectful desire to understand (but not change) the other. Love expressed toward others can be likened to nurturing the unseen beauty of a unique flower, helping it grow and blossom, without restricting what form or colors it will present. We may never taste the fruit, yet we happily accept that it will in turn vitalize and nourish others. And, as in the photo above, in the process of cultivating love, it’s also crucial not to become too serious; even better to exuberantly share being silly! “Have fun!” was one of my father’s most repeated mantras. 


Twenty five years after this photo, my son Anselm, the no-longer-curly blonde, has become a remarkable young man. Always wise beyond his years, he’s taught me things constantly his entire life. Nowadays I get the unique thrill of knowing he truly knows more about many things than I — the heavens, science, physics, and engineering for starters. Since a very early age he had a way of asking those “Big Questions.” All kids do, but he seemed to have more of them, and in his own quiet way, he retained and carried answers forward. Now, at 26, he acknowledges how much he doesn’t know, and in that as well reveals his wisdom. Recently he was offered a hard-earned promotion in his first career job. [That old guy giving him blow-kisses above would surely be busting his buttons bragging to everyone in the world about his grandson!] Despite a demanding job, he remains an avid reader on all sorts of topics and also manages to stay active (IE having taken up mountain climbing!). His courageous initiative has nurtured the habits of a life-long learner, and his young heart is strong and generous and quietly joyful.


Which is extra cool too, and very much like his Dzia-dzia (grandpa) above. Despite having achieved his high school equivalency around age 40, my father made a point of happily taking us kids to the library, and importantly also brought home a pile of books for himself to read. My siblings and I all benefited immensely by this family routine. Although “only” the manager of an appliance warehouse, many late evenings included him reading for an hour at the kitchen table, often over a bowl of cornflakes, pouring through the books from which he so enjoyed gleaning new ideas or insights or understanding. I’m now happy to acknowledge the chubby-cheeked infant above continues the tradition (sans the flakes) and usually has a pile of books (or lists on audible) from which he’s eager to grow too. 


The concepts of self-made “success” and independent individuals “going it alone” feel blatantly false to me. On the other hand, our interdependence seems conspicuously palpable. I’ve been blessed and encouraged by my parent’s viewpoint that generally sees “problems” as temporary challenges. It pervades my outlook. It seems to have been interwoven into the DNA of the two in this photo. They each discovered and expanded their own interests and knowledge, and each merged it with sensitivity, caring for others, and kindness as well. They’ve also both at times managed to balance heart and head in admirable ways, something that I feel embodies true wisdom. Life will always have sorrows, my wise father knew the terrors of war and like us all, loss; he also taught us we need to create our joy to counter this. I learned as early as my infant son in the photo that joy is exponentially enhanced when shared—one of many precious gifts he passed to us both. 


We are all connected. I look at this wonderful image, the loving bond between these two beings who, for whatever magical reasons I’ve been honored to be able to live between, and feel so very fortunate and grateful in all ways. These two souls (as well as everyone I have met) inextricably molded and enriched my life, and for this my heart overflows with gratitude and love worthy of the most joyful celebrations.
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    ​John's Blog

    Writing offers an opportunity to clarify my thoughts and feelings. Often these relate to my art and may offer insights about my work. I learn from engaging with others and welcome comments. 

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