Nursing home placement – another form of elder abuse?
22 Jun 2010 13 Comments
in Art of Writing, Julie's Paintings, Memoir, Social Action Tags: Edward Munch, elder abuse, Eldercide, involuntary placement, Julie Lomoe, nursing home placement
Edward Munch Self Portrait
Elder abuse takes many forms. Nursing home placement may be a humane solution, but to many elders it feels like involuntary confinement. I was moved by Jean Henry Mead’s comment on my last post, about the 98-year-old woman who jumped to her death from a nursing home window. My own father experienced a similar sense of abandonment when my stepmother abruptly placed him in a nursing home without consulting the rest of the family.
I was in New York City in my ninth month of pregnancy when I got his furious call from Michigan. She’d betrayed him, he said, and he wanted a divorce. Although he’d suffered from mild dementia, the outrage triggered total lucidity. I’m also convinced it killed him, because a cardiac event – what doctors sometimes call a sympathetic storm – caused his death early the next morning, before my husband and I could help make alternate arrangements.
That wrongful death preyed on my mind for years, and ultimately swayed my decision to choose eldercare as a profession. The same is true of Claire Lindstrom, the protagonist of Eldercide, my novel of medical suspense, as you’ll see if you read to the end:
The trilling of the cell phone was so subtle that the sound carried barely twenty feet from shore, harmonizing with the chirping of the sparrows and the soft cooing of the mourning doves. If not for her dog Freia, Claire Lindstrom would have missed it entirely, but the big blond Labradoodle was dancing on the dock, wagging happily as she bounced around the little black instrument of torture.
“Good girl!” Claire murmured as she steered the kayak in for a landing. She’d taught the dog this silent pantomime in deference to the neighbors, most of whom didn’t appreciate being stirred from sleep by a salvo of barks, no matter how magnificent the sunrise.
Setting down the paddle, Claire grabbed the cell phone and peered at the caller ID. The number was Harriet Gardener’s.
A shiver swept over her, despite the rising heat of the early September day. As nursing supervisor for a couple of dozen home care clients, Claire was accustomed to getting calls at all hours of the day and night. Call her compulsive, call her a workaholic, but she’d made it clear to everyone on staff that she wanted to be brought up to speed on anything out of the ordinary, no matter what the hour. Most of the clients at Compassionate Care were elderly, and many were gravely ill. The aides knew better than to leave Claire out of the loop when it came to making judgment calls about the people in their charge.
But Harriet Gardener was in excellent health, physically at least. She suffered from mid-stage Alzheimer’s and needed supervision to prevent her wandering away or burning down the house with her absent-minded attempts at cooking. But she was strong, and she rarely came down with so much as a sniffle. For the time being, thanks in large part to her live-in aide Dahlia Douglas, her quality of life was excellent. But inevitably that would change. Although they tried not to show it, the fact that she was fated to endure many years of painfully slow decline, culminating in the eventual loss of all her mental and physical functions, distressed her overwrought family no end. . . .
Halfway across the lawn, she had the cell phone out of the bag, her finger poised over the callback button. She jabbed the button as she set foot on the first step, and the phone was ringing by the time she reached the deck.
Dahlia answered on the third ring, her voice weak and shaky. “Harriet’s gone,” she stammered. “It must have happened sometime in the night.”
Claire’s heart sank. “But Dahlia, how could she get out without your knowing? Everything’s locked up tight. You sleep right across the hall from her, and I know you’re a light sleeper.”
“Not that kind of gone.” Dahlia’s careful diction had yielded to the earthy dialect she usually reserved for the other Jamaican aides, and the melodic lilt of her voice was incongruously at odds with her message. “She’s gone. I mean she passed. I don’t understand. She was fine when I tucked her in bed last night. She had such a strong heart, and you know how the family used to kid around with me. We thought Harriet would outlive us all.”
Just like my father. Claire shivered. She took Dahlia’s report, somehow got through the formalities, hung up. Then, suddenly wobbly, she sank onto a chaise. Nine years ago, on a flawless September morning much like this one, she’d gotten a call from the nursing home where he’d been admitted the day before, suffering from mild dementia. He had gone to bed ostensibly healthy, died sometime in the night. A previously undiagnosed cardiac problem, they said. Or, as Claire always thought of it, a broken heart. He’d been furious when her mother shunted him off to a nursing home against his wishes, vowed to get out if it was the last thing he did. He had fulfilled his vow, although not the way he planned.
He shouldn’t have died that way, abandoned and alone in an institutional bed. His death shocked Claire into abandoning graduate school and entering nursing. She found her way into home care, where she could help keep people away from those warehouses for the dying. All these years spent making amends, and now it had happened again.
Read the entire first chapter of Eldercide here on my blog. You can order the novel from Amazon or directly from me – see the page on how to order my books for contact information. I did the cover illustration for Eldercide – perhaps you can see that Munch is one of my inspirations.
Five reasons I’d rather write than paint
09 Apr 2010 7 Comments
in Art of Writing, Creativity, Julie's Paintings, Miscellaneous Musings Tags: inner critic, Julie Lomoe. SoHo, painting, River Front Art Coop, SoHo loft, Terry Faul
A new gallery, the River Front Art Coop, is opening in downtown Troy, and I’m schlepping some of my work down there this afternoon with a view to showing it on consignment even though when it comes to the visual arts, I’m feeling pretty rusty. I did the cover illustrations for both my mystery novels, but aside from a few collages, I’ve neglected what used to be my primary means of artistic expression.
All my formal training was in the visual arts, so why have I reinvented myself as a writer instead of a painter? Off the top of my head, I can think of lots of reasons:
- Writing is so much speedier. At the computer, my ideas flow from my fingers. Saying it’s effortless would be lying, but for me, it’s a heck of lot easier than painting, and you can say so much more in a shorter time.
- Writing is cheaper by far. A decent computer and Internet connection, a ream of bright white multipurpose paper from Staples, a new toner cartridge now and then, and I’m good to go. Have you priced art supplies lately?
- Writing requires less space. In a space six by six feet – that’s 36 square feet – I have my L-shaped computer desk, my file cabinet, my comfy office chair, a little wicker stand that serves as a cat bed, and a picture window with a lake view. In our present home, alas, there’s no space that’s remotely adequate for my needs as a visual artist. If my longing to paint becomes overwhelming, I’ll have to build or rent studio space.
- Writing makes me happier. I believe I’m better as a writer than I ever was as a painter. I don’t have that inner critic nagging me about what a mediocre writer I am – at any rate, not until I begin dealing with the marketplace. When I’m drawing or painting, in contrast, my inner critics are relentless and nasty. They tell me my work is crap – pedestrian, amateurish, unoriginal. Where do these voices come from? Some are former art teachers. They weren’t actually all that discouraging, but I’ve internalized them anyway – especially a world-famous art therapist who told me my work was “hopelessly vulgar.”
- Writing enables me to reach more people more affordably. Over the course of decades, I’ve developed a jaundiced view of the art world. One-of-a-kind works of art are luxury items, and few people can afford to buy them. For centuries, the visual arts have been the province of the privileged – commissioned by the church or supported by wealthy patrons. Books, on the other hand, are still relatively affordable. And writing on the Internet, I can reach a potentially limitless audience for free. It feels much more politically correct than hanging my work in a gallery.
Nonetheless, those big empty walls at the River Front Art Coop have a powerful allure. The space is magnificent – a high-ceilinged commercial space that reminds me of my old lofts in SoHo, with a view of the Hudson from windows at the back. I miss the camaraderie of the community of artists I knew in New York City, and perhaps the three women starting this gallery, including the stained glass artist Terry Faul, will be able to help fulfill that particular void in my life.
So after I publish this post, I’ll get to work unearthing some art work and loading it into my Focus hatchback. I’ll try to shush the inner critic who tells me the work isn’t good enough, subject myself to their scrutiny and see what happens. Who knows, I may be seduced back into the visual arts, at least part-time. If I clean up my office, I might even find space for that new drafting table I haven’t unpacked yet.
Narrow Escape from an Art Attack
22 Mar 2010 12 Comments
in Art of Marketing, Julie's Paintings, Miscellaneous Musings Tags: art shows, coop galleries, Julie Lomoe, Schenectady Art Attack
Sidewalk art show (anonymous)
Wandering the streets of Schenectady during the “Art Attack” on Saturday, evading the pleading eyes of the artists hawking their works throughout the city’s downtown, I felt an overwhelming sense of relief that I wasn’t one of the hundreds who’d signed up for what may become an annual event. I was reminded, too, how writers have it easy compared to visual artists when it comes to displaying our work.
It’s not that I wasn’t tempted. When I read the e-mail invitation to display my work at Art Attack, I gave it some serious thought. A chance to display several of my paintings and collages for free in a city-wide festival on the first day of spring, perhaps even to sell them – what’s not to like? Then I reminded myself of the logistics involved – loading my paintings into my trusty Focus hatchback, schlepping them to Schenectady, hanging them and arranging a display area, maybe babysitting them throughout the weekend, then putting the entire process into rewind on Sunday evening. Not worth the hassle, I decided.
Daumier "This Year Venuses Again"
Five-star Frame and Art, the first venue I visited, was a lovely gallery, with quality work displayed in mini-one-person shows. Damn, I thought – I shouldn’t have blown this off. Maybe next year. Unfortunately, it was all downhill from there. Schenectady’s striking city hall, designed and built during the Depression by McKim, Mead, and White, was temporary home to hundreds of art works in many media – some truly excellent, but the majority mediocre or worse.
Artists sat or stood by their works with their game faces on, doing their best to make eye contact and smile. There were plenty of visitors, but there and at the other venues it was obvious that they were out for a leisurely stroll on a gorgeous spring day, and that the art was strictly secondary. I didn’t see any serious discussions of art happening, let alone any sales. I chatted with some of the artists, and learned they’d been advised to stay with their work if possible, since the event offered no insurance coverage.
Comparatively speaking, we writers have it easy. All our merchandise and display paraphernalia fit easily into a couple of cartons and a wheeled cart, so the logistics are simple, and we usually don’t have to put in the long hours that visual artists do. Our works come in multiples, so they’re priced low enough to tempt the occasional impulse buyer. Original works of art, in contrast, are luxury items and beyond the reach of most of us in today’s economy. Nonetheless, regardless of medium, we artists have similar motives. “I put my heart and soul into this work,” we think. “Pay attention. Please care enough to take my creations home with you, or failing that, at least to truly see them for what they are – portraits of the artist.”
But hope springs eternal, even for this jaded painter. A beautiful new coop art gallery will open soon in downtown Troy, and I’ll probably display some of my work there on consignment. As the New York Lottery hucksters say, “Hey – you never know.”
How about you? Do you enjoy hanging out at public venues showing and hoping to sell your work? Is it a necessary evil you endure? Or do you bypass it entirely?
Dogs I’ve loved in life and fiction
17 Mar 2010 7 Comments
in Blog Book Tour, Julie's Paintings, Memoir, Nature and gardening Tags: cats, dogs German shepherds, Eldercide, Golden retrievers, Jack Russell terrier, Julie Lomoe, Karen Walker, Lunesta, Memoir, Mood Swing: The BIpolar Murders, Shepherd mix
Congratulations to Karen Walker, winner of my 50,000 hits contest. Though Karen lives across the country, we’ve shared a lot over the past year through the Blog Book Tours group. I invite you to visit her wonderful blog, Following the Whispers. Here’s the post I contributed to her blog for my Blog Book Tour last November.
Truth can be stranger than fiction:
the tragic saga of Lucky, my golden retriever
Lucky and Me (Author photo for Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders) Courtesy Hot Shot Photos
Dogs have long played a central role in my life and my fiction but Lucky, the beautiful golden retriever in my author photo for Mood Swing: The Bipolar Murders, may have been the last dog I’ll ever own. Six months after the photo was taken, he died of lymphoma, and in the years since then, I’ve switched to cats. Setting up this Blog Book Tour, reading my hosts’ reactions to the photo, I realized I’d never written about Lucky. Since Karen’s blog focuses on memoir and nonfiction, this seems like the perfect time.
But Rishi, the dog before Lucky, deserves pride of place. He’s a major character in Mood Swing. In fact, his image is in my cover illustration, and his name is the first word in the first chapter:
Rishi was halfway out the window and onto the fire escape when I tackled him. Arms around my dog’s massive shoulders, I groped for his choke chain and yanked hard. Half a dozen pigeons flapped skyward, squawking.
I described him on Page 2:
He’s leaner and rangier than a German shepherd, stockier than a Doberman, bigger than a Rottweiler. Despite his forbidding looks, he’s a basically friendly beast, but sometimes it’s in my best interests not to let people know that.
That last sentence was literary license. Rishi was wonderfully affectionate and loving, but only to our immediate family, and he was never adequately trained. Despite a near-death experience with a neighbor’s hammer that left a permanent dent in his skull, Rishi lived nearly ten years, a good long life for a big dog. But his death threw me into a deep depression.
Enter Lucky, a year or so later. He came into our lives with what seemed at first to be joyous synchronicity. At a Woodstock party given by friends of my daughter Stacey, someone mentioned having a golden retriever who needed a new home. I was instantly intrigued – we’d owned a beautiful golden named Shawna when Stacey was a child, and except for her propensity to chew up the woodwork during thunderstorms, she’d been a wonderful member of the family.
Right after the party, I paid a home visit to meet Lucky, fell instantly in love, called my husband on my cell, and within a week we had a beautiful four-year-old male golden. He came with a tragic back story: he’d been the beloved companion of an 84-year-old man who lived alone in the Catskills, and when the man was hospitalized, one of the nurses befriended both him and Lucky. Shortly after the man’s discharge, he was brutally murdered by a neighbor he’d known and trusted for years, a handyman in search of money for drugs.
The nurse took Lucky in, and in turn passed him on to the folks who gave him to us for adoption. The poor dog was threatening the family’s togetherness. They already had a couple of young kids, a poodle and a cat, and a rambunctious young retriever sent them over the top. The husband’s job took him on the road a lot, but when he was home, he told us, he and Lucky slept together downstairs while the wife, kids, poodle and cat slept upstairs. Not exactly a prescription for marital bliss, so Lucky had to go.
Soon after the photo session with Lucky, his health began spiraling downward. He couldn’t seem to keep food down, and he was weakening and losing weight. After extensive testing, the vet diagnosed lymphoma. In a futile attempt to buy more time, we opted for extensive – and expensive – surgery. In retrospect, that was a mistake, but he’d been so young, so lovable, that we thought it was worth the gamble.
He died in early fall. We buried him in the garden out back, marked the spot with a marble plaque bearing an iris design my husband had carved years before. I planted dozens of bulbs – crocus, daffodil, and hyacinth – and they’ve bloomed luxuriously in the three years since.
Dogs play a major role in both my novels, but they never, ever come to a bad end. In fact the villain in my suspense novel Eldercide nearly refuses an assignment when he thinks it might mean harming the victim’s Jack Russell terrier. And I could probably never write that scene where the neighbor tries to murder Rishi with a ball peen hammer, with me coming between them, shrieking that he’ll have to kill me first, screaming bloody murder until the neighbors call 911 and the police arrive. On the other hand, maybe enough time has passed – and after all, the dog survived in the end.
As I write, my cat Lunesta is writhing around on the desk next to my computer, tempting me to rub her tummy and doing her best to bat the mouse out of my hand and onto the floor. Does she sense I’m writing about dogs? Is she demanding equal time? For now, she’ll have to wait.
Post script five months later: it’s a beautiful spring day, and the green shoots of the crocuses, daffodils and hyacinths are pushing out of the ground atop Lucky’s grave. Lunesta is sleeping in a basket by my side, soaking up the sunshine.
I did the cover illustrations for both my books, by the way. The medium is pastel.
How about you? Any pet stories you’d like to share? Have your pets played a role in your fiction?
Scents of the Sixties
05 Mar 2010 4 Comments
in Julie's Paintings, Memoir, Woodstock Festival 1969 Tags: Heath Ledger, Jimi Hendrix, Julie Lomoe, Woodstock Festival
"Jimi Hendrix" by Julie Lomoe, Acrylic, 64" x 64", Shown at Woodstock Festival, 1969
SPOILER ALERT – the following post deals with body odor. If that grosses you out, maybe you should skip my blog today, but the topic follows a logical progression. Since I began blogging last May, I’ve disclosed quite a bit about myself and my personal history – in particular my bipolar diagnosis and how it’s influenced my mystery novels, especially MOOD SWING: THE BIPOLAR MURDERS. In their comments, people have lauded me for my courage and honesty in letting it all hang out. The more praise I get, the more personal my disclosures become. It’s a simple matter of positive reinforcement; I learned all about it decades ago when I took B.F. Skinner’s Human Behavior course at Harvard. (By the way, he had a daughter named Julie – he raised her in the infamous “Skinner Box.”)
I’ve received lots of positive feedback for my posts about the 1969 Woodstock Festival, where I won a prize for my paintings. The growing sense of community I’m experiencing as I widen my circle of friends on the Internet reminds me in many ways of the spirit of the 60’s. At the height of Flower Power, I was a newly divorced (well, at least amicably separated) woman in my twenties and a pioneer settler in the cast iron district in Lower Manhattan that was becoming known as SoHo. When I renovated my first loft on Broome Street, I put in a minimal bathroom with the cheapest tin shower stall I could find. Incidentally, that loft was diagonally across the street from the one where Heath Ledger died. The articles on his death all described the neighborhood as luxurious and upscale, but it was anything but back then.
As I recall, bodily hygiene wasn’t a high priority in the 60’s, for myself and for many others. I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice it to say we got pretty funky. And at the Woodstock Festival, I didn’t get near running water for three days straight. I’m no Marcel Proust, and I don’t have a vivid olfactory memory. People must have smelled pretty ripe, I suppose, but the odor was masked by all the fragrant smoke.
Today, sitting at our computers and communicating on the World Wide Web, we can get equally odiferous if we choose. As I write, it’s 3:55 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, and I’m still in the luxurious powder-blue polyester garment I bought at Wal-Mart for $18. It’s a cross between velour and chenille, it zips up the front, and I don’t know whether to call it a robe or a nightgown, but I’ve been wearing it practically around the clock. I love it so much that if it survives the first wash in good shape, I’ll go back and get another one in pink. It’s comfy and cozy, but the day’s getting warmer, and – well, you get the idea
Thank heavens no one can smell us when we’re being scintillating online. They can’t see us either, unless we want them to. For the Poisoned Pen Web Con back in October, billed as the first virtual international mystery writers’ conference, authors had the option of doing live video feeds, but luckily I wasn’t up to speed on that particular technology. Some authors who did manage to give a presentation that way may wish they hadn’t – the fish-eye lenses built into their computers were anything but flattering.
I wonder if writers in Nebraska or Maine become even more slovenly than I do. I’m fortunate to live in the Capital Region of upstate New York, and there’s lots of live in-person literary and artsy action. I clean up fairly nicely for my age, and I enjoy dressing for success as much as the next woman. I spend much less money on clothes than I used to, though – one of the many advantages of doing most of my socializing online.
In a couple of hours, I’ll be leaving for the Albany’s monthly First Night to make the rounds of the galleries. Knowing my husband, he’ll tactfully say, “You’re going to take a bath, aren’t you?” I don’t know why he feels the need for these reminders after 36 years, because I do have a modicum of judgment on hygiene issues.
As I sit here at the computer in my upstairs office, looking out at the lake while my two cats stare in tense fascination at the red squirrel using the nearest bare tree as a jungle gym, I realize how lucky I am. I love reminiscing about the 60’s, but given the option, would I want to time-travel back? Not on your life.
This post originally appeared in slightly different form on Marvin Wilson’s blog on November 20, 2009. For more about my experiences in the 1960’s, click on the Woodstock category in my blogroll at the right.
© Julie Lomoe 2010
One Red Push Pin: My poem about unsold works of art
16 Aug 2009 7 Comments
in Julie's Paintings, Julie's Poetry, Woodstock Festival 1969 Tags: Julie Lomoe, poetry, Woodstock Festival 1969, Woodstock Music and Art Fair
Julie Lomoe, acrylic, 64"x64", 1969
This Sunday morning, August 16, marks the height of the Woodstock Festival 40th Anniversary frenzy. My three posts on my 1969 Woodstock experience have pulled in an enormous number of visitors, but I still haven’t tracked down any visual documentation for the paintings I showed there. Several of them still languish unseen in my basement – they’re far too large for any of the walls in my house.
I recently posted my poem about what becomes of unwanted books at a library sale. Today’s poem is about unwanted visual art. In a way, it’s the sister of the other poem. But for the visual artist, the question of what to do with old work is more problematic. Old books and unpublished manuscripts can be stored in a few banker’s boxes at the most, a computer jump drive at the least, so space isn’t a major problem. For works of visual art, it’s another matter entirely.
I wrote this poem after a visit to “The Great Municipal Side Show,” a members’ exhibition at the Albany Center Galleries in the fall of 2005.
ONE RED PUSH PIN
Ninety-nine art works unsold on the walls,
ninety-nine pieces of art.
If one more creation should happen to sell
there’ll be ninety-eight unwanted works on the walls.
One red push pin, one more day
until the show comes down.
This gallery marks the center of a circle,
its radius one hundred miles
in all directions.
Forty artists, one hundred works,
and only one red push pin. The tiny crimson dot
means someone craved the art
enough to sign a check and guarantee a home.
The rest remain bereft,
sad puppies left abandoned at the pound.
But maybe not. The gallery maven claims
two more are sold, so that makes three.
Perhaps they’re out of push pins.
Ninety-seven pieces of art on the wall.
Ninety-seven fragments
of starving artist soul still hang unclaimed,
or lie supine, or rise on pedestals
above the slate-gray floor of painted plywood,
so like the deck paint on my studio floor
in SoHo lo these many years ago.
So like my loft, so full of painted children,
born of inspiration, left to molder now
in a damp basement ninety miles north
of where the action was.
The paintings in the gallery call in plaintive voices.
Please buy me now!
I need a loving home!
My maker’s out of space!
They stare with liquid eyes
that follow me like Jesus as I pass,
my checkbook firmly zipped away,
its balance earmarked for necessities,
and art’s a luxury, or so I tell myself.
I swear I will not splurge.
My heart bleeds for the artists
who’ll cart their work back home
with no adoptive parents waiting in the wings.
To them, and yes, to me, art’s no mere luxury.
We thirst for it like water, but its power
is in the making, not the having.
When I crave more art, I’ll procreate my own,
and stash them with their siblings
in my dank, dark basement
where water rises from a spring-fed lake.
© Julie Lomoe, 2005
Potential buyers, please note: I took a bit of poetic license here. My paintings aren’t actually moldering in my basement; they’re carefully stored and in good condition, as are the cartons of jazz LPs from the 1950’s I keep vowing to sell on eBay one of these days.
Watch for more poems in future posts. And please stop back tomorrow, when I’ll pose some questions about hosting guests on our blogs.
