Tag Archives: coping with change

Altered Horizons 71

Altered Horizons 71 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change.

Every night, walking the dog in the driveway, I look to the sky and sing or pray or talk to my daughter who died. To me, the night sky is not a vast void. It is peppered with stars or lumbering clouds, falling snow, raindrops, and sometimes fireflies. It can carry fog or whipping winds. It can reverberate in frog song or roar with thunder. Though I look up and howl into the heavens, I know that is not where I will find my beloved ghosts.

One day in August, shortly after the rains stopped, I photographed a red slate walkway so that the mortar between the slabs of slate might be envisioned as the night sky.

 

Altered Horizons 71

REPLY TO ROBIN

Altered Horizons 70

Altered Horizons 70 Robin Botie of ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with loss.

How was I going to photograph endless piles of books for two whole hours, I wondered. My photography class was visiting the building that houses The Friends of the Library Book Sale, and just seeing all the shelves and boxes crammed from floor to ceiling with books was activating some of my darkest deep-hidden emotional responses.

For months I’d been de-cluttering my house. Clothing, kitchenware, tchotchkes, outdated electronics… old books, many of which were among the accumulations at The Friends of the Library. My home had felt lighter and I’d felt less depressed after unloading so much of my stuff. But here, in this jam-packed place, I felt my breath trapped in my chest. It was like I could sense the countless agitated souls of all the homeless books taking flight. And I had this unshakeable need to escape.

It took several days to gather up the courage to view the photos I’d taken. Finally, dropping them into Photoshop, I rotated an image of shelved books ninety degrees and extended the concrete floor to concoct an unsettling gray sky. Then, de-saturating the color on the trim of an old oak bookcase, I crafted a frame for my fabricated landscape of the week.

 

 

 

Altered Horizons 70

REPLY TO ROBIN

Altered Horizons 67

Altered Horizons 67 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and learning to live with loss.

I don’t want to live on the moon; the light is too beautiful right here on earth.

In my fabricated landscape of the week, a tarred road and its shoulder become the sky and land. In the sky I pasted an image of a Queen Anne’s lace flower that many consider to be an invasive weed. I think it makes a magnificent moon.

REPLY TO ROBIN

Altered Horizons 66

Altered Horizons 66 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, Photoshops fabricated landscape in her efforts to deal with depression and cope with loss.

Being reflective was never one of my talents. Rarely would I look back at things said or done, examining actions and motives, realities versus perceptions. Not my own, nor another’s.

And now, stepping into the role of grief group facilitator, I am having to develop my skills at reflective listening, responding to the thoughts and feelings I sense from the communications of another, so that the speaker feels heard and understood.

Focus on the other person’s message and feelings. Don’t make judgments. Don’t offer advice or my own perspective, I remind myself. But I’m kinda like an old upended tree trunk, absorbing the wet and warmth, and impervious to almost everything else around.

In Photoshop I turned the reflection of trees and clouds in my pond upside down for this fabricated landscape. Definitely not paying respectful attention to what lay before me.

 

Altered Horizons 66

Reply to Robin

Altered Horizons 65

Altered Horizons 65 Robin Botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes to deal with depression and cope with loss.

Being fully present. Listening. Reflecting. That is my job now, as a grief facilitator. I recognize that the griever’s pain is theirs, is necessary, is beautiful, is now. It is not forever.

Giving the grieving ones the dignity of experiencing their own pain, I must be a respectful witness to that pain, not a participant. Not a sponge. Not a healer or fixer.

Just being there is everything.

The ragged bark of a tree I upended in Photoshop and the still pond reflecting the deep sky. Combining these two images, I was reminded of sitting with a person in the throes of heartbreaking loss.

 

Altered Horizons 65

Reply to Robin

Altered Horizons 64

Altered Horizons 64 Robin botie of Ithaca, New York, photoshops fabricated landscapes in dealing with depression and coping with change and loss.

No one could quite identify the huge tree at the far end of my property. It was surrounded by the thickest thicket and wetland scrub so we could only view it, its top, from a distance. For years I’d wanted to mow up to that tree but the land was too swampy to get anywhere near with a mower. Also, the field was riddled with the downed trunks of huge trees, cut when I built my house at the turn of the century.

In the middle of the heatwave and dry spell, the landscapers agreed to try clearing the field. It was one of those days when I hardly dared to go outside for fear of being fried. But the landscapers called to me, they’d reached the tree. (Although the bulldozer had half sunk in the still-wet land.)

It was a shagbark hickory. My favorite for photo-shopping fabricated landscapes. Snaking around behind the tree was a small murky creek. And under the tree’s canopy were two rocks, large enough to sit on. I greeted the shagbark like I was meeting a long-lost loved one.

 

Altered Horizons 64

REPLY TO ROBIN