5am and my letter to a friend in a gallery in New york city

September 21st, 2009

From the desk of hellophotokitty...

20

Hey Bob,

it's been a long long while.

How have you been?

well, so much has happened here, i wouldn't know where to begin, so I'll give you the condensed reader's Digest version (or at least i will try...)

mom's cancer has come and gone, and come back again. Her ordeal has been nothing short of unbelievable. When I tell people about this story, they often shake their heads and say: "ooh, she must have had some bad karma". Fuck Karma, blame it on genetics. Bad genetics.

As i think i may have told you, it started off with her skin cancer, followed by a year of interferon. Then it came back - spreading to her lungs. A serious operation which left the experience of being in one of the city's apparently foremost cancer care research center/care facility equal or greater than having your fingernails slowly pulled out one by one, while having them dipped in a vat of iodine for hours on end. An anthropologist friend of ours visited her during her stay. "I've been to Ethiopia and and some of the other poorest parts of Africa. This hospital is about as close to a third world country on this continent as you can get". So much for our shining healthcare system...

So we had hoped she was in the clear, and for a while she was, until a few months later, the cancer came back onto another spot in her lung. Her options? Let the disease run it's course or try the new immunotherapy treatment called IL2 - Interlucan 2. Simply put, the last ditch effort at cancer, and as brutal as they come. Many patients have to be put into intensive care during the rounds and some even die. Mom made two complete rounds (1 week on, one week off, x 2 - and then times another two a few months later). And a miracle of miracles - the tumors had not only shrunk, but disappeared. A medical miracle. But it took its toll.

She was well for the Wedding (yea, E and i finally tied the knot after 10 years. I had to wait a decade. He's a little slow sometimes, but has a good heart...;-) which was the most important thing. She got to walk me down the isle and do the whole mother daughter thing every mother wants to experience. It was simply the most wonderful and delicate moments of my life. And everything was perfect - the day, the weather, the food, my dress, my hair, except my shoes. E trampled all over those during our first dance - a Foxtrot, which we had spent months practicing. Well, at least they weren't more than the dress and we did manage to look good on the floor.

So honeymoon to Cuba which was another dream come true. God bless Castro - he managed to keep this pristine gem of an island unspoiled and overrun by tourists and MacDonalds corporations, but now it's anybody's guess how long before you can smoke a "Cubano" cigar with your Big Mac...

We get back and two weeks later, find out mom's cancer has come back. Again. In her small bowel and intestine. Invasive surgery pronto. She is healing well now, but once again, through the jungle belly of The General Hospital which we have come to know and love (and the food, paper pulp and glass shards have more taste than the shit over there...) she managed to overcome great obstacles, but at what cost?

All of this cancer battling has done a number on all of us. It's true that cancer touches everyone, not only the people who suffer from it. Personally, i have literally gone underground. Hiding in dark subway stations, people's basements and if i go any lower, I'll be sitting in 5 feet of dirt. But there is a strange thing going on. I have shut off my "art valve". My creative spark which once propelled me to fearlessly bare everything (literally), and march into New York City with an attitude and some hot pix into your gallery, has now all but died out.

I play your wise words over and over again in my head: "you gotta pick one thing and stick with it, be it photography, writing or cinema." Well, i have tried all three separately to varying degrees, but it has been tantamount to shitting out the North tower of the world trade center. I have never felt so constipated creatively in my life. I have put down the camera, taken up the pen, put that down to fiddle with a video camera, but nothing. And it's freaking me the fuck out.

Hmmph. This what is now looking like to be a long letter, but i will try to refrain from babbling...

How do you do it Bob? How do you keep fresh in the midst of life's setbacks and crap that gets thrown to us on a daily basis? How do you weather the creative barren dusty death valleys when you are lead into them by blind faith or perhaps a sadistic form of deliberate bad judgment in map reading of rugged territory? Do you think that we "need this" to define us or our art or both at the same time?

I have spoken to my other "artist friends" and they say something along the lines of: "oh it will pass" or the sappy: "you'll find your muse/spark/purpose soon". But what happens when you don't? Bob, I have seen your art. It's intense, vibrant, chaotic, fearless and fearful at the same time. I have a funny feeling that you must have gone through some serious shit in your time. Some serious shit that must have also brought you to the brink of a creative meltdown. What made you turn around? Or have you even turned around at all?

Sometimes I get sentimental about New York and look at the post card from your gallery, the show I was (and still amazed at having being) a part of. There is a side of me who mourns for the loss of this ballsy in-your face "i am woman hear me roar" person. And part of me wonders where the hell she has taken off to cause i know she's around somewhere. Or is she?

I guess I'm writing all this to you because i know you understand me, and the complexity of my artistic process as you have been witness to the genesis of many of my pieces. I don't want you to think I'm asking you for a psych evaluation here, (if i were doing this in person, then i would at least take you out for dinner first), but i just wanted to touch base in my own quirky outrageous vulnerable way.

Perhaps it's a rusty pipe dream, but i hope that one day, after all is said and done, and i manage to shit out an earth shattering piece of work that will give everybody who sees it a boner that will last them a lifetime, that it will hang in your gallery (not the boner, but the piece of art, although a hanging boner framed and put under glass is an interesting conceptual piece that i might just run with...). Well, stranger things have happened.

It was not too long ago that i came to New York city for the first time and was almost literally laughed out of the Art gallery, and then I blinked again and there i was, naked and under glass in your gallery, hung in a primo spot (and with a couch no less. Did I ever thank you for that prime real estate spot you bestowed on me? Well if not, so many belated thank yous.)

I find it odd how I have held off sending you this letter for a long while. Perhaps I felt strange not sending you something "new" from the hpk photographic factory of debauchery and insanity, but keep hope that somehow, somewhere i will pick up my pretty picture machine again. And when I do, you can be sure that you will be the first fucken person in the whole wide world to know about it.

so on that note, I will close this letter.

I have chosen to turn this into a letter letter rather than email. Guess getting back to my creative roots, back in the days when a pen, typewriter and a piece of paper was a civilized way of communicating to the outside world , makes me feel a little more connected in an often disconnected world.

And oh yea, I'm giving you a copy of the "gift cd" I made for our wedding guests. From a to z - did everything on it. But as much as I would like to take credit for composing "fly me to the moon" for Old Blue Eyes and other great swinging tunes as well, I'm happy to say that I'm still a retro queen at heart and pretty creative with the graphic design ideas.

Take good care of yourself Bob. Give my love to Seb and Mari and then save a little for yourself :-)

And thank you for everything, including looking at/listening/reading my stuff, but most of all, believing in me and my art.

Hpk

a letter from a friend way down south

Y has to be one of the most spiritual people i know. She is an incredible woman and from her, have learned so much about life.

She is a wise sage, a patient mentor and her advice on this issue has opened the door to peace and acceptance.

Thank you Y so very very much.

I am glad you wrote. I have had a rough week here and couldn't write anything positive. We have had a lot of rain here so my fibromyalgia was very bad and the pain was excruciating, and at work I don't have air conditioning which is unbearable on hot and humid days which makes me crazy working at the mental hospital! I love New mexico but it is the Third world here for the most part so all that I like about less developed places sometimes makes it hard to live here , too.

I have thought a lot about your situation with your father and I am going to say it as is. Hpk, your father does not behave like a mature adult, he behaves as if you owe him something all the time. He is what is called in the mental health world, a person suffering from a narcissistic personality disorder. they always feel they deserve more than others and feel they should be praised, noticed, entertained, honored for just being alive, and they feel they should do nothing to deserve that, and when they don't get the attention they want, they get vindictive.

Check the Wikipedia entry for narcissistic personality disorder. My mother was like that, and also very physically and emotionally abusive, and the only way I can think of dealing with her memory is to remember that she couldn't be an adult, a stable mother because she had a very serious personality disorder that she wasn't willing to work on to be a better person. Without having met your father, but having heard of his behavior from your mom and you, I think I can safely say that he also has a personality disorder and is not willing to be humble, forgiving, or self critical to make peace with his own life and family.

It's a shame, but that is his karma and his choice, and at some level, we chose to be born to an inadequate parent or (2 in my case) because we needed at a karmic level to learn about independence, to think in more creative ways, to learn about a certain kind of suffereing and be there for others who also have similar karma. that is how I deal with the situation, and I still grieve for parents I never had, the childhood or adulthood love and life direction I never had, but I try to accept it and look at my survival and my good relationship with my husband as a blessing and success and try to make peace with it.

I am especially grateful for your mother's presence in my life because she was an older female friend that listened to me, was present as a friend, and genuinely liked me through the years when I lived with a deep sadness that I wasn't loveable because my own mother didn't love me.

You have a wonderful man in your life, your husband, and it is all right to be a parent to each other spometimes as well as a spouse. Nathan and I are like that with each other, and we value each other espcially because we will forever be refugees from our strange childhoods, and we talk about the childhoods and youth we could have had if we had met each other earlier, and this fantasy is also very healing with us.


I will call your mom, tonight. I think of her all the time. I really don't understand why she is going through this. I don't know. god does work in mysterious ways and everyone's life path and spiritual journey is mysterious insome ways. i don't know why suffering happens. i wish i did. this is a very deep question, all I know is that I try to remind myself to be grateful for being alive, being alive one more day and to enjoy beauty.

I really think you need to connect with a cancer support group as a caretaker, you need to share your burden. And yes, most people will duck when things get rough, and yes I have experienced it in my life many times.

It would be good for you and E and your mom to look at finances, long term plans, Plan A and Plan B, and Plan C, to evaluate what you all can live with, what you can't, what is your bottom line, at least as you can identify them for now (because life does change all that as well), so that you feel empowered by having discussed the undiscussables! There is big relief in that as well; check all the programs, services, obligations etc around your situation. That is also something a based cancer survivor group might help you with.

fuck logic

Fuck logic

here is a letter to a friend.

I am so upset right now and hate having my eerie ability to act on my gut questioned.

I will have to go through my archives to find ALL THE TIMES (and yea, there were many) that i did act on my 'intuition" and amazing things happened. But this time, Mr. Logical had to ruin the day.

Mom goes in for surgery 2mrw to remove the mass.

I was shocked when she said: "you have to take this trip. Even if i have to take a cab to or from the hospital before/after the surgery, so be it. You have to go..."

and this is my mom...

so here is the email i sent to Y, the woman who many months ago, out of the blue, while holding my hand and feeling my energies, told me that I had to go to Lake Placid, because there was something there for me. This is the same woman who has told me and my mother many times of many things that without a shadow of a doubt, have come true.

Mystic perhaps?

Or as e would say - "lucky guesses"

but one guess is lucky, 20 is more than luck...

and lake placid - what were the chances that e would have to go there?

And of all places in the U.S - there???

Hi Y,

thank you for getting back to me. I passed along your email to my mom. She is in prep mode - right now she's at work and 2mrw she goes into surgery 1st thing in the morning. We are all very stressed. The doctors have been very supportive of her and she is getting the best care. Her new surgeon is so wonderful and the moment i met him, i had such a wonderful feeling. i know she is in good hands.

She will have to take another unpaid leave, which is pretty disturbing as she has run out of paid medical leave time. And it's tough too - I don't think either of us has had time to grieve the loss of her mother/my grandmother. it was her death, my wedding and now my mom's next surgery. Cuba honeymoon was a Godsend. Without that, i don't think i would have been able to survive this next journey.

Speaking of journey...

I need your advice.

The man just got an invitation to go to Lake placid for a business seminar/trade show. This came up completely out of the blue, and of course, I flipped when he told me because i remember your telling me that you had a feeling that lake placid was the place for me to go (that time we sat on my mom's steps when you felt my palm/energies). I told my mom - she said: "Go. Even if i have to take a cab to and from the hospital. If Y said to go, you have to go!"

I feel the same way. As does she still.

But e on the other hand, is not really sure.

He's trying to make excuses for me not to go - "ah, it's business, you'll be bored and stuck in a hotel room" and his latest: "we can go another time"...

but I have been telling him - IT"S NOT THE SAME THING!

but alas - a skeptic is always a skeptic, and now he has me doubting my gut feeling which is telling me to go.

But would it be the same thing if we go another time?

I feel that this chance is like a gift of fate - and that perhaps something will happen, perhaps not, but i don't want to not take this chance. In my experience, if i act on something that feels right - then something usually comes out of it. But if that instance/coincidence is changed in any way (like e's wanting to 'reschedule") - it just won't be the same.

Y, please tell me i'm crazy, but without e being able to take me down on this trip, it just wont happen - whatever is to happen.

You can't 'reschedule" fate! Am i right?

E will have to leave on monday so that does not give me much time to make a decision. I have been quickly looking into alternative ways to go down there but there are none. The amtrack route or the buss routes don't stop there, there are no planes that fly there and there is one transfer buss point and it will take 5 extra hours. I don't know what to do.

What is your gut feeling??

I have been feeling so lost, and weep all the time. I feel that i am running out of options, time and faith.

Photography has become painful - a grim reminder of something that i had once loved so much but is now giving me grief because every avenue i have taken in terms of getting my work out there has closed in my face. The same with film and writing.

I don't have much energy - and with trying to be supportive of my mom, it leaves me empty - both emotionally and spiritually. This void has become my cancer....

I'm so sorry to have to end this on a sour note, but i am such a mess right now, i can't even type any longer.

if you can get back to me before next week, it would be so very much appreciated.

and yes - i need to come down and see you and N. Your kind kindred spirits would be just the kind of prescription for a wear soul that the doctor would order.

take care of yourself and we will talk soon

hello mr. president?

I found something that caught my eye in some bridal magazine, so I thought I'd investigate.

"Send your invitation to the President and get a signed reply" *

What the hell? I said to myself.

So during the past two weeks, in-between mania, depression, hallucinations, excitations, good and bad vibrations, I sent this off.

I'm not hoping for much, but was pleased as punch when the UPS tracking number said that my little package (invite, rsvp card, letter, and Lounge Cd extraordinaire!) made it into the Big House.

very cool

So here it is - my letter.

Pass the box of kleenex!!

Monday, May 11, 2009

(26 days and counting…)

Dear President Obama, and First Lady Michele,

It is with great pleasure, and such excitement that my fiancé and I are able to send you an invitation to our wedding!

As a Canadian, I must say, your last visit here, however brief, inspired our country on a political level, but most of all - on a personal level. A feeling of transformation, of renewed hope in these times of despair, conviction to overcome obstacles, and vision for a harmonious future can now be within reach during your upcoming terms as President.

With so many pressing issues across the globe today, it must seem that the world is resting on your shoulders as the eyes of millions look to you for solutions and guidance – but I have no doubt that your courage, compassion for humanity, belief in what is just and true will bring about many positive changes.

I must say, President Obama and Mrs. Obama, it is such a great privilege to be able to send you an invitation to our wedding; and as model married couple, your deep love for each other is so very beautiful and has become such an inspiration to my fiancé and I.  Having been together for already 10 years, E and I know how important it is to be supportive of one another. Having both parents on both sides live with cancer, we have become each-other's rock of Gibraltar.  I can't even begin to imagine how many years in politics must have caused strain on your marriage; but every TV interview together, you show such patience, kindness and support to one another which is just so refreshing to see.

I would have no doubt that a trip to Montreal at this point in time would be out of the question as the potential re-emergence of the swine flu, instability in the financial markets, and the volatility of the middle east, your need to keep abreast of these events takes precedence over an unknown Canadian couple’s wedding, but knowing that you will in some way, be connected to our special day is a great honor and blessing.

When my mother was diagnosed three years ago with an extremely rare and highly aggressive form of melanoma, having undergone countless surgeries and several rounds of chemotherapy (the last round being IL2 – the most difficult and often last resort of cancer treatments), the doctors gave her a 10-15% chance of survival after one year.  Having a loved one, especially a mother, diagnosed with cancer is an incredibly painful, lonely and sad moment.  I’m sure you must have felt much of what I had gone (and still go) through after your mother's diagnosis.  But when my mom heard about your stepping into the political spotlight, she confided in me:

“K, a few hours after Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot, you were born. The world mourned and a dream of a black president, for many, had died. But within this moment of sadness, the beginning of your little life brought me so much joy.

Many years later, the first time I hear about Barack Obama’s campaign, listened to him speak, I had renewed faith that someone like him would carry on MLK’s dream. My birthday being the same day as Dr. King, and you being born on the day of his assignation, I feel there is such serendipity and connection with this senator from Illinois, that I intend on living long enough to see him become President.” 

And when the last set of projections from CNN came in, we both wept tears of joy. That night, we celebrated her strength and courage in her battle with cancer, and the dawn of a new and transformational era in world politics. The words of MLK echoed in our minds and hearts – his dream was coming true.

I apologize if this letter is long winded (it’s not everyday that I get a chance to write to the President of the United States!) and even though I have no expectation that you would make it down to Montreal for our “big day” (and besides, this venue alone would be a logistical nightmare for your secret service, and police escorts, not to mention that feeding your entourage might difficult on our small budget) but knowing that somewhere in the White House, you your beautiful wife, might be reading this letter, enjoying our “easy listening lounge” CD, and knowing that we will be making a toast in your honor – a toast to your success, safety and health for you and your family, will be putting a smile on our faces a mile long.

And if you ever happen to stop by Montreal on your next Canadian visit, my future husband, my mom and I (can you tell we are such huge fan of the Obamas ?) would be absolutely delighted to show you the sights and savor the unique French Canadian cuisine (if you like Beaver Tails, and enjoy a good burger every once and a while – a "Poutine" which is a dish of french fries slathered in sauce and cheddar cheese curds would be well worth the gastronomical adventure).

Have a wonderful day and thank you again for taking the time to read our letter.

(and we sincerely apologize for the date on the RSVP card – we could not get to our graphic artist to change it to a later one…)

Sincerely Yours,

 K & E

* had I seen this earlier, I would have invited the Queen and the Pope as well...