#3 Lessons Coming Fast and Hard

Channeling Frida Kahlo
Besides launching a life in the woods, I’ve been launching my life on the stage as Frida Kahlo, storming local schools and other associations as part of the Women’s History Project in Willits, organized by the local American Association of University Women, a group of women who make things happen in small and large ways. Judi Berdis has been producing the shows, getting Frida into classrooms from elementary school to high schools during the month of March.

Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) was a Mexican artist, the wife of Diego Rivera, a woman who suffered 30 surgeries in her lifetime due to a horrendous bus accident that broke her back in three places after she was impaled by a metal pole; her right leg was broken in 11 places, and that was not the end of the damage. She is an exemplar of persistence, imagination, courage, and alegria or joy.

These presentations have been amazing for me, and I sense intriguing to many of the kids whose attention Frida mostly manages to keep. She had a rapt audience of 350 kids sitting on their butts attentively for almost an hour, looking at Frida’s self-portraits and talking to her about what they saw in her paintings and what they thought about the art, not to mention the kids telling Frida about the artists in their own families.


Frida has come into my life, through my life, in just the right way at the right time. She was a woman who suffered in various ways over much of her life, not only from the bus accident but also from polio at age six, resulting in isolation and disfigurement of her leg (and subsequent bullying), to the 26 years of surgeries and often excruciating physical pain after the horrendous bus accident, to the even more grave “accident,” as Frida called it, of Diego's repeated affairs. And yet Frida found ways to experience joy, to be productive, to connect with people despite her frequent isolation and illness. So when I get to tell kids (of all ages) about how to learn from Kahlo’s determination, from her self-exploration, from her vision of connectedness, I only reinforce those lessons for myself.

I spend about half an hour a day preparing Frida’s Tehuana costume, not as much time as she spent, but something considerably more than throwing on my jeans and boots. There’s the sweat pants under the long skirt with the white lace trim I hand sewed on; the colorful huipil embroidered on velvet; the elaborate adornments of earrings, bracelets, necklaces, and headdress; and of course, Kim now doing make up (gasp!) to provide Frida’s flying unibrow and bright red lips. Sometimes I end up changing part of the costume in the car, or Frida goes into the library or restaurant under wraps and comes out Kim. Actor on the fly…

Getting into Hot Water

When my hot water went out, I thought it was bad timing since I particularly wanted to be cleaned up for my performances, especially after a messy afternoon trailing through the mud or hauling wood (I forgot to mention that often arduous chore in relation to the joys of woodstoving). Why I fail to get hot water explains my next Dufus of the Woods Award. I did know I needed to turn off the water before leaving the cabin for a few days. And I did turn it off. I also knew one should drain the pipes before leaving. But that I didn’t do—at least the one pipe that burst the second time I left. In my absence, there was a freeze and a copper pipe split open under the house, connecting to the hot water heater. Oh dear.

Now I’ve learned more about my water-on-demand tank than I ever knew before, such as it was built to operate inside. Therefore, the little wood box surrounding it all these years has never really been adequate. Well, yeah! The mouse nest made of yellow insulation that had started melting on top of the burner was a pretty obvious indication of inadequate protection of the machine. But it endured with the cabin for 20 years. Jeff of Jeff’s Gas and Applicance who’s taken care of the heater's temperamental nature said he’s seen these Aquastar water heaters in even worse condition. But now its time had come—with a little help from me as well as the mice.

You ever see one of those films about people taking baths when someone has to pour the water into some kind of tub? You don’t want to be the person hauling water in those scenes. Filling a tub can take a lot of water, especially if you are hand carrying the vats from the woodstove. Sure, I could heat up water on the propane range, but I have the woodstove cookin’ anyhow, so I’m not wasting the propane.

New Friends, The Hot Bath and the Angry Tick

On Monday, Judi (the Frida-performance organizer), Frida and I visited the classroom of Ann Maglinte, herself a former actor for Willits' Women’s History Month (including the first female doctor Elizabeth Blackwell), and Alan Rosen, a videographer. Over a yummy Mexican lunch together with them, I was settling into the company of these interesting new friends when Judi mentioned that I was doing some renovations to the cabin. I laughed about how some of the changes are in the nick of time, including getting a new hot water system since mine is out.

Judi reported, “I called Kim last night, and she told me she’d just enjoyed a bath in 3 inches of water.”

Now I had to giggle at myself as I recounted my newest invention of a top for my bathtub to create more warmth from the little water that I do have steaming up around me. I could barely talk as I giggled over the bungee cords I’d attached to the top of my claw foot tub and then the plastic bags and towels that together all formed a top to the tub. My companions laughed heartily.

It turns out that Ann lives not far from me, at the other end of the dirt road about 3 miles away. She shared her story about moving to the country from San Jose with her husband twenty years ago and what it was like confronting the absolute darkness and the wild critters, including bears.

“There are no bears where we live!” I retorted vociferously.

“Yes there are too!” They all laughed at me and my continued protestations. Alan even reported that his wife had seen a bear in the moutains where they live south of town.

I finally acknowledged, “I thought the worst of the critters I would encounter was a tick—and in fact, despite my hot bath last night, I still got a tick bite.”

“How big was it?” Judi immediately asked.

“Tiny.” I pinched my fingers to indicate.

“It’s the small ones that carry Lyme disease.”

Seriously! Well, I’ve heard enough about Lyme disease (being an illness that purportedly can rob someone of their vital energies) that I didn’t want to get it. Then Ann asked about “the bullseye,” the round red rash that indicates it’s a Lyme tick that bit you. Hm. I pulled up my shirt in the restaurant no less—it was just on my belly, relax! “Oh you should have that checked out today,” she suggested.

So now that they have put the fear of Lyme disease into me, I decided to take their collective advice and go the medical clinic that afternoon to have it checked. For better or for worse, I got a prescription for Doxcycicline, with the idea that I have just been liberated into a new self, a new life, and the last thing I want to do is be held back my an energy-sucking disease.

Now my tick bite is rather swollen and itchy, but I like to think of it as one more wound in the battle to come to terms with country living. A little suffering in contrast to what Frida experienced, from the lack of hot water to a ferocious tick bit—I am still grateful.