Share Your He(ART)

Over the past year amidst artist projects I have been spending time with elders during this global pandemic. The elders that I have been seeing are primarily isolated in their own apartments, not able to see friends, family, or have visitors. They are taking meals in their rooms, and may have someone like me visit them once or twice a day for ten or fifteen minutes simply to give them some connection. It is a tremendous amount of isolation, and the emotional turmoil that I have seen is sometimes greater than my heart can take. The pain unbearable, the loneliness daunting, the empty days drifting into each other.

One of the things I can do is assist them in making phone calls to their loved ones. Once or twice a week their family members, or friends schedule a zoom or FaceTime call with them so they can actually see their beloved elder. For many of the people in their eighties and nineties zoom is not a pleasurable activity in the least, and they don’t understand why their family insists on seeing them on the strange screen and attempting to communicate that way instead of visiting them. You can explain about the virus but even if you do, it is quickly forgotten minutes later or not understood. Some family members have wisely  picked up on their family members disenchantment with these phone calls...but have no other real option.

 Some months ago I started to see some thing new. Family members still wanted to call, still wanted to see their loved one, but they didn’t want to force on them an unenjoyable conversation in the same way. They also were changing themselves because on the other side of the phone no matter their age or their work, they also were forced to be at home and quarantine. Space surrounded them, stillness, and being stuck in a house with yourself or your family for almost a year new habits and hobbies begin to emerge.

Photo by Dawndra Budd

The first time it happened I was completely shocked. A son called his mother, she was in her 90s and he was somewhere in his 70s, he barely said any words to her but he told her that he had picked up the guitar again even though he hadn’t played for years. He had worked on a set list for her and for nearly 45 minutes he played song after song singing his heart out to his mother. She sat completely engaged totally enamored and never for one second did she seem frustrated with the technology or confused. In some moments I even saw her mouthing along singing the words, and other times I could see there were some tears welling up in her eyes. She was feeling so much and appeared so connected, by simply watching her son play the guitar and loving listening to the music. I thought perhaps this was a wonderful one time event until a few days later a daughter called to speak with her mother and she had picked up her dusty cello. She played for nearly an hour and again her mother was completely transfixed. I started to see it more and more sons and daughters calling their elderly relatives and instead of forcing conversation on them they simply offered them some art. It was an instrument perhaps they played in high school but had tossed aside, maybe it was a singing career long gone, or a painting that they were working on that they wanted to share. It was the most beautiful thing. Sometimes I envisioned these parents were thrilled because they had spent years taxiing their children back-and-forth to these arduous artistic lessons, both painstakingly and financially draining, only for the art to be shoved aside at some point for a more lucrative career. Maybe it was rewarding to them that all their karmic good efforts were coming back to gift them generous performances in their latter years, and in their most vulnerable and isolated moments. 

I don’t know the answers. I can’t even begin to say that I know why this worked so well. But, I do know there is something very special about authentic art. When you share your art, you share your heart. When you share your heart you are vulnerable, but you also offer tremendous tenderness and connection. This last year has been unbelievably hard for many, and I won’t pretend for a second that sometimes I was heartbroken to tears when I went home after visiting these elders. But, I will also say their were moments of such overwhelming depth and beauty that I will be forever changed. I now see the resilience of the human spirit, its creativity and its desire not just to survive but to thrive even in the most difficult of circumstances. Share your heart, share your art...it is the only way we will get through this all together.
 

SNUG LIFE: The Snuggle is Real

With Credits: Beats by OP BEATZ. www.opbeatz.com Written and performed by Simone Bruyere Fraser. www.Simonebruyerefraser.com Special Thanks to: DP Miles Jackson Forgette, Wardrobe The Bobov Family, Locations Camille Gibson. Stay home, mask up, and stay safe and healthy everyone! www.simonebruyerefraser.com www.opbeatz.com https://www.facebook.com/simonebruyerefraser https://soundcloud.com/simone-bruyere-fraser @SimoneB_F https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonebf

DA BAIT

Beats by OP Beatz

Written and Performed by Simone Bruyere Fraser Camera Moderator Miles Jackson Forgette www.simonebruyerefraser.com www.opbeatz.com https://www.facebook.com/simonebruyer... https://soundcloud.com/simone-bruyere... @SimoneB_F https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonebf

Do you Open Doors?

 Many of us have heard of the phrase when one door closes another one always opens. It's that age-old saying that says when something doesn't work hopefully something better will come along and make it all worthwhile. There have been a lot of doors closing this last month, and everyone feels it. Jobs, travel, events, and plans made months ago are suddenly up in the air. It's a strange time, it’s a time of social isolation, quarantine, and general Unknowing. But maybe, if we turn our heads from the closing doors for just a moment we might see some unsuspecting opportunities greeting us.

In honor of my Grandmother
Georgiana Bruyere  

 I love spending time with elders, and during this time I have been spending even more time with them, in a quarantine safe sorta way. All of their doors are closed right now for their own health and safety. They're isolated even more than usual into their own rooms, houses, not allowed visitors, to go to church, and not able to go out in general. In the assisted living facility I visit I get to visit many people isolated in their apartments. I spend time with them I ask them how they're doing and a completely different world is opened up to me with every door that I open. Recently I have been able to ask them questions like in what moments in your life have you been the happiest, what makes you feel the most fulfilled, and what makes you feel the most loved. The answers pour out of them. I simply have to ask one question and 45 minutes later I’ve heard the most incredible response. It is quite possibly some of the richest and most fruitful time I have ever experienced in my life. What started out as the desire to be helpful when they needed extra hands, turned into me learning new meanings of life. Hanging on every word -  not able to breathe because I didn't want to disrupt the magic of the moment. Laughing so hard that I begin to cry, crying so hard that it became funny. War stories, love stories, sharing of art, travel, hobbies, you name it. We shared an emotional intimacy, even six feet apart, a special “I’ve got nothing to lose kind of candor” that we all save only for rare moments.

Every door I opened was a completely different world even though their circumstances are similar. Their internal world was completely different. Every door I opened felt like I was stepping into Narnia and I didn't know which book I was in. There are many ways to approach crises and I certainly don't know the answers, but I can tell you inside each of those doors the response and reaction was shockingly different. Sometimes when one door closes a hundred doors open, as literally was the case in my situation. I'm not saying it's easy, I'm not saying that I would like it to last forever for the elders especially, but I am saying perhaps I might look back at this time with fondness and as extremely valuable. A time when I was able to step into many different peoples worlds and gleam the most valuable wisdom of their existence. An extraordinary and unique gift that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. This is a difficult time for many, and I wish you and all of your loved ones peace, health, and happiness...and if any doors close in your life may a thousand new ones open.

. 

The Angry Lady Dance

The Dance of the Angry Lady is an Interesting Dance. A therapist once told me that I should spend more time examining my anger, primarily because I didn’t appear to have much.... however, at the same time the tension in my jaw was at a point where it would be so painful that it would put me flat out on my back, unable to speak. Over the years I slowly got in touch with my anger and the jaw tension melted away like snow in spring. Things, people, situations started to piss me off in appropriate and healthy moments when something wasn’t right for me...I found my boundaries in that agitation. When I found my boundaries I clearly and profoundly found myself in an entirely new way. I found the wall that says this is what I need, this is what works for me, and this is what doesn’t. I also learned how to love in a much more selfless and authentic fashion giving only when it felt true, and when I deeply wanted to give from my soul not because I needed to please anyone. Without boundaries we cannot truly love ourselves or others, and anger is the edge of knowing that boundary.

Photo By Allen Wyler

 Anger has been hard for women over the years, seen as unloving, Bitchy, unattractive...but anger aligned with knowing what does and doesn’t work for you is simply personal power. This year we celebrate 100 years of women having a right to vote, a right to have a voice. So On this International Women’s Day I encourage you to become curious about your anger, to feel when your walls are being breached, to use your voice to connect to your center and to love and express the truth within.

Are you content?

He kept saying to me, I feel so content. I thought about it. I felt the same way. It felt so good, like I was exactly where I wanted to be, spending time with people I love, doing things I love, and no place else in the world could be better. I felt it, what was this profound feeling of contentment? It felt better than being happy, it was like deep joy and deep peace came together and had a baby inside my soul. Named Contentment.

Photo by Miles Forgette

 I was aligned with the present moment and everyone and everything around me seemed to expand the feeling. It's a beautiful thing to feel, especially around the reflection of a New Year, we spend so much time reminiscing about the past or rushing towards the future contentment feels like a luxury. But, it's not. It's where we can live, contentment is a home base. Think of animals stretching out in a sun spot so content, or getting their back scratched in bliss, or simply thrilled we came home. Yes as human beings we will always be growing we will always have  new problems to solve. However, I was reminded that it's o.k. to be content, it fact it's more than ok, it's where we might enjoy living more often than not... and I for one felt so much gratitude to be living it so deeply. Wishing you and yours deepest contentment now in this New Year 2020, and always. With much love, Simone

Do you Control or Collaborate?

Life is full of twists and turns,  bends, and  unexpected surprises. Most of the time we don't see them coming. The question is do we control or collaborate with life when they do?


Last month I had a wonderful opportunity to work with  birds. I can't think of a better example of a time when I had to collaborate instead of control. You can't control what birds will do. My learning moment was when one exceptional vulture kept putting one arm out. It was a strange thing for a bird to do and it looked so unique. But instead of trying to control him I decided in that moment to collaborate and put my other arm out in the same form that he was putting his arm out. For me it was a glorious moment of collaboration  -  with an animal. I'm slowly learning to let go of my own needs and perceptions and listen to what life is giving me. I am an artist and so I almost always directly relate to art, but truly it is for anything in life. When you control you constrict and limit possibilities around you, you are afraid and you are not your fullest self. When you collaborate you are open, you're receptive and infinite possibilities come your way. I must acknowledge the photographer,  Dawndra Budd...her assistant, and everyone on this shoot was a true collaborator.

Photo by Dawndra Budd
https://www.portraitsbydawndra.com/

 I have had the privilege of watching many artists do their work and I have come to see a tremendous difference between those that control , and those  that collaborate. When one controls they are presenting something that is known and from that space it already has become stale. When you are collaborating you are present to the moment and everything becomes alive. Collaborating though  takes tremendous courage, vulnerability and risk. You cannot protect yourself or your ego, there is nothing to hide from - you just must show up, be present and respond honestly.

I can't say that I'm always full of collaboration and I am certain there many times I'm trapped in control -out of my own fear. I am practicing and learning everyday to be present, to show up to collaborate with all of life around me and to be receptive and open to the field of the unknown.  It's where all the magic happens.