Coming Back--It Ain't Easy

An Art of Wellness POV

In August and September, I moved my studio and my company's offices from the Downtown Los Angeles Arts District studio I'd been for more than a decade up to Helicon--my high desert and green Creative Wellness Retreat just a short drive north of LA.  


It was a very emotional leaving for me: I'd been an Arts District gal since the early 90's. I lived a lot of life there.  It wasn't where the toxic installation that changed my life and took years away from me happened--I moved into the studio after becoming blind and disabled from the acute toxic chemical exposure that had the MD's saying I'd be "permanently blind, permanently brain-damaged, permanently disabled."  
It was where I began to heal, and the birthplace of my company Zeeva International Inc.  


I opened Bashtet Studio there back in 2002--when I started to get better and everyone wanted to know WHAT I was doing to get better.  "So many people are trying to get better and can't.  You HAVE to SHARE!" everyone said. I was blind. I was on oxygen.  I was working hard on my own rehabilitation to come back.  But still, they wanted me to "SHARE!"  It made sense to me. People needed to know how to be Well.


I saw it in my mind's eye. Sighted assistants helped me find what I saw and then set it up. I hired great teachers and we offered my urban community an escape to a beautiful peaceful retreat with classes in the kind of Body-Mind-Spirit techniques I was using to heal my SELF.  Bashtet was about Movement Arts, Dance, Yoga, Meditation, Aromatherapy, and we hosted the Community Healing Project--where alternative healers volunteered to give people in need holistic treatments for a very small donation.
It did my heart such good to hear that people who came in sickness and pain experienced some relief and left saying "OH--I feel better!"   


Moving during the California wildfires was challenging but so empowering!  Shorthanded, I did most of the move myself. An old friend came one night after work to help me load the "heavies" I couldn't hoist into my van myself. Another old friend committed to help with the one truckload of heavy large pieces, showed up on the day he told me to rent the truck and bailed, making the "I'm an ARTIST!" speech that I, who've travelled through artists' communities around the world, have only heard in LA--when someone doesn't want to do something they said they'd do.  Thank goodness there were day-workers at Home Depot. You know--those guys they say are taking jobs away from Americans. There were no Americans looking for work that day. They loaded me up in less than two hours and then I got a couple more to unload (in one hour) into my garage.


 Yet with each van-load I loaded and unloaded myself, each heavy piece I'd move into place, I'd think: "And I'm supposed to be permanently disabled!" 


It's amazing what we can accomplish when we have to. I'm 54 years old. In the last year, I've been my own contractor and rehabilitated a torn-up old house. That was supposed to be my ex's job--he chose the house as the one where his labor could make the most difference in increasing the value. The kitchen rehab I'd financed and he installed was to increase the value enough for the re-fi to pay for the next round of work. My mortgage broker said everything was in place, she was sending her appraiser, and as soon as she had a number "You'll have the cash in 3-4 weeks max."  


Then the economy crashed. My mortgage broker went incommunicado. The ex bailed with the house torn up ready for the next infusion of capital.  There was nothing to do but roll up my sleeves and do it mySELF.  I hired one guy to frame up a wall where one was needed, two others to hang the new doors--just before the coldest, snowiest winter my community had seen in 33 years hit, and an electrician to take care of the torn-out electric I couldn't fix myself.  Then I went from one end to the other of a 3800 square foot house, plastering, spackling, weather-sealing, fixing, and painting.


Thank goodness I'M an artist and I grew up knowing how to do these things. Amazing how old skills come back.  It's taken me almost a year--and it held me back from my own work and cleaned me out. But at last I have a place to work, to teach, to live like a human being. Now--to keep it.  


It's not the hardest thing that ever happened to me. I already lived through that--and I BEAT it. Today I'm WELL.  I can SEE. And life is changing again.  


Now--at last I'm ready to share the Art of Wellness with you--because no matter what age or shape you're in--by practicing the Wellness Lifestyle I lived all my life--you too can get better, feel better, and live better. And isn't that what it's all about?