The Power of Art and Poetry in a Crisis

“Writing these poems was a real turning point for me,” our daughter Kathryn told me not long ago. “I was able to move forward with my life.” She’d written them six years after her mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1997. 

One poem was inspired by this watercolor of Martha’s, titled “Feeding the Ducks”: 

Other of her paintings can be seen here. 

Each of our kids found Martha’s condition hard to swallow, an understatement to say the least. But I suspect the news came down hardest on Kathryn, who was still in high school while her brother and sister were away in college. 

It was from the crucible of those high school and ensuing years that Kathryn’s poetry emerged. In a class during her senior year of college, she wrote nine poems all themed around her mother’s condition. Kathryn was fortunate to have such a talented and sensitive teacher: Natasha Trethewey subsequently won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and was named the nation’s 19th poet laureate.

When Kathryn sent me her poems, I couldn’t get through them. The rawness of memory was too palpable. Finally I did. And their energy and darkness and tenderness released something deep within as I cried and read them aloud. 

It was vital that I share with our children my thinking and feelings regarding their mother’s status, which I discuss further here. Yet it also was important for them to share their feelings with me. 

That’s exactly what Kathryn did in this poem, Feeding the Ducks. She provides some context to her thoughts…

Reflecting on this painting, I saw my mother in a way that I had not been able to before. Although I had hints that she was more aware of her surroundings than she was able to express, I had not really grasped that. I’d been caught up by the “fact” that she couldn’t speak. 

My insight emerged not only from this painting but also from the works of both a famous artist and a research scientist. The late Willem de Kooning was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in the 1980s, after five decades of accomplished work. Critics dismissed his later paintings as not of the same “caliber” as the earlier ones. His use of vivid, primary colors supposedly wasn’t “serious enough.”  

However, Dr. Pia Kontos of the University of Toronto argues that regardless of any dementia, Mr. de Kooning’s later work was as valid as his earlier, darker work. Dr. Kontos is convinced by her research that despite any loss, such persons still retain an “embodied selfhood,” and should be respected as such.

(The last two lines of this poem are drawn from a journal article by Dr. Kontos. I also use a statement of hers at the end of the first stanza in which she describes Mr. de Kooning’s later works, but here I draw on it to describe my mother’s watercolor paintings).

And here is the poem:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Feeding the Ducks
by Kathryn Maddux

Bending over her island
she peels Florida oranges, five of them,
in her magenta long-sleeved blouse
and sunflower-yellow floor-length skirt.
The painting on the back wall of the kitchen
is not your typical four-sided frame, but rather,
three sides are visible, with one not so straight-edged. 
Two-dimensional geometric triangles and rectangles
come together into an amorphous something only she
can decipher. “This work exists in a separate space, a more
contemplative arena with less drama and cleaner air.”

She looks down from her work on the orange peels
and hears the ducks coming, trying to sneak up on her,
but the eye-less one quacks, making sure his four buddies
haven’t left him. She asks them, “What would you all like to have
for a snack? I am peeling five oranges, one for each of you. Look,
here are five flowers, too, for you to stop and smell awhile.
                                                                                   One is without
petals, sorry. It’s still a nice flower, though, right? Even without petals, 
it still emanates its pungent, pollen-filled smell . . . and it still holds
its blue hue, like its sister, while the other three are a pastel
pink in color.”

—“Actually, Martha, I’d say you are right on target,” Willem pipes up
as he responds in front of her five friends. “How can the ‘flowerness’
of a flower be lost because it has no petals?”

—“I would agree with you, Mr. de Kooning, just as a duck cannot lose
its ‘duckness’ by having no eyes nor a picture frame its ‘frameness’
by having three sides.”

Putting aside the oranges, Martha picks up her brush and bright paint
to peel back layers of the popular assumption that “only the mind
relates us to the world and gives it meaning.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Have you and your family been able to discuss your deepest feelings surrounding a crisis you’ve gone through? Would you like to share how you did that? If so, you may at #APathRevealed. Or you may email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com (subject line: My Story).

Thanks, Carlen

P.S. If you’d like to share more stories with each other, please sign up for my free newsletter if you haven’t already.

At 52, I Learned What Real Fear Is

I thought I knew what fear was. Turns out I didn’t know the difference between a common, garden-variety fear and a real nightmare until I was 52 years old. That’s when my wife Martha was told she “may” have Alzheimer’s disease. I say “may” because this disease can only be diagnosed by autopsy. So there we were, as I describe in my forthcoming book A Path Revealed—looking into an unknown future with no solutions. 

I thought nothing else could shock me after that news. But I was wrong. Almost two years later I was forced to take Martha’s car keys away. As she stormed upstairs crying, I cried to myself, I didn’t just take her keys away—I cut her heart out. 

I learned soon enough that a life crisis, like an earthquake, can bring shock upon shock of fear. And that it’s difficult, if not impossible, to prepare for them. Another aftershock occurred one morning two years after the key incident. 

I was fixing breakfast when I heard a thud! overhead. I rushed up the steps to find Martha in a full seizure, her body stiff and shaking, and her face frozen like that in the painting The Scream. This was the first time I’d seen anyone, let alone my wife, overcome by a seizure.   

Maybe you too have awakened from a nightmare only to discover that it was not a nightmare at all—it was real. If you have, then we have something in common. 

You may already have learned what I’m still learning about fear and anxiety. Do I fight fear? Or do I give in to it? Or do I just ignore it? None of these options worked for me. If I fought fear, I lost. And if I gave in to fear, or ignored it, I also lost.

I talk more about learning to confront this kind of fear here.  

How have you learned to deal with anxiety and fear? If you’d like to share, please do so at #APathRevealed. Or email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com (Subject line: My Story).

Thanks, Carlen

P.S. If you’d like to share more stories with each other, please sign up for my free newsletter if you haven’t already.

Finding Unexpected Gifts Deep in a Crisis

In 1999, a year and a half into our struggle with Alzheimer’s and its depressing symptoms, Martha’s confidence suddenly surged.

Our sister-in-law KK was encouraging Martha to take an art class with her. Martha hadn’t shown an interest in quiet hobbies like art. She instead liked action—things like dancing, playing tennis, singing, talking smack, and hiking.

So I was surprised, stunned really, when Martha said yes. I think she did because she loved KK, and anyone who knew KK knew she could be persuasive. They started a watercolor class once a week for four hours at the St. Petersburg Art Center. The teacher was Judi Dazzio. 

Martha jumped in feet first. She painted scores of pictures large and small—turtles and fish in an orange-and-green sea; a multi-colored zebra; a blue-faced hippo walking atop an orange-and-yellow rainbow, to describe a few. To see these and others, click this picture…

I think this picture is a self-portrait of Martha, but I’m unsure what she had in mind. It hangs in our living room, where I’ve seen it thousands of times.

Her teacher Judi would hand Martha a sketch to paint, and Martha began to do so with a complexity and boldness of color that reflected a dimension I’d never seen in her. I have no idea where that came from. 

Neither did Judi, who pulled me aside one day. “Carlen, this can’t be taught,” she said of Martha’s use of color. But what a delight it was to see this talent unfold out of a dark and scary place. 

And to see the surge in Martha’s confidence.  

As much as I enjoyed Martha’s artwork, I enjoyed even more hearing her talk about each piece. And seeing the glow in her face when she completed one. The lethargy so common with Alzheimer’s just melted away. 

I remember Martha talking on the phone with our daughter Rachel, who was away at college. She was describing an art show in which she exhibited two paintings. Martha was excited and fluent. 

At that exhibit, Martha’s paintings were the only ones from her class to be displayed.  The exhibit was at the Suntan Art Center on St. Pete Beach, next door to the big pink Don Cesar hotel. 

The Friday the exhibit opened, Martha couldn’t wait to get there. “Look, here they are,” she said, grabbing my hand and pulling me to the paintings. You’d think there were no other paintings in this show, I thought as I smiled. She beamed as she looked at them and then she showed me their price tags: $200 each. “Judi helped me price them.” We returned Sunday afternoon to see if the paintings had sold. They hadn’t. But that didn’t matter. 

And then…after two years or so of painting, Martha’s desire and talent evaporated as quickly and quietly as they had emerged. “If it were only possible to bottle this confidence,” I thought as Martha’s mind slipped away to an unknown place. Those two years, however, are engraved warmly on my heart. 

Along our way, a mentor friend told me to look for the little things that emerge and to be thankful for them. That was good advice, but boy it’s hard to do when you’re deep in a crisis. Yet as he often told me, especially when I was about to give up: “I didn’t say it was easy, Carlen. I just said it works!” 

As Martha’s interest in painting grew, I at first tried to figure out how this was happening. I wanted to replicate it in other realms of her life. But I quickly stopped, deciding instead to enjoy the moment for what it is—a moment of grace revealed.  

Have you experienced anything good in the midst of your crisis that surprised you? Would you care to share? You can at #APathRevealed. Or you can email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com (subject line: My Story).

Thanks,

Carlen

P.S. If you’d like to share more stories with each other, please sign up for my free newsletter if you haven’t already.

Where’s the Joy in an Unimaginable Tragedy?

I remember the moment when, after 25 years of marriage, my wife’s bright blue eyes turned dull and gray. 

We were sitting in the doctor’s office, peering across a vast desk, waiting for him to speak. The doctor could have been a perfect stand-in for Mr. Spock on “Star Trek.” Stiff and formal, he turned to Martha and said, “I’m sorry to tell you this, but it appears that you have early onset Alzheimer’s disease.” 

His voice was calm, ice-cold calm. His words were harsh beyond belief, freezing our hearts and minds. 

Martha and I looked at each other in pained bewilderment. Her confident bearing crumbled. She seemed to have retreated into her shadow, her eyes dulled gray. Me? Who knows where I went. Maybe into Dante’s fifth circle of hell. Our world wasn’t turned upside down. It was imploding before our eyes. 

The date was September 23, 1997—just twenty days after Martha turned 50.

So began the last seventeen years of our life together. And our family, desperate and lost, was left to wonder: “Just how do you find anything good in the worst tragedy we could ever imagine?”

You may or may not be aware of our family’s crisis with Alzheimer’s. By almost any measure, it’s an insidious disease. And I suspect Alzheimer’s ranks right up there among a Baby Boomer’s greatest fears as this generation surges into its sixties and seventies.

But deep traumas don’t just strike in our later years. Two of our children, David and Rachel, were in college when their mother was diagnosed, and Kathryn was a junior in high school still living at home. Two decades earlier, I was 28 when my mother died of brain cancer at age 56.    

I’ve been writing a book trying to describe what we’ve gone through over these seventeen years, trying to make sense of it for me and for our children … and for their children. 

While also trying to make sense of it for anyone wanting to see how our story may echo with theirs.

Our story, however, is not about the fallout from this degenerative disease. Rather, it’s the story of a path that emerged during our darkest hours, a path that we neither planned nor foresaw. 

Shortly after her diagnosis, Martha and I traveled to the backwoods of Kentucky where the quiet presence of a Catholic nun revealed to these two lifelong Protestants this path’s opening. I was forced to slow down as I traced this path halfway around the world to Australia; retreated weekends to a nearby monastery; learned to embrace meditation; and landed all alone one week in the cabin of Thomas Merton, the popular monk and prolific writer. 

Maybe you’ve had your own crisis—whether it be Alzheimer’s, cancer, another health issue, financial issues, loss of a loved one…whatever. What have been the obstacles you’ve faced? What successes have you experienced? If you’d like to share any of these, please go to #APathRevealed. Or feel free to email me at carlen@carlenmaddux.com (Subject line: My Story). 

Thanks. I bet we can learn from each other. 

Carlen Maddux

P.S. If you’d like to share more stories with each other, please sign up for my free newsletter if you haven’t already.