Dear House: Your Art is in My Heart

It’s been a while, my Dearest House.

It turns out we aren’t only rebuilding you. We are rebuilding my previously shattered + dislocated foot too.

For a few months all my energy had to go to Das Foot. But I am never not thinking of you and this bumpy wild road to your next incarnation.

Thank God for your Fairy Godmothers Joanie and Annaly who were able to think clearly, take meetings and answer 1.5 million emails about you when I was in too much pain to think or do anything.

They took the helm with your new incarnation and continue to support and inspire. We are very close to your final design, Dear House.

I’m wondering if your soul feels the loving touch of Joanie. She is obsessed with making you the most beautiful you. She wakes up from dreams with design solutions for you! Now that is love.

She is making sure your new body will be beautiful and that your soul will rest easy in its new structure.

She is an artist with shapes, forms and structures.

As is Annaly. Their love, attention and genius will imbue your next form, bringing what the architects have delivered closer to what will make my — and I think your — heart sing.

In the last few weeks, since getting out of survival mode with Das Foot, I have moved into dreaming about you again, your future and your past incarnations. It was too painful to think of either your past or your present when I was struggling. Now I can take it in. The stream of memories of every little piece of art you held has been filling my heart.

I may be sad for a while about the art, for those losses were from a lifetime of collecting — for me and my dad. His collection was in the garage, with a few pieces in the house. And the first piece of original art he ever gave me to inspire me to collect was hung in the guest room.

My love of museums and art was sparked by him.

Every piece I bought I loved madly.

I had too much art to hang, so much of my collection was also in the garage.

I tried to buy a piece of art every trip I took. Seeing the one of a kind, irreplaceable art on my walls would flood my heart with happy memories of those adventures.

When I first went to your garage after the fire, I looked for the color, the paint…please, I asked, just a shimmer. Only gray remained, save for some broken colorful pottery.

Remember the whole other giant flower heart in the garage too? It was only yards from the original I made for Love Forward Talks that hung in the center of the house.

I won’t have another giant heart in you again but I have the inspiration to make you one giant flower. One giant handmade flower. Maybe a dahlia, maybe a poppy, maybe a peony…we shall see. Whisper in my ear someday what you would prefer.

I have no idea how I will make it but I didn’t know how I was going to make the giant flower heart either, so that will evolve, and the evolution will be an adventure, I’m sure.

I can’t wait to fill your new form with beautiful things and shower you with real flowers. I know you loved real flowers.

I saw Ricki Lake posted recently about some beautiful art she purchased after her art collection also went down with her Palisades house.

I don’t know how much art I will buy for you in coming years. It will likely be very little. But I know I will be waiting until you are rebuilt to see what might make you feel even more beautiful.

With one exception.

Last weekend I went to the Sawdust Festival in Laguna Beach for the first time in my life — inspired by a friend being in the show.

I had a very strong feeling there was going to be something in his booth for you. I love his art.

Mucci Fassett is a motion picture animator so he has a way with color and form. I was in a makeshift wheelchair, aka Mucci’s rolling desk chair, looking at eye level and going through the stacks of his amazing paintings. Then Lisa pointed up high, high, high to the framed piece that was hung highest on the wall.

That was it!

It reminded me of Carpinteria, my temporary home. It turns out Mucci painted it in 1998 and it had survived in his collection across many moves. It was meant for YOU!

I have always known that I would eventually buy a piece of art to remind me of this in between time, when we were separated by 90 miles…and nothing. I didn’t know I would find it so soon.

Your new painting by Mucci Fassett

On Sunday, the day after we went to the Sawdust Festival, I remembered a piece of art that burned with you. It wasn’t an expensive piece. It was a framed photograph of a painting that meant a lot to me. It meant so much actually I had its image blessing my bedroom AND the guest bedroom.

In the mid-80’s I was regularly visiting an ashram in upstate New York. One visit I was helping create the glorious new meditation hall. I was high up on a scaffold. I was on by back only inches from the ceiling, with a tiny paint brush, painting gold details. All of a sudden I started hearing people gasp. I flipped over and looked down.

A giant glorious painting of the Goddess Lakshmi was being carried to the front of the hall by two men. From afar, I fell instantly madly in love with that painting. It has remained my favorite depiction of Lakshmi, and its image has always hung in my homes since copies first became available.

On Sunday, I suddenly felt very sad it was gone. I know I can replace the copy, but it’s a funny thing. I don’t want to.

I am still figuring out who post-fire Bridget is and what she likes. She is definitely different.

And I don’t know what you will want, Dear House, either.

You are definitely different too, both of us shaping and forging by the fire.

But it felt good to paint my version of her, inspired by the memory. I felt like I was honoring Lakshmi, my beloved, the Goddess of spiritual and material wealth with whom I have always felt a kinship.

It’s not a great painting.The fact that I wanted to really make something for the first time (instead of therapeutic playing with paints) since Das Foot matters more. And the fact that it brought me instantly connected to the soul of the original painting, and my memory of a most magical day, matters the most.

One of the millions of memories forged in fire.

I think of your memories too.

Healing is happening inside and out.

Love is happening inside and out.

I’m so glad I got to see Mucci’s work at the Sawdust Festival because he is pure love and there was so much love all around! First, Sister Wives Jan, Lisa and Georgea pushed me around in a thick tired wheelchair in the hot sun. Priceless. Giant love.

And look at this gem in the middle of the festival: TAKE WHAT YOU NEED! I think I need to make one of these to have in your next incarnation, Dear House, don’t you?

And this guy?! Uncle Love!

Every day of this journey reminds me of this lesson. We just need MORE LOVE and to LOVE MORE.

I am so grateful to be receiving more love from more sources than I ever have in my life. Beyond grateful for both Foot + Fire. I wouldn’t have received the lesson. Truly, I wouldn’t have.

I hope you feel the great love coming your way, Dear House, from many, many hearts.

Love will get us through this journey to your next — even more LOVEly —form.