We've been having such a hard time. Ned's father is in the hospital, his immune system is down to zero (starting at 10,000 white cells count and now, less then 1,000) which is to be expected, but still it's sad and hard. We've been going to the hospital every couple of days, still trying to take care of work and business, but actually doing very little and spend a lot of time just doing nothing and being sad.
Ned's father asked him yesterday not to post anymore photos of him online until he get out of the hospital, which we can understand, but still, the picture taking, both for him and of him, were a part of how we dealt with the difficulties of this situation and having to stop parts of it, makes us feel a lot more alone with dealing with all those feelings.
Ned and I were talking about this while having dinner at taco-chulo, I tried to understand what was so hard in not being able to post those picture, I realized that the whole notion of publicity changed a lot between Ned's dad generation to ours, and also, that the notion of being a part of a community or having friends is very different. To me, being able to be week around people is a big part of what community and friendship means, I have no problem in telling a waitress in a restaurant that i had a shitty day or to tell my friends why, I think that letting other knows about my faults and feelings is the greatest gift I can give them - my honesty and openness. I think that to Ned's father, friends and community are about being strong for others and others being strong for you, without anyone ever showing any weakness at all. The idea of exposing his illness seem inappropriate or undignified, while for me, not exposing it means i get to be lonely with my feeling and get no support from my community.
As I was thinking of this, 3 things happened in the course of one evening that made me so happy to be a part of the community and have the connections I have!
The first was those 2 awesome portraits, done by the super cool Molly Peck especially for me and Ned! how amazing are those! and the timing was so so perfect. I'm really impressed with both likeness and how she captured our spirit and character and, strangely enough, the type of light our apartment have in a sunny morning.
The second was a total stranger coming over to our table as we were talking about Ned's dad and introducing herself as Claire, turns out she works on Etsy and recognized us from the video interview we did last year, it was so wonderful to have someone coming over ot say hi in the middle of this strange conversation about generation and support and the internat! Thanks os much Claire! you totally made our evening and reminded me thar i'm not alone in the world!
The last cool thing (though actually it's only last cause I took care of writing back to her last in that strange and long evening) is this super cool e-mail from Tessa, a cool etsy seller who bought this bear art kit a few weeks ago, and send me the result of her work! how amazing is this! I'm so glad to see that this art kit is actually being used and not just sitting in someone's drawer. And I really love Tessa's cool art (check out her shop, it's really awesome!)
