TOUCHED BY LYME: Portraits of Lyme with words and pictures
(Guest blog) Using art and writing to help ourselves and each other.
Emily Bracale is an artist, writer, teacher from Bar Harbor, Maine. Her book, In the Lyme-Light: Portraits of Illness and Healing includes art work and writings she created to help convey the internal experience of living with Lyme disease. The following is an excerpt from her website, which discusses how the book came to be.
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Mad Math, 2010 (acrylic, yarn, paper and metal on birch – 16” x 20”)
“…until that year I had thought of myself as a confident, dedicated, and very capable student. Following lectures became ever more difficult. Complex analysis of ideas under pressure, such as during essay exams, and committing new facts to memory became more difficult. I couldn’t remember things well nor learn quickly anymore; it all became a huge effort. Instead of my usual two to three hours of practicing clarinet every day, I would often sit in the practice room zoning out, with the instrument on my lap, staring at the wall.”
Brain Fog, 2010 (acrylic and cloth on art board – 16” x 20”)
“This painting portrays more properties of ‘brain fog.’ The images are all scenes from my past, so obviously I could remember them. Memories do not seem to become totally lost, but rather temporarily obscured, as if behind a veil. To put it another way, it is as if the “Files” still exist but the “Search/Find” command has been impaired.”
WOW!!!—Thanks so much for sharing this. So much depth and clarity and yet not wordy writing. I am going to buy the book.
Dear Emily,
Thank you for posting that excerpt from your book. I have a friend in the fellowship of beautiful, loving people who are victims of that dreaded tick bite, which delivered them to the surreal land of lyme disease. My dear friend is an extremely talented musician who is surreptitiously living the lyme life…struggling daily with pain, memory issues, physically manifested issues, and much, much more…hidden issues…uncertainty of the immediate future. The artwork you posted told a story that made sense to me, and I hope it helps begin to explain the disease to those who may be new at the job of being a loving friend to a lyme victim. Awareness is very important. We must keep learning and helping others to understand what the disease can do to our loved ones. Although I know and for the most part understand how the disease works, and I understand that my friend is a grown woman and doesn’t need to accept help from me or anyone else, I want her to know that I am here for her if she ever needs me, even if it is just to quietly be present for her in her struggle to stay afloat in this g-dforsaken world of horror and pain that she is trying so desperately to escape. I love you, my friend…Joan