Tired of everything, unable to say no when asked to work for others, I packed an oversized suitcase and left for Los Angeles to focus on my own stories and art. At the start of the Gulf War I moved to Paris, France and a year later, I departed for Austin, TX. Gary Davis, a lighting designer, stage technician and musician/ singer, assisted me during performances. We fell in love, got married, moved to the Netherlands and in January of 1993, our baby daughter, Ariane Eira was born. Our beautiful little girl died during her breech delivery at OLVG hospital in Amsterdam.

A year later Gary and I moved back to the U.S., first to Austin, then on to Seattle, WA. I started gardening and wrote for the P-Patch Newsletter and about our experiences as bereaved parents.

My friend Joost Elffers, who is a book packager in New York City, suggested I'd publish the resulting manuscript myself. I followed his advice and founded Paseo Press. With the assistance of Terence Clark, Creative Acts of Healing: after a baby dies came off the press in August of 1999

For many years I wrote primarily about loss and recovery. My essays were published in newsletters of support groups such as Pails of Hope and Hygeia.org. I presented workshops in writing as a healing art at the Gig Harbor Writers' Conference and at Passages 2001. My column "Eens een moeder altijd een moeder," (Once a Mother Always a Mother) as well as articles and book reviews were published by Ouders Online, a Dutch magazine for parents.

Meanwhile I continued working on my studio art (click on any of the thumbnail pics to see larger images). Gary and I spent the better part of 2002 in Europe, to be closer to my mother who had announced that was going to be her last year. She died in December. The year 2003 would be the last of a decade marked by mourning.

LOST

In mourning I tear up ten years of correspondence in an

attempt to recycle with the need to recreate The result a 

disappointing grayish matter not the silky rough or rough

silken paper which breathes on its own account

handle with care A chlorine smell lingers on as in-erasable

words/ drift without direction or reason/ breakers interfering

with poetic flow With this lack of function I'm only facing

shredded paper illusions incapable of competition

with the sharpest pain the merely unmentionable

LOSS

                          1993 Judith van Praag