this website started as a tribute to my grandmother, norma. i wrote this some years ago and not much has changed so I’ll keep it here for now. welcome to my vulnerability.

Sometimes I wake up in a panic with a sharp stabbing pain going directly into my core coming from all around me, as if I were at the center of a plasma globe that worked in reverse. I'm usually waking from a dream that she has died. When I wake up the pain doesn't go away because I am reminded that it wasn't just a dream. She really is gone. I don't want her to be a myth. But, life can't last forever and a myth beats a drawer in a mausoleum.  

Stormin' Norma. In Latin, Norma means rule or pattern. I studied art, then architecture and now practice design. I never looked up the meaning of her name until she was gone. Meaningful coincidence helps. 

According to the kids aka the urban dictionary, Norma means "someone who outshines them all," someone who has glamour and class and makes you feel glamorous by association, "a rare jewel." Turns out the urban dictionary is accurate, she was all of these things.

She was an incredible athlete who lost her ability to walk when she was 27 years old. She never complained about the polio that paralyzed her nor the atrophy that followed. Instead she remained determined and she improvised, making modifications where necessary. Like when she rode side saddle on a donkey up a mountain in Greece or the time she chose to ride her scooter in the manic streets of Naples, Italy, rather than deal with sidewalks without ramps. She was daring.

Her adversity never challenged her but it did give her a great deal of compassion for others, especially her shy, awkward granddaughter who was queer from birth. It also gave her time to read... every single autobiography on which she laid her eyes. 

The constellation Norma, the carpenter's square, is a set square and was used both by sailors as they travelled on their voyages of discovery and by the carpenters who built their vessels. Another meaningful coincidence because  → architecture and also because the ocean is my place. 

I don't believe in fate but I do believe in storytelling.  I believe in science and therefore coincidence.   However, for the sake of mythology, I will end by saying: it's no small coincidence that Norma is not a star but rather a constellation of stars - no single star could contain her might.

Maybe somehow this bizarre collection of work can contain her, even if just a little.