How she does it, I don’t know, but outspoken and beautiful cowgirl Suzanne Lamon charges through life the way she cuts a cow from the herd in competition.
The first time I saw Suzanne, I was getting a haircut when she walked into a local salon, Steelhead Magnolias, to get her nails done. I remember the feeling of awe that swept over me as this tall, lanky woman with short black hair and expressive eyes, wearing jeans and cowboy boots, talked about the logging truck she had been driving that week.
Catching glimpses of her over the years, I always wondered about her life. We talked once, at a party of mutual friends, about shoes, nails and braces, all of which she was wearing at the time. Months later, I saw Suzanne with no hair, boldly walking toward our Main Street movie theatre. I heard she was undergoing chemo.
I was excited the day Suzanne, sporting a full head of hair again, walked into the first meeting of our newly formed Artist’s Way group this fall. Twelve women planned to meet once a week for 12 weeks to work toward creative recovery, as outlined by Julia Cameron in her book, “The Artist’s Way.” I immediately liked that Suzanne was a little late, spoke her mind, laughed and offered an edge, perhaps a bit of eccentricity, to this cluster of women.
To celebrate our progress and the last week of our group, we opt for an overnight at Suzanne’s house, which means driving out of town for close to an hour, ending up at her 35-acre spread. The stars, fully visible, outline the snow-covered hills, beckoning me to follow them, up and over creeks, winding my way through back roads. As I turn up the driveway, I see the silhouette of Suzanne’s house, lit by strings of festive lights hanging inside welcoming windows.
Most everyone is here, including Elvis, Suzanne’s handsome and well-mannered Dalmatian. Walking through the back door, I enter an artist’s haven, a retreat, a sacred dwelling, the home of this wild one-armed cowgirl. After greeting everyone, I walk through the house, observing the rooms that give birth to Suzanne’s art, her life.
Life-size oil paintings, her current works in progress, hang on two walls downstairs. I’m particularly attracted to the skeleton with the cowboy hat, ponytail and red lipstick, wearing one blue cowboy boot and one blue high-heel shoe; she’s tied, by one leg, to a blue bull walking behind her. Grasping a carrot with her left hand, and with a small pink heart hanging from her right arm, the cowgirl skeleton’s fingers firmly guide a green garden cart down the path in front of her.
“Ponytail Bones,” as I’ve named her, and the other three oil paintings hanging nearby, clearly emphasize Suzanne’s recent illness — a sarcoma located in her left arm. When I ask her about it, Suzanne says, “Being sick, it was so big. We didn’t talk about it at the time, we just all went to war.” And, as in the case of other wars, there are casualties. For Suzanne, it was her 27-year marriage. No longer part of a team, Suzanne runs her place by herself, taking care of the horses, plowing the driveway with the tractor and feeding the chickens — contemplating her future. I think it’s in her art, in her bones.
When she’s not up for painting on such a large scale, Suzanne retreats to the long table in her sun-lit living room to work on watercolors. Tearing up egg cartons, she paints directly on the used paperboard, creating a series of small images. Bluebird heads, chicken faces, dog paws.
I can’t stop looking at the painting of an island, shaped like a foot, or the one of two dwellings connected by both a footpath and a trail of smoke that flows from one, a teepee, to the other, a log cabin. I hope these paintings find a way into my life somehow.
I ask about chemotherapy, a topic avoided by most. Suzanne relates, “I went every two weeks, and stayed a week. They give you an amnesia drug, because otherwise you might not come back.” She describes high moments too, like when she went in to see “Dr. Jim” for her biopsy. “The guy said, ‘the tumor is really doing stuff, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.’ And I said, ‘Jim, now think about it, if you’re going to have a tumor, do you want to have a tumor that doesn’t do anything, or do you want to have a tumor that rocks and rolls?’”
When I ask Suzanne to describe an ideal day, it includes working on her heart painting, her most recent work, still unfinished. “The chemo is so strong, it has to go into a really strong muscle. I have a scar, where it went through my jugular and into my heart.” And so she paints what she knows. “What a resilient little muscle the heart is.”
Although Suzanne’s tumor is gone, so much damage was done to her bones that when she broke her left arm last summer, it never healed. Despite her unusable left arm, Suzanne continues to ride — her tractor, her horses and the rollercoaster she’s on right now. Soon, she may have to make a decision about her arm: live with the pain, try a bone graft or cut it off. “That’s probably what bugs me most about losing my arm, not taking care of the horses as well.”
We watch a videotape of Suzanne in a “cutting” competition. Teaching herself how to ride at age 35, Suzanne soon mastered the art. I can hardly believe what I see. Fully outfitted in cowgirl fashion, Suzanne sits atop her well-groomed horse, slowly moving around a pen full of cows. Somehow, one cow, slightly removed from the herd, is singled out by Suzanne, who signals her horse to begin — dancing back and forth in front of the cow, blocking its attempts to rejoin the herd. Suzanne sits comfortably and confidently in the saddle, allowing her horse to do exactly what she has trained him to do. Back and forth, the horse’s eyes focus hypnotically on its target, until cow, horse and rider sway rhythmically as one and the cow finally gives up, standing quietly.
Suzanne’s answer to why she started cutting was simple, “I saw it and thought it was amazing and magical; I couldn’t believe it.” Someone once told her it was like jumping off a building with a suitcase between your legs.
I learn how horses have an ability to mirror a person. “If you’re uptight, you’re riding an uptight horse. You have to do this Zen thing, and pretty soon you’re riding as one. Riding a horse is like an extension of you. Once you do that dance with them and you feel that thing, you just start craving it.”
If Suzanne runs out of plates, she’ll likely opt for a glass of wine or a bowl of mixed greens and a little chocolate instead. Her sense of humor, probably the most important aspect of her healing, is remarkable. “I think you have a comedienne writing all your material and you don’t even know it,” friends tell Suzanne. She speaks the most courageous and outrageous truths, with no worries about the consequences. Suzanne calls it her “idiot’s savant.”
“There’s a lot happening, but you know, I like my life,” Suzanne smiles at me, shaking her head. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”
