Today is a funny day- the weather is strange, I can’t tell if the sky is filled with clouds or smoke, there’s another looming Hurricane that will make landfall on the Southern U.S., a million people being told to evacuate, it feels like a nothing day- like a waiting day. At the pharmacy this morning, while I waited inline to pick up my prescriptions of Naproxen and Ativan, a man in front of me shook with anger.

“I’ve been waiting an hour” He said.

“We only opened 45 minutes ago” Said the pharmacist.

“You’re incompetent” He said softly under his breath, but loudly enough so everyone could hear.

The pharmacist told me what happened as the man complained at the next window down, to the pharmacist whose job it was to explain to the man how to use the medicine. He complained about this too,

“It’s not my medicine, I’m not the one taking it, I’ve told you that.” He said.

I felt uncomfortable and scared, I imagined this man driving a car and having road rage.

I came home and worked in my studio, in my notebooks and on mixed media silk, stitch, pages from an old book, I ripped out the verses from the chapter, “Virtue in Work”.

I am pleased with myself for taking the time to be in a creative mindset each morning, or anytime, even if it’s only one and a half hours. Even if I must put off studying my sign language when I should be doing that. I need to do my art. Even when, since my first day of my Residency, where we are all parents exploring what it means to be an artist and a parent I’ve questioned the value of art and the value of my art.

I’ve questioned the value of being a parent and my value as a parent as well. Today, after I spent my twenty minutes in my studio I walked by a drawing on the floor that my daughters best friend drew and gave to my daughter. The value of art is right there on my floor, it’s inherent in humans, just like taking care of our children. Wanting to have children, when is there really a great reason to become a parent? Is there a great reason to want to create? The two are almost interlinked.

I would love to say that I will never question the need for art or children again, but I know I will not.

It’s a funny, chilly, Smokey, nothing, waiting day.

Yesterday I found a vertebra on a little beach, under the Golden Gate Bridge, near old bunkers and missile launch sites. The guns are gone but the skeletons of that time remain, rusty or painted with thick, military grade greyish white paint. History of an animal I do not know, and a time I wasn’t present for. Someone had a child, this vertebra was once part of a baby, these bunkers alive and able to kill babies.

I am just a blip, there is no reason for me not to make art.