I start by picking up paints, drawings, stamps, brushes, from this week, when, I brought Fiona into my studio to paint. I gave her my giant piece of charcoal; look you can do it like this (flat on its side to make huge lines) or on the edge (to make skinny lines) and yes, it gets all over your hands and makes you really dirty! But you can make handprints and smear it. I love charcoal. Her little feet and bottoms of her pajamas getting all dirty. Jack only wants to turn the wheel on my press, I say no. He investigates the garage, tools left out, nails and screws. Today I am by myself. It is is the first day I get to work in my studio, in what feels like forever. I feel outside myself. I start on my “notebooks”, glue cropped paintings onto each open page on the floor. They are mysterious in their simplicity, instead of working more on them I decide to leave them as is for now. I want to work slow and methodical this year. Slow down. Yesterday the sun came out for a few hours. Jack, Fiona, and I sat outside in the back yard. The warmth felt so luscious. Look, a first bee. Jack and Fiona come close. I study its delicate wings, soft looking body. What’s it doing? It’s looking for food, says Fiona. We see a fly, it’s going to be an early spring, I imagine, not really knowing. When I woke up in the morning I saw dozens of Yellow finches covering every inch of the bare branched fig tree. We filled the bird feeders and spread bird seed all over the yard yesterday. We saw a male and female deer walking slowly on the hillside. The grass is bright green. So much loveliness right in the backyard. I want to make art inspired by the way nature displays itself to us. By the slow gathering of food. I wash, fold, and put away the biggest pile of laundry the other day. I sit on my pranayama cushion and treat it as a meditation. It feels good to have every piece of laundry put in its place. To sit and start and finish a task. I had to refold many times because Jack and Fiona thought it was fun to play in the laundry bin with the clean folded clothes. I have to change my tactic, put away as I go. I’m not going to react to the news I hear on the radio today, not the shooting at the airport, not the news of our new American government. I feel. I am distracted by it. I will try to distance myself. I take my dog for a walk while my pieces I start first dry. Creeks are running, the air is fresh and cool. Now back in my studio I mix my first color, white and burnt umber. I start to paint. I’m feeling more present. The violent world starts to fade. My body starts to feel better again. I have two hours to paint. I have new books for me and new books of poetry for Jack and Fiona for the rainy weekend ahead.
Category: Art and finding balance
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I’m warmer now, I have on the heater and am drinking a glass of red wine. My children are sleeping, it’s 3:39PM. I hope I have enough time to write: before they wake up, before my husband gets home. Chills run down my back, the top of my left hand is icy cold, outdoors is gloomy and cold. (this weather doesn’t suit me) The trees are losing their leaves, I can see through one tree to the next revealing a complexity of colors. I’ve already decided to order pizza for dinner, haven’t been to the store, don’t plan on going. Especially not after drinking wine. The other day I’m in the grocery store, no bra, painting clothes on, paint on my hands. “Do you know if they have any more pies?” a lady asks me. “Yes, I think there are some in the freezer.” I say. She is uncomfortably familiar to me, am I like her? I wonder. She seems a little crazy, she looks a little crazy. I continue shopping and over by the yogurt area the manager comes up to me to hand me the pie. I tell him, “She’s over there, in the blue shirt, brown hair”. I think he must view us the same, we are oddly similar, even the store manager sees it.
We got on the ferry yesterday, Jack, Fiona, Alan, and I, the Sunday Ferry to the city. I hold Jacks hand, he pulls me from one end of the ship to the other and again and again. We don’t make it past the Ferry terminal, we eat, have coffee, and I buy a few books. It’s too hard, even with my husband there. One minute Jacks right beside me, the next minute he’s somewhere else. It’s nerve racking. We wait for the 12:40 Ferry back to Marin. On the way, back I read all four of the new books to Jack and Fiona. I feel good, I’m a good mom. No ipad, iphone, not for us. I feel like a rebel, a revolutionary, just because I have good old fashioned books. I decide I won’t be taking any more excursions like this for a while. It was a good experience, but just too stressful with toddlers.
I worked in my studio for a short while today, I could go all day if I had a babysitter. I need to. I am so distraught. I need to work, do the only thing that makes sense to me. The ever-present struggle. Today I felt a strange feeling, maybe not so strange, not so unusual. I felt that way when everything changes, the way when something is changing, when it starts to be hard to know who I am. I’ve been reading the news, not participating in any discussions, but staying informed. It’s grim. So Grim. I am practicing sitting with my feelings, living with the uncomfortable feelings. I can’t do anything about any of it, I can only weep and sink into a hole of sadness and despair. I started reading a cheesy book of cheesy quotes before I go to bed, the kind of quotes that talk about how great my body is and how lucky I am to be alive. It helps. Focus on me, each moment, be grateful. I am. I love the babies so much, and am finding myself torn between wanting more time to myself, them driving me crazy, and feeling totally depressed because of how fast they are growing and how those babies are gone, except from my memories and the pictures we look at.
As December moves on maybe I get the sadness from my mom’s death, it’s right around the corner. I don’t want to go to the stores or drive around city streets, feeling the rush and madness of the holiday season. I’m all for getting together and drinking wine, I even want to write x-mas cards and buy a few presents. Meet a friend for a holiday breakfast with Mimosas! But it’s too crazy out there for me. This year I don’t even care about God, I mean last year I was so concerned that I am an atheist and my husband’s families Catholic, and “Oh the tragedy” But this year I don’t even care about that, at all. I’m an atheist, I don’t believe in God and that’s that. I don’t feel guilty about Santa, Jack and Fiona can think what they want. We’re having fun with Santa stories and imagination, and that’s all it is. But it feels like one holiday after another. I feel like x-mas last year wasn’t a year ago. Oh no, and now I want more wine.
O-Well. I feel better. Definitely Better. Warmer. It’s getting dark already. It’s only 4:12pm. This weather doesn’t suit me. Winter is hard. This winter is hard. Wine is good. Wine is good. Red wine. Dark thoughts. I started wondering if China fired a bomb could it hit America? I am really concerned for the world. I almost called an on-line psychologist today, just to talk. I felt I needed to talk. Can you believe I have no one to call? No one to talk to? I need to sit with these feelings. I need to live with my uncomfortable feelings. They are part of me. They are part of life. I shouldn’t have read the news today. Maybe I shouldn’t read the news for the next four years. Am I crazy? I have no one to talk to. No one like me. I shouldn’t be drinking red wine. I’m a bad, bad person. O-well. Call me.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 