I still feel there is hope. My sandwich tells me this, my glass of chardonnay, 2:20 PM on a Friday afternoon in June. Babysitter day, house to myself, paranoid they could come home early, that my solitude will end. I get scared. Quick, need to finish sandwich so I can go work in my studio before anyone gets home. 
I turn on my computer. A news flash, a woman, maybe an actress, someone I’ve never heard of, “Dies at 63”. O.k. I think to myself. A lot of women die around this age. A lot of people. I accept this, I need to accept this, it needs to be O.K. The inevitable death of everything. I finally watched “Where to Invade next?” By Michael Moore. I think about the Italians, how vacation is important, taking time to oneself is valued. Not how much a person works. Or in France how lunch in grade school is a class. The kids learn about food and table manners! 
I think about my art making practice, my writing practice. Do I push myself too hard? I worked today while the babysitter was here. I worked hard and fast. I had fun. I want to paint more. I am inspired, I have ideas. I won’t have a babysitter until Thursday. In my selections for my Book, Naptime paintings, I didn’t choose any that talked about babysitters or nannies. I felt like they were boring. I didn’t like how they read, and I don’t know why. I am uncomfortable because it’s such a luxury. But a necessary one. It sounds like in other countries child care is not so expensive and women avail of it. I feel guilty for taking time, as if I need to justify it. What did I do today? So much. I work all day, childcare and art business stuff. Totally engrossed, that’s how I felt today in my studio, but I went in there too late. Now it’s 6:00 pm, Fiona’s watching Peppa Pig, Jacks still asleep, and Alan’s on his way home. It’s June, 9th, 2017.
Category: being a mom and an artist
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Jacks watching Sponge Bob, it’s such a strange show. Funny and strange. I never watched sponge bob as a kid. I went into my studio to paint today. I worked on my notebooks with golds, purples, charcoal, big paintbrushes, drips and fine lines. A portrait, I call “Mirror Image”. I write on it, I scratch on it. I love it. Maybe it’s the cover of my book. The most amazing thing is happening to me. My book editing is influencing my painting. My painting editing; gathering my works to get photographed tomorrow is influencing my book layout. The pictures have become an integral part of the book, the emotion, they mirror the writing, the writing mirrors the paintings, it all mirrors me and I mirror it all. It’s like I’m in the HOUSE OF MIRRORS. The paintings start to mirror the other paintings. The babies mirror me. The writing mirrors the babies and the babies mirror the writings. The NOTEBOOKS are the glue that holds the whole body of work and of SELF together. The blog is community, a vast ecosystem where I let words and images trickle out into the giant internet ocean. This is gonna be epic for me. My website has been SO under used. I am going to fully avail to all that is available to me to get this project out with a bang. I’ve been working on this for so many years, all of it. Everything I’ve done has led me here. Everywhere I’ve been has led me to this beautiful, full circle OPEN place I am right now. Nap Time Paintings, you taught me so much. All the teachings I ever had have converged in NapTime Paintings and NOTEBOOKS. The babies, being a mom. Everything I’ve done has led me here, my blue finger nails, bleach blond hair. My suburban, yoga, minivan, mama of Marin. My beautiful stiff, strong body and soul. It’s laid out, raw and bare for all to see.
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I’m watching Jack and Fiona climb on our new deck lounge chairs pretending they are roller coasters. Jack slips off, bumping his head face first on the deck. He cries, I go out and hold him. He’s tired. I haven’t been giving them a nap regularly lately because I’m trying to get them to go to sleep earlier. It doesn’t always work, and it requires a massive amount of patience on my part. Fiona and I sat at PEETS coffee this morning at a two sweater. We had a battle of why and why not. Then we walked through the mall to exchange a skirt at H&M I bought without trying on, it’s too small for me. We go up the escalator. I’m holding Fiona’s Hot Coco, that’s cold now, but she still wants it, her half pack of Madeline’s, and a piece of cheese in one hand. I’m holding the bag with the skirt in the other hand. I can’t hold onto Fiona’s hand on the escalator. I get scared she’s going to get hurt, but I feel helpless, my hands are full. “Be careful Fiona” I say. I tell her she can pick out her own wardrobe, since she’s grown so much and has very particular tastes. I spend way more money than I plan, even with the exchange, but Fiona’s style is cool and quite cohesive. Some of the pieces are still a bit large for her, the shoulders slide down exposing her whole chest. It seems she gets a satisfaction out of lifting the strap back over her shoulder. She changes outside the store, puts on her new stockings and too big dress. She puts on her size too big white sparkly princess flats. I go to another store, Crazy 8, to buy her a pair of thick socks so her flats don’t fall off. Later, I make some time in my studio; I put on a Wiggles DVD. I love what I make, the colors, the charcoal drawing on them. I had to work in my studio today, I had to be creative. I paint as fast as I can. I also edited one of my pieces for my book. As I read the piece as my now self, which was my future self when I was writing the piece, I was struck by some of the things I thought that turned out a completely different than I thought they would. I wrote how I thought Billy would be dead by the time Jack and Fiona were old enough to help take care of her. But they are helping take care of Billy already. Billy is still alive and well. Or how I thought the park by my house was yucky, was too dirty for babies, but now I love it, it’s beautiful and fun. How do I read things I thought one way then and think a different way now? To keep the integrity of the piece I need to have restraint and not change too much because of the way my now self thinks. I have many questions about the layout of my book. It is a very creative and tedious process. It’s different than I thought it would be.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 