It feels like it’s been so long since I’ve written. With an erratic nap schedule, erratic moods, erratic everything, erratic everything, I’ve given myself permission to lay off the S.O.P. and go with the flow of energy, absorbing the mind fatigue like a sponge in milk. Like the sponge I use daily to wipe up all the dirt and grime spread evenly through our house and car like green grass on the spring hills. My insides feeling pressure and pain as I battle like a trooper searching for relaxation, light, time, and a clearing of the fog of drama that has entered my delicate soul. True inconsistences between me and other parts of my world, the big beautiful cluster fuck of reality. But I sit here now within the fire, the burning of my bra, they did it for a reason you know, not just to protest for women’s freedom, but also because bras wrap tight around the ribs, digging in, leaving a red mark, insulating toxins, growing cancer, they knew it was just an extension of the Chasity belt. I’m not playing their games anymore, the games of patriarchy. That is what this comes down to for me, that erratic unease, unrest, dis-satisfaction with the system, with reality. My fight goes way beyond student loan reimbursements, I mean am I gonna get a refund for working full time, putting myself through college, will I get a refund of the money I used from my savings account that I paid for graduate school with? Fuck a phone call buzzing on my stupid IPhone, now my conversation is broken, now I have to check my message. What I’m proposing is a respect for myself. For my practice. I cannot be on-call. I propose a total respect for women. I want all the judgements about people based on their appearances, their dress, to go away. I want people to get off the fucken band wagon and think for themselves, I want the ugliness to go away. I want women to finally be viewed and treated as human, not sex objects, I want women to be able to walk around braless anytime anywhere without it meaning anything, it’s not slutty or dykey, or trashy. It’s our body. The only reason that our bodies are looked at in this way is because of advertisement, brainwashing, Barbie’s, look at what the world has done to women. We’ve been used and now we are paying for it. The bra has to go. Only wear during exercise when you don’t want jumping squirrels in your tops. It’s bullshit.
Category: being an artist
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Hi, it’s me again. 7:30 AM Friday morning. Jack and Fiona will be up any minute, but right now I am enjoying quietness, hot coffee, and sunflower butter on toast. It’s been another wild week. Its possible Jack is phasing out of naps. Yesterday when we got home from Early Start (school) I put Jack upstairs in the guestroom, he seemed tired, I thought he would definitely take a nap. AS I was putting Fiona in the nursery two doggies came running in. They are my neighbor’s dogs, the cutest little things, and I knew they were friendly with kids because the owners have three kids. So I let Fiona hang out with them in the nursery for a few minutes and I got some cuddles in myself! Such sweet doggies, Billy’s a sweet girl but she’s not cuddly, she’s like a wolf dog, always on the job. Plus, she’s always covered in poison oak! After a few minutes I tell Fiona, “Time for your nap”, she starts crying, “My doggie”, “Fiona, we have to put the doggies out, those aren’t your doggies, they’re the neighbors’ doggies” Crying, “My Dog”, “That’s not your doggie” “Mine, mine, mine” “Awww, you want those puppies? Aww they aren’t your doggies; come on puppies you have to go home.” “Puppy, puppy, puppy” “They’re not our doggies, I’m going to leave the puppies out here” “No, NO, NO” As the doggies exit the garage I start laughing and so does Fiona! I put her back in the nursery to take her nap and she bawls. I tell her “I need to eat” then she says, “Me Eat” so I bring her down a yogurt pack and piece of cheese. She cries but does fall asleep.
I come upstairs, pour some granola over yogurt, go down to my studio, paint with one hand, scoop yogurt in my mouth with the other hand. I can hear banging on the floor. I get scared, what if Jack learned how to open doors. I go upstairs and Jack’s still in his room but says “Mama”, he’s wide awake. “Are you tired?” “No” he says. “you’re not going to take a nap?”, “No”. “O.K.” I let him out, he wants to watch bear, “O.K., you can watch bear and mommies going to do her exercises.” We cancelled our gym membership this month so we can save money. So I’m working out at home, I was going to do it while the babies took their nap or before they woke up! But now, while they watch T.V.! After I exercise, it’s 3:00, time for Fiona to get up. I go down and wake her up, she only had an hour nap, she would have slept longer but then she would be up late! Now that both babies are up things get crazy. First is food! They eat outside in the lawn, I give them fish sticks, O’s, berries, cereal, chocolate covered pretzels, they eat it all. I go back and forth between my studio and upstairs. I have the baby gate open and the garage door open so the babies can find me easily. They come down and Gasp! I’m painting faces, paints all over my hands. Jack starts moving the press back and forth. “I need to teach you how to print” I say. The babies are examining my studio, watching me be crazy and talk to myself. It’s dangerously cool. I finally “Finish” two pieces. I clean my hands and brushes. The babies are getting into the house paint closet, looking at golf balls and wooden tee’s, super excited, like they are on a treasure hunt. It takes me awhile to pry them back upstairs. When I get upstairs I notice milk and cereal spilt all over the good table. I say to myself, “This is what happens when I let toddlers free roam!”
But then Fiona grabs a piece of paper towel and starts cleaning up her mess. I say, “Do you want mommies help?” I go to help, she says “No” and continues cleaning. I control my natural urge to clean it good and let Fiona do her thing. She comes to me when she’s done! I tell her how much I appreciate her initiative and that she’s helping mommy, and realize this is the other part of letting toddlers free roam!
After I put the babies to bed last night I still had to clean the WHOLE house, dishes, toys, vacuuming. I didn’t sit down until 9:00PM! When I did I couldn’t believe I wrote in the morning, spent mid-morning at Early Start, most of it in our parents’ support group, exercised, painted, had absolutely no time to myself, I couldn’t even take a shower alone because Fiona wanted to take a shower with me! But when I sat down I was amazed at all that I had done in the past thirteen hours, but I know I couldn’t keep up this pace! Or could I? Anyhow The babies are awake now! It’s already 8:00AM. Oh and this weekend is my birthday!!! I’m going to be forty-five years old!!! Can you believe it?! I can’t!
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6:40 AM Thursday morning. Still dark outside, house still quiet. Drinking my hot coffee, eating toast. I’ve been on pins and needles this week. Jack and Fiona are going through big changes and with the election going on, it brings us, my family outside of our solitary existence, it has made me think of everything I do and say as being important. I am reading “How To Talk To Kids So They Will Listen & Listen So Kids Will Talk” By Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish. It is an awesome book! It talks a lot about Autonomy and letting children grow up making their own choices and becoming proud of who they are, being helpful and respectful to others. I’m learning so much about communication, the way too many questions make children feel uncomfortable, (I get it, I feel the same way) I just finished the chapter on praise. It talked about describing the positive things a child has done, not using “Good Boy or Good Girl” because it imposes too much pressure on the child to be “Good”, they are fearful of being “Bad” (Again, I get it!) Reading this book is like therapy for me! I feel like I was raised with some of the “Pitfalls” of traditional parenting, the type of punishment I got, I had no self-esteem, I always felt like I was “Bad”! So now, since I’ve been reading this book I think before I speak every time. It’s hard. I re-evaluate how I’m going to tell Jack and Fiona, they can’t have another cookie, they can’t climb on the table, they can’t poop and pee in the yard, they need to go in the toilet, they need to keep track of their own Blu Blu’s, they can’t throw playdough in the living room, if they aren’t going to take a nap they still need to stay in their room and rest while mommy does the same, they can’t throw legos or books or anything that will hurt another person, and on and on. They haven’t been taking their naps consistently the past two weeks either so I’ve had to really work hard and not snap! I haven’t had time to write or paint very much. Yesterday I did a bit of painting, I wanted to keep painting bad. Jack didn’t take his nap, he was awake but I put him in his room with his trains and cars for an hour so I could take a shower. When I came back upstairs I heard Jack singing, “No no no no” then “Mama” so I opened the door. He showed me how he spilled the water, I had told him to make sure to keep this cup upright because it spills. I tried to get him to help me clean it but he was so excited to be up he ran to his basketball hoop. It wasn’t a big deal, and he didn’t do it on purpose, so I cleaned it for him. Then he asked if he could watch “Bear” I said “That’s a great idea!” He looked at me in shock and joy! I turned on the T.V. and said, “I’m going down to get some paints” he didn’t acknowledge me. He looked like a real little kid. He sat and watched T.V. while I painted on the deck. He came out a few times to see what I was doing, but just wanted to watch his shows. I felt good, like we could do our own things at the same time. When Fiona woke up I turned off the T.V. and brought out the babies painting supplies. They started putting the paint in their mouths, putting it in my water glass, pouring the water into another cup. Not putting a single mark on the paper! I had to put the paint away, and take my paints back downstairs. I still wanted to paint bad. I let the babies free roam, they played outside in the back yard, on the deck, in the house. I would run down to my studio for a few minutes at a time and paint. Then run back up holding my breath, hoping they hadn’t gotten into anything crazy. They did pretty good, except for pooping outside, why didn’t they go in their potty? That was a bit of a clean-up job! I think this really is the poop phase! I’m certain they will get to the potty eventually! By the end of the day the house was destroyed. I cleaned the kitchen but didn’t have the energy to pick up the toys so I just went to bed.
I hope Jack and Fiona will grow up to be helpful, kind, engaged, humans. This election cycle has shown me more than ever before how important it is that we all participate in our democracy. We can’t just sit on the sidelines; we need to be involved. People blame the government and politicians for everything, but they work for us. We the people have total control. The “System” is there for us to use to make change, to make things better. We have to vote, we have to change laws, we have to volunteer and run for public office. If everyone participates there’s nothing “The Government” (Which is essentially us) can do. We can’t be passive, but protests alone won’t change anything either. It brings attention to issues, but only changing policies and laws gives us real long lasting change. Start local. That’s what the Republicans do, that’s what the Tea Party does. That’s what the anti-abortion activists do. They work with their own towns first and expand. They know they have an easy battle field because so many Americans have just checked out of politics. We take our Democracy for granted. We think things are set in stone, the “system” is the way it is and that’s that. It’s not true. We have to be involved and participate or we won’t have a Democracy anymore. If someone like Ted Cruz gets elected for President or Trump, our country will bleed. Our people will bleed. It will be bad. One thing the book I’m reading says is “Never Take Away HOPE from children” I want to raise my children with the hope of a better world for everyone and that they can make a difference. I CAN and so CAN YOU!! Bernie and Hilary are AWESOME! But every State, every city has its own government. Every school district has a board. Infiltrate! We can do this. Don’t give up hope and keep protesting but take action with in the “system” too!! PEACE!
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 