Please let the quiet slumber of Jack and Fionas’ nap last a little longer. Give me a bit more time to relish in the peaceful sounds: the humming of the overhead fan, the creaking of the house, the fridge, chimes; sounds different and sacred, meshed together calmness I desperately need after the day I’ve had. Morning comes, as I wake to Fiona coughing incessantly, then calling out “momma, mommy, mommmy, momma”. I decide to get her, bring her upstairs with me, but as I go to the door I hear Jack crying what sounded like, “I want my pizza, I want my pizza, I want my pizza” I stood next to the door. Should I, shouldn’t I. It’s only 7:00AM. I decide to go upstairs and have my peanut butter toast and coffee first, maybe they will fall back to sleep I say to myself. Jack and Fiona quiet down and I enjoy my little morning coffee break. I make them breakfast as usual and go down to get them. They great me with smiles and stories about things they remember from the days before. Things seem normal, I’m not worried. I think about taking Fiona to the doctor for her cough, but that doesn’t stress me out. “I wanna watch Mickie Mouse” Jack starts saying. He has barely touched his breakfast, same with Fiona. I reduce my expectations, turn on Mickey Mouse and lay on the floor with the babies. We enjoy this time together, who cares if we’re learning to tune out, we’re together and we’re resting. I have a nagging, I know I can’t just stay home all day, we need groceries, I’ve been putting it off. I ask the babies if they want to go to the park. “No, no park” Jack says. I’m can’t believe it. “Do you want to go to the store?” I ask. “Yes” they do. I tell Billy “Stay here, we’re just going to the store”. We get our groceries and some new toys from T.J. Max and go home; I let both babies loose while I unload the car. I start to take things in. I start with the new toys, putting them in the babies’ bedroom, thinking it might keep them occupied while I put away the groceries and make the lunch. Right off the bat fighting occurs, “I want that!” then crying, hitting, pulling, annoying behaviors start to unfold. “Oh my god!” I say. I am looking at shredded blinds, splinters, pieces hanging off, pieces on the floor, all these thoughts running through my head: should I cut the whole thing off? How can I clean this? Who did this? Did the babies do it last night and I was too tired to notice this morning? What will Alan say? How mad will he be? Oh my God, Billy did it! She was so pissed I left her behind today. I start picking up the mess, Fiona helps me, picking up pieces of wood and putting them in the bag. I break off the broken slats of wood and roll the blind up far enough so the carnage isn’t visible. I vacuum and put the nursery back together. I hear Jack upstairs, “Oh my God!” he says. “What?” I yell. Silence. I grab Fiona, “We gotta go see what Jacks doing” I say. As I’m walking up the stairs I call out, “Jack, what are you doing?” He tells me he’s getting water. I see he’s sitting on the edge of the sink with his feet in. I put Fiona down and rush over, he has his feet right next to broken glass, I scan for red, pick up each soft, little, precious foot, no cuts. I look down and I see why he said “Oh my God”, Billy has gotten into the trash, there’s wet, stinky, coffee ground covered, banana peel, garbage strewn across the floor. I barely managed to get it swept up, lunch made and unsuccessfully served, and Jack and Fiona down for a nap before I snapped. I got them down just in time for my workout and hot shower to take the morning edge off, just in time to keep my sanity and not fall into some type of permanent fog of stress and disbelief. Just in time to realize that, that’s life, yesterday my dog was amazing, today she’s a damn bitch. Just in time to accept my children as being needy and needing my whole self, not just a portion, not just a side glance while my face plants on a screen. In time to have the break I need to appreciate life for it’s bad days, hard days, art days, and beach days. Just in time to say to myself, “I might not have time to paint today, that’s o.k., I can wait until I have time.” I hear Fiona waking now, Jack will be right behind her. I am here ready to slip into the evening routine, whether they are sick and needy or fun and healthy! I will be grateful for either and adapt to whichever it is, fully available as Mom.
Category: crazy stuff
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The dark shadow under the eastern side of the oak tree catches my attention as I sit here and ponder the question, “What do I have to do right now?” The babies are on a special day away at their babysitters’ house until 5:00pm today. I’ve spent the morning painting and working in my studio, getting work started on new stretched canvas, acrylic, working on the same painting over and over again, changing it and changing it, starting new work on paper with brown ink, teal acrylic paint, magenta, and pencil. Working on the collab canvas piece I’m bringing to Carl tomorrow, getting work ready for the unframed work on paper exclusive sale at Fourth Wall Gallery, $250 each. I still need to type up my information for each piece, like titles! Which I need to think about. I need to take Billy for a walk and take a shower. I’d rather sit here and write for a while and relax until I need to go pick up the babies. So what do I have to do right now? Am I asking the right question? What do I want to do right now? What can I do right now? What if I got lost between those three questions and sat here paralyzed, unable to move? In an alternate universe. Is the world shifting? Or am I shifting? Echoes of a basketball hitting the ground and the rim, motorcycles on the freeway, a blue jay squawking, car door shutting, front door slams, crow caws in. The world keeps on shifting and so do I. This morning I got sad. It was such a deep feeling I sat with it for a minute. It surprised me. Jack and Fiona were sitting in the kitchen, cheerios, toast, and milk in front of them. I said, “I’ll be right back, I’m going to the bathroom.” I’m sitting on the toilet and I hear a squabble then something fall. Then laughing, then more things spilling and falling. I can barely wipe my butt, I run to the kitchen and see milk, cheerios, cups, bowls, and toast thrown all over the place. Babies covered in milk. House just cleaned yesterday. As I see this mess my heart sinks, I feel as though I’m going to cry. “Get out of the kitchen” I say. “That really made me sad, that was bad, it’s not funny” They continue laughing for a minute then hide in their tent. Then Jack walks out and acts like he’s going to pee on the floor! I say “NO, go potty in the toilet” I cleaned up the mess and when they asked for more toast and cheerios I said “No, you should have eaten your breakfast, it’s in the garbage now”.
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Thank God for my notebook project. I would be lost without it. It gives me space to breath. Right now I’m working in one GAP collab and six personals.
My nose feels huge and sore today. My head aches and I think I have a sinus infection. I can’t tell if it’s hypochondria. It’s been hard to write. I feel I have to reflect deeply on everything I write, how it may sound, the tone it takes. I don’t want to give the impression I’m unhappy. I want to write about the ever growing pile of dishes and ants. I tried to keep the house clean. I failed to do so. I ended up exhausted with the same amount of mess. I spent hours cleaning on Sunday. It smells like rotting food, dirty diapers, and green snot rags. I don’t want to sound unhappy. I’m just reporting the situation, getting it out there, airing my dirty laundry. That makes me happy. I’m communicating, I’m talking about things. I don’t know why I spend more time writing about shit instead of flowers. All the good things, it’s the bit of misery of living that’s got it’s hook in me. What I see through my eyes, how I feel, maybe it’s my anxiety, my inherent craziness, being an artist is crazy.
It’s almost time for the babies to wake from their nap. I wanted to make “The Greens Early Spring Vegetable Soup”, Fresh Baked Bread, and Bittman’s “Salad Nicoise”. But there’s no way I can do all of that and take care of the babies and clean the house. I need to pare it down bigtime, I’ll make a simple list, the most important to-do’s: 1. clean the kitchen, 2. make snack, 3. dinner, the Salad. Then it will be bath time and bedtime. As for our afternoon activity, we’ll pick fresh plums off the tree to bring to school for snack tomorrow. (My car is so disgusting, maybe we should clean the car. No, that requires too much work.) Oh God, As I glance over to my left dozens and dozens of little crumbs peek at me and the smell of rotting food reminds me I have to take out the trash. And I think about how I might have a sinus infection again. One time someone asked me if I really thought I was a manic depressant after I had written about it here. “no” I laughed. “But my mom was, and I definitely suffer from the highs and lows”. That’s what I told my husband too, about my writing. “When I’m PMS’ing, I get depressed” I said. “I write anyhow, and it may sound sad.” The emotions come and go. What’s true one moment may not be the next. The other day I said to my brother, “It’s interesting how when writing people can make a judgement about what I write, they can make a comment about my emotional state, and how I think about something, even if they take what I’ve written in an unattended way, but when I paint there’s no way for someone to prove exactly what a painting is about. I think that both are art. Some people say it matters that people get your true meaning from your art, others have said it’s up to the viewer and as the maker it’s not your responsibility to make sure everyone gets it, what it means to the artist who made it .
I’m letting the babies take way too long of a nap today. I should wake them up or they’ll be up late again. And it’s time to attack those ants, dishes, garbage, dirty diapers, crumbs, to get up and do something.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 