I walk up the damp, green moss, quiet, trail. Morning, dog by my side. I look at her and am glad today is walk day. My mind is calm at this moment. I see a black widow crawl away, I call her Ruby: mysterious, elegant legs, a large, sturdy frame, and a serious face. She makes her escape, down a hand spun creation, not present one second ago. I am in awe. My heart beats a little quicker as I head up the path, walking by menacing, bare poison oak vines that have been transformed into a palette of thick and thin lines, damp air between, sun shining through the cold, foggy, misty, November dawn. I feel like I am walking through another world, in my peripheral vision I see a meticulous web, so perfect I question ever making another thing when something already exists that surpasses all beauty and innovation that the world has ever or will ever display anywhere ever again. The otherworldness, the quiet places it takes my mind. I see one after another, just as special, just as intimidating. The quiet ground, damp with decay and new life. The Bay trees with their bright green trunks. Just me and Billy the whole walk. Like the perfect paint splatters on my studio wall. Or the painting Jack made last night that I want to frame and save forever. (Which really is not that long) Deep breath. I’ve been practicing my deep breaths. It’s been essential to keep myself from crossing my psychological health boundary; the one that keeps me here and not living with the spiders. From not imaging the creepy little walk they do down my neck, or having them enter my mind as I’m sound asleep, unable to defend myself. I take deep breaths.
Category: Depression and anxiety
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Cold November hands. Dancing in the grocery store. Jack and I bob our heads to Earth wind and fire. People looked annoyed. I’m just acting out, I’m in the fuck it stage of grief. Going into the numb stage. With a pint of fear under my belt. I must keep it together for my kids, to an extent. I’ve been hanging out more at parks and talking to people in person where ever I am, I’ve found a lot of solace finding out everyone’s not an asshole. I still judge them and wonder about them. I wonder if they voted for Trump or if they didn’t vote at all. I wore my Hilary button for a few days, I couldn’t believe how many people came up and talked to me, shared stories of being disappointed and worried about our Government. I wanted people to know I don’t support Trump. Today I realized it doesn’t matter anymore because we’re all in this together. Whatever shit is about to happen; we’ll have to deal with it as a country. Or we are doomed. (and maybe we already are) But I am still alive. I have work to do. I can’t prevent everyone’s suffering. I missed the studio today, I kept jack and Fiona up all day. I woke up at 4:30am and knew I wouldn’t last long tonight. I wanted to make sure they are as tired as me, with the early dark skies it’s a treat to crawl into bed early. Tonight, it’s going to be cold. A cold November night. This weekend I will be meeting with people, I am doing a talk at the Fourth Wall Gallery in Oakland about my Book project. Tomorrow night I am going to a neighborhood meeting I helped start. Fifteen people are attending; I can’t believe it. It all started because I posted “Does anyone know of an anti-Trump rally this weekend”. I was flagged. I was told to “Grow up” and “get over it, I’m just mad because we lost”. Then a ton of people came to my rescue. They said I did nothing wrong. Then this lady asked if we all wanted to start a discussion group to start healing together as a neighborhood. And possibly turn it into some action, helping in our community somehow. The very next day, after the connections were met I deleted my Facebook account and my Nextdoor account. Now I’m on Twitter and Instagram. I feel the need to share my writing and my paintings. But I don’t want to get into the mousetrap of politics on the Internet. (Unless it’s a real news article). But I don’t want to trade comments or constantly be bombarded with all the atrocities in the world. It’s too damn depressing. I’d rather read about it and talk to someone in person. Preferably over a bottle of wine!
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 