Purple and pink. Burnt umber and grey. Who can tell what is real or dream? Last night in a dream I walked in tall grass. It scratched my legs. Today I walked through the same grass. Little white bugs flew up but never touched me. Fiona called them flies. “Mommy” she whined. “Flies are getting on my horsy”. I walk back through the flies and tall grass. A bit of asphalt on the ground catches my eye, I hadn’t noticed it the first time I passed this spot. The area intrigues me. Old remnants of structure, of road that used to be here. A strange brown bridge Jack, Fiona, and Valentina sit on. It’s old pieces of round, dark brown, wood, it almost looks like tree branches. It’s scratchy and splintery. It goes to nowhere over nothing, as if it were transplanted from a place it belonged. “Fiona, your horsey loves grass.” I say. She got a new play horse yesterday, she loves it. Memories flood me, being a kid, playing with my horses in the grass, pretending they were eating and I was going on a ride. I imagined what I did and did what I imagined. In nature. Under the sun, the dirt, red ants biting my butt, stepping on nails, getting tetanus shots. Bugs and beetles and pollywogs. Frogs and snakes and old barns, old trailer campers. Vacant rose greenhouses where the sun shines through the broken fiberglass roof and roses still bloom. We rode our ponies through, feeling what was, feeling what the space is for us. A vacation. A dream world with real spiders and scary stories. Purple and burnt umber. Pink and white. These are the colors I chose to paint with today. It was a good, productive day in my studio. Painted in my notebooks. Pulled apart tons of pages that have stuck together leaving scars. Leaving repairs to be done. Structure. But it went well. Realized I have a lot of pages to finish in my gargantuan notebook before my show this fall. I can do it. I take deep breaths throughout the day. I stay connected. I cocoon when I need to. I got what I needed today.
Category: motherhood
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Drawing. Red. Rush. Heart Pounding. Newsprint. Red Watercolor Pen. Fast. Dishes piled up behind me. It’s beaten me. The endless piles of dishes and laundry. It’s different now. Big portions. Messy Messy all day long. Finding Mud Puddles. Ice Cream Cones. Lizards in the house. Spiders falling on the living room floor from Jacks shorts and pants and shoes and socks that I pick up in the back yard. He won’t stay dressed. He pees in the bushes. Picking up all day long. Always a pile in my arms. One arm dirty rags. One arm dirty dishes. One arm trash. One arm cup of water. A little precious hand to hold while crossing the street. A Blu Blu. A Tiny. We have a conversation; Jack, Fiona, Me. “The dentist says you can’t chew on your Blu Blu Jack, and you can’t suck your thumb anymore Fiona”. I say. “But we Love our Blu Blus and Tinys.” Jack says. Fiona puts her head down. She’s so distraught, disbelief. “I Know! How can it be? I Love Blu Blu and Tiny too. I’m upset too. I totally understand how you feel too. I like special things. Things I hold and cherish and can’t let go of.” I say. I wonder should I consult a psychologist? I don’t know how to do this. How can I take away these creatures, these special toys? Toys that have been with them since they were born. They attached to Blu Blu and Tiny right away. They were my saving grace when Jack and Fiona were babies. They call them transition pieces in the child rearing books. Now I’ve probably made them even more important with my chat in the car today, now they know how much I am attached to Blu Blu and Tiny. What are we gonna do? Blu Blu and Tiny are sentimental and nostalgic. I will miss them so much. I almost feel depressed about it.
They took a nap today. I’m so glad, they needed the rest and I needed a break. I made myself not clean. At first I didn’t know what I would do, feeling the way I do. I get out a pad of newsprint and box of pens. I turn on my computer. I start to doodle, then draw, draw rapidly and freely. I write. Now my time is coming to an end. Jack and Fiona will be up soon. My husband will be home. I need to do a list of things. I don’t feel like it though. I feel like just sitting and doing nothing for the rest of the night. Then just going to bed.
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Daisy Flowers. I love when Jack says those words. We went to hunt for wildflowers yesterday. Up a hill off Lucas Valley. Yellows covered the hillside like I’ve never seen before. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Wind blowing. “I’m cold” says Fiona. I dressed her in pants in the morning before school; she wanted to wear a little pair of white shorts with a pink bow we pulled out of the summer drawer last night for pajamas. “We’re going hiking, I don’t think you should, keep your pants on. “I say. But it’s too late, she already has her pants half off, trying to get them over her thick Keen sandals. “Let me help you” I say. On the hill, I hand her Jacks green and yellow thick plaid shirt from out of my backpack. She has me button it to the top; it’s so hip pared with her flower skorts, navy blue keens, beaded necklace, (she made herself) and short haircut. Which I often have to explain to the little boys at the park that she is a girl and girls have short haircuts too, in fact all the best super hero girls have short hair! Then I explain “What’s in her ears?” when they ask that next. “Her hearing aids” I say. I should add a fantastic story about them being part of her super hero status. I sit on the hillside watching the children, Jack, Fiona, and Valentina have the best time of their life. There is a small, trickling stream that turned into the softest, throwable, mud as the kids play in it. Jack and Fiona both say they want to go home and take a shower more than once, but immediately run back in the mud and stomp and laugh. “I love mud” Jack says. I take it all in. A dream come true. Heaven. Today I am able to work in my studio and go to yoga, where I find my pelvic floor. It is the strangest thing: I studied all about the pelvic floor, hip, internal organs, spine connection last night, then today I go to Yoga and the whole class is about what I had studied the night before. This made my yoga workout today extremely intense focusing on breath and proper alignment and which muscles to engage (instead of being on auto pilot). It was pure serendipity! Spring is bringing me a bounty of inspiration and intuition. My alone time is coming to an end now though. I certainly haven’t gotten enough of it lately. But I appreciate all the time I do get to be alone creating! Namaste.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 