Everything’s All set up. Shelves stocked with cerulean Blue, Anthro blue, green gold, burnt sienna, and more wonderful colors and colors and colors. New colors. Past year been keeping colors basic. Neutrals. Now deep. Deep in it. Officially getting ready for Solo show in the fall. Am excited. Got the supplies. Got the preparatory work started. Almost seven months to dial it in. As well as publish my book of Nap Time writings and paintings. The problem with my book is I want to just keep writing instead of editing and curating. I have to match the photos of my naptime paintings with the corresponding naptime writing that spans two years. Maybe it should be split up year two and year three. That’s a start at least. It feels like a daunting project! I had a wonderful day painting today. I made a supply run this morning, that is a help. I’ve been having vivid, intense dreams and feeling a sense of needing to put self-preservation first. Don’t take any chances, I think. I grab a long stick on the ground as I’m hiking this morning; A trail up high overlooking San Rafael. Its my first time this far up. It’s a spot the homeless camp out on. I walk across someone’s spot. A round circle of grass is flat. The sun is just peering over the eucalyptus trees. There’s a small, tidy bag of garbage. I see a cigarette box. There was a bad fire on the hillside a few years back, during the drought. “It’s the homeless camps” everyone shouted. I would set up camp here. If I were homeless. With some mean dogs to protect me. Billy’s getting old. Her leg isn’t quite healed. She’s feeling her recent injury. Her days. That’s why I Grab this stick. In my dream, I was scared. I ran through tall grass. I ran from a thief. I was scared. This would be a convenient spot for rape, I think. I remember how vulnerable I used to be when I was on the street as a young runaway. I had to line up with guys who would protect me. Even if I had to have sex with them to keep that protection. It was the lesser of two terribles. In my dream I was a teenager again. Sitting in the back of a pickup truck. Trying to figure how to stay alive. I brushed it out of my memory. Buried it down deep like they’re someone else’s stories. I picked up the stick this morning because the alternative, in the event that strange, somewhat in trusty worthy looking man was to come at me. I would have to run through the brambles in the wrong kind of pants, or strike him, hard. The other night I dreamt I was trying to protect myself with a garden tool but I couldn’t swing hard enough. The noise of the fan brings me back into my studio. I only have fifteen minutes left of my break. Tomorrow I am staying the night in the city. I’m going to the MOMA to see the Diebenkorn and Matisse show. It’s going to be the best night ever. I’m going to a Brazilian Steak house. I’m going to eat steak and drink wine.
Category: telling stories
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I realized why I am always wondering what other people are wondering about me concerning having babies. It’s because I wonder the same thing about everyone else. I’ve spent the last ten years asking people, “How old were you when you had your kids?” Mining for stories about the women who had surprise pregnancies at 44 years old. Searching for women brave enough and open enough to tell me stories about using egg donors, IVF, or surrogacy, these women are hard to find. The few that I found would reply, “I used an egg donor, but I keep it quiet. I could talk to you about it though.” These people do not interest me! And maybe that is where the intersection lies, when I am asked about my pregnancy, the delivery, and told, “You look amazing,” I am caught like a deer in headlights. Do I go into the whole story with a stranger on the street? It’s a long story. What I say most is, “The babies were so small, I was so scared, I couldn’t believe they could survive.” Then I go on to say, “Now I know at 5 and 6 pounds they were actually large for twins.” I also throw in the “We were trying for ten years.” After they say how lucky I am to have twins, especially since I got a boy and girl.
I am very interested in people, their stories, how they get through the day, get through their lives. I am constantly making stories up about people when they post pictures on Facebook, people I don’t know very well. This morning someone had posted some pictures of her family, and I immediately thought, “She comes from money.” I have no basis for this assumption. I am comparing my life to hers, I see an intact family with multiple generations, I’m probably envious. I do this all the time, I compare my life to other peoples, I want information about other people’s lives, when I don’t have it, I imagine. Sometimes I ask questions, but most people are guarded. A lot of people have a hard time telling the truth because they might not know what the truth is anymore. No one is obligated to tell the truth anyhow, secrets are not illegal. But I think curiosity about other people is a curiosity about ourselves, it helps us learn about life. Where ever I take Jack and Fiona the thing that they are most interested in is watching other people. My brother said, “They are watching to see the reaction of the other kids.” We were looking at the bunny rabbits at the Little Farm. It was more interesting to watch the other kids than the bunnies. I think that says a lot.
The best places to visit are places with no internet service. It’s no fun to go people watching when all the people are nose down in their phones. I definitely don’t want Jack and Fiona growing up in a world where that’s what the people look like. I don’t want them to mimic that behavior. My husband said we need to start watching what we say around the babies. He said we should stop saying Fuck, and that I especially need to stop saying “MOTHER Fucker” because that’s my go to phrase when I hit my foot on the baby gate or step on a toy. He’s right, we can’t have the first words out of Jack and Fiona’s mouth being fuck or shit. So I am going to make a conscious effort. I will stop using those words. I am also aware that many people find my use of “Oh my god” offensive, so I need to stop that one too. I could just replace God with Gosh or Goodness. “Oh Fudge, I’ve got so much un-packing and laundry to do. Gosh Darnit, gotta go now.”
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 