“Time to go for a walk babies, do you want to take Billy for a walk?” I say. We just finished eating pasta for dinner, “This is how we wash our face, wash our face, wash our face, this is how we wash our face early in the evening.” I sing as I attempt to clean Jack and Fiona’s spaghetti sauce faces. I do a good enough job, grab both babies out of their high chairs, carry them down the stairs, Jack slipping out of my arm, I make it to the bottom without dropping one, set them both down. I open the door to the garage, “Look Daddy’s home.” I say. Alan is putting out the trash. Jack and Fiona scurry around the garage, touching things they shouldn’t touch, playing with a half put together toy dump truck we got for their birthday. (Alan put the wrong screw in one of the wheels so now he needs a long screwdriver to get it out, the kind of thing that eventually goes to the dump without ever being used) I go upstairs and put on Billies leash, she’s shedding like crazy, big clumps of hair falling out, there’s no way to control it. I bring her downstairs and Alan has Jack and Fiona in the B.O.B. for me. “You guys need to learn how to do this” I say as I brush some of the clumps of hair off Billy. I imagine Jack and Fiona brushing Billy, loving her, taking care of her. She’ll probably be dead though before any of that actually happens. First we walk down the hill, “Billy’s sniffing, she loves to sniff, come on Billy, whoa!” she stops and pulls me backwards, “Billy, come on, you’re not going to pull me backwards on hills today, LET’S Go Girl!” I say. “Look at the trees guys, oh my god it’s going to be a bad night for pollen, can you feel the pollen in the air?” I say. Past the Bret Harte playground, I ask myself, is it really that bad? (I can’t get my first visits out of my mind, the dog poop, the dirty diaper in the corner, I won’t know until Jack and Fiona are older and we spend more time here, I think to myself.) I really like the big Oak Tree. Up the next hill I’m laughing out loud. Smiling, wondering if I’m crazy? Crazy happy? Why do I have so much energy tonight? I imagine People think I’m crazy when they hear me talking and laughing while walking Billy and pushing the stroller. Before the babies came Alan used to always tell me, “Stop talking to yourself.” Now technically I’m not talking to myself any more, I’m talking to Jack and Fiona. I’ve always talked to my dogs. It’s natural. “Do you see the trees? The half-moon in the sky? The single dove on the telephone pole? Look at this pinecone. The sun, no wait the sun is already down. Babies the sun is already down, but we’re lucky, we’ll make it home before dark. Oh my gosh, what if today was the last day we saw the sun? ” I think about it, the last day, that day will come. My new motto is “Keep on Movin’ Keep on Groovin’. Keep the wheels turning, that kinda thing. Yesterday it happened again, I got the babies down for their nap. I had to give them a bath, I didn’t use wipes at the park today. (the park I drove too, because at the time I think it’s a nicer park than my neighborhood park.) They have dirt on their legs, food on their faces, just messy! I watch the other moms at the park wiping the hands and faces of their babies several times. Sometimes thoughts appear in my mind, self-conciousness, “Do they think I’m a slob? I’m really dirty?” Even Alan has made comments after meals that I haven’t cleaned Jack and Fiona’s faces good enough and they are going to break out. Interesting huh? I wonder why people are so into cleanliness. Anyhow the babies were taking their nap, I had all my workout clothes on the floor, I was going to go through them and turn some into painting rags. I tell myself, “Just do it really fast” and I did. But I came upstairs to get some water, I decided I NEED to go to my studio and paint for a minute. Kaboom! I see the kitchen is a complete disaster, after the park I brought everything up and set it on the center Island. (The babies are asleep right now) I find myself walking around in circles picking stuff up, putting things in the sink, in the fridge, in new piles of like items. “STOP!” I say to myself. “Grab the baby monitor and water and Go to your studio!” I can finish cleaning later. I get into my studio. I’m feeling super inspired, is it the babies? Their passion for life? I don’t know but I’m feeling freedom. I paint fast and into new territories. I’m excited by the drawing I’m doing, the unconscious feeling I have when I paint with my few remaining usable paintbrushes, (I ruin all my paintbrushes, they turn hard as rocks) I grab a palette. The colors show up in my mind, I mix them. I use restraint not to overwork every single piece. I already have a huge pile of overworked pieces. (I may turn these into collage down the road) Its 5:30PM, I can’t believe the babies have slept so long. I finish up in my studio and go inside the house. (my studio is in the garage, built into the hillside. It stays the same temperature all year long) All is quiet, but I realize I had the wrong baby monitor. Oh well, they needed that rest and I needed to work in my studio no matter what. I walk in the house expecting to hear crying babies, but the house is still quiet. Sweet little babies, in their nursery, in their cribs. On white cotton sheets, a quiet peace surrounding Jack and Fiona as they sleep like babies, a sweetness I’ve never know before. Maybe comparable to a sweet late spring day, where the chimes chime in the breezy afternoon. The doors in the house, windows open, letting the light and smells of the day filter through my body. There are always sweet, lovely things to hang on to in life. Even on the most stressful, busy days.
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Woke up on mother’s day, lazy. Jack and Fiona were already upstairs having breakfast with Alan. I make my bagel with Salmon, brew my coffee, sit on the couch, turn on the T.V… Mommy Dearest is on starring Faye Dunaway. It is a biographical movie about the life of Christina Crawford, Joan Crawford’s adopted daughter. The most famous line in the movie is “No more wire hangers”; Joan Crawford despises wire hangers in the movie, she feels it is disrespect to Christina’s fine dresses. I have no wire hangers in my closet! I remember watching the movie when I was a young girl; I really wanted to watch it but my mom didn’t want me to. Eventually, one day when it was being shown on T.V. we watched it together. As I sat on the couch, this mother’s day, watching Mommy Dearest, Jack and Fiona join me. I have to keep explaining to them how the mommy is very upset, that it is only T.V., I can’t turn it off. My coffee is so good and the movie has me completely engrossed. In one scene, Joan Crawford serves her daughter, Christina a piece of rare steak. Christina doesn’t want to eat it like that. Her mom makes her stay at the table until she eats it. Christina does not and the next night her mom puts the same piece of meat in front of her. Eventually the meat is thrown away. It reminds me of this time in my childhood. I was at my dad’s girlfriends house. She had a bunch of kids and lived in a massive apartment complex. We used to roller-skate all around, visiting other kids houses whose parents were out, or we’d hang out in the parking lot. I thought it was fun, but dangerous. There were older kids who were bullies, I was always a little scared and wanted to go home to my mom’s house. This one night my dad’s girlfriend cooked dinner. We were all at the table and she served a big piece of liver to me. I remember it sitting on a white plate, it almost looked burnt. Nothing else was on the plate. I told her I didn’t want it. She said I wasn’t getting up from the table until I ate the piece of liver. The whole table was excused but me. I could hear all the kids playing upstairs. I just sat there, miserable. Finally, I forced myself to take a bite. I felt sick immediately and ran to the toilet to puke. My dad’s girlfriend was still mad at me, she thought I forced myself to throw up, but I didn’t. It was awful. My dad’s girlfriends were always horrible. They were like poor Joan Crawford’s. Maybe it was just because I was the step kid. Jack didn’t watch the whole movie, but Fiona did. I tried to teach her what crazy was. That the Joan Crawford character was really crazy and I would never treat them like that.
Jack and Fiona are sleeping now. The house is quiet and the afternoon wind has settled a bit. It feels very relaxing. I only worked in my studio for a short time today. I love what I am working on, the direction I’m going! Even though I have so much work to do for my upcoming solo show and book publishing I feel a strange satisfaction and ease. I don’t feel stressed like I have before a big project like this. Maybe it’s because I’ve been working so hard on my material, my content, my line and color, my thoughts, my spontaneity, my ability to walk away, to let go, my ability to be proud and hum out load and dress in my own quirky style and not be shy about who I am. Maybe I feel liberated and excited. My only complaint as of late is the lack of time, the massive amount of work it is being a housewife, especially when it feels half my month I am either sick or having cramps or PMS or ovulation pain or hot flashes or just plain wiped out. But I have to be grateful for the good weeks, the feeling good times, love my body times, yoga three times a week times, no insomnia times. I’ve learned a new technique to deal with the hard times though, just accept it and treat myself like a Queen. REST! It totally works, it means I let it all go, I take a bath instead of cleaning or going in my studio. It means I communicate to my husband and my children I’m on light duty and I’m off no later than 7:30PM! And that works to. The old me pushed on through and felt terrible and bitchy. It’s 4:00PM, now comes the hard part. Do I wake the babies up so they don’t stay up till 10:00pm? Or do I let them sleep as long as they want and take a hot bubble bath now?
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What thought do I start with. The small flying orange creature that just flew into my house, my notebooks laying out downstairs, almost bare. One piece of black handmade paper collage is glued on each page. I want to go down and work on them now. Jack and Fiona are not taking a nap. They are watching Toy Story. I can feel the naptimes are almost over. A little boy showed me his Dark Vader ice pack from his lunch box today as I pack up Jack’s left over lunch stuff. The teacher wants each kid to pick up their own lunch stuff. I’m the mom who comes in and picks up after her son. But I want to get to know his classmates, who he’s hanging out with. Jack spills a bucket of old daisies on the floor, they are dried out. A few sprinkled down on top of one of the girls sleeping mats. I pick up the flowers, leaving dust on the carpet, too difficult to pick up. A little girl asks me about the flowers. I say Jack picked them and brought them to school last week. He wanted to pass them out to the other kids. The girl and I talk about sewing the flowers together, making headbands. I tell the teacher she could use them to make prints. Two little ones are dosing off to sleep next to a teacher. They have their toy stuffies over their faces. I could tell a lot of them weren’t going to actually fall asleep. I put Jack and Fiona in their beds when we get home. I come upstairs. Hear them. Check on them. Soap all over the mirrors. They are not going to take a nap. I give them a bath. We read toy story and I decide to just play the movie for them so I get a break. The end of naptime. The end of naptime paintings and writings. It will now become something else. Some other piece of time carved out of motherhood. I will find it. Time will adjust. Now I have to go to my studio for a VERY SHORT TIME and make marks in my notebook.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 