Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes

Liberation

November 18th, 2016
Liberation

Coffee; 12:21 Friday afternoon. Cold November night made way for a sunny day. First day able to be in my studio in a while. I stand an empty apple juice container up; Mold has formed along one side. Dark green with bits of brown. I am protected from the cap. I forgot to put a cap on my black acrylic paint the last day the babies took a nap, when I came in my studio to work and saw on my “Never Trump” sign, “Never Give Up” imbedded in my message of Protest. I made it through yesterday: Parents meeting, (I was so grumpy I thought about not going, but it helped me so much). I told the facilitator, “I need to go back to therapy”. I took Jack and Fiona to the park. I let Jack eat Yogurt with his excavator, after he played with it in the sand box. I let Fiona smear yogurt on the ground then draw with her finger like I’ve been teaching her with various substances. I’ve been a great mom. I met a man this morning on the trail walking our dogs, I didn’t even wonder if he voted for Trump. I’ve concluded that it doesn’t matter anymore. With the men that Donald Trump has hired this week for Government jobs, it is crystal clear that this government philosophy, the power and masterminds behind it, has been in the making for years, forever, for as long as America has been America. There has been a strong movement towards peace, civil rights, and the environment, but that side hasn’t won yet. After every traumatic, life altering event I am forever changed. My innocence and optimism concerning the world we live in and the human race changes. The idea of life itself. Sitting in the back yard yesterday with Jack and Fiona, we noticed a green bag that used to house the jumpy house hanging on the fence full. “Is the Jumpy house in there?” asks Jack. “No, remember, the Jumpy house got a hole in it”. I take the bag down and open it revealing forgotten toys. Jack grabs the Fire Truck and the plastic bat. Fiona didn’t run to the toys, she sits and watches me explain things. She asks me questions and repeats what I say. I see a tick on Billys face. Fiona looks close as I explain, “Ticks burrow into the skin and suck blood. They get huge and fall off. They have diseases, I need to get Billy some medicine”. Fiona follows me to the closet, up the step ladder behind me. Telling me about the tick, about putting medicine on Billy. Jack asks me about the bat. He’s noticing the line from the mold. “It’s made in a factory, that’s the mold line” I tell Jack. I wonder if I should show him a picture of children working in a factory in China making plastic baseball bats. A plastic baseball bat that sits in the back yard un-used for most of the time. That will never disintegrate, that bat will be on this Earth for the rest of time. I walk back into the house and pass the children’s easel with a pad and scribbles and crayons, I feel myself coming back. Emerging into my space on Earth. My reality. Glug, Glug, Glug. I just poured myself a glass of red wine. It’s 12:48pm. I have a potential of three hours to work in my studio, if Jack and Fiona take their nap today. I miss sharing my naptime paintings on Facebook, but I am so relieved to be out of that atmosphere. I miss so many people on there too, seeing their up-dates, paintings, but I don’t miss the constant negativity, and look, it did us no good! We influence very few by posting the negative stuff Trump and his cronies do. I am going back to the drawing board. Back to before IPhones and Facebook. I have changed.
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Life Moves On, and I’m hanging onto its coat tail.

November 17th, 2016
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!
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Process of Greif

November 16th, 2016
Process of Grief. “I feel so depressed” I say to myself. “I’m so tired” I say as I yawn a big mouth yawn. Trying to exercise, to eat, to stay up past 7:30pm, to not snap at my children. Take a deep breath. In the nose, out the mouth. “Why am I saying these things to myself, about myself?” It’s not normal? Is it just PMS? Is it just not having enough free time to myself? Or am I this way? Is the world the way I think it is? What’s true? What’s not? What matters? What doesn’t? I find myself several times picking up my phone to check Facebook , to see if anyone posted anything, to read about what horrors are going on in America and around the world. To be reminded of scum or told to just forget about it, don’t think about it. I forget that I deleted my Facebook account. And then I feel relieved I am not part of that right now. My heart is starting to beat fast, this was supposed to be a time of relaxation. Jack and Fiona are taking their nap; the house is quiet. I’ve worked in my studio, taken a shower, and here my mind goes again, in the loop. I think, “I should be happy.” Why am I so down? The election has taken a real toll on me, the Trump presidency and the Bannon appointment. I feel like I’m panicking. I could try to make myself believe I’ll be fine so I shouldn’t worry so much. I don’t want to put my head in the sand like an ostrich. I don’t want to become a medicated zombie. I don’t want to go crazy. Where is there balance? I remember growing up and hearing my mom and her boyfriend talk about Carter and Reagan. They said Reagan was bad. I didn’t know what that meant, I just Knew our house didn’t like Reagan. When I became old enough to vote my mom had stopped voting. “Why mom? How can you not vote?” I asked her. She told me it didn’t matter anymore, that everyone was corrupt. Around this same time she told me she “Hated white people”. I wonder what my mom would say if she were alive today. Maybe she wouldn’t be as surprised as me. I was naïve. I thought things were getting better, but they were festering. Now I’m festering, trying to keep a grip. I am in the midst of raising twins in the heart of a dramatic developmental stage. During the breaking apart of mother and baby, I still want Jack and Fiona to be my little babies, they still want me to baby them. But they are getting bigger and finding their own independence and individuality. I am also changing, some by choice, some not. I must be more stern now, Jack and Fiona are heavy, strong, loud. They need direction and supervision almost all the time. The only time it’s easier now is at the park. I can sit and eat my lunch while they run off and play on the structures. It’s relaxing. There’s just a dark cloud hanging over my heart and mind. I feel like my mom died all over again, that type of shock. I feel like crying.
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Liberation

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Life Moves On, and I’m hanging onto its coat tail.

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Process of Greif

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