My second cup of coffee tastes good today, my cheese sandwich. Outside, pure gloom. Looks just like a foggy day, but it’s pure smoke. I feel myself slipping into this paranoid space. But most of all I find myself in total reality, everything is crystal clear, Smokey clear. This is what Smokey the bear was trying to stop. But we don’t control the Earth. We can hardly control ourselves. I can’t control myself from throwing everything to the side, laundry, cooking, grocery shopping, cleaning my closet, working on my website, working on business stuff for the show and the book, taking a shower, sweeping the floor, picking up the gazzillions of game pieces and cards off the floor, putting away my shoes, my bra, my sweaty shirt, cleaning the poop on the rim of the toilet, (Jack), oh and studying my sign language and thinking about what to make for dinner. But I gotta get to my studio. NOW. I have four hours left of babysitting time. I gotta express my pent up smokey desire, not in word but in an abyss of color and line.
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Armageddon. I’m not feeling very comfortable with the thick, light grey, low lying, cool, eerie smoke-filled sky outside. Not one bit at all. It’s almost like in a movie, when everything gets still and then a catastrophic event happens. No one’s safe anymore. The hills look like they could ignite, like they are living creatures. I don’t hear anything right now except the kettle and the circulation fan. A few birds fly by and the trees start to rustle. I pour boiling water over coffee grounds. I think about how my personal, internal filter is completely gone. I’m exhausted after so many tragedies week after week. Jack and Fiona know about floods, hurricanes, white supremacists, gun violence, fires, smoke in the air, Trump, North Korea, sexism. I can’t protect them from all this information, and haven’t tried that hard. This is their reality, this is what they are growing up in. This is the world that they live in. I must lock them in the house today when they get home. They can’t play outside in the smoke. I don’t want them to watch T.V. either. It’s seeming stupider and stupider, those shows they watch. Especially Jack, his taste in shows is way too mature for his age. He’s starting to act like a teenager already and he’s only three and a half.
The shadows today are very strange. Muted shadows and reflections, almost an orange glow. Sun peers out through smoke, hit a book on my table. Still, I enjoy the quiet, the before every other minute I hear Mommy. I walk away for one minute, I tell Jack and Fiona where I am going, what I am doing and the minute I get there I hear Mommy. It’s an annoying phenomenon. Ten minutes. Shit that went by fast. I need more time before facing reality. Or should I say more time to not face reality, like time to go work in my studio! That is what I need today. Painting time.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 