Quiet. I don’t even want to listen to music right now. I’m in my studio, Monday, March 6th, 2017, 1:46 PM. Babies asleep. I haven’t had a chance to get in my studio in forever. It’s been a crazy few weeks of transitions and changes: Jack and Fiona turning three, transitioning to preschool programs, Jack doesn’t start until the 13th, separating Jack and Fiona for the first time, behavioral changes due to all these changes. It’s been intense. I decided right away to just put the studio and writing on the back burner (even though it has been a time I needed it most) but I was so consumed with motherhood and domestic responsibilities I didn’t have any extra time, or energy. Today I finally made it. It takes a while to get into the creative zone. At first, when I came into my studio today I wondered how to get started. I started wondering what to work on, what route to take. It delayed my starting anything, until I mixed some fresh white paint, painted over what had been sitting on the studio floor for weeks. A ghost remained, I started painting and drawing, first using one color, then two, then three, finishing with a slate grey. Letting them dry a little between layers, letting them set up a little. Taking my time. Now I am nearing the end of my studio time today. I have one more hour. Now forty minutes, I opened a bottle of wine, am enjoying a glass and updated my Facebook profile picture!
Last week amidst the changes I had a bit of a scare. I started to develop a twitch! On my face! I had one of these a few years ago, it lasted a year. It was awful! It appeared at the end of an intensely stressful period of my life. When my face started twitching again last week I knew it was time to chill the fuck out! That’s the first thing that came to my mind! When Jack gets in his preschool program I’m adding yoga back into my life. That’s for sure. But when I came in my studio today, I was concerned because I have an absence of rage inside me. Stress and fatigue, but no rage. The rage that I felt during the election cycle and during Trumps first month has subsided. I just keep thinking I will wake up one morning and they will all be gone. Like in “The Leftovers”, Trump and his cabinet and all the creepy crawly republicans trying to pass legislation to fuck the earth and society, they all just disappear. No one knows where they went and only their families care. That’s what I keep hoping. But I’m not mad. I’m not mad at anyone, I don’t care what Trump says or does anymore. He should not be the president and everyone knows it. I tell Jack and Fiona he’s a bad man when they see his picture come up on the television.
We are Democrats, atheists, artists, and scientists. (I’m rooting for my children to become scientists) My husband is a builder. We are free thinking and have incorporated “Robot Dance Parties” into our daily routine. My guilty pleasure is sci fi and dystopian stories and movies. I relish in the imagined quiet of space and the mundane of the day to day. I know how lucky and fortunate I am, and thank my lucky stars. Knowing and tasting wine makes me happy. This is how I am now. My wine is good. I have a feeling everything is going to be O.K. Maybe Trump was a good thing to happen to us, he’s connected us and strengthened us. Even if he causes the destruction of the Earth, our last stand was a united one. That counts for something, doesn’t it?
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 