I’m watching Jack and Fiona climb on our new deck lounge chairs pretending they are roller coasters. Jack slips off, bumping his head face first on the deck. He cries, I go out and hold him. He’s tired. I haven’t been giving them a nap regularly lately because I’m trying to get them to go to sleep earlier. It doesn’t always work, and it requires a massive amount of patience on my part. Fiona and I sat at PEETS coffee this morning at a two sweater. We had a battle of why and why not. Then we walked through the mall to exchange a skirt at H&M I bought without trying on, it’s too small for me. We go up the escalator. I’m holding Fiona’s Hot Coco, that’s cold now, but she still wants it, her half pack of Madeline’s, and a piece of cheese in one hand. I’m holding the bag with the skirt in the other hand. I can’t hold onto Fiona’s hand on the escalator. I get scared she’s going to get hurt, but I feel helpless, my hands are full. “Be careful Fiona” I say. I tell her she can pick out her own wardrobe, since she’s grown so much and has very particular tastes. I spend way more money than I plan, even with the exchange, but Fiona’s style is cool and quite cohesive. Some of the pieces are still a bit large for her, the shoulders slide down exposing her whole chest. It seems she gets a satisfaction out of lifting the strap back over her shoulder. She changes outside the store, puts on her new stockings and too big dress. She puts on her size too big white sparkly princess flats. I go to another store, Crazy 8, to buy her a pair of thick socks so her flats don’t fall off. Later, I make some time in my studio; I put on a Wiggles DVD. I love what I make, the colors, the charcoal drawing on them. I had to work in my studio today, I had to be creative. I paint as fast as I can. I also edited one of my pieces for my book. As I read the piece as my now self, which was my future self when I was writing the piece, I was struck by some of the things I thought that turned out a completely different than I thought they would. I wrote how I thought Billy would be dead by the time Jack and Fiona were old enough to help take care of her. But they are helping take care of Billy already. Billy is still alive and well. Or how I thought the park by my house was yucky, was too dirty for babies, but now I love it, it’s beautiful and fun. How do I read things I thought one way then and think a different way now? To keep the integrity of the piece I need to have restraint and not change too much because of the way my now self thinks. I have many questions about the layout of my book. It is a very creative and tedious process. It’s different than I thought it would be.
Tag: painting
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Muggy, foggy, feeling, studio fan blowing. Been painting. Still feeling rays of clear blue streams, magnificent waterfalls, Steep, climb. Hiking in the ferns, heart pounding, another world. Engaged core; I’ve recently connected with it in Yoga. It saves my knees on the descent. I grab a few flowers, I feel like I’m still sweating from the hike, even though it was hours ago. My studio time flows. My time off is almost over. Yes, my time alone is almost over. I need to wrap it up. This give me anxiety! I need more time. The past week has been draining. Glued to my TV, watching the news. Not believing there are people who don’t care about other people with the power to destroy lives and not care. I get physically ill. My stomach hurts, I just take baths and lay down as much as possible. Today I hiked. I worked in my studio. My work is strong today. I think about pain, and death while working today, even in the backdrop of the beauty of the Cataract trail. The life of the birds and the flowers. Peaceful lake. We will carry on then we will die. Trump will be gone in less than four years.
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As I took the Bayview exit off 580 my heart sank just a little. My mom’s house was right there, but she’s not there and I won’t be stopping to pick her up for the second Rhythm and Presence workshop. We won’t be excited together, talking about paint and abstraction, what we want to make, what we want to focus on. She won’t be sitting next to me on my drive out to Benicia. I wish she was. My mom would have loved the workshop, Carl, and Heather. My mom was a great painter. I thought that I could at least bring her spirit with me and I did. One day my mom said, “I’m not going to paint any more people.” She had decided to go totally abstract. I laughed because it sounded like she was mad at the people she was painting, like they had betrayed her in some way. She would have really enjoyed the Rhythm and Presence workshop. Time moves so quickly, I know what it means to be dead. That’s why I work so fast, I have so much ground to cover and so little time. I should be sleeping right now, but I can’t. I need to write. About my day. About my life. About my old Self. New Self. Only Self.
Alone in my minivan. My baby mobile. Today it’s my art mobile, filled with paper, half started, half done, undone, blank, ripped and torn. Paint, watercolor, acrylic, oil sticks, glue, brushes, and a lunch. When I stop and get gas I double check to make sure Jack and Fiona aren’t in the car. I get this feeling like I’ve gone on with life and forgot they were with me. But I’m Alone. I blast the radio scanning rapidly through the stations to find songs that aren’t boring. Thinking again, why didn’t I prepare a play list? Next time. The sky is half Fog half over cast, but balmy like Hawaii. I make good time, I’m always late almost anywhere I go now. But fifteen minutes is acceptable. There’s a lot to do, make sure the babies are all set up before I leave, get ready myself, I really wanted to take a shower, look somewhat presentable. Sometimes I forget to put on a bra and shoes before I leave the house, I spend so much time in my pajamas. As I was updating Lindsay on Jack and Fiona’s present states of minds I felt like I was in a movie and I was getting ready to go to work, probably a waitressing job at a late night diner. I never thought I’d star in that role.
But I wasn’t going to work, I was going to paint. Not to make money but to spend money. To release all that I had inside me, to learn from Heather and Carl and the other people in the workshop. I worked straight through, it just happened. I had so much work going I felt like I was painting myself into a box. I have to stay calm because sometimes I feel like there’s just too much and I start to panic. I used to work on one thing until it was totally muddy, ruined, and all my paint would be gone. Then I learned to work on multiple pieces at one time, but that still has the possibility of seeming crazy, looking crazy, making me feel crazy. Then I get something I really like, or several things. I think I broke through some areas today, I am in a new place now. I don’t know where that place is, I don’t have a clear meaning or idea. I have hazy feelings about it, in some ways. Maybe fear? Maybe fear to go where I really want to go? I think I’ve always been there deep inside, it’s like I’m excavating myself, digging a hole inside, scooping out my bits, laying them out in front of me, like a smorgasbord.
I know what it means to not be here anymore. When the white on the paper is nothing and everything at the same time. Some voids will never be filled, and time will never be got back. The places I go, the memories they conjure. Today emotions were triggered for me. Painting, my Mom, Richmond, all tied up in a knot, ripped apart and laid out on paper casting energy into space, into me.
Dirty Laundry Blog by Jennifer Hynes 