The Place You Go…

I’m sitting here (Sunday night) waiting for the laundry to finish so I can put the girlchild’s soccer stuff in the dryer for tomorrow morning. I’m actually kind of wide awake…must have been that 26-minute nap I took this afternoon when I realized I couldn’t keep my eyes open. That’s the problem with hike days…they do kick my ass and I get very little else done, which is why I can’t do them every weekend. I can’t lose a day every weekend.

This is a 3-day weekend, though, so I still have tomorrow (Monday, yes I started this on Sunday night) to play catch up. I had a rough day yesterday. I actually cried on the hike…usually I don’t, but strangely, being in a group that large was isolating for someone like me. I’m not an extrovert at all. I need space, both mental and physical. I felt like some alien creature. It was so loud and raucous and overwhelming…I had to strike out on my own and physically super-challenge my body so my mind wouldn’t freak out. I have an event coming up with a lot more people than that…and I’m worried about my ability to deal. It’s strange…I spend all day with tons of people, but I don’t feel so out of place with my students…they are safe. I can handle interactions with them. Interactions with large groups of strangers? Fuck that. I’d rather stay home. I will be that crazy cat lady who never leaves the house if I’m not careful. The hike was redeemed slightly by the last 30 minutes spent talking to one other person. I can handle interactions like that, but you have to have something in common or at least something you can talk about.

It was a relief to come home after the hike and space out for hours, grade some papers, hang with my kids, cut out some Wonder Under. I appreciate the physical exertion and being out in nature, but hanging out in groups isn’t making me happy. Then again, nothing much is making me happy.

So in the middle of this post, the rant came through and became its own post, and then I went to the gym to try to leave some of my irritation and anger there instead of carrying it around. I’m debating calling the doctor (hemorrhage!), I need to find eye doctor paperwork for the kids, I haven’t prepped for tomorrow, I need to go to school to check for lab supplies, but I can’t get out of my driveway, because they are in fact digging holes in my front yard so my toilets might work properly someday. I’m wondering if I will ever stop grinding my teeth, if my eyelid will ever stop twitching, if I will ever sleep properly again.

The part I was having issues with was people making assumptions about other people based on how they behave or look or are labeled. I’m constantly amazed by how different people are than what they project…my leach-field guy looks like a redneck, talks like a redneck, and then starts talking to me about the Lord of the Rings trilogy and how many times he’s read it and whether Smaug is the coolest dragon around or what. The guy is 64 and you’d never think to look at him that he could have slogged through that series (god knows I haven’t been able to after multiple tries). You cannot make assumptions about people. You have to talk to them and listen to them and turn on the part of your brain that pays attention to someone besides your arrogant self, and only then can you make any decisions about people, and you still have to leave open the possibility that you are completely wrong. Maybe I know that from teaching middle school for so many years. Maybe I’m just that kind of tolerant person. I don’t know. I just know that it’s not OK to hurt other people. And sometimes people think your emotions are hurting them, but it is really their response to your emotions that’s the issue. I had the girlchild full on screaming at me this morning and I realized that she was having the same issue…her emotional reaction to what I had said was hers and hers alone. I was not the cause of the screaming. She was. Granted she’s a teenager and doesn’t modulate her responses well…she’s not Asperger’s, but teens often have this idea that they are the only people on the planet (shocking!) and it can manifest in similar ways. “My way is the only way.” Boychild and I often have discussions about her inability to realize there are other people in the world who might not have the same priorities as she does. In this case, I let her stomp off and slam a door, and then she came back and it was eventually all OK. I wonder what it will be like when they are both gone and I no longer have to tiptoe around those kinds of emotional outbursts. I wonder if her roommates will survive! I wonder if having the girlchild as his sister has helped the boychild navigate emotions any better…god knows they are full on in his face on a regular basis. His sister screams. His mom cries.

Wondering about my own sanity. Wondering after reading someone else’s blog if there is actually always a way out of depression, or if it just becomes something you live with for the rest of your life. After this weekend, I don’t see a way out, I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel, I don’t feel like it will ever change. It does not help that my hormones are going ballistic. I could really live without that additional mess in my head…hence the thought to call the doctor…more because of the physical symptoms than the mental…the physical symptoms set off all the alarms on the stupid online symptom checkers. But I already know what they will say, what they will want to do. They’ll use the words ‘abnormal’ and ‘dysfunctional’…ironic because those can apply to my physical symptoms and my mental symptoms. OK, not fully dysfunctional, because I do manage to function fairly normally…I’m just patently aware of how nonfunctional my functioning is.

Anyway. I find the solution to all this angst, short-term as it might be, is that silly thing called art. My brain wandered about a bit, trying to figure out what it felt like doing, until that urge to draw came a banging at the brain door…so I pulled this one out from before, in December sometime (was it really that long ago?)…

I had copied it and taped it to another page, so I found that and started drawing downwards…

Shades of the Celebrating Silver quilt…I still need to put yet another page on the bottom…

because she needs more room. She wants the rest of her body. She told me. She demanded it. I listened. And I need to figure out what else is happening here…maybe more of those crazy birds. Who knows. Draw, Kathy. It gives you some peace. Draw the assholes out. Draw the arrogant jerks out. Draw the emotional reactions and put them on paper. Make someone see what’s in your head. Make someone feel what’s in your head. Make.

I made it to my quilt guild tonight, for the first time in 12 months, I think. Mary Pal was speaking and she and I had seen each other Saturday night at the Coast to Coast opening. I think we might be sisters from another mother…we are in the same shows, feeling some of the same artistic angst. I hope for her sake that she is not feeling the rest of my angst. It was nice to hear her talk, to feel her deep hug again, to feel a connection to a fellow artist who plumbs the depths of her artistic self to make work in the middle of the night, by the skin of her teeth, in the early morning light. To feel a connection that deep to someone you barely know…simply because of the place you go when you work.

Art can be amazing that way.

Insert Rant Here

Sometimes I read things, almost by accident, that make me really upset/angry. I’m mulling over one of those incidents right now, where someone claimed that Asperger’s-designated people were “more evolved.” I’m not Asperger’s. I do test fairly close to that range, but think it is more a function of being an introverted antisocial artist-type. I do however have many years of experience living with, loving, and raising Asperger’s-designated humans. I’m a pretty empathetic and intelligent person…I’m actually really good at figuring out how other people are feeling most of the time, although I’m not always right on the money…I do know when things are not right (sort of the anti-Aspie in that realm). In dealing with Aspies for the last 25 years, I have realized over the years that it often takes them a long time to process feelings and emotions, and I have learned with the boychild that “long time” could be weeks or months, sometimes maybe years, if ever. I do know, however, that the inability to process those feelings has a real-life consequence sometimes of hurting the people around you, those who love you, because Aspies often cannot handle what is going on right now, right then, and by the time they can handle it, they might react quickly in a way that damages those around them. I’ve tried with the boychild to keep him aware of what he is doing and how he is doing it and more importantly how it makes others FEEL, but know that he will have to find his own way in that as an adult. I’ve had to suppress some of my own emotions in dealing with the boychild, realizing that his issues are not directed at me and it is my job as his mom to help him find a less-hurtful way to express himself once he realizes what he’s feeling. I know he loves me. I also know he will probably never tell me that in those words. I’m OK with that. I can see he cares in how he acts and what he says. It will make it more difficult for him in future love relationships, but he will have to deal with that.

That said, I didn’t raise the others I’ve had relationships with, and their parents were not aware, and so they have both caused me significant damage…because I am apparently not “more evolved.” I refuse to believe that an inability to deal with emotions and the people who may cause one to have those emotions is fucking EVOLVED. I am fully a supporter of there being a continuum of “normal” range of the human brain and that Asperger’s is merely one end of the spectrum, with a huge variety of types of function all across the spectrum…but it is never a good excuse to hurt other people because you cannot handle your own emotional angst. That is not evolved. That is immature, if that’s how you present (and not all do). I heard the words “emotionally incompetent” to describe it once, and I have issue even with that, because it implies that you just need to take a class or read a book, and for some Asperger’s, that might be enough, to try to be aware of one’s shortcomings, just like I have to be aware of my own issues and shortcomings, to teach oneself the appropriate responses even when you don’t feel them until later, even though I am apparently “normal”-brained…for some, I think “incompetent” is not even a good description, because I am not sure that competence will ever come for some. I hope my son figures it out. I hope he locks away in his brain the pain he’s seen his mom go through because of this apparently MORE EVOLVED state. He says he gets it. And I have friends on this end of the spectrum that are, at least to me, some of the most emotionally aware people I know, so I know it’s possible…but I think it takes a lot of self-reflection to get there…and to be honest, the ones I know who are aware are all female, not male. That may be the difference right there; it’s hard to say. Most of my experience is with male Asperger’s.

I tell myself I have done my best to raise my son to try to be aware when he is hurting people (he is much better than he used to be), and to never ever run away from difficult emotions…that it is OK to say you are having problems dealing with this and you will come back to it, but you have to open your eyes and SEE what you are doing to other people when you behave that way…that it is NOT OK. Get out of your head. Look around you. You cannot hide. It is not MORE EVOLVED. A world without emotions or a world where emotions are so locked up inside you that you deny you have them, that is not a more evolved world. That is a world without music and art and dance and color, and I don’t believe that is a world I want to live in. That is a world where people hurt other people because they can’t deal with their own stuff. That is not OK. It’s not the world I want to live in.

The More Evolved comment is shades of sci fi where the alien species believes humans are lesser beings who do not deserve to live because we have not evolved to higher functions of logic and precision of thought. Hell, humans are nutcases…we’re giant fuckups in the world, no doubt about that, but as our higher functions have evolved beyond many of the living species on earth, so have emotions. Earthworms aren’t showing emotions…nor are they solving the issues of clean water at the moment or designing a new spacecraft. I can’t help but think the two things are connected, and that ability to show emotions and even occasionally control them without having them eat you up inside or slam into the people around you (I live with teenagers…I see the spectrum) doesn’t seem to be a completely negative influence on the world…unless you want a world that never confronts you (see comments above about art, music, etc.).

This is not a rant against the Asperger’s-designated person…it is probably a rant against One Specific Person, who in typical Aspie fashion refuses to talk about it. Because it’s too hard. Because not talking about it makes it better. Because he claims incompetence. Because running away fixes it. (It doesn’t, by the way. My less-evolved brain knows that and knows it very very well and has spent the last 7+ months trying to deal with it.)

Speaking to you from the other planet…no it doesn’t make it better. It means you damaged another person in your apparent evolution away from us lesser beings. Congratulations. You don’t win.

This is the article I was reading, which is not at fault at all for my rant…it is actually an interesting list of things to look for, which as a teacher who identified (while getting yelled at by her admin and school psych and told she didn’t know what she was talking about) a female student correctly as Asperger’s. I put it here because I think it’s useful to read if you think you might be on that end of the range or be dealing with someone who might be Aspie, because females do present differently, just as they do with ADD, another lesson I learned the hard way. I actually don’t like the term Aspie at all…but it is strange to me to use the doctor’s name to describe the syndrome…seems we need another designation…especially now that it’s not in the DSM any more, which is a whole ‘nother issue.

Sorry for the rant. Sometimes there’s only one way for the anger to go in a healthy way and that’s out (because I’m less evolved and realize my emotions and deal with them instead of letting them destroy other people). Plus maybe you have something to say about it too. I’m willing to listen…I’ve got my non-Aspie ears open and ready to hear. I know that term encompasses a wide range of experiences and behaviors, just as the term “normal” does (whatever the fuck normal means).

Mule Hill Trail to Raptor Ridge

I spent about 3 1/2 hours this morning hiking Mule Hill Historic Trail in the San Dieguito River Valley to the beginning of the San Pasqual Valley Trail, going through Raptor Ridge (over? through?) on the way. The trail map is here, if you’re interested. We started in Escondido off of Sunset (across from the mall), and there happened to be a very small farmers’ market taking place, so traffic was a mess. I’m fairly sure I did a hike out of here over 10 years ago, but going the other direction, under the freeway towards some hill on the other side.

This is part of the Coast to Crest trail, which will eventually be 55 miles from the coast near Del Mar to Volcan Mountain near Julian.

We didn’t do the whole thing…went 5.9 miles out and back. I guess the whole thing of that section is more like 24 miles…11.8 seemed plenty for one day.

It was a little on the warm side, certainly in the high 70s/low 80s for part of it, although there was a decent breeze, and the clouds kept it a little cooler. You could totally feel the potential for nasty summer heat baking up off the dirt when the sun was shining down on the eastern side of the ridge, though. I mean, this is February.

The skies were amazing today.

The trail is mostly flat and fast through the valley, although there is a lot of competition with mountain bikers. In general, the bikers are good people, respectful of trail rules (everyone yields to horses, bikes yield to people). We didn’t see any horses today, although they are allowed on the path.

There is a section of the trail that travels next to farmland, mostly strawberries it looked like.

You can see the plastic covering some sections. When you get further out into the valley, you can see the beginning on the left of the hills that lead into Raptor Ridge, which peaks out at 1000′ in elevation (not super high, eh?).

There were very few trees on this trail…so very little shade. Summer would be difficult.

Once you get out of the valley and start climbing into the ridge, there is some green and trees to shade you for the first part…

This is also generally where the mountain bikes disappear. It’s a one-track trail at this point, and it climbs fairly steadily from the valley up to about 600′ elevation, maybe a little higher. You can see the San Pasqual Valley from this section.

In the beginning of the hike, I was out in front with about three other hikers. It was a really big group, about 36 people, and it was just too many people and too loud for me. I guess when I’m out in nature, I want to actually BE out in nature. I don’t mind talking, but it was just too many live bodies in one space. At this point, though, when we started to climb, somehow I ended up being first, so once I got into my rhythm, I just kept going.

They’re all strung out on the trail behind me…not too far behind…

More of the San Pasqual Valley, sort of towards the Wild Animal Park.

I wasn’t trying to be antisocial. I just find it hard to hike slowly. Or behind people who are slower than I am. Or in huge groups of people. Sigh.

There are a few viewpoints on that side of the ridge…this is looking up to the peak, although apparently the trail doesn’t go up there…you have to bushwhack it.

We kept going around the ridge to the San Pasqual Valley side looking for some mythical bench that never appeared. Once we realized we had hit 5.9 miles…this is where you remember that however far you hiked out, you still have to hike back…the organizer decided to have us go back to the viewpoint.

So we did…took the obligatory group photo and snacked a bit. After about 10 minutes of drying the sweat off your back and eating something, a couple of people said they were taking off, so instead of being a social butterfly (I’m not), I took off after them.

I was kinda tired of hearing boys tell girls to “work it.” Sigh. Sometimes. People.

There’s the rest of them at the viewpoint…they never did catch up with us…to our credit, we were moving pretty damn fast.

It only took about an hour and a half to get back to the parking lot…about 5.5 miles

I eventually caught up with the three ahead of me (garter snake on the path stopped them for a bit, just to move him out of the way) and hiked out with one of them, who is a high-school teacher…so we had lots in common. That was pretty much the only conversation I had.

I do better in smaller groups. This is a pretty easy section of the trail, even with the climb up to the ridge. Certainly, you could wander the river valley for a while with kids or dogs and have a good time, turning back when you’re ready, although I suspect it gets quite warm sometime in June or July through late October. Someday I will do the next section, across the San Pasqual Valley…maybe with someone to pick me up on the other end. I can do 12 miles…not sure I can double that though. The hips and knees eventually complain.

It was a good workout, a good day for it. Not sure where my next hike is…I don’t have one planned for another 3 weeks…will have to see if I can do something before that.

Crazy Mess

You know what’s a hard word to spell? Hemorrhage. Really. It took me like 4 tries and then I finally looked it up, and then I had to look at it twice and finally say it in my head as Hem-Or-Hayje to be able to spell it right. I’m usually a really good speller…I mean, yes, I make words up and sometimes I spell stuff wrong on purpose, and as a former editor, sometimes the left side of my brain almost has a conniption fit (did not have to look THAT word up) when I purposely fuck with grammar…but I figure this isn’t formal writing…it’s a journal, but even fiction has its way with words, messes with the structure of language, because how we talk, think, is different than how the rules of language try to control how we talk, think.

Why talk of hemorrhage? Sigh. Perimenopause. So tired of it. Girlchild says to stop googling stuff…but that’s how I learned to spell hemorrhage! I’ve got another drawing in the head…and it ain’t pretty…which reminds me of a conversation I had tonight with another quilt artist who said that she likes my work, but there’s always something in it that disturbs her (in the case of the piece she was looking at, it was the snake…and there are often snakes in my work. Snakes bad. Christmas lights good.). I had a bunch of people ask me tonight about particular symbols, about what they meant. Hell. I draw. Sometimes I draw something that has a particular meaning. Sometimes I don’t remember that particular meaning 4 years later. Sometimes I just have a feeling, a sense of bad or good or evil or pain or whatever. But why are the lungs red and green? I don’t know. Contrast? I don’t necessarily think of colors in the same way…well with some I do…I don’t know.

Anyway. The experience of being a woman of a certain age is not pleasant in many ways…and I have an 11-mile hike tomorrow, so this could be an issue. Certainly feeling like you’re bleeding to death is an issue. Knowing that you’re already anemic, despite taking iron…sigh. Whenever I get frustrated with this stage of my life, and I think about how intolerant some people are (men) of this stage…like I CHOSE this? Are you kidding me? Not only did I not choose to be female (although I’m OK with it, honestly), I would have no problems with some sort of switch you could flip once you were done with the babymaking so that this would stop, but I also know that the menstrual cycle and the hormones that come with it do help with a variety of other biological functions…bone density, longevity, even digestion and sleep, but hell…I didn’t choose to bleed every 23 days, or every other week, or whatever my hormones seem to think might make sense. So unintelligent designer aside, it would be nice if there was more empathy and understanding for women who are going through this. It isn’t fun for us either. Try being a teacher and being unable to use a bathroom for 4 hours. Think on this…all of us of a certain age have spare clothing, like sweatshirts we can wrap around our waists just in case.I just packed a whole container for tomorrow’s hike of what I might need to get through it…because we are a society that doesn’t appreciate an aging woman and her needs…that decides that’s the best time to start ignoring women. They are no longer of childbearing age. They are no longer useful. They are just troublesome.

This is a lot of what my Celebrating Silver quilt is about…but there will probably be more drawings about all this fun stuff as the biology in me continues to change. Our bodies take us hostage. Or maybe we’ve always been hostage to the period, to the possibility of pregnancy. Maybe menopause will be a relief. The getting there may kill me.

So yeah, there was an opening tonight and I went and I talked to a lot of people and in general that was good…sometimes even funny…or supportive…and even inspiring. I mean, I cried all the way there (this Saturday night thing still fucks with my head…I am much better if I just stay home and be Kathy the Hermit), but on the way home, I was inspired to work on the current quilt…

I traced Wonder Under for a few hours and got through all 364 pieces (small, by my standards)…

It took almost 5 hours. Now I can cut them all out.

I had another conversation with a quilt artist who has been in some of the same invitational shows as me who is going through the same sort of brain issues I am…we spent so much mental energy getting Earth Stories and Celebrating Silver done (and in her case, one other…I guess I did one other, but it ended up not being in the show it was originally meant for), that it’s been hard focusing enough to get back into creating. It’s a push. We had to laugh when we realized we are both in the next invitational as well…and another quilt artist told me someone had told her I was going through some hard times, that they had read it on my blog. Sometimes I forget there are actual people reading this who might talk to me. I notionally understand that I have readers, but I’m really only talking to myself, talking it out, processing, trying to motivate myself to do better, get better. Stay focused. Make art. It’s weird when someone admits that they’ve read it…I have to wonder what they’re thinking. Wait, dammit, they know EVERYTHING (OK, not everything…believe it or not, I don’t write everything). What do I say now? Fuck.

I was surprised to see my quilt on the wall at the exhibit. It was bigger than I remembered it. Hanging on a big white wall…it had a presence I didn’t remember giving to it. I mean, I made it. I drew it. I put it together, sewed it, quilted it. I actually don’t remember much of the latter stages…happened this last summer. It was a filler quilt, filling up all the empty space in me, trying to keep my brain occupied so it didn’t jump over the edge, never to return. Watch the squiggly line, the thread running in and out of the fabric. Keep it occupied…keep it tied to reality, best you can. Quilting, for me, is good for that. My art is good for that. The one artist said that it had been like that for her, and then it stopped working.

I couldn’t handle that. I mean, maybe in the future, when I am stronger, when I am less broken…but I hope it never happens. This is my lifeline. This is all I’ve got. This is it. It can’t stop working.

We also talked about taking pictures from cars…

I do it all the time; so does she. People tell us we’re being unsafe, but we’re not. I drive with one hand, point the camera with the other, often on the steering wheel. It seems crazy, I guess…but it works. I wanted a picture of the rising moon in the clouds. I knew it would be gone by the time I got home, and it was. Not a great picture of the moon in the end, but maybe a good picture of the night…and my brain…that’s kinda what it looks like a lot lately. Squiggly lines. Crazy mess.

I’m taking the crazy mess to bed now…up early for hiking.

Make the Head Fit…

I drew…

Feb 14 14 004 small

It’s not done. I don’t know where it’s going. I had to make the head fit. That was fun. Or weird. Or something. I drew for like an hour or so…like right when I came home…well, after I talked to my philosophical drainage guy, the guy who is charging me more than my car is worth to redo my leach field and quotes Khalil Gibran while I’m signing papers. Exciting stuff. He gave me marital advice. Whoops! Too late. I don’t think that’s on the menu any more.

I drew because my head was in a bad place…had been for a couple of days. Hormones are out of whack…I mean, they’re really out of whack. Love being a woman of this age, perimenopause hitting me upside the head. Body doesn’t know what it’s doing. Fucks with the mind while it’s at it…and the moods. It’s annoying. No way to control it if you can’t take estrogen. You just have to ride it through.

So I drew and made dinner, and then I traced Wonder Under for over an hour…

Because I could. I mean, I could also grade, but there’s only so much suckiness a day can hold before it can hold no more. And I had reached my limit. The problem is that I don’t have moments of joy at the moment…I just have more or less of the suck. So I have to do things to make it more on the high side of the sucky wave instead of the low side. Artmaking. It’s what’s for dinner. I traced through about piece 240…so about 100 pieces to go. I need more Wonder Under (errands…hate errands). I need to stop being sick, even though it’s really low-level sickness…it’s messing with my head.

I put feet on them…

The two on the left are almost done…they need outlining around the eyeballs. Not sure what the one on the right needs. A life? Oh no…that’s me.

I don’t really know what it means…

But you should watch it anyway.

Yeah, it’s long, but you know what? Most of the good stuff is longer rather than shorter.

Art opening at VAM tomorrow…I will be there. Hopefully I’ll be well enough to hike on Sunday. I’m sure there’s other things I have to do. I’m trying not to think of them.

Beauty Is…

in the eye…

Of whomever is awake?

When I’m depressed, I stay up late and try to distract myself or make sense of everything. It’s hard to say sometimes which I’m actually doing…distraction or making sense. Maybe they are the same thing. If I try to trick myself into going to bed and falling asleep, my brain gets all ninja on my ass and won’t even calm down for sleep…it keeps kicking the shit out of me until I finally mentally collapse at like 2 in the morning. The alarm goes off seconds later, it seems, and I get up and do it all over again.

I read someone’s description of their life in the last year and they described it as having their heart shattered. Yeah. That. That’s the word I use. And destroyed. Damaged. Dropped. Broken. So going into V-day, a day I’ve never really liked or appreciated, with that feeling kinda sucks. Big time. I was going to draw tonight…there’s actually most of a drawing, the central portion anyway, fully formed in the center of my prefrontal cortex…is that where it belongs? It totally feels like it’s sitting right there in front, waiting to spill out of my eyeballs, but…from Wikipedia (sometimes a good source): the prefrontal cortex is associated with executive function, which relates to abilities to differentiate among conflicting thoughts, determine good and bad, better and best, same and different, future consequences of current activities, working toward a defined goal, prediction of outcomes, expectation based on actions, and social “control” (the ability to suppress urges that, if not suppressed, could lead to socially unacceptable outcomes). Many authors have indicated an integral link between a person’s personality and the functions of the prefrontal cortex.

So is that where my drawings belong? Probably not. I’m storing this one there though. Maybe there’s lots of storage space in there.

These pictures are from the Franklin Park Conservatory in Columbus, Ohio. I was there last May. OK. I wasn’t there. Some previous iteration of Kathy was there and she took these pictures and never got around to posting them and then her life exploded and the pictures are still there, because they survive life explosions whether you like it or not, and the pictures are still beautiful, even if the being at the Conservatory, thinking about being there is painful. So. Here they are…because interspersed about the pain there might as well be beauty. If I can stop the painful stuff and stare at the beauty, I might just get through yet another day.

Actually, I did today quite well considering. I am still sick, but really strangely…it’s in my ear canals, not my sinuses, so my balance is off and I’m still really spacey. It’s like being on mind-altering drugs mostly, and I get a little giggly. The kids think it’s funny, but honestly, it’s better than crying or being angry. I just couldn’t help myself today when kids were describing light vocabulary and were completely and totally off the mark, and all the kids in the audience would look at me confused, and I would just start laughing. So yeah. Maybe the best place to be on V-day is with a bunch of 12- and 13-year-olds, who still think that true love and your soulmate exist, and live for that one piece of chocolate or a little paper V-day card from that really special person.

Occasionally my piece-of-shit camera takes a decent photo.

Most of this is Chihuly glass, in case you don’t recognize it.

Anyway. Taking the ninja, drawing-storing brain to bed. It will have to deal. I still don’t feel well…but hopefully will feel better tomorrow. V-day and my lousy depression can kiss my ass, along with a few other things on the planet.

That Distant Feeling…

There are many questions and issues running through my head, and yet it is completely empty. It’s like a river running over there and I’m standing over here on the rocks, where it is dry and dead to the touch. I’ve pushed it all off over there, the water rushing past and tumbling over stones and making loud noises…but it’s all over there. I think that’s the meditation…watching from over here. Not judging it, not trying to fix it, just watching it. It’s one of the benefits of meditation, but I’m not sure it ever solves anything. Mr. Meditation talks about not judging how you feel, not wanting to change how the mind or the body feels, but just accepting it, being with that feeling.

Yeah, but that sucks, Mr. Meditation. I mean, I feel like I’ve been with this feeling for an awfully long time now, and I watch it, and it’s still the annoying asshole who doesn’t put the dishes in the dishwasher, who leaves trash out on the counter (hey, I’m describing my teenagers…my depressed mind is just like a teenager). When will it move out? When will it wander off and harass some other poor soul?

You don’t have an answer for me, do you?

Anyway. So I read and I meditate and I exercise, and today I can get the point of light to expand to my whole body by tricking my mind into not thinking about it, not forcing it. Somehow it works…for about 5 seconds and then the dark sucks back in.

When I left for school this morning, Midnight was sitting on the light table, right on top of the drawing I’m tracing, staring at me.

I’ll guard this for you. OK? When you come back, it will still be here (with my black hair all over it).

You can’t disappoint a cat like that. So I started tracing Wonder Under around 10:30 PM…

For a little over an hour. I’m up to piece 135 or so. There are only 300 and something pieces in this quilt. It’s not small, but the pieces are big and fairly simplistic. It’s not a bad piece to work on after all the monster hours of the Celebrating Silver quilt…none of the steps will take super long because there are fewer pieces. That’s probably a good thing. I will eventually have to plan my summer quilt…I’m still debating on that…internally. I have one that needs to be done by November, but it’s not super big. I like to do a big quilt over the summer. I might be able to do both…I haven’t figured that out yet.

I’m still sick, but not bad. It’s really far, over there…hey, like the issues and crap of the river. Maybe meditation pushes EVERYTHING over there. Bet that missing sock is over there too.

The problem with this state of mind is that I don’t like that distant feeling…it feels like I’m not in touch with anything, it’s all shaky and unreal. There’s nothing to ground me, to hold me to the earth. There’s nothing to hold onto. I’m a helium balloon floating away. The sky is endless. Not even the clouds will stop me. It’s like I don’t even exist.

So I keep making art. Maybe it will hold me to the ground long enough for my brain to come back. Maybe it will prove that I exist.

A Plethora of Shows

I keep forgetting to post about all the shows I’m in that have just opened or are about to open…I’m too busy writing blogposts for that group to post them on my own page (sad but true). In January, the California Fibers exhibit at Soka University in Aliso Viejo, California, opened. I have two pieces in that show, Earth Mother…

And Untied…

The exhibit runs through May 8. It’s only open Monday through Friday from 9-5. I haven’t even seen this exhibit, except in photos…it does have 66 pieces in it, so it’s a fairly large exhibit.

Then just opened this last weekend is the California Fibers show in Ojai, California, at the Beatrice Wood Center for the Arts, a much smaller space. The juror for Soka liked our work so much that he invited us to put a second exhibit on in a space he works for at the same time. Here is in Ojai at the moment.

NidaHere

The Ojai exhibit runs through March 30 and will include an artists’ panel on the closing day. I don’t think I’ll be at that…it’s a long drive and girlchild’s back surgery is only about a week before that. I can’t really commit to anything right now.

Then opening this Saturday at the Visions Art Museum is Coast to Coast, a joint juried exhibit between California Fibers and a group back east, New Image Artists…my quilt Buried Under is in this exhibit…

I will be at this opening, Saturday from 5-7 PM. This exhibit runs through April 19.

Then I also have two quilts at the Texas Quilt Museum in La Grange, Texas, as part of the People and Portraits exhibit. Both I Was Not Wearing a Life Jacket…

and Fully Medicated will be there through March 30.

I haven’t seen photos of this exhibit in situ yet…and I’m unlikely to make it to Texas in the next 6 weeks unfortunately…so will have to imagine what it looks like in a museum setting.

Anyway, if I seem a little off my head sometimes, more than usual, it might be because I’m trying to manage a lot of shipping of quilts and posting about shows for my groups, since I seemed to end up on publicity for both. It’s been a bit much the last month or so. But being in exhibits is a good thing, so you deal with the other stuff by telling yourself that. Some people say, well isn’t that why you make the art? So you can get it into exhibits? Actually, no. I make it because I have to…because I’d go truly crazy otherwise. The exhibits are just the thing you’re supposed to do when you’re an artist. Plus sometimes it actually makes me feel good to know my work’s out there.

So there we are.

A Gesture of Release

Girlchild got me sick. I knew it yesterday, felt it lurking. This morning, I felt spacey…all day, spacey…but not really sick. Still a sore throat, headachey. I’ve had my flu shot. Think this is just a cold, but it’s holding off…maybe I’m actually fighting the damn thing. Maybe I’ll feel like shit tomorrow…maybe not? I don’t know. I debated going to the gym…for two reasons. (1) I didn’t feel great and (2) I didn’t want to infect people. In the end, I went. I needed it for my mental and physical state, and honestly, I felt better after I went. I disinfected every machine I was on (but I made sure I touched every kid who is annoying at school…OK, not really…but we did joke about it). I got to work out and read, and I came home and felt OK for about 2 hours before the spacey/sore throat stuff came back. We’ll see what tomorrow feels like. If it’s going to take me down, I want it to do it quickly, so I’m better before my weekend hike (priorities).

Girlchild had a soccer game, but she didn’t go to practice because she was sick yesterday, so she didn’t play…I did watch the sky…

It was beautiful…although apparently I should have been looking behind the bleachers…

I stitched during the game…

I think these two are almost done…I think all I have to do is stitch around the eyeballs and put the eye buttons on. Oh wait. They need feet. Damn. That’s a bunch of bullion knots. That’s time. Then there’s only one more of the Month 3 birds to finish. Then on to Month 4. Yes, I’m slow, but guaranteed I was the only person stitching palestrina knots in that stadium. It’s progress…on something. I measure my entire life a little tiny bit at a time, progress on this project and that project. I got one stitch done here. I got 30 minutes done there. It’s proof that I have things to do, to keep me going.

Some days are like that. What’s the one thing I can work on today that will let me feel like I’ve accomplished something decent? Not grades. Not dishes.

I came home to this…

There was a phone number too. It was shoved in the door handle. I too need joob and don’t know where to look. Lupe needs to be more specific.

After dinner (late), I organized all the financial aid paperwork; I’m missing three signatures from the boychild and then everything can go. Then I ironed his interviewing clothes…it’s Columbia tomorrow, he hopes the last interview. Probably true. Who knows. Then we wait. Apparently my brother and SIL are placing bets on what schools he will get into of those he’s applied to…better than the woman I hiked with who was the Queen of Negative Thinking about college apps. Whatever. He’ll get in somewhere, and that somewhere will have to be good enough at least for the first year. Am I worried? Of course. I’m mom. I worry. I’m Kathy. I worry. I will worry less in a couple of days when these damn envelopes are gone.

I meditated. That was not-so-good. I’ve spent the last 10 days trying to visualize a point of light in the center of my chest, warm and bright like the sun, which is supposed to expand and spread to fill my whole body. I suck at this. I start the spread and then black tarry stuff from my fingers and toes starts to encroach on sunny brightness and swallows it. Yesterday and today it was tears, oceans of tears, turning the sunlight into steam, covering it up, drowning it. I was trying so freakin’ hard to force the light to spread, and I finally stopped. I let it just sit at the size it could be in me right then, about the size of a cantaloupe. Interestingly, this is supposed to be an openness to creativity, which is not something with which I have a problem…so there’s just something about that meditative avenue that is causing me grief. Seriously weepy grief. Sometimes you just have to let the mind do its thing and you watch it and try to learn from it, but trying to force the change is not going to be a successful endeavor.

Then it was late and I had to choose…sleep? Or artmaking? I learned my lesson last night…I didn’t spend much time tracing, but I did spend some…

I got motivated after working on that drawing last night to finally restart the tracing on the mammogram quilt. I think I just need to have multiple projects in the works so I can pick and choose when I’m in a mood…something easy, something hard? Something that is totally engaging vs something that is more light and simple? Tracing isn’t usually easy, but it is engaging. And it helped. I was already a bit distant and numb from the gym experience (too many days of crying at the gym lately), so I guess I’m even more into that hole, but I’m not sure it’s a bad thing at the moment. It just is.

I committed to another challenging hike in March…looking forward to it, although I’m a little nervous about it…less so now that I know it is less elevation gain than San Miguel, but I don’t kid myself…it won’t be easy. It will be worth it, though. I made a comment on the last hike about dispelling demons from the tips of my fingers as I walked, and I think maybe I need to think of a way to do that for real, like a symbol of that maybe? I think this would be a good hike for that, although I don’t know if I feel comfortable with doing that with a bunch of mostly strangers (I know a few people who will be on the hike, but not well). We’ll see. Maybe. It’s on my mind…ritual to remove sad? Not a wake, not a memorial, but something more in the dirt. Thinking about it. How to persuade the brain to release things…a gesture of release?

Meanwhile, my gestures are in the art world…releasing grief and sad and even anger through the drawings. The guns, they’re about anger and pain…not hurting myself, but trying to mitigate hurt done on me. Trying to make it hurt less by drawing hurt? I can’t really explain how my brain is working…but it is trying to work through some of these things with symbols, images of things that hurt…thorns, cuts, tears, wounds…another gesture of release? Who knows.

The Mental Health Trifecta

I was going to go to bed an hour and a half ago, but realized as I sat down at the computer to write a post that I was depressed. I mean, yeah, I’m always depressed, but I was more so than usual. I spent most of the day running around doing errands or digging holes (seriously) or grading papers or inputting grades, and it wasn’t a very satisfying day. I don’t get any jollies out of all that shit, and in the old days, I would just shake that off and assume tomorrow would bring something better, and it usually did. Not so now. Because it usually doesn’t bring something better unless I force the issue.

And yes, it means less sleep, but I’ve said before that sleep doesn’t really make me happy. Well, at the moment, nothing makes me happy, but sleep doesn’t even bring peace. Or something approaching contentment…because that’s the closest I get to happy now. Happy is way over there. I don’t even recognize it. It’s wearing a disguise.

Anyway. So I stood up, went and got a drink of cold milk (because the girlchild infected me with the first illness I’ve had in 8 months and my throat hurts), and went in to the light table. I had recopied some drawings I call the triptych, which is interesting, because there are currently only two parts, not three, and I was originally planning on making three quilts that would hang next to each other, and now I think it should just be one really wide one that’s not very high. Not a triptych at all. Whatever. Maybe I’ll just call it that anyway to confuse people. I had tried taping it together a few months ago and it was a fucking disaster…nothing would line up and I just gave up. I needed to tape it together to finish it…I couldn’t see it all any more because it was on multiple pages and I couldn’t hold it all in my head.

So I recopied it. And I taped the two sections together, starting with the easier one…

Feb 10 14 006 small

It has fewer lines that have to meet up, so it taped together really well…and then I did the other one, the pain-in-the-ass-from-before one…

Expecting the worst. Except it worked. I think part of it was that I only enlarged it 200% this time instead of 250%. OK, I don’t know why that would make a difference, except that it takes fewer pieces to enlarge to the smaller size, so there’s less room for things to get out of alignment. That’s my current guess anyway.

I had originally drawn some connections between the two, so I redrew them on top (mostly because I couldn’t get the leaves above to behave on the copy they were on, so I cut them all off and used the other ones, so then I had to add what I had already drawn on the other page…confused? I’m not…and I’m the one who counts on this one).

So right now, I have a drawing that is about 68″ wide and 28″ high. I’m debating adding onto the left and a little on the right…and some below. Because that’s not crazy or anything. This thing has potential. I might be able to get my butt in gear and actually DO something with a purpose if I can get this to the next stage. Maybe.

I don’t have much focus at the moment. There’s no deadline that’s pressing on me. There probably should be one, but it hasn’t become urgent yet. It will.

I was drawing this disaster last night…the arm is wrong, the feet are wrong, the whole thing is a mess…

But I like y’all to see that I draw things, get this far, bang my head on the table, and move on. I may try again, but leave enough room for the feet to point the right direction or redirect the legs, and make sure the arm doesn’t look like it’s been attached after the fact…OR…make it REALLY look like it’s attached after the fact. Whatever. I was tired. And apparently coming down with sick. So there. You want to get better at drawing? Do LOTS of it. Assume about 90% will be awful. If you do better than that? You’re awesome. And then do it for lots of years, over and over again.

There. Now I don’t have to teach classes, because that’s all I would ever say…go make some art. Then make some more. Assume some of it is bad and will never see the light of day. Now make some more. Keep making it. Don’t stop. Get angry about some of it. Doubt yourself and your work. Occasionally take a deep breath and know you did good. Then do another one that sucks. There. You’re an artist.

I also dug some holes today…the septic tank got clogged again and we couldn’t even get showers or flush a toilet…which is a problem. You know. The leach field is being replaced on Friday, but we can’t really go without showers, toilets, and running water for that many days, so I had to pay to get it pumped again. This has been a really nasty shitty year for expenses. I keep breathing deep and deciding what job I’m getting for the summer…who will hire me for just 8 weeks? I don’t know.

I needed to save the $100 they would charge me to unearth the tops of the septic tank pumpouts…exciting stuff. So I shoveled myself…

Anyway. The plus is that my brain is in a better place after an hour of cutting up bits of paper and taping them to each other. Seems crazy if you ask me, but it’s a special mental state my brain goes into when it’s doing certain artmaking activities. It has to evaluate what it’s doing and it gets engaged with the process and the line itself and lining things up, and it really is a magical thing. Now if I could just get rid of that damn eye twitch…it’s back. I think it will leave when I finally get all the financial aid stuff out of the house. I hope. Or not. But at least I’m in a better frame of mind to go to sleep…I wish I didn’t have to keep reminding myself of the mental health trifecta. I seem to have the first two down pat…exercise and meditation…I just need to keep the third one in mind…make art, you silly woman, or you will be even unhappier.