In My Head, There Are Wobbles

I’m reading a book that is a lot like many other books I have read. There is a person who wants one thing and is forced to follow what’s expected of him, until they try to kill him, and then he becomes something larger or better. I can’t decide whether or not I like the book because the plot is so standard, and yet it’s not, because of the specifics of the story. I want to keep reading, because I’m interested, but I already think I know the gist of what will happen.

This is like the opposite of my life. I don’t know what will happen. My story is pretty typical (OK, except for the part where I stay up all night and make art while y’all cuddle with your pillows and mammalian bedfellows), and maybe I’m the character with the crippled hand or the one sold to slavery by her uncle. Where I’ve left the characters now is huddled in a tiny, hot, dark room, waiting for the command to rush out and vengefully kill everyone who wronged them, to somehow right all the wrongs with violence and death.

I don’t know why my brain is focusing on this now…in my head, there are wobbles. Hazy areas that I travel through where the brain just sort of wanders off and explores weird ideas (yes, art comes from this). It’s hard to let it wander freely, though, because I have a counselor who tells me that those wanders are often what pulls me back into the serious bit of depression that I seem to be having a hard time shaking. That part of my brain tends toward the negative, the depressoid, the hopeless. Unless I’m outside hiking. Or staring at my sketchbook. Then it can still be unhappy or dissatisfied, but the clean fresh outdoor air pulls that black smoke out of my head and it disperses in the sky. I can almost watch it. If you hike with me, you’ll hear it…you’ll hear me take a few giant breaths, great big sighs, like it’s a relief to finally be in this place (because it is). I can’t explain that.

The drawing, the sketchbook…hell, I just draw the damn wobbles. I draw the negative. I draw the pain. I draw it and then it is less in my chest. It’s less in my heart (my heart, so small, so broken).

While I’m waiting in this tiny, hot, dark room, looking for vengeance? I don’t want that. I just want an explanation. I want answers. I want it all to make sense, and the fact is, it probably doesn’t make sense. It’s someone else’s messed-up brain that caused all my pain, someone else’s delusions. And you can’t do anything about what someone else’s brain is thinking if they won’t listen to you. If they aren’t paying attention. That’s their deal. These are the wobbles.

It’s been really hot here this week, up to 100 degrees. I can handle the heat, but it makes it hard to hike. We joke in my hiking group about going earlier and earlier (I think in August that means we hike at night and not during the day…I do have a headlamp!). I have a hike for tomorrow, when it’s supposed to cool down to 83 (wow)…and I’m a little concerned, but will take plenty of water. It’s a big group tomorrow, which I’m not thrilled about, but my regular group is all training for Mt. Whitney, so they’re up in Idyllwild doing San Jacinto…and I’m not. I’ll still be on the PCT tomorrow, though. And yes, I still have two hikes to report about, but this weekend really has a huge pile of to-do messing up its pretty, so who knows if I’ll get to that.

Yesterday I was tired, so I didn’t post. I survived work by being a little on the crazy side. I’m leaning more and more that way as we get to the end of the year. Keeps the kids on their toes. Keeps me from crying in class. After counseling I had told myself I had to go test drive cars. I need to make a decision, and my parents are helping because I am significantly poor (ask UC System…they said I was) and can’t afford to fix the old car, let alone buy something that won’t die tomorrow. So I drove. I, who hates dealing with salespeople, went to three different dealers and told them what I wanted to drive, and did that, and then they all tried to double-team me and force me to buy TODAY TODAY TODAY and I did the tough old lady thing and gave them all fake phone numbers (OK, I didn’t actually do that, but I thought about it) and walked away. So we have a plan and Dad is helping me because I basically said I couldn’t deal. I had too much other crap to deal with, so he’s looking and he’ll be my filter. I need that. I need someone to be my secretary, my assistant, my aid. Too bad he can only do the car stuff.

By the time I got home, it was after 6. I graded, I cooked, I exercised, and the girlchild finally came home and that was explosive. I get tired of people not listening to what I’m saying, not respecting anything I’m saying. It was too close to all the shit that’s in my head about the last year, about not being respected, not being a part of the conversation. Except she’s 16 and that’s normal for the mom/teen girl relationship. So I walked out.

And came in here and then went in the kitchen and washed all the dishes and the boychild came in and confirmed that I wasn’t crazy. Thanks kid. Who’s gonna do that when you’re gone?

So then I ironed…

Oh wait! You know what’s funny? I didn’t iron anything. I’m still trying to find all the flesh pieces on the main figure, so I spent 48 minutes sorting and trying to place them by color value…you can see above that fabrics 1 and 2 in the flesh range are where all the big pieces are (the one on the top left is cracks…the fabric for all the cracks; flesh 1 is actually the second from the left on the top row). I have all of the body picked out and sorted…now I just need to do the face and THEN, only THEN can I start ironing. That’s my goal for tonight. And when I actually start ironing, it will probably take me two hours just to do that, so I might need to budget my time carefully. (MIGHT?)

Today is not a free day. It has things poking into it that have to be done. I can be lackadaisical about school planning because I’ve taught this stuff for 12 years now and although I tweak stuff, I’m not starting from scratch. I do still have to deal with a bunch of college and tax stuff, though, and then there’s grocery shopping and the gym.

But I will finish ironing that damn body today if it kills me (it might).

The funny thing is that I’m not done picking all the bits INSIDE the body: the lungs, heart, weird tattoos, the uterus, all the details I stuff into the body shape…

Because they will be all different colors, so I just put them aside until the main figure is done. Because there isn’t room on the damn ironing board for all that right now anyway. All those pieces? They’re all waiting for me to finish ironing the body. The body has pieces from the 700s-1300s. I’m finally in the 1200 bin, searching for flesh pieces, but it was midnight last night and my brain was tired and I knew I would have to get up at a reasonable hour this morning and deal with piano recital. So I decided to embrace sleep for once.

But then I had to cover the ironing board so the cat couldn’t jump up on it. I’m super paranoid that she’s going to knock the whole thing down at the moment…

This is probably the biggest reason I want to get the flesh done today.

I don’t know what occupies YOUR brain when you are trying to wake up on a Saturday morning or go to sleep on a Friday night, but this is what mine does. I know you’re jealous.

I forgot to post this picture of my daughter’s Christmas stocking that I started before she was born (yes, she is now 16), just to keep documenting the Incredibly Slow Progress I’m making at my monthly stitching meeting.

Yup. That’s a lot of cream colored thread. I’m amazed by how slow this is. Maybe I should stitch the damn leaves first and then stitch around them with the cream? Fuck. I’ll think about it NEXT month.

More progress next post…fewer wobbles maybe. Or maybe the wobbles will be let out onto paper or into the sky. Need more of that. Certainly I will have finished the book where the once and future king with the crippled hand is in the dark hot room, waiting to kill his uncle…and then maybe I’ll know how my own story will go.