Trying to Find the Way Out.

The boychild trying to amuse me in the morning (because he didn’t take the recycling out again): Shows me his super-expensive (required by the course) graphing calculator, which you can program to do certain functions, pushes a series of buttons and tells me to hit enter: his calculator then tells me it sees dead people. Sigh. Grin. This because last night Calli (the Golden Retriever) seemed to either be scared of her shadow in the entryway or telling me there were ghosts outside the door. Not sure which. Put her to bed so I wouldn’t have to think about it. Then thought about the fact that my protector, the dog, is hiding behind ME. Hmn.

I’m trying to control parts of my life so that the uncontrolled parts don’t feel so vast and empty. In trying to explain yesterday to one class why kids cut themselves (yes, teaching sex ed covers a wide range of topics, including suicide and depression and cutting), I tried to talk about the need for control, and how in some people, it gets messed up. That their need for control is so strong and their own lives are so out of control, that what they choose to control seems crazy to the rest of us (anorexia, bulimia as well). I left school and went and controlled some stuff (refi’d my mortgage). Then went home, where the chaos reigns, and tried to deal. I can control the errands. After that, it’s questionable.

My knee is having major problems. This is not good. I’m not hiking until it stops. I may need to deal with a doctor on this one. It sucks. I hate that the body gets in the way of treating the mind, because hiking and walking treats my mind, the depression, and I’m not going to be able to do that for a while. Not sure how long. Hate this.

Girlchild had her followup back appointment, post-surgery. She’s cleared to start soccer practice and running in two weeks. She was hoping to be cleared yesterday, so she ended up being depressed about that. Mad because I had scheduled it then and not when she would be allowed to play. I don’t think that’s how we planned it, but whatever. So it was a weird day, because I only taught half the day, but I had to get up early and deal with freeway traffic and crap.

Back to that place where it feels like the sky is pressing down on your shoulders, blocking your ability to breathe. It feels like a heavy blanket…ironic, because it is a beautifully sunny day out there, it’ll be in the mid-80s. It’s spring going into summer in Southern California…where depression feels completely out of place, because nature just laughs at you. Not only am I going to fuck your KNEE up, but I’m going to make it a beautiful day! So fuck you. Wow. I see how it is.

I try to pull myself out of these. I was dancing in 6th period to 70s funk (some of the kids know some of it). I graded a bunch of journals when I got back early from the doctor’s appointment. I can’t send my sub home early, so I might as well use that time. My goal was to not have to work last night. Turns out I didn’t have the energy anyway.

I did manage some cutting, about an hour (it’s always about an hour…).

It’s getting there. The pile in the middle, the to-be-cut pile, is getting noticeably smaller. There’s a lot of big fleshy pieces in there now, which are easier for me to cut (and deal with mentally). For some reason, the small tiny bitchy pieces just depress me. I pick up a piece with a ton of tiny pieces on it and I just feel overwhelmed. But when I pick up a huge piece that probably has just as much complicated cutting going on, it seems more doable. Makes no sense. I haven’t managed to go back to ironing the other one together either. I’m just too tired these days. Ironic. I’m sleeping more. The other side of depression? Sleep instead of wakefulness? Or something else? I’m always having to second-guess what my body is doing. And the brain. What does THIS mean? What did I do to cause this? Blood sugar, sleep, weight issues. All so uncontrollable. Maybe I will have to clean something to make it better in my head.

I enjoy some parts of journal grading. It really is a relief to grade a perfect journal…

and then some of them are so creative…

Guess which one was done by a girl and which one was done by a boy. I wish that weren’t so obvious, but it often is. Not always.

I think my mood is connected to something disappointing that happened at school, disappointing because of the kids involved and because I had just talked to them about the three results of bullying in middle and high school: 1. the kid just deals with it and moves on. 2. the kid attempts to or succeeds in killing him or herself. 3. the kid stockpiles guns and comes back to school and kills you for being an asshole. (I don’t use those exact words, but…) And then it doesn’t seem to matter what teachers say, because they still do that shit and consequences still happen. So I already know I have to go to school today and be visibly and verbally disappointed in behaviors that are totally normal in our society (our brains really are fucked-up messes) for reasons of control. Because if you feel like less of a person, then you turn around and make someone else feel worse.

It’s OK, guys. My brain is doing it FOR you. You don’t have to do a thing. I can bully myself.

I will find a way out of this shit. I swear. I don’t want to live in here. I want to live somewhere else. Like out there. Where the sun is shining and the birds are singing. I can hear them; I just can’t find the way out there. Seriously, that was last night’s dream, running around school hallways, trying to find the way out, trying to find my kids (my students). I don’t know what that’s about.

An article about the Quilt National exhibit in San Jose is here.

An article about the Earth Stories exhibit in Michigan is here.

My work is in both, but you can only see mine in the second article.

Earth Stories: The Reveal

So I meant to post this ages ago, but life always gets in the way. Because the exhibit is finally open (Kathryn, that was like so three weeks ago), I can post pictures of the whole Earth Stories piece. The larger quilt is 72″ square and is called Wise Choice…

There’s a lot going on in this quilt…and I did actually go back and add ink after the photos were taken (don’t tell)…

There was a lot of gray, except for this section.

Lots of crazy details too…

Tiny little pieces abound…

It’s in Michigan right now at the Michigan State University Museum through November 26…

So you can see all those crazy tiny details up close…I really like that fetal skelly…

The smaller one is 12×14″ and is called Planting Choice…

It’s still got crazy tiny pieces in it…

I guess that’s how I roll…

It took from March through September of last year to get these done…they should be traveling for a while, so hopefully you’ll get a chance to see them. I’ll put show updates on the Current Shows page as I get them. There is also a catalog available on the SAQA website, plus you can see all the other quilts there too.

You Don’t SOUND Fine…

I’ve never been a fan of the question “How are you?” People don’t really want to know how you are. They want to hear “I’m fine, how are you?” and then you move on to such other niceties as the weather and the kids. “Good morning,” also drives me nuts. I don’t do mornings well. I have learned how to mostly behave in these situations and parrot the appropriate words, but there are times when I wish I could just tell the truth. I had this conversation with a friend recently and it was nice to know that I’m not the only one thinking that all the time, but I wonder why we still go along with it. People don’t want the deeper relationship that means telling the truth. They don’t want to know that I slept OK, but only because I spent an hour or so last night drawing demons out on paper, and before that I had to meditate AND exercise, and that before that, right after I walked in the door, I was curled up in a ball in bed, in my flannel nest (it’s June in Southern California…I might have to give up on flannel soon, but dammit…that’s my NEST…it’s safe there), crying my eyes out because…well…teenagers. Girlchild knocked on the door at one point and said, “Mommy, are you OK?” “I’m fine.” “You don’t SOUND fine.” And yet I am. As fine as I was the day before and the day before that. Fine is some measure of average for the last X number of days. This is fine. It could be worse.

I’m back in the bathtub. (A series!) This image showed up in my head a few days ago, persistently and violently enough that I typed a description of it into my phone. I don’t remember where I was, but it was entirely inappropriate to be drawing bathtub pictures wherever I was.

It’s not quite done. I think there needs to be a rug on the floor and maybe a dog or cat, or both, curled up on it. Maybe. Back to visualizing different parts of the brain interacting with each other. Except one is asleep. Or unconscious. Don’t let Freud into my head. I won’t come out alive. I like how the water hides stuff.

I was up late last night because girlchild was at her first concert without adults…she wanted One Republic tickets for Christmas, so we bought three and she took two friends.

And I was the parent in charge of making sure kids got home…it’s late afternoon now, nope, almost evening, and she is zonked out in her bed…she’s supposed to be going to her dad’s house and I need to go to the gym (but I need my blood sugar to stabilize before I go). I will need to wake her up soon or she will never go back to sleep tonight (there’s a temptation to just let her sleep all night, eh?).

My mood is in that place, that empty place. I wonder how I get from uber-sad and down and done with the world to this flat place. It’s Flatland. There’s nothing as far as the eye can see. It’s just flat dirt, no rocks or plants, nothing in the sky to give you a heads up on where you are or whether you’re moving at all. Everything is flat and dead. Maybe I cried it all out yesterday. There’s no emotion here. It’s just empty.

Last night, I was being watched…by Kitten.

She is now coming out of my room at night to hang out in the living room with me and Midnight and sometimes Calli (they actually called her Calliope at the vet today…I had forgotten that was her name…Kitten’s name is really Holly…even more confusing). She hides from Babygirl…doesn’t like her. Barely tolerates Midnight…at least they can be in the same room together. I feel like I’m negotiating with enemy forces when dealing with the cats.

I had the chiropractor again yesterday, only two weeks after the last one…because the last one was so bad. It’s better now, but I got to be on the roller table again…

Yup, that sucker is ANCIENT, but feels delightful. It’s called the Spinalator…

which just makes me laugh.

See, I can laugh. And draw. And mostly teach and function OK, though not well…just OK. My decision-making powers are not great. I read a lot. I hibernate a lot. I don’t want to deal with things I should probably be dealing with. But I exercise and meditate and feed everyone and go to work every day. I have a to-do list and I try to do the things on it. I try to be normal. Well, normal for me.

So how am I? Huh. I don’t know today. That flat thing. I’m tired. I need to go to the gym. I need to work. I need to make art. At least I know those things. I don’t know much else. I guess that’s fine.

I’m Never Where I Want to Be…*

I spent over 8 hours yesterday grading. The night before, I spent about 5 hours. Today, I’ve already spent 3 hours dealing with school stuff, although not all of it grading. It’s time to pay the piper? It’s not pretty, that’s for sure. I’ve still got at least another 6 hours just in science journals probably, and I think I’m officially about to kill someone. This isn’t healthy. I am trying to get it all out of the way so I can get some art brain on this week, because I’m still wallowing in deep sad shit from hell in my brain; in fact, the responsible part of my brain just stood up from her chair, where she is quite sensibly knitting a scarf (I don’t knit) in scrubs (I don’t own scrubs), and she pulled the curtain around the bed where the rest of my brain is connected to tubes and looks quite beat up, and she told me that now is not a good time. Come back later.

Well. OK then. I need to draw. Or something. There’s no fucking time! Groceries and errands and organizing shit and someone needs to take the tux back (boychild) and I’m supposed to go to a work thing tonight and probably I should bring a gift but I don’t have a clue what and then I’m supposed to go over and pick some stuff up from my parents.

Let’s talk realistically about how much can get done in one day (not much).

Last night, black cat (hard to see) lying upside down on the couch near the pile of crap I was grading…

See that pile of notebooks? That’s one class. One of my smaller classes. I have five classes. It was a long night. And then when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t fall asleep.

I did try to settle my brain before bed. I cut stuff out for a little less than an hour…

Left pile gets higher. Middle pile gets smaller. See the uterus? And I think heart parts are on top of it. Yes, I keep all the trimmings until the end. I am well known for dropping real pieces into that box by accident. Didn’t I say something about being done this week? What a joke. I’m over 14 hours.

I took breaks during the day…I did go to the gym, where I finished this…

So I’ve read both Hyperion books now (yes, I know there are more)…and I really liked them. When I didn’t hate them. When I wasn’t slogging through vocabulary and world-building that was heavy and torturous. Yup. I know. It doesn’t sound like a recommendation but it is. Just because something is challenging to read doesn’t mean it’s not worth it. These are worth it. This is a book club selection for me, and strangely, the book club organizer has set up the next meeting by saying it’s going to be about why we shouldn’t have read these. Interesting.

Then I got the boychild ready for prom and followed him somewhere to take pictures…

He went with a group of kids (this is a small portion of the group)…

And I planted some stuff that was going to die if I didn’t plant it soon. So I took breaks. But it still sucked. I’d like to say I got a lot done (and I did), but there’s still so much to do and I am just behind all the time.

I had plans for today and they all got fucked up. Sigh.

I’m trying so hard not to feel like this all the time. I have all these inner conversations that just suck, and during the last 2 minutes of meditation, when he says to let my brain go and do what it wants, it literally SCREAMS at me, at the top of its brainy little lungs, just full on screaming. That can’t be good.

So last night, as an additional break between grading, I read this…

Short. Really good. Made me cry. I guess the Wall Street Journal might make me cry right now too, but this was good. Sigh. Took me 11 days to read The Fall of Hyperion and less than 12 hours to read this one. Take what you want from that.

Boychild is mad that I’m posting that picture. He’s mad that I won’t take his tux back for him. He’s mad that I exist at the moment, although I did all the grocery shopping for him. So. Whatever. Teenagers. Sheesh. Oh yeah, and he’s only had 2.5 hours of sleep and he’s NOT cranky (my ass).

I’m cranky and I had 7 hours…really shitty hours, but mostly sleeping. Maybe.

OK. Tonight. Sigh. More art, less work. After I go to a work-related party. Yeah. I know. But these are the good people. Maybe I will leave with the brain in a better place, cuz it ain’t there now.

*Peter Gabriel, Solsbury Hill (Sion’s fault)