So there’s really only one way to prove I’m feeling better, that I’ve finally gotten over the nasty hump of this illness:
Yup. Making art again. So even though I was still running a nasty fever Sunday night, even though I thought I was better Saturday, even though I spent most of yesterday wondering if I’d be well enough to go back to school today with only half a lung functioning (I’ve coughed up the other half…into the sink…I saw it), I am finally on the mend. I’m still coughing. I’m still not well. I’m still not completely physically back (there’s no way I’m hiking in the next week…I’m aiming for the gym on Saturday morning, and taking it easy), but I can stand to trace Wonder Under. So that’s where I’m at…and some angelic soul found me Season 5 of Walking Dead, the bits that aren’t on right now, so I’m watching that while tracing. I got in a good two hours tonight…not how I really wanted to spend the hours, but it will do.
I should have been grading papers. But I went to work today AND I graded for like 6 hours yesterday AND I spent an hour and a half tonight moving files around and sending them to my students, so I don’t feel bad. I worked more hours in the last two days than I got paid for, as usual. The universe owed me a couple of hours of artmaking. And now I feel better about progress on these quilts.
Kitten even came out and held down the paper for me…
cuz that’s really helpful, Kitten. Really helpful. I had all three cats in the room at one point. Not bad.
They weren’t easy pieces to trace…two hours to do just over 100 pieces…most of them flames and waves, very convoluted and complicated pieces. I do like me some flames and waves, that’s for sure.
Girlchild was allowed back on the field on Friday (long story…she’s a bit of a thug, apparently)…I think I was mostly conscious during that game…
Tomorrow night is Senior Night, so her dad and I have to stand out on the field and listen to them read the statement I wrote (after the ex sent me a starter paragraph to destroy) about the girlchild…and she said I should make her cry. Unfortunately, it means I probably will too…dammit. It’s strange knowing it’s the LAST season…a relief in some ways, especially with high school soccer, which has just been an incredible trial to all of us. The coaching…the girls…it will be a relief, truly, to leave that behind. But realizing that next year at this time, she won’t even be around…that’s a little harder to stomach, and that’s what will make me cry out there, plus the part about how she refused to put her hair in a ponytail for the longest time, just cuz she was a stubborn little girl. Don’t know where she got that from.
So I guess with one day of actually feeling good, I’m a little crazy running a lab tomorrow (it’s an easy one) AND going to soccer afterwards…but it’s not like I have a choice. This is life and it keeps coming, and you can spend days and days in bed (I did), and life will still be there…and so will the art. My FFAC quilt made it to Florida and I received one from Jette Clover, which I am infinitely pleased with, and need to get a frame, so I can get it on the wall, along with a bunch of other art that just needs to get hung. I do feel bad that I kinda lost two three-day weekends to being ill, but so be it. Moving on. I received applause today from my classes for announcing that I refused to grade anything over my birthday weekend, so all their makeup work was due next Friday…I don’t know if they were applauding me for putting my foot down or for reaching another birthday…it’s hard to say. And most days, I can’t remember how old I am anyway…which is truly sad.
So back to our regularly scheduled art events…looking forward to making more. Which reminds me, sounds like I will have a show at Grossmont College with one other artist, a sculptor, in 2016…my first…um…it’s not a solo; is it a duet? Hard to say…so you locals will have to come to the opening and support me, because this is going to be kind of scary for me…I have no shortage of pieces to fill the space, of course. Someone asked me how many quilts I had made, and I said “over 50″…but you know what? It’s 94. And there are a couple that are made but not “finished” for a variety of reasons…and yes, that includes all the birds and some other smaller things, but that’s a lot of art quilts. Those are the art quilts…not the baby quilts or the ones that hang on my kids’ walls or the landscape quilts that I made for a variety of bridal showers and donation events and my sister-in-law that I never really cataloged. They’re not all awesome…but there’s a lot of them. So here’s to making 94 more…
Kathy Nida 