In the Dark Backward and Abysm of Time

Shakespeare? Why not. I’m reading a book about World War II and time travel…Shakespeare was quoted. I don’t know yet if I like the book…but I liked the phrase. It’s a good description of trying to look back and figure out what happened in your life…and of what the brain does in depression. Of where you are. Of how hard it is to get out.

I worked on the drawing again tonight…

It’s not done and now it needs another page below it. I don’t know what it means. It’s about getting old…the body aging. It’s about depression. It’s about being in the dark backward. That would be a good name for a quilt: The Dark Backward. Missy’s in it. Lots of my animals show up in my quilts. They have wings when they die. I guess that symbolism is obvious. This one needs Christmas lights too, but first I have to figure out the sides. You can’t see in this picture, but the paper is sideways and there’s a lot of space on each side. I think I was originally going to have her sitting with her elbows on her knees, but now she’s not. I don’t know what’s going on now. I just know I need to draw down more. Then maybe I can figure out the sides. Dream about it. It’ll come.

I also spent some time going through two of the smaller sketchbooks, marking drawings for smaller quilts. I may go copy some of those this week, although…deep breaths about this week. Not worrying about what hasn’t happened, but planning would help, and I’m not doing a good job of holding my head together well enough to do that. The big extended family Christmas party was today…not fun. It’s OK. I only cried twice…so I managed control best I could…until I meditated, and then it all fell out. I cried through the whole thing. He wants me to reflect on my pattern of breath, which is freakin’ impossible when you’re sobbing, because your breathing is so completely fucked. Yeah. So.

I’ve completed 100 days of meditation. I think it’s helping. I don’t know if it’s that which gives me some distance, or if it’s the depression dampening all emotions except sad. I’m less reactive. But I’m going to say (and hope) it’s the meditation.

I have lots of good family photos from today. Somehow I managed that. I didn’t socialize much. I’ve never been good at that, even with my own relatives, but today I was fragile and couldn’t handle much of anything. Oh well. Moving on. Family photos will follow when I have time to go through them all.

Girlchild drove up and back, so I sewed some more…

Damn crazy birds will never be done. I think they’re almost all sewn down. I have 5 soccer games to go to in the next week; that’s a lot of potential sewing time. I also heard for the first time my daughter’s mom voice, as her cousin was kicking the back of her seat and she chastised him. That was amusing.

I know what my counselor will ask me about the party: “Did you have fun?” Not really. I enjoyed some moments, like the boychild analyzing pie cutting and giving me the physics equation for whether his cousin could be thrown down the cliff by a gust of wind. But I rarely have fun there. In 46 years, I think I’ve missed 3 of them: one year I was in the UK, one year I was pregnant with the boychild and really sick (he was born a week after Christmas, two weeks early…I spent most of the day asleep on the couch), and the one year two months after my husband and I separated…I just couldn’t handle it. I sent the kids with their grandparents. I was actually sick too, so I had a good excuse…really sick. But I also didn’t want to go. It’s the sense of failure, I fucked up, I couldn’t do it right. I have that now too. But then the smart part of the brain kicks in and reminds me of my kids and how amazing they are and my art and even sometimes my students, and I think I haven’t fucked up totally. I think that’s the hardest part of this time of year, being around all these couples and families and thinking you did it wrong, that you didn’t mean to do it wrong, but that’s how it turned out, and you really don’t know how to do it right and you’re not sure you ever will.

So I will just get through the holidays, the dark backward. I will just get through.

The sky’s been amazing lately…way more amazing than this photo…I seem to be pretty good at appreciating the sky. It’s hard not to look up at a beautiful sky and feel some sense of relief.

Distractions

Have you noticed that I haven’t been posting about emotions and grief and all that crap? I preloaded two benign posts (I put all the pictures in before we left Tuesday) so I could write two posts up in the mountains without having to think too hard. I figured I would have issues up there, and I did. The emotional stuff…it’s heavier now with the holidays. I was so relieved, even happy last year at this time about an issue that I thought was finally solved, that I could finally feel comfortable about the holidays and how we dealt with them, and I guess this year is proof that I knew nothing. That nothing is permanent or works out…and yes, I know that’s negative thinking, but the holidays sort of bring that out, you know? You have expectations, and this year, I had none…and I got that. Nothing. I got nothing that I really wanted, because who the hell knows what I want? I’m just moving through the days, doing the stuff people expect me to do, but not happy about any of it. Living in the moment? Really just trying not to think at all. That’s one issue I have with this concept of living in the moment…if you don’t look forward at all, you can’t change what’s happening. If you don’t look back, you can’t change where you are. In the actual moment, I don’t do anything but live THAT moment. And that doesn’t change anything for me. I need change. I need reflection.

We go to Lake Arrowhead every year for Thanksgiving. This year was no different.

We left Tuesday. The plus is that the girlchild wanted to drive and she’s fairly competent, so I sewed birds until we hit the mountain…

Calli slept in the back seat with the boychild…

She’s a very good car dog…

As long as you don’t mind her sleeping on you. She did have an extended back seat…we put the ice chest behind the seat and covered it with towels so she COULD sleep that way, but it’s more fun to be ON someone.

Traffic wasn’t bad. The weather was nice.

And I cried on and off. Music set me off. Plus the holiday itself. And stupid memories. Hard to shut those off. Just stitching, my brain has too much time to wander off into sentimental crap that won’t help it. It does it anyway.

I don’t feel good enough. I wasn’t good enough. I wasn’t the right thing. I know that’s not about me, but it doesn’t make it hurt less or feel better. It really just feels like shit. I wasn’t worth working for…and that’s happened twice now. Please don’t say “you’re better off…” because that just ignores the pain I’m in right now. It may be true…I certainly got there in my head post-divorce and still believe it, but it doesn’t make any of it feel any better while you’re living it. All those things we say and write…they are so meaningless, and sometimes downright cruel. Just say “I’m sorry.” That’s all you have to say. You can’t fix it, so don’t even try. There really isn’t anything you can say that will make it better. You can show me some lame comic off of Reddit or a stupid Vine video of BatDad…that might help…once.

On Tuesday night, the kids and I went to see Catching Fire…

It was good, although I almost ended up in the boychild’s lap during the baboon scene. He is very tolerant. I wrote this down during the movie, a quote from President Snow’s daughter: “Some day I want to love someone that much.” Snow answers, “And so you shall.” Even the movies conspire against me. I had a conversation with the boychild…something along the lines of, “you’ve watched your mom cry for 5+ months now…keep that in mind as you are dealing with women or anyone else in the future…don’t run away…make sure you communicate and be responsible for your actions…don’t you dare do something like this to someone else. It’s not OK.” He says he knows. In the moment? Who knows what he will do or think or feel. He is very kind to me, though. Then again, I’m mom.

This was Tuesday night’s sky. It helped, briefly. Nature helps. Beauty helps. Briefly.

I felt bad about writing about depression and grief on Thanksgiving, so I just didn’t write. I mean, I wrote here, but I didn’t post any of it. I was there with my family and friends and I should have been thankful for food and time off and people who love me, but I’m not. I’m in that mind space where I’m just surviving…I’m trying to tell that whiny voice in my head to shut up. I’m not reading blogs, because I can’t handle other peoples’ happy or thankful at the moment. I’m staying off Facebook…same deal. I have nothing good to say…all I can say is wow…this still sucks. Thus is depression, and it has its claws in me. I will get away, but not today. Today I will do what I need to do to get through, and I will try not to think about last year, because how can you now be thankful when you have less and what you have hurts all the time? And that is depression. It’s not something where I can just get up and make a decision to be OK. I have to work through it.

My dad gave me an article about the difference between being lonely and alone: I still feel lonely in a room surrounded by others. I’m not ready to go out and party. I’m still hurting and sad. It’s a sign of how deeply I was committed to what I had, how deeply I was hurt. Respect it. Let me find my own way, in my own time. I’m alone because that’s all I can handle. I’m lonely because I haven’t figured out how to fix that yet.

We came home today; I drove down the mountain. We had Pandora playing most of the trip off the girlchild’s phone, and tried a variety of ways to rig the speakers…this was NOT the best choice…

Boychild finally typed up his essays for the University of California college app (due tomorrow)…in the back seat of the car…

Calli had her head on the keyboard for part of it. He has now officially applied to two colleges…only eight to go (seriously). I’m feeling a little less stressed, or a little more stressed, depending on what part of his going to college I think about…paying for it or sending him off or having finally started the process or I don’t know. His actually getting in? Scary stuff. Paying for all of it while trying to budget for Christmas is a whole ‘nother issue.

We switched drivers at the bottom of the mountain (I get carsick easily, plus didn’t want to white-knuckle the trip down in the rain)…

Calli was awake for that (briefly).

Then I went back to sewing, in the rain this time…this is where the speakers ended up…

More crying on the way home. Girlchild notices…doesn’t say a word. I cried on the way up because she had been yelling at me, typical teenaged stuff, but I just couldn’t handle it. On the way back, I don’t even know what set me off…songs…the trip…my brain. She said sorry on the way up. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.

I didn’t manage meditation up there at all…too tired by the end of the day. I think we saw three Avengers movies in the last 5 days, plus lots of people and food (more about that later). I really should have meditated, but would have just fallen asleep in the middle of it. I kept having dreams and nightmares…mostly dreams that turned into nightmares…makes sleep a bad place to be. The house was on fire, I kept going back for stuff, someone was helping me. Kids were little; I grabbed electronics and chargers. I couldn’t get to my sketchbooks, clothing, or meds. Calli was the last thing I grabbed. The house gets sprayed by something, but it’s not helicopters, it’s people flying through the air with their arms outstretched, spitting water from their mouths. It’s not enough. I woke up terrified. That was the nightmare. I couldn’t remember the dream by the time I had typed that out.

I meditated tonight, a relief really (remember that), but with a cat on my lap, squawking at me and kneading my thighs with her claws, while the dog cried at me with her ball, wanting me to throw it, headbutting me until I petted her. While breathing. While counting my breaths. While noting my emotions. While crying. Meditation with interruptions is still better than no meditation at all.

Mr. Meditation says I need to allow my emotions the space they need to exist. I think I do that. I don’t run away from them. They are part of human existence. We can’t control when they come and go. We can’t get away from them or control them. There needs to be a willingness to listen within. Listen to my own emotions and watch them and exist with them. If more people did that, I think there would be a lot less pain in the world. Fear of one’s own emotions seems to cause an awful lot of stupid behavior.

Despite all the bad mental stuff over the last three or four days, I found myself today being grateful for the art. I’ll write tomorrow about what I’ve gotten done, but better than that…I currently have 9 pieces out for shows, either in shows right now or traveling to a show that will open soon. I have 4 pieces guaranteed for shows in the next few months, another one that I will finish in the next few months that has a guaranteed traveling exhibition starting next winter, and another one I haven’t even started that will be in a show next January. There is no shortage of work in my head that wants to be made…one was crying out to be drawn during meditation today and I ignored it…at least for now. The art brain is there, it’s active, it’s holding my head out of the water. The art brain doesn’t mind being alone…it’s the non-art brain that gets lonely. The two don’t exist apart from each other, unfortunately though, so I have to help one to help the other…at the moment, the art brain is ruling the roost…it hears the other part, but it knows that the art will get me through…so it keeps making and dragging that part of the brain along with it. They don’t often get along, the two pieces of my brain, but they do know to take care of each other…give art brain ample time to create, but let the rest of my brain have a life outside of art, and they will both be happy. Right now I will settle for one part being hard at work and somewhat distracted by that. For now.

Not in Focus

My camera was taking blurry pictures earlier this evening. Seems my fingerprint was smeared across the lens. I feel that way all the time, blurry, not in focus. Trying to stay sharp, keep the important stuff in the front part of my mind (or on my electronic calendars, so I have some chance of remembering). Trying to get a hold on a new life, a new existence? Also fuzzy, unfocused. Can’t grab on to anything. If I’m not already doing it, it’s not getting done. Even as simple as changing up my exercise routine, per my health coach…sheesh…I think I need to write down the routines (type them on my phone, duh)…because it’s just too easy to keep doing the same thing. I don’t have the brain power to be creative at the gym. I’m all used up.

I’ll get there. I guess. I only have 5 more health-coach meetings. That’s OK. I think they’ve served their purpose. I’m trying to pick her brain as much as possible before then, though…types of exercise that are more useful, how many reps, what helps build muscle mass. Fun stuff. Something to focus on besides my lack of focus.

I had my monthly stitching meeting tonight. Nice people. Distracting. Good thing. Needed some. Distraction.

Noticed as I left that they all have uncolored hair…they all are naturally gray/white…unlike my work cohorts, who are all coloring their hair (if they’re old enough to think they need to). I fit in with the first crew…it’s going white and crazy all by itself (my hair, not the crew).

I finally finished this…

Now I have to frame it…it’s a gift. I’ve only taken about 4 years to get it done (started in June 2010…maybe May…so 3 1/2 years). Seriously. It means I’ll have to pick something new for the next meeting. Not a problem. I have no shortage of things in my stash, many already started. It’s more about the process than the product, obviously. I made a ton of mistakes on it, stopped reading the instructions a year ago. Oh well. No one but the designer would know.

I also finally pulled this thing out from under the cat the other night…

It was almost done…I had decided it needed another flower and leaf, so tonight I sewed some of that on. I’ll need to finish sewing on and do the embellishment…then I can sandwich and quilt this one. Probably not a huge priority, that part of it. It’s last year’s Block of the Month from Sue Spargo. I was so close to finishing. Oh well. The world’s not ending soon. I have time.

I managed to only feel sort of like shit on the way to and from the meeting…this has been a difficult drive for the last few months…too many memories. I can’t handle memories of good stuff, because it hurts too much to think about it being gone. There’s nothing replacing it. I’m not forgetful enough to disremember looking forward to the evening of stitching and what came after. I remember and my gut gets torn open. At least I could relax a little during the meeting itself. Forget a little. Much as I ever can.

Thought I would get some useful stuff done when I got home…not. I exercised and meditated (necessary), but my tired brain is telling me to go to bed, so I will do that soon.

Calli this morning…

She really didn’t want me to put her outside. Please mommy. I could just sleep HERE all day.

This is what you do with your leftover spiderweb stuff after Halloween…

Because he needed hair, that’s why. I also did the Can Can with a student. What’s funny is he went along with it. Sometimes I wonder…about them as much as me.

The reason I pulled that wool quilt out is because Babygirl was sleeping on it the other night…

So I gave her the boychild’s baby quilt instead. She seemed OK with that, but that’s what reminded me that I needed to finish the wool quilt. I guess that’s a good reminder.

The wonder of teaching middle school: I always tell the kids, “If the fat old lady can do it, then so can you,” especially when talking about exercise and homework and stuff like that. Today, one of my kids says, “Ms. Nida, who’s the fat old lady?” I answered, “Me.” He said, “You’re not fat.” “But I’m old?” He smiled. Sweet kid. I laughed. I guess I don’t qualify as fat any more. Nice to know (but I’m still old).

Bed time. Still not focused. Walking through fog. Slowly. Quietly.

A Slow and Sloppy Process

I didn’t think I would have the energy (mental or physical) to make art tonight, but my post-meditation mood was so dim and dreary that I knew I just had to push through that and do it. It’s the same stubborn streak that had me running cross country with multiple stress fractures in high school. Some people might call it driven, some might call it just plain stupid. I don’t know what it is, but I know I feel better with some art under my belt every night, so I just need to do it…just like I need to exercise, meditate, and apparently eat food (I’m not keen on the last one, but my body seems to require it).

So at 10 PM, I got my butt off the couch, wiped my face…multiple times, because I couldn’t stop crying for a while there post-meditation…and turned on the iron. Part of why I was apprehensive about starting so late is that the next section was hands…fingers…complicated little buggers…

But I decided to iron the arms off to the side and then put them on top of the legs, which worked pretty damn well. An hour later, I had both arms down about halfway up the biceps…

I’m about 200 pieces in, about 2 1/2 hours done. I like how it looks. More tomorrow.

While the pieces are laid out, I have to protect them from a cat lying on them, so I use the bins with sorted pieces to cover up all the other pieces…

Progress. Deep sigh. It really does feel better to do that. I need to write that down somewhere so I can remember. It seems like a duh moment, but some days, I really have a hard time remembering to do the things that make me feel better, push the misery off my shoulders and into the trash. Not that it will stay there, but it’s the thought that counts.

Midnight has been guarding my stuff…

Not really. She threw up on the Wonder Under and she leaves dirt everywhere…need to change her flea meds. I did clean up the light table, though, figuring I won’t be tracing Wonder Under for a while…need to finish these two quilts before the next one is due. Deadlines first, I guess…although there are two or three drawings from the last three months that are clamoring to be quilts. We’ll see…after December, when I get these two done.

I didn’t get much stitching done on the trip to Houston…I was more into reading, I guess.

But I did get some done…the backgrounds for the orange birds and getting the green birds sewn down…now they just need all their parts. I have another post to write about the vendors and shopping at IQF and some other stuff…like the apparent milk shortage in Houston.

Today, I had my students study these…

Sheep hearts (reasons why science teachers need cutting boards, hot water, gloves, and big knives). MMM MMM Good. Not really. Lots of squealing and some stupid behavior. It gets them ready for the eyeballs, which are way more gross and gooey and squirty. Two more labs this week…exhausting, lots of cleaning up after students. They will survive. I might too. Who knows?

I finished a couple of books on the trip…Elizabeth George’s new book Just One Evil Act…

This was a bit weird…it had some issues…but I love me some Elizabeth George, so I enjoyed it. Barbara Havers is such a messed-up character and Lynley is such a good guy (well, he can be a mess too, honestly)…definitely worth reading.

And then I read Michael Scott’s 4th book in the series about Nicholas Flamel, The Necromancer…

still loving this series. I need to wait a while to read the next one, though, because two more real live books (as opposed to the electronic ones) just showed up at the library, and they’ll be due in a few weeks. Plus one is for a book club (yes, I’m trying to do that again…we’ll see if I survive)…so I’ll have to finish it sooner rather than later.

I also finally finished this book, Broken Open, by Elizabeth Lesser, which made me cry every time I read it (hence the length of time it took me to finish it)…

Every time I read it, tears. Not sure why. There didn’t seem to be any one thing that did it, and sometimes I just found her incredibly irritating, plus I’m not really a God person and he kept showing up there. It was recommended by a friend who had read it and benefited from it. She wasn’t wrong.

I have quotes from the book…”For a while I just went off the edge of the world.”

“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down the dulcimer. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kiss the ground.” Rumi (this is my excuse for making art every day and blowing off the grading…I shouldn’t say that…I graded for an hour and a half tonight, so I’m not blowing off ANYTHING. But making more time for art is never a bad thing.)

“Our culture favors the fast-food model of mourning–get over it quick and get back to work; affix the bandage of ‘closure’ and move on. I am not a big fan of ‘closure.’ It sounds so abrupt, so tidy, so final. I prefer old-fashioned words like mourning, lamentation, and grief. They suggest a slow and sloppy process–one that involves emotional upheaval, interrupted activity, and dark nights of the soul.” I don’t have closure. Apparently closure should have taken me a whopping 51 minutes or so…well fuck that shit. I don’t even know that closure makes sense…I think our emotional existence is a constantly changing landscape and you don’t get to close off one part of it and lock it away, and if people are doing that, I don’t actually think that’s healthy. We need to process through it, wade through the shit and mud and have it cling to your shoes and clothes for a while until you can get it all cleaned off, and even then, it will rise up and slap you around every once in a while. It’s possible that my existence is somewhat messy in general, though…so I’ve had to learn to deal with that. Where do the drawings come from? Well…there…not locked up…but vomiting all over the paper. I wanted to draw tonight, but didn’t have time, speaking of vomiting over the paper.

“Our tears, and the calm hands of grief that follow, are not signs of some tragic and evil reality…Grief is the proof of our love, a demonstration of how deeply we have allowed another to touch us.” I’ve said this before, that my grief is a sign of how deeply I was committed…and I shouldn’t feel like that was wrong…I should keep my eyes on working through the shit, but I’m not wrong for the level of grief I’m experiencing…it’s related to the level of emotion I hold (held?) inside me. There’s nothing wrong with that. Without that depth of emotion, I probably wouldn’t be the artist that I am.

“Grief is often confused with depression or self-pity. While one can certainly go into a woeful tailspin during the grieving process, in the long term, grief is not the same as depression. If we gloss over our grief, we might become depressed. Unfelt feelings and unexpressed grief have a way of dulling life. It is as if with every grief we do not feel, we stuff another handful of our vitality underground, until we are numb or sick or embittered.” Yeah. That. I might feel dulled at the moment, but I’m really not…I’m feeling all of it.

For some reason, when I’m going through piles of emotional shit, I save quotes. I have notes on the phone and the iPad of quotes from books I’ve been reading. I have quotes taped to my office door from the post-divorce reading frenzy. They seem to help me focus. I don’t know why.

Toenail revisited: I managed to half rip my big toenail off on Friday night…it wouldn’t come all the way off though (yes, I tried), so I had to bandage it back down and let the ooze and blood restick the nail to my toe…goddamn, I wish it would just fall off. Sigh. What a pain. Sometimes I dream of a cleaver and my toe. Not good.

The most useful and exciting thing I’ve done in the last week? I managed to successfully pair my old bluetooth earpiece and the new phone. This was not as easy as you would think it would be, and required many bizarre maneuvers and clicking on and off in a particular order. But I was successful! I know. Simple pleasures. It took me a long time to get it done.

So. Mood all over the map today. Whatever. At least I was aware of all its wanderings…and I managed them. There’s nothing wrong with crying. It’s all getting me somewhere…Montana? Not happy yet. Mr. Meditation wants me to be happy. Content. Double sigh. I think Mr. Meditation has a simpler life than I do.

Make art. Save lives.

It’s Complicated. It’s Messy. It’s Me.

While tracing the crone tonight, I feel the brain anxiously scrabbling at me, trying to draw me in to its worry and pain, but I focus on each piece, drawing it as accurately as possible. I wonder how I would have drawn the crone if I had drawn her before all the bad happened. Would she look so worn, so world-weary? Would I have made her eyes so bagged and wrinkled? Would the cracks in her exterior have shown up? Is she a better piece of art (in progress), a more accurate depiction because of my own recent suffering?

I hate believing that artists have to suffer to make good art. I would like to think that our suffering often draws us (or drags us, as someone recently wrote me) toward creative endeavors as a way of dealing with…processing the pain. Then again, there must be artists who never suffer, right? I don’t know the answer to that.

I am close to the end. I am on piece 1145. There are 80 more pieces to trace. Then it will be on to a different type of meditative act, that of cutting all those pieces apart. I might need to divert some time and energy to the cutting out of fabric pieces for the other piece, the one that needs to be done by the beginning of January, which is drawing closer. The time of year that I hate so much is also drawing closer, the holidays. No break from that this year.

Speaking of breaks, I realized I had been avoiding staying home on Saturday nights…that I had spent over 9 years going out every Saturday night, although usually just to movies and dinner, but money is tight and I spent my weekly budgeted allotment for entertainment on Thursday night, plus I have a lot going on this weekend, lots of stuff that has to get done, and I was feeling overwhelmed, especially since I didn’t do any real art stuff two nights running. And then I was trapped here for 4-plus hours because the oven has been seriously malfunctioning (again) and I was waiting for the fixit guy to show up…luckily, it was the same goofy guy from two years ago who put in the last known thermostat for my oven in the entire world (seriously), and he took it upon himself to MacGyver a solution…

Yup. He didn’t have the right type of screwdriver to adjust the thermostat (long skinny tube with a tiny adjustable screw at the end of it), so he borrowed a wire coathanger from me and made one. Seriously. In my kitchen. And then he tutored me on how to use it and left it with me, and didn’t charge me for labor (I provided the metal). Worst-case, this will be a short-term fix and we’ll have to find some other ghetto option (he wanted to make sure I understood the after-market options would make my kitchen look ghetto…really? More ghetto than it already does?). Because the alternative is $1800-3000 that I don’t have to get a new one in that space. Or just build a fire in there, but that will upset the girlchild, and we don’t want that. Her dad’s oven is also on the fritz and he won’t get his fixed, so she can’t cook anywhere at the moment.

I did the grocery shopping on a Saturday night, like a loser. Yeah! I bought radishes. Exciting. I mailed my nephew’s birthday present, finally. I found incentive stickers for my classroom. These were all things that had been on my list. Tomorrow is my quarterly California Fibers’ meeting, as well as two soccer games, both of which I will miss due to the meeting. I have to plan for school and find my way to the gym.

So I decided when I got back from the grocery store that the best thing I could do for myself tonight was to just slowly experience the evening…do things I wanted to do, and maybe some I needed to (I wrapped all the UK Xmas gifts while he was calibrating the oven…they need to ship out soon)…

I knew I needed to prep the last three month’s of Sue Spargo’s birds to take with me on the trip to Houston (lots of hours on planes). I kind of stopped working on them when I almost burnt the house down with the August package. Whoops. But I need to get going on them. I don’t really NEED to. It would just make me feel better, and they’re easy to work on when traveling, unlike some of the stuff I’m working on at the moment. So I took a few minutes and did that…

I ate. I made dessert. I didn’t eat enough today, so it was OK to eat dessert (I ate real food too, don’t panic). I exercised (I cried during that because of the book I’m reading while on the bike). I meditated (cried during that too, but that’s OK and normal). It’s been a sad day, week…full of loss and realizations and things that are just hard to process…like a bad British pub meal sitting heavy in your gut. Either direction it goes, it’s going to hurt. Cry it out. That’s all I do. Once you’ve cried it all out, though, there’s a quiet sense of peace. It’s not happy, it’s not joyful…it’s just quiet. And some of the sadness is just gone for a while. It’s not overwhelming any more.

I also spent a lot of time petting cats (and dog) today.

That one sat on my lap for a while and I spent some concerted effort smoothing its fur and scratching its head. It was very appreciative.

That one asked for attention, rubbing around my ankles until I petted it…coming up near me while I was tracing and head-butting me until I paid her attention. Kitten is waiting for me to come to bed so she can curl up next to me and vigorously clean her nether regions, and then wake me up at my school-alarm-clock time, which is too early for a weekend wakeup, not that she cares. Close attention paid to the fur-creatures seems to soothe me for a moment. Plus they don’t care if I’m crying. Midnight will even help by cleaning my face for me. She often sits by me while I’m meditating, if I’m in the living room. She cleans herself to the sound of the meditative guy on my app. If I’m in my office, it’s Babygirl who’s listening, perched on the back of my chair, behind my neck.

I wonder what they think about my meditation. Or my crying. The food giver is sad. We love the food giver. She pets us. We must sit close to the food giver and purr on her (shades of Margaret Atwood’s Crakers). Then she will give us more pets and more food. And it will be good.

I got this huge long spam comment on my blog the other day…it was all like this…

Your {story-telling|writing|humoristic} style is {awesome|witty},
keep {doing what you’re doing|up the good work|it up}!|
I {simply|just} {could not|couldn’t} {leave|depart|go away} your {site|web site|website}
{prior to|before} suggesting that I {really|extremely|actually} {enjoyed|loved} {the standard|the usual}
{information|info} {a person|an individual} {supply|provide} {for your|on your|in your|to your} {visitors|guests}?
Is {going to|gonna} be {back|again} {frequently|regularly|incessantly|steadily|ceaselessly|often|continuously} {in order
to|to} {check up on|check out|inspect|investigate cross-check} new posts|
{I wanted|I needed|I want to|I need to} to thank you for this {great|excellent|fantastic|wonderful|good|very
good} read!! I {definitely|certainly|absolutely} {enjoyed|loved} every {little bit
of|bit of} it. {I have|I’ve got|I have got} you {bookmarked|book marked|book-marked|saved as a favorite} {to check out|to look
at} new {stuff you|things you} post…|

Like I could choose the words I really wanted to read and come up with my own message. I was amused. It’s almost like poetry. Love poetry of a sort. OK. Not.

I read this blog from start to finish…I think she liked one of my posts and I read one of hers, and then I read the rest. It’s not a lot, but it’s an interesting read. Things like that always make me question my OWN depression though…we always wonder if we have the right to be depressed, doesn’t someone else have it worse? I know people who have actually SAID that to me (not this time around), but I write them off pretty quickly. There’s a lack of understanding there. I think most people around me are trying to be understanding and supportive, and I don’t give many guidelines on how to do that, because I honestly don’t know…and yes, dear counselor, I’m pushing people the fuck away because it’s people that hurt me and I don’t want to be hurt. Everything I do is self-protective and based on years of practice in protecting myself, but there hasn’t been a lot of experience I’ve had with not needing that protection. It’s not my self-protective behaviors that caused this. They certainly didn’t help, but they weren’t the source of the problem. The source was not in me. My issues…well, I’ll get to them. When I can handle everything else, then I will get to them, and I will peel off the armor again, maybe, a little, and honestly…if you want to see the fucking armor peeled off, look at my art. There it is. It’s all hanging out and in the open…this is probably why I find it so hard to STAND next to my art and explain it. Because that IS the deep core, the inside, the painful emotional part. And you want me to own it? (I do own it…I just don’t want to explain it to you. You look at it. You get something out of it. You react to it. I put it out there. Don’t make me explain it.).

One of the things I like about the Fifty2Letters blog is that she posts art, really interesting art, as part of every post. And she writes well. And her story is compelling.

Reading other people’s stories…ideally it helps us suss out our own? My story…it’s complicated. It’s messy. It’s me.

Tag: Sue Spargo

In the Dark Backward and Abysm of Time

Distractions

Not in Focus

A Slow and Sloppy Process

It’s Complicated. It’s Messy. It’s Me.

Protected: Protecting the Tiny Sore Little Beast

Protected: Workaholic

Protected: Spamming Life

Protected: Brief Interlude

Protected: I Did Not Stop