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I’m breathing for the first time in the past week.
What made me realize that I wasn’t breathing was that my 6 mo daughter started to hold her breath. And then gasp for air again after a few seconds. She was already learning stress as I carried her around doing everything I do, a little copycat attached to my body, doing as I do.
It took me a few days to realize that’s what was going on. Physically, I was teaching her just by how I was breathing, or not breathing – and now here she is teaching me. of course
when things like this happen I am able to see past all the imperfections to the total and utter perfection of everything.
Nothing I could ever imagine would be as nearly perfect as this is to me. It might seem silly to others but…
When we were naming our baby, her name came to me in a dream. Spelled out and clear that it was to be her name. Her! A girl! (we had not found out)
The name was Talia
I looked it up and there were two variations Talia and Thalia – it meant dew from heaven which I thought was so sweet. We went with it. It took us a few days after her birth to find her middle name. I knew it was right when we said it though: Talia Grace.
All through my pregnancy I made comments that she was bringing me back to my creativity. I was making more art again. I felt the creative drive within myself burning strongly again.
I always somehow credited the baby with this for some reason. Saying that the pregnancy brought it back or after her birth that she brought me back to my creativity. After reading what I did last night, I am more certain of this than ever.
It started with some writing I’m doing about my new career endeavor (more about that later) just brainstorming and tracing it all back to the beginning. I said, aloud to the baby that she was my little muse. Her eyes lit up and she smiled and flirted.
One of the Graces and one of the Muses (the daughters of Zeus) were named Thalia.
wow. yes. Thalia (slightly different spelling). really. no kidding.
So, she is a muse. My very own little muse.
Isn’t that truly perfect?
I thought so.
There just could not be a more suitable name for her.
Happy Six Months my little muse!
*(was on the 21st)
When my children get frustrated because they can’t do something as well as they want to I finally have a good example for them. Good because as a kid I quit a good many things when I felt like I was not as good as I wanted to be. My mother says she never made me continue once I’d made up my mind because (and this will come as no surprise to many of you) I was a willful and determined child.
But, here is my tale of try try again until at last you bake good bread.
I have been repeatedly failing at bread baking for about 7 years now. That includes bread machines too, sadly. I have never been able to make decent bread. I always eat it, with cream cheese usually, but my family was not always so willing. My oldest has been known to comment that it isn’t good bread and why is it the wrong shape, so crumbly, so hard, burned, yucky tasting etc. My last attempt ended up being used as bread crumbs in another recipe so that wasn’t so bad for everyone.
A few months ago, I went to a bread baking day at a friend’s house hoping that good bread baking energy would rub off on me. The loaves I made there were a big improvement on my prior efforts, but the results were somewhere in the middle of my failures and good. The recipes came from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day and I thought if I tried it at home I may still have good luck yet. So, I reserved a copy at the library and I finally got it three days ago.
Now, I have been able to make not one, but two totally edible, and even delicious loaves of bread.
As a kid, if I sucked at something, I’d quit. Why I have persisted in my attempts at making bread is beyond me. Because when you’ve failed at something for seven years, hell, you probably should have given up. I didn’t and now…I have good yummy bread. Bread with homemade marmalade, bread with butter and shepherds pie, bread with pesto spread on it with a salad! BREAD!
I love bread, maybe that is why every now and then I would give it another attempt. Then, I would go months without trying again, discouraged.
Well, this time was different. It was a total surprise to everyone that it was actually good. Good!
I was so happy I was yelling at everyone to taste the bread. It’s good!
The Mr. cheered for me. He’s probably relieved to not be coerced into trying the failures anymore. So, I’m sitting here with my wine, thankful for the (good) daily bread.
one two three four
FIVE!
Five years ago (july 14) Eva was born and I was born too. I became a mother.
Now, I have three kiddos, but that first one made me “MOMMA”.
What a transition. Really. for anyone to go through.
To allow so much change for ourselves and our lives by having a child. Allowing way more stuff for one thing, but no I really mean more me. And less me too.
That person I was before kids is so long gone now, but I am still some of her. I’m still an artist Or, an artist again maybe.
I still like some of the same things. Getting drunk doesn’t hold the excitement it used to but still Art does, thank heaven.
Those first few months with a baby really sucked for me. I wrote in my diary at that time, that I knew I would have to give up some of myself, but that I didn’t know I would completely have to leave in order for there to be room for her. I think it was because I thought I knew what I would be willing to give up to make ‘room’ for someone and I had to go that far and more. I was consumed by this baby. I was trying to fit my child into the space left over after my selfish needs were met. I really got shoved around by the universe a lot to get me where I am now. Nothing like having 3 kids to humble a person, I think.
Looking back, my other world was so superficial (of my ‘friends’ I know only 1 now). This new world, though raw at times, seems so much more tangible as real life to me. I don’t know how many days I had that were truly authentically lived. Unless I was alone with my husband or talking to another artist, it was just a series of contrived social encounters. Nothing I would ever really want to go back to.
But… now, I am about to embark on a career again and it seems like although I haven’t worked in my field for over 4 years I am so much more qualified now. As a human I know that I see things differently and see how I wasted so much time in graduate school. boy, if I had nothing to do these days but go to a studio and make art….whoa!
but…I have something to say now that I didn’t before. I have a way of working that wasn’t available to me until just last summer. I know that my entire journey had to include having these wonderful little people that call me mother. I wouldn’t be the artist I am now otherwise and I would not be living to the same degree of being alive that I do now. I like when I get these glimpses of the spiderweb that connect all things in my life. It is so fragile and strong at the same time. interconnectedness of art and life for me with friendships and time. I recently showed some of my newer stuff to an old gallery acquaintance and got this:
I love the images of your art — honestly! I really think you could have some success with those if you price them right. Next time you are in the area, bring a few for me to look at — it’s so tough to get a sense of the wax in the photos. I’ll also keep them in mind if I have any designers looking for kitchen art.
Good to hear from you. See you at the gallery!
Now, as an artist, getting someone to look at your work is like an interview. But…since I was really truly non attached as all of these pieces have been given away to friends anyway and I could care less about them, it was just nice to visit with someone about them that knew art. I felt relaxed and very non attached about the outcome. It is where I obviously should have been all my life and especially when I was showing and selling work, but I was always very attached to the outcome and trying way too hard. Maybe I try way too hard at eating healthy and getting my kids to say please now, so there just isn’t room for me to give that much care to my artwork. It has begun to take it’s right place in my life. It is my work, but not my life. I don’t know when I’ll have a whole body of work to show this person…maybe in the spring of next year…but maybe I’ll be too busy with other things. I am happy to say I am not worried about any of it. I’m a mostly happy mom and that is a very big job right now.
I feel like I have arrived in some sort of personal no man’s land recently.
I don’t know how I got here, but it’s becoming a place of introspection which I suppose is always good however you get there.
Since I’m not a great writer I am just going to list my no mans land scenery and maybe some of the reasons it’s led me to introspect.
My almost five year old has become the bossiest bitch lately. I can hardly control myself around her to remember that she is only 4 years old, and I am supposed to be her mother. I am supposed to teach by example.
So, is my example that of a bossy bitch? Is that it? or is this something all little almost five year old girls go through? I remember my own childhood of ‘back talk’ and of getting smacked in the mouth for it when I had braces. I don’t want to go there as a mother. I want a healthy relationship with respect from my daughters (something I still have a hard time with with my own mother). I am trying to be less sarcastic with both of them (mother and daughter), as I can see that some of my daughter’s attitude is what she sees, but come on!
Friendship
I’ve always been kind of a shitty friend, I think.
I’m more of a go do something (mountain bike, camp, go to art shows) or come over and do something (BBQ, drink beer, fix things, paint) kind of friend than a let’s talk about your feelings kind of friend. In fact, please don’t talk about it or I’m likely to start cleaning my kitchen for lack of something to say to you. So, in a real crisis I try to remain silent and make myself useful. When I was a practicing artist, I could make things that let people know how I felt. I gave tons of art away. I have one friend whose entire place is filled with my artwork. I like visiting her; it’s like reading an old diary.
but I’m real uncomfortable with feelings etc…However, if I can ‘do something’ let me know I’m extremely loyal that way and will do just about anything for people I care about.
So, now that I’m trying to home school my bitchy almost 5 yo, I wonder what kind of example I am setting for her in that category too. Not to blame my mom, but like her, I think, I walk to the beat of my own drummer and don’t make real friends easily. I don’t always relate well to those 10 years younger than me with children my kids’ ages nor do I relate now to those in my own age bracket. (Not to mention the single friends, married but no kids friends etc etc.) The women my own age may have their youngest going off to school and I’ve chosen to begin homeschooling. All of that re-frames their time as well as mine. (Not to say I don’t have friends, I’d like to think some people consider me their friend as I consider some to be mine).
But, hell it’s awkward for me. How to put this? I think I easily become the odd man out in certain circles. My daughter will easily fit in with the children, but I end up feeling like it is such a wasted effort on my own part OR I like the kid, so put up with the mom OR love the kid and hope the mom puts up with me. How do those needs get met? Mine and hers? I know from growing up with the mom I did that I have to make certain that I honor my SELF, it’s the only way I can set the right example for my girls. I just need to start figuring out what that means other than spending a lot of time alone in my studio with loud music and a coffeepot. I need to work on my friendships (and that new piece of art I have in mind) but I don’t really know what all that means since I think I’m pretty self-centered (like my one week shy of being a 5yo).
My friends think I have time.
(ha that is for Michelle who tagged me for this, based on this.
A six word memoir! Written by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser, Not Quite What I was Planning: Six Word Memoirs by Writers Famous and Obscure is a compilation based on the story that Hemingway once bet ten dollars that he could sum up his life in six words. His words were- For Sale: baby shoes, never worn. There’s a video on Amazon with examples from the book, it sounds like a fun read! I’d like to start a six word memoir meme and here are the rules:
1. Write your own six word memoir2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!
Well, I can come up with my own memoir. However, I don’t know 5 people that I could tag on this so…I’ll just leave that part off.
I came up with lots, but narrowed it down to a few.
Art Making Coffee Drinking Desert Momma
Longing for time in my studio
Getting out of my own way
and M offered his help with:
hot husband, great sex, three kids
Texas is still going back home for me. We lived there from the time I was ten until I was twentyfive, almost as long as I’ve lived in Arizona now. Texas is still home even though my parents don’t live there anymore. They weren’t from there anyway. So, when I was in college they moved back to the midwest, their home. But, I grew up in Lubbock, 45 minutes from Brownfield, where I went with the kids last week.
I went with the kids and, we stayed with my in laws. Yes, in Brownfield (and it is – lots of cotton farms there). There is something so reassuring about the vastness of the West Texas landscape. It is almost like being on the ocean. You can see for miles. I swear you can almost see the curve of the Earth. Yes, it is dusty and windy and stormy. It can sometimes smell like manure depending on which way the wind blows but, it calms me. There is a slower pace of living in that part of Texas that helps me slow down too.
I did.
I slowed way down.
It felt really good.
The kids mostly played and rode Paco with their Pa Pa. We went to Dairy Queen a few times and did a lot of nothing.
I wish we could have stayed longer.
I’ve already written about how this little being has brought me back some of my creative juices and how I’ve been working in new ways. Looking to seek inspiration outside myself instead of within.
Recently with this and this I have taken that journey a bit further. These are some fun new ones for me. My older work was never playful.
I feel pretty good about them and I can’t wait to see what comes next.
Eva and Quinn are my collaborators on this and we’re having fun together.
I felt like sharing what is going on creatively right now… and letting you all know I’m not washing the walls of the bathroom; that is too hard to do while holding a sleeping baby in your lap.
I had every intention of sleeping in and letting everyone bring me breakfast in bed…but the baby had other ideas when she woke up happy and babbling at 6:30, way before we normally rise.
So, I took a quick rinse in the shower and headed with the little happy squeal-y head to my favorite coffeeshop where her loud but happy screeches would be more welcome.
When we got home this is what awaited. Happy Mother’s Day
I can’t stop kissing her.
She smells sweet.
She wiggles and giggles and smiles and coos.
Her big brown eyes just engage me until I don’t have a perception of time anymore.
She is all fat folds and dimples rolling around to get her thumb in her mouth. There are loud slurps of satisfaction and conversation now when she nurses.
This was how old my other two were when I returned to work. I am feeling so grateful to be able to flow with our family’s rhythm this time. We take our time to play or fold clothes as an all afternoon group activity with my new little one exploring fabric textures with her tiny fists and abundant drool. These days feel quite special to me even with all the chaos. I love 14 wks old.
