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time in a cleaned out studio / where I can actually work
breakfast with someone who likes breakfast and maybe even drinks coffee
an art show that moves me
big luscious paintings
beer and guacamole at midnight in the quiet of my house after work
driving alone with the music loud
to feel loving and patient with my oldest child
to be a better mom these days
to understand why all of this is going on
to move through it gracefully
I think I have finally perfected my state of denial. Things are certainly going to hell and I’m ready with drink in hand. Maybe this would be a good time to drag my camera and photoshop skills out of the closet because when shit falls apart is when the ‘artist’ in me loves life the most. Who knows maybe something good can come out of all this depression, anger and apathy.
I am going thru the motions with my brain in the gutter and desires for everything beautiful and dirty. I have moments where I remember what it was to be the artist and I sometimes wish I could be again. I used to be good, but like with anything, without practice…it’s going to take awhile to get back where I was. I feel like some old athlete or musician. It’s going to be a steep learning curve, but maybe something worth seeing will be at the end of this tunnel. Is it too late to make a come-back or is it just depressing and sad to see at this point? Like someone past their prime having a mid-life crisis with a silly car and new tastes in clothes or music? What kind of art comes out of all this b.s. anyway but narcissistic, self absorbed skills thrown out for an ego stroke? Really, but what is art anyway then, right?
hmmmm, It’s 1:19am, I just got home from work, I’ve been up since 6:45am. I’m up drinking beer and eating chips and salsa. I have been making an awful lot of mexican food lately, it’s my comfort food. I grew up in Texas and chips and salsa can be very therapeutic.
I have a hard time living in the present right now…I find myself remembering another me.
and missing art and texas and simplicity of being the artist I was back then.
thinking like an artist and holding little pieces of paper delicately, pondering the way things look and feel. being alive and in love. I want to make myself something. Something small and delicate and beautiful. I need something to hold onto right now. I need to remember what art can be for me, that it can be the way through this. It can be the light at the end of the tunnel right now, a way to take my past through this present.
I’m get nostalgic about texas…mostly because of this:
it reminds me of texas and boots and sex and tequila
Obviously with 3 kids, it would not work, but a girl can dream of a date night only truck, right?
As my 3rd child approaches her first birthday I feel my reason for starting this online journal is complete. I began this wondering about adding to my family. We chose to and I have been following my path of nurturing and mothering 3 for the duration of this blog.
I am taking a break from this place for words as my other journal is filling itself again with pen on paper. I’ve always been a more private person with my feelings, so if I see an interesting link or post photos perhaps they will end up here with some tidbit of our life.
I hope everyone has a full and beautiful year. I know I plan on it.
I’ve been having some dark times, dark thoughts, and dark words to those around me but I think it is finally passing.
Hopefully, with the new year all the old will go and I will be ready to face the new challenges with more wisdom.
So much has happened and I’m still processing much of it. I hope to rid myself and my home of much of it’s causes and effects over the next months to be in a more secure place physically, spiritually and mentally next year.
I have:
a good marriage
healthy kids
passion
plenty of wine
clean clothes
an art studio
love
a big backyard
a grapefruit tree
an orange tree
a big bed
a warm blanket
art
a library card
food in my pantry
jeans I look good in
a happy baby
tea
a quilt
a cool book bag
music
a farmer’s market close to me
plenty of cloth diapers
hand made bowls to eat from
flowers growing in my backyard
seeds for more flowers
family coming for the holidays
The only constant is change.
That seems to sum up the last 6 years of my life pretty well, but where will I be in 20?
Why is it that the older we get the less adaptable we become?
Can we train ourselves to embrace change? Even in myself I see this new tendency to stability. I used to pride myself on the fact that I lived in 11 places in 3 years and all that I owned could fit in my truck. I thought that it was cool that the guy I was seeing lived in his truck and showered at the gym. (One of my friends did point out that that technically made me into a homeless guy…and well, I eventually married him too)
So, we’ve been thinking about this whole security thing and our own fear of commitment of youth compared with this desperate desire to plunge roots into the ground of adulthood. I know that some of it is that I have worked hard to get here. I don’t want to sacrifice anything unneccessarily but I don’t want to be holding onto anything out of habit either.
I think that I would have felt suffocated by all of this when I was younger, but now it fits me. Contentment is starting to mean something different. Sometimes I feel panicky about spending a day doing stuff I vowed I would never be stuck doing, but then I look at the alternatives and I prefer to be where I am.
Right now, I am starting to clean out my office to make it a bedroom for my almost 4 year old boy. I feel like a mom and I’m getting more okay with that lately
Here is a random poem found while cleaning out files. It was written sometime around 1995, I think.
It brought back good memories for me, so I thought I would share it.
Poetry is not something I do since I’m primarily a visual artist so this is kind of an exception.
the dobermans were laughing
with wild abandon
in the back of that old pick up truck
the day before I drove out of Texas
After the poker game
when the money had been exchanged
they invited me to drink tequila with them.
The sun made me forget I was supposed to meet you that night.
Anyway, the sign on the highway said not to drive into smoke
And There were fires everywhere.
I have been thinking about my relationship with my mom lately.
I’ve been thinking about our relationship probably because she recently went on anti-depressants, which I disagree with. strongly.
My mom is hard for me to describe. As her child, I have a pretty skewed view. She is friendly, can talk with anyone, the grocery store clerks probably know all about my three kids. She dotes on my dad to a fault; it drives me crazy. She likes trees and swimming.
She gets along well with just about anyone, and is pretty non confrontational overall- which is probably why she is now on anti depressants. The whole thing is frustrating to me because I am a person of Action! Do something about it! Change it! Don’t just cover it up….with drugs and pretend it’s all okay. Not only is she not confronting problems, she isn’t sure what the problems might be…and that is because she does not know what she wants, likes, or who she is. She is a classic empty nester, except that we’ve been gone for, oh, 15 years.
I do not want my daughters so see me like this, or be like this when I am 61. She is too young to be so hopeless in my opinion…maybe my having had children later in life will ‘keep me young’. I don’t know. I do know that this pattern of becoming our mothers must stop in my life NOW.
I see certain mannerisms I have, ways of talking to fill space, needs to control my environment because everything else is beyond my control…that I have from her and it makes me cringe lately.
I’m feeling like some kind of ungrateful kid who doesn’t appreciate everything that was done…but, I think a lot of it was not a sacrifice on her part, it was everything she wanted. I had a great stay at home mom that did everything for us…only, I’m not sure she existed for herself…or if she does now for that matter. It seems she doesn’t know this either.
Once, when I was maybe 13 I overheard my friends criticizing my mom and I wished my mom could be like a normal mom. I hope my daughters don’t want me to be like their friend’s moms. I know I am not a ‘normal mom’ either, but I hope to have my daughters trust. I never really trusted my mom after that. I never quite believed she was a grown up, but just a big kid. Who was she after all, but someone who just read books on raising kids and then applied it to us when the case arose?
She never seemed to have any advice when I asked her, always telling me things like “Look inside yourself and you will find your answer.”
as an adult, I can laugh at this and now, I totally appreciate the way I was raised to be a thinking individual.
I can see that being a mother was a great fulfillment to her, but there has to be something else. I think she has been floating out there for over a decade trying to figure it out. I just don’t think drugs are going to help her find whoever it is she is looking for.
