Insurmountable Grief

I stand, bare feet on the ground.

It climbs up through my body.    

Emanating from all corners of the world. 

I am a channel, it is passing through.

I listen and I hear.

A tale of inexplicable darkness.

Terrifying thoughts.   

A yearning to soothe.

Prayer, a primal inclination.

I'm holding you

Smelling your hair

Feel my breath say

"It will be okay" 

I started thinking about this drawing some time ago.  I wrote the above poem in response to some things that were going on in the world and in my personal life as well at the time.  I wasn't ready to be that exposed.  Today, after visiting some of my old drafts, I feel I can more comfortably share this.

This is an older drawing.  It was a class assignment in college.  We were instructed to use tessellations.  I immediately thought of quilts... and something hiding under it.  I thought of menacing monsters hiding beneath the surface and rupturing the fabric.  That was where I began with the assignment.  Art can be a way of exploring when you just leap off of an idea.  It ended up as a story about my own faith and my own fears.  I understood then, as I do now, that there is a common human experience here.

The drawing is called "Security Blanket"

The children on the image are labeled "Faith, Hope and Love"  Love stitches himself to the fabric where a piece is missing.  He wears "Christmas clothes".

The crown of thorns in the corner is the source of the "thread".  These parts of the drawing are an obvious reflection of my own Christian faith.  Having said that, I think that faith, hope and Love are common themes throughout all religions and are no stranger to the non-religious as well.

The saying in the corner "Don't be afraid, it comes to cover, not to consume" is a reference to what I have come to understand about my own depression.  The saying rests at the edge of something washing over the blanket in waves.  Like a tide.  It doesn't have to end me, I just have to hold my breath and wait for it to recede is the concept.  I had one very serious episode of depression after the birth of one of my children.  I had never experienced such personal darkness before or since then.  I was afraid of my own thoughts.  It took a couple of years to feel 100% right again.  Even after I "healed" from that experience, I had a "fear" of the little "mini depressions".  What if it took over again?  What if I went back down into that pit again? I was terrified of depression.  But, with each passing wave of depression episodes, I began to see a pattern.  It came and went like a tide.  I began to trust that pattern, recognize it, and hold my breath.  Over the years, the waters have become calmer.  They still rise and fall, but not to the extremes they once did.  Now it is just a surface nuisance.

People say things that tear us apart.  It allows the fear to take over and break through. "I just don't think I love..." Death, illness and broken relationships wreck our sense of safety and well being. 

 I came to posses a coin, I can't remember how I acquired it.  It was a coin with symbols on it and it said "3 months".  I learned that it was from Alcoholics Anonymous and represented the 3 months sober achievement.  That coin is shadowed here, near this menacing hand.  I have friends that hang in that precarious balance between sobriety and addiction.  That coin speaks about a person that has made it 3 months and hopes to make it ...... but I have the discarded coin.  What does that mean?  So, here I place my thoughts about them, that unknown person and their struggle.

I am a people watcher.  I often worry about strangers, about their lives.  I wonder if they are okay.  Sometimes I see that they are not okay, and I have no idea how to fix it for them.  Or even if I were capable of fixing it.

On other squares there are symbols of various religions, including my own, as well as symbols that represent the concepts of "Justice and Law".  There are symbols of Medicine as well.  These are the things that we use to make ourselves feel better.  We make ourselves feel "safe".  They are the pieces of our security blanket.  The things we hold onto like a child in need of their comfort.

The monster beneath is more human than not.  It is amazing how emotionally fragile we are at times.  Sometimes we are strong and at other times, not so much.  Just below the surface of each of us.  Just below the surface of our humanity as a whole.....there is trouble.  Every now an then it ruptures and it can be frightening.  But no matter where our "fabric" fails us, there remains Faith, Hope and Love.  Those three things can work with the scraps of us.

Well, there's plenty more to think about here.  But at the end of the day I have a naive belief in the kind of childlike love that says "No matter what you do, how you fail, how you hurt.....I will love you.  Even if I myself have to be your missing piece."  When my faith in that idea fails me, and it often does, I just hope.  I hope that it is true. 

For further reading, you may enjoy:

Walt Whitman's "The Base of all Metaphysics"

It is one of my favorites.

My Morning Drive

I am a visual artist.  It will come as no surprise that I have a gazillion random photos on my cell phone.  I have pictures of odd imprints in picnic tables, tree bark and half fallen fences.  I consider my cell phone an extension of my sketch books.  It snags little snippets of detail that I want to remember. Sometimes the cell phone camera just can’t do it.  This morning I found myself wishing I had both, my “good” camera, and the skill to use it.  I had neither one this morning.  Even if I could sear the image into my mind, I could not possibly sketch it.  It simply wouldn’t translate well into a quick thumbnail sketch. I don’t know if I have the skill to work it into some future painting but I am compelled to lock the image into some shareable memory.  It was a fleeting, temporary thing.  I wish you could have seen it.  I have resigned myself to write it.

My Morning Drive

It is cold here in St. Clair.  The Weather Channel ap on my phone says it is 12 degrees.  The sky is that boring bland white.  I look out my kitchen window and immediately feel some remorse for not having filled the bird feeder.  The trees are covered with a soft white substance.  I think it looks like frost, but not quite.  It really reminds me of a pussy willow branch, all covered with fuzz.  All the trees, shrubs, bushes and weeds are covered with it.  It is a cold fuzzy morning.

I love driving my friend’s children to school in the morning.  It gets me out of bed and moving.  I am always thankful for that drive past the river as the sun comes up.  It is so stunning to see the sun cast such lovely colors across the river.

I snap up a coffee from the drive through at Tim Hortons and we make our way up Clinton Street.  We get a little acceleration going just before the railroad tracks so we can catch a little “air” as we go over them.  It is our little rollercoaster thrill every morning.  It is a guaranteed laugh.  That is always a good way to start the day if you ask me.

Then it is Carney to Range as we make our way to Marysville. 

It was there, driving along Range road this morning that I noticed the magic of this morning.  The sun casts its light on the trees and brush.  The trees always have that pink color to them in the morning.  Today was no different.  Pink trees with splashes of vibrant gold as you travel along.  But this morning all the trees and bushes seemed to be covered in a fine, magnificent, glitter!  To the right of me there were tall trees with pink upper branches on the left, a small clearing of golden bushes.  All covered with glitter!  All along the road, barren bushes all fuzzy white were blurry and sparkled!

That was it.  I couldn’t take my eyes off of the scenery.  It was a Disney kind of magic and I was so grateful to be alive and witnessing it this morning.  Carpe Diem?  Nope.  I don’t want to seize anything.  I just want to sit still and watch it until the heat of the sun makes it all go away.  It was all I could do to keep at the task at hand.  I had to deliver that precious little stinker in my back seat to school.  Secretly, I wanted to just pull over along the side of the road, drink my coffee and snap a bunch of pictures.  Instead, I just drove on, watching the magic.  All the while offering up the whispered thought, “thank you”.