To that one person

I remember when I began this blog so many years ago. I was about to divorce. My life felt as though I were a giant tree about to be felled by every problem imaginable. Over the years I have continued to feel like that tree, but ever so slowly I have remembered that I am trsiliant and that whatever I make of myself in the world is my business to experience. Thank you one person. Ever so often when I write I notice that someone in this big old huge world takes a moment to check in and to in your own way let me know that I am seen and I am heard. Thank you. PS: OMG, you may be a bot! Lol. Thanks all the same.

One of my friends has been trying to contact me for a few days. Every time I see her messages and try to contact her, I don't get her either. So we have been playing messenger tag. But yesterday at the grocery I caught a glimpse of her and we spoke very briefly. I was thinking about her process as the Artist that she is. Very much like me, she has to keep tanaciously focused on who she is and what she represents in her work. She is very shy and skittish about opening up, although we have known each other for years. I understand her trepidation and unlike my other 'friend' whose relationship ended so spectacularly, I do not see her as someone who implodes and pretends...or whatever that whole thing was. But I digress. This entry had nothing to do with anyone in particular, but as I wanted to focus on the next steps I have to make, that person came up because we always talk shop in some way, and she finally got me on the phone, inviting me to a studio visit with her. That conversation came just as I was thinking about 2022 and the things I have set up to get done. So I found her intervention interesting. It literally said to me, this energy is in some way symbiotic. Lol. To me, she has her whole plan and image down pat. For me, I still find my work very broad and also very specific at times. I am now embracing that everything counts and I am also taking on the criticism that my Gallerist gave me about not working enough. Although I do, I just do not share non art based or projects not related to his business with him. What happened for me yesterday felt like a breakthrough because the stream of consciousness that I felt was one where I began to look at my career more succinctly. I think this has also come about because I have been invited to do another talk about my work in early December. Bottom line, you get what you focus on indeed.

oh, and also...

With so many parts of the world burning or flooding and so many people fleeing their countries, I ask myself why can't the planners, architects, billionaires and politicians decide to build permanent structures for the displaced. It seems as though so many people are never going to be able to go home again. Places may just as well be built that are safe and productive for people. Children are growing up in a perminant state of fear, anxiety and poverty. They will not know the first thing about securing their livelihoods? I cannot imagine how a child growing up in a refugee camp can become a productive adult? Surely governments and religious organizations and huge companies can assist in maing such spaces suitable for real life? They can become testing spaces for survival of mankind at our best. Everyone deserves clean water, electricity and good food. Children need to feel safe and they need schooling and play and laughter and hope. This is my thought for today and many, many days.

On my wonderful walk this morning I contemplated some things that went counter to the environment that encouraged the thought. I turned backward and had a moment to observe the valley from a height. In a house nearby, on the patio,the humming birds flitting around hanging containers of watered honey took my breath away. There were so many of them. So, the thought of my behavior a few years ago and most recently with my daughter when I told her a joke about something she was very sensitive about let me to the thought about anger. It came up and it led the way as I walked back down the steep hill of one of the neighboring developments. Anger. Of course very quickly my ex-husband also came to mind and I listened to what and why it caught my attention. Anger can make you less than clear in your judgement. Anger can make someone who in other circumstances may be rational, suddenly irrational. Ok. Yes, and...and I concluded that I am very concerned for what all of mankind is doing right now where that emotion is concerned. Yep, I went from one little germ of a hypothesis to a complete thesis in about a second. There is a court case that I was not taking on really, but the verdict was read yesterday, and I still need more information on it. But that was part of the train....The Rittenhouse verdict. We get angry, we react. We want justice. We become relentless over that deep hurt. It becomes scarring. As I decended the hill, I wondered about a way to demonstrate to others how much anger, rage, hurt, hurts the world? I thought about how we all gang up on persons who commit terrible crimes and we as they say here at home, 'wash our mouths' on the pain of others? It is a controversial thought because as my family and I have experienced being wronged by strangers breaking into our house, I should have no sympathy or empathy at all. Yet I do. I have had to consider where those two young men came from, at the same moment that I feared even considering if they would let us live. It is a damn tough thing to question. Should we turn the other cheek? My thought was more along the lines of rage and hate being something that needs to be discussed with greater understanding. I am writing that coming off like a clarion bell of group verbal abuse does not make any criminal 'better.' Recently I was looking at a series called YOU on Netflix. I was stunned by the premise of it. Particularly one episode where before the title came up, a disclaimer for suicide and a helpful hotline was stated. This series is all about two mass murderers! WHAT! A disclaimer for suicides? What about one for murderers???? Also, why the hell am I watching this series ? How can it be 'entertainment? Is there something wrong with me for being curious with that topic? Anyway, the point I am making here is that I have found in 2021 that for so many issues so many of us come out spouting platitudes like we are all so saintly and that person deserves punishment. I can't help but do a quick calculation down the centuries of how much our behaviour changes nothing. The contradictions that make us human sometimes makes me feel physically ill. I shudder at who we say we are. I don't have the answers, and I know that I shall write more on this as I continue to run it across my mind. But, jeez! I find that there is no honor in criticiing victims and perpetrators...and look at that, that word includes (traitor)waw! Perpetual traitor. No redemption possible in that title. Is there an answer? What solution can we come to? I don't know? I don't know? I only sense that more and more of more of the same does not work.

Open

There is always something about the end of the year. Suddenly you feel freer, you feel optimistic, you feel lighter. This year taught me a lot, as every year does. But somehow I feel that I got a few more than usual. A great big one was suddenly placing a spotlight on one of my ongoing beliefs.I was going on and on in my other diary and realised that the very thing that I was saying I wanted, I suddenly realised that I had it, it was just all about perspective. I found that as well with other things going on with my life. The best part is that I applied it often and it is a go to now. I am also using this axium to project, and I am excited about that as well.I really feel that I get the whole stepping out of my way thing. Just taking a moment to not focus on set thoughts is so liberating. You just give yourself a moment as though you were talking to yourself as a friend. That sounds so obvious, but it is so easy to not always treat yourself as you should. So much of life makes you get up as if standing at the beginning of a race, except your not sure if its a sprint or a marathon.You need time every day, even in covid-19 to quiet yourself, check in and make sure that your not walking through life pessimistically. You have to do that checking in. You just do.

so obvious

This morning when I went for my walk I as always had a few thimgs on my mind. I won't go down the list because that will take this entry south. One thing did occure to me and it has to do with the poster I posted here a few days ago that talks about...you miss someone-call. As I was headed back home I considered what I have written a couple times this year about where I want to be professionally, and I think that I wrote here that I am only now realizing that I am already living inside my plans. Well now I want to add to that by stating that I have acknowledged that I am doing what I want to be doing, and I have to consciously be aware of it every day and nurture it, respect it, build it, grow it, love it and most of all be damn grateful to have to tenacity to care for it, guard it and laud it.

TRUST

When I was approached last year to do some new work for a show, I found myself unsettled by what I had to do. The last time I felt so divided was for a solo I did a few years ago. So this time, I wrestled between what I know to be my reasons for making the things that I do and making something completely out of my comfort zone. \I wanted to write about this today because I can not get over how much I fought myself to work in the vein of what I did with this show. The reactions came in a rush, and now I am on a momentum. There is a long list of things that I have begun to complete and want to see done. This moment is a stepping stone to where I want to be going and I am excited and grateful and satisfied and desirous of getting further along my path.

Since the death of my father and my aunt and a slew of friends of my family over the last eighteen months, I have of course had to confront my own mortality. What I have discovered is that in projecting my thoughts forward to how old I shall be in three, five, ten, fifteen years from now, anxiety sets in. Everything speeds up and I hope that what I can control will be controlled. I get instantly maudling knowing that my loved ones will not be with me forever. But also, I appreciate what I have right now and I have decided that I shall do my best to say thank you and to be grateful for every moment. Amidst all of this, yesterday for an example, I went to my daughters' home to drop something for her. I no longer put the package outside her door because he made such a stink about it, and threatened to throw everything away the last time in front of her, so I have gone to deliver things aboutfour times this yearwhen I know he is not there. But yesterday he caught her when she took up the package. The whole thing yesterday was writ large in my mind as to how absurd he has made things for all of us. I contacted my sister and she told me that my only recourse is weekly police visits to complain about his not bringing her to my home. The difference for me yesterday was that I found myself at an emotional and mental crossroads. I felt like, it doesn't matter if this is a prisonlike experience to me. I have to look above, beyond and through the situation at hand. No one is coming to save me.(lol)I have seen the situation from my perspective and his.To me, I have had my mind on this for over a decade.All I think I have achieved is stress and no support, no positive solution at the end of the day. Now I am done with it all. The pattern that wants to be played is another huge injection of money into lawyers and court dates and I have refused to go there. Our child meanwhile is seeing all of this playing out in her life and she is so over it. The simple answer of just acting like an adult and communicating is something that he is just not capable of, and I am through with wishing and hoping about it.My choice is now to have my daughter speak up for herself. My decision is also to continue to parent her through the uncertainties.Yet,sometimes I feel defeated by the experience. I come to terms with where I am. Thank god I can see beyond this moment and to the next. It is hard. Hard to deal with such a waste of time and resources, and for what? This is the way it seems. So I also have to keep my focus on good things. I keep my mind on moving forward and confidently and positively as I can.

Some helpful thoughts

The other day when I wrote about my insecurities I have to now state that it cleared the way for feeling way better today. I have been doing the usual assessment of my year. What have I wanted to do, what did I actually do? Where do I want to be? What am I really accomplishing and on and on. Today I am looking at all of that more soberly. I have been able to feel like this as well because in the last two days I have been looking for an old address book and I have gone through lots of old papers and diaries and seen just how much I do on a daily basis, and all that I have been trying to accomplish over the years. I certainly have not been sitting still. In fact I have to say that under my circumstances I have managed to do quite a lot. I have been really concerned about feeling dissatisfaction as I have. I was worried that that may become my dominant state of mind. But then I remembered that I am in a pandemic like everyone else. I am going to have moments of disassociation, moments of sadness for all of the loss my family and I have experienced. I need a moment to breath, a moment to remember and recoup from all the emotions that flood in and overwhelm.' Today I remember what I want to accomplish. I feel like smiling and creating work and sitting around shooting the breeze and dreaming and I feel good.