Vignettes from Two Fucking Weeks

Fathers Day

I thought about my father. He is a blurry memory that occasionally interferes with the present by occasion of irrational terror.I wondered if I loved him or ever loved him. I know he is somewhere close to being eighty, living somewhere far away, and a messianic massacre is unlikely now. He is missing teeth now. I should rephrase this. I don't actually know if he is living or where he is living, but the assumption in my family is that when he dies, we will learn it. 

My father is why I write. One night, close to a decade ago, in my soft bed with the window open I let the dark air into my lungs and plodded through some random novel, unsuspectingly, it opened a torrent of grief in me. The main character described her sorrow when her father divorced her mother, and she worried about who would take care of her when he left. Surprisingly, my body began sobbing. Uncontrollably. What got me was that I wanted the sorrow connected with the absence of a father. I wanted the archetype of a protector. I got a monster called a father, whose departure from our home was a relief. 

When I told my therapist about the awkward and unsuspecting convulsing sadness I experienced via a mediocre novel, she told me: "You're thawing. It means your body feels safer now to begin healing." She mentioned it was the first time in the five years we had been working together that I mentioned my father. She suggested I employ my art as a way to work through my father material. "Hokey," replied one of my internal parts. What I did then was nothing but close the window that had cracked open that night. However, the invitation to explore my relationship with my father was now in my consciousness.

A year later, during my graduate studies at Goddard College, I had to design my own coursework. I decided to use the opportunity to create a course on memoir as a subversive tool to expose my father-pain to light. Before this, I had never written in a way that I had classified as writing; I just wrote poem dashes and musings about my artistic process (which still seems accurate). 

As I began putting my dribbly black ballpoint to paper, words flooded the page with unnatural urgency. Nothing was tight. Everything was everything, and also somehow missing my father from the script. I felt a combination of euphoria and shame as trapped stories from my life tumbled out and curse words littered the ground. A private shitstorm. My advisor, who was reading my work, was my angel of deliverance. He continued to encourage me by permissioning the content and acknowledging that my writing voice was yummy (my word not his). He told me I could be a writer any way I wanted to, meaning I could share my writing or not. I could write exclusively for healing or craft writing for readers. Nothing was wrong. He encouraged me to let the damn be broken and let everything out as naturally as it willed without attempting to coral a stream. Eventually, he said, it would make sense, and I would find the stories building upon themselves and recognize my voice stylistically. 

In that one semester, I wrote more than I ever have since. I have hundreds of pages of fragments, and still, my father is missing from them. My Google Drive is a body of personal material outside of my fleshy corpse. Someday, I want to share it. Someday, I want to compile the stories. Someday, I want to write about my father.

I can remember some hugs: the smell of Old Spice deodorant, the feeling of strong arms, and the brightness of the white Hanes t-shirt. 

Art Exhibition

I may be rusty. It's been about five years since my last visual art reception. Or maybe I don't like it. Or maybe I'm full of little wounded selves or gremlins. All this to say that my opening was uncomfortable. I wrestled with a real meany on the inside, which made it very difficult to accept appreciation and encouragement of my work. 

Yet, there is a me who made the work, who loves it, and who wants to keep making it despite the internal meanie. 

God help us.

Meanwhile, my ceramics from Touching Matters collection are available for a limited time at Alder & Co., a bespoke boutique of beauty. If I could have them anywhere, they would be here—and they are here now.

Small Blue Vessel,for something precious

Two Years of Moon Water Vessel

Touching Matters Wishes (Wall Drawings)

Fitting-In

I've been thinking about fitting in, or rather, the idea of fitting in. Many of us think about, write about, and try to do this stuff, squeezing into someone else's idea¹ of what we should be, look like, and do. Aka, "fitting in".

Not so long ago, I had an experience where I left my body. Yup. 

(Are you still reading?)

Do you know where I fit in? The stars.

I'm not kidding. 

During this (non-drug induced) experience, I understood "I" was not human but instead was having a human experience, and to have a human experience, I would constantly forget that I was not human. 

I wonder if many of us struggle with this perplexing paradox of not being ourselves and not fitting in because we actually do not fit into the ideas of what we should do and be as humans because the "I" in us is not human. I'm curious if our infinite spirit is hitting human limitations (beliefs and bodies) and we desire free creative expression. But the tension is that simultaneously, we are here now to experience humanness, which means limitations and boundaries. 

If we only have this one round of human experience as a spiritual being, how amazing would it be to be a free-spirited human? Meaning that you permitted your spirit's desires against all odds of fitting into this abysmal human operating system on earth.

I'm starting to tilt in that direction. This writing is indicative. 

Break-time

This week was supposed to be the first of a three-week break. It felt awful.  I have been so tired that I have needed naps (I'm not a nap person). I have been overwhelmed by continuous unfinished business that stubbornly refuses to pause. I'm stressed by the desire to be languid, pushed against the pressure to get my life in order and start the passion projects that have been patiently waiting for me. I resent having to do all my husband's chores because he is away during "MY BREAK"! Of course the appliances broke, requiring replacing fridges and calling plumbers between driving my son to his regents exams and doctor appointments. All this exhaustion overspilled into high self-critique of my physical self. "Have I ever been this fat, ugly, haggard, etc?" 

Celebrations, completions, and rests are complicated for me. There needs to be a transition built into my expectations around these events.

Noting the need for a grace period, a little three-day Jesus rest before rising from the dead.

Looking ahead to these next two weeks of stay-cation break, I will experiment with time and space stretching for hereness and nowness. Between the full moon and the next new moon, I'm going to:

• Take a social media break

• Not read the news

• Do some intermittent phone fasting

• Set the vacation notice on my email and let it pile up

• Cover my mirrors

• Not make any advance social engagement plans 

I want to wake up into the day and allow it to direct me. I want to float on it like a river, without oars or maps. I don't need to see myself to feel myself. I want to feel buoyant and supported, not by my own effort. 

I want to loiter.

I'll let you know how it goes next week.

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Visit: Alder & Co 442 Warren st Hudson, NY to see my recent ceramics. Also available online for purchase. 

photo by Rebecca Westby

1. Idea; the word idea was first written in an ancient Greek epinician ode of Pindar praising an Olympic victor’s appearance as his idea. Plato adopted the word as “the form of the good”. It is curious how an idea ties to an appearance over an essence. Anne Carson taught me where the word idea originated in Wrong Norma.