memory lane can be the road to the Present

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spent the whole day behind the hook and am now enjoying an over-poured glass of Auslese.  this is the very definition of a wonderful day off.

and i've needed it.  the passed week or so has been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster.  a huge box arrived unexpectedly containing my mother's collection of family photos, more than 3 1/2 years after her death.  i opened the box only to be sure of what it was and then closed it again.  i wasn't in the mood for that type of upheaval and i wasn't prepared to slice open a cardboard box and be greeted by my mother's face and the dresses she saved that my sister and i wore as little girls in an Olen Mill's portrait so soooooo many years ago.  kelly must've been 4 or 5.  that would have made me 7 or 8.

a few days later, i reached back inside the box and pulled the dresses out.  i remember hating them as a little girl but, now, they look like art pieces.  something possibly akin to the Kiki Smith piece, Sisters, or the twins in The Shining.  ha!

i gazed at them in between rounds of digging through the 7 portfolios that are stored in my bedroom closet.  it was a strange walk down memory lane.  it's amazing what an accurate barometer of emotion art is.  looking at my work from just a few years ago, i relived the pain and confusion and longing i was entrenched in during those days.  and the sheer MASS of my personal collection is astounding! i've thrown away SO MUCH each time i've moved and i still have such an enormous stockpile of work! it was heartrending to go through it all but there were also moments when i smiled.  and smiled wide like a goofy child, at that.  in the middle of a portfolio that largely houses work i did during the last year i lived in Calistoga, i came across a self-portrait i drew when i was 21 years old.  it was made during one of the happiest times in my life DESPITE the fact that i had yet to leave my hated home town.

 

it was drawn during the time Jose and i lived together in my very first apartment.  we were inseparable and i loved being with him.  we smoked way too many cigarettes and drank blended frappaccinos way too often and squeezed our bellies  and called ourselves fat just like two silly teenagers would.  :)  thinking back on all that makes me so happy.  we listened to Bikini Kill and dreamed of New York together.  what's really special is that sometimes we still do.  it's not at all irregular for Jose and i to refer to each other as Rebel Girl more than 10 years later.  :)

all this made somehow brought me to the realization that for the last several years i needed a deep round of PLAY.  it's no secret that life is hard and it's no secret that my life has been hard.  looking at my own work, my own hand smearing charcoal and graphite, the words i'd scrawl sometimes in the margins or on the back of the paper...  i realized that in the span of 3 short years i lost all three parental figures and the person i considered to be the closest member of my immediate family, my partner for 7 years.  with the exception of my siblings, my entire immediate family basically collapsed.   and all the emotion of those days was right there.  right in my hands, in the black and white smears and screams of my drawings.

it was hard to leave the house that day.  i wanted to hide in bed.  i wanted to be dirty and dumb and lounge around in dingy pajamas.  i wanted to not give a fuck about anything and just spend the day drinking.  i wanted to raise a middle finger to the world and cry my eyes out.  sometimes i hear my voice inside my own head and it sounds so small.  so painfully small. so heartbreaking.  i think of my mother and i think of my father and i think of my siblings and what their pain must be and i whisper inside myself, "this isn't fair"...

but looking at the artwork i made during such a tumultuous era allowed me to see that i have, in fact, healed from a great many pains and that i long to return to a certain type of seriousness again, a particular breed of deep introspection and artistic investigation.  basically, it made me want to draw again.  :)

we'll see.  i sure enjoyed laying in bed all day with my crochet hook and black yarn today, that's for sure.



i'm confident the Future is an interesting place.  

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i pretended to hold your hand

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at the edge of the world with my jeans rolled to the knee, i thought of you as i walked along that cold, beautiful line of surf and sand.  i looked out across the expanse of the pacific to where the water meets the sky and thought of Germany, thought of you; your young, bright self bouncing across cobblestone and drinking beer.  i played the morrissey song "everyday is like sunday" over and over again as i walked from the pier to the cliffs.  i smiled against the wind and thought, "where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here."

and then a week later, a box arrives at my front door.  i look at the return address and see its from my ex-stepfather.  i push the box against the wall in the kitchen and walk away.  i knew what the box contained...  something i've been waiting for for well over a year, something i cried over the last time i held it in my hands the day after you died:  the photo album of your high school graduation, mama, your days as a young GI in Hannover, and the early days of your marriage to my father.

i went to my room with a cup of coffee and wrote for awhile but the gravity of your arrival pulled me back to the kitchen.  i grabbed a knife out of the drawer and cut the packing tape in a clean, careful slice.  i needed to know if this treasure had truly arrived, if i'd finally received something i've been waiting for for so long.  i folded back the edge of the cardboard box and brushed away foam peanuts to find your painting and another small box.  i lifted the small box out, set it on the kitchen table, and looked inside.

i couldn't look for long before i felt the sting of tears in my eyes and throat.  i bore the pain dryly, just long enough to photograph my treasure and to pay honor to the arrival of such a beloved and long-awaited piece of my disheveled family history.

young and fresh and beautiful at 19 years old, that's my mama on the lower right.

such a beauty.

where'd you get off to, woman?  you should be here.



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30 years ago today, john lennon was murdered. today, imagine peace on his behalf.