This and That

Just learned a new mini factoid-- if you add soap to the water of your watercolors, the paper of a moleskin diary, and i assume others, the paper will not resist the paint. That was why I didn't use those journals. Huh.

Eh, I'll probably keep using my old black bound sketch books. I've been getting back into painting, drawing and collaging. Somehow, it seems more accessible than writing a huge project.

I'm trying a new thing-- typing with one hand while nursing. Not as efficient and Gabriel is distracted.

It would be nice if I could do an illustrated blog-- or an actual website with pictures and stuff. I like doing everything by hand, but sometimes it would be great if I were a little bit more technologically savvy.

Can you tell I am again trying to get back to the creativity thing? Maybe it's not an again sort of proposition, but a still, always, continuous sort of thing. I do know that I often look back at periods where I thought I was struggling creatively, and find I was pretty productive.

I guess being creative takes an effort... no that's not quite right... it takes attention, time, and action.

It also helps to be in the conversation. It's nice that the women in my mommy's group are creative types. And I've been looking at artist's websites... there's so much out there. I guess you just have to be open to it.

Looking for Abundance

Living in New York City is difficult, even living in Brooklyn, outside of the madness of Manhattan, is tough.

I've been a stay at home mom for 4 months now. More if you count the months when I was pregnant and unable to work. It's a really strange phenomenon for me. I haven't been this dependent upon another person since I was 17-- and even then I was bringing in a few bucks with babysitting or ushering or selling marshmallow treats to the highschool kids at lunch time. Now, if I want to get a coffee, I have to ask Sean.

It's so wierd. And money is tight, too. It's not like Sean is a doctor or lawyer or works on wall street with all those people, who, I'm sorry to say, don't really contribute much to the furthering of society. We make it week to week, and some weeks are tighter than others.

I just came back from the grocery store, and something about it made me cringe. Something made me feel poor. Not just broke, but poor. There's a difference. Sean gave me 30 bucks to go grocery shopping, which is not enough, wasn't even enough when I was shopping for just little old me. Not only that, but I spent about ten on lunch today at my Mommy's group. I needed to eat, you know? So here I am, trying to get basics to hold the house over until the next time I go shopping. I'm going for the cheapest rice, and just one head of garlic, skipped the fruit all together, because I can get Sean to bring some on his way home from work.

I put my groceries on the conveyer, and everything was white. White fish, white baby cereal, white rice, white garlic, white onions, white cheese, white pasta. It seemed empty to me, it seemed poor, it seemed like the way you eat when you have nothing but change for a bagel. Yikes. It gave me the willies. Of course, when I got the bill, it was ten dollars less than I thought it was going to be. (Probably because I left behind the cereal and ground beef, without subtracting the cost from my mental ring-up)

So, I'm walking home with my bag of groceries and my sleeping child, my boots soaking from the brief rainshower, and in my head, I'm thinking, I feel poor.

I feel poor. I grew up poor, and with that came the shame of poverty, of not being able to afford simple things, of not having what others had or doing what others did. The shame of feeling like you somehow did not belong, and instead lived on the outskirts of the world, looking in. Walking down the street, I felt that shrinking feeling, that "poor" feeling, but I had to stop and really examine it.

I don't have a lot of money, but I have the opportunity to stay at home with Gabriel, to care for him and spend time with him, without having to scramble for daycare. I have a large comfortable home in a neighborhood that is alot safer than the one I grew up in. Sean and I go out often enough, for brunch or a beer at the neighborhood pub. I have the time, although I don't use it, to make art and write. And if I wanted too, I could get the money from Sean to buy my favorite fruits and veggies and fresh mozzarella and steaks, at least some of the time.

See the thing about poverty is that it is a state of mind. It's about seeing the lack, not the abundance. It's about feeling trapped, and not having hope. I could be selling my soul on Wall Street for 150 thou a year, and feel utterly poor. I could be making 15 thousand working on a farm and feel truly blessed. I know that there is actually more to poverty than just this, but it's a big component.

I really want to start looking at my abundance. I want to simplify and enjoy the life I have, instead of wanting more and more stuff that really isn't all that important.

I think it would be nice to feel that satisfaction.

What is the best way to get inspired again? It's not like I can do like I used to and sequester myself with my journals and my paints and my books to write and paint and read the inspiration up. Nope, I've got the Monkey Man sleeping on the couch next to me, and I wince everytime he whimpers in his sleep.

(no, kiddo, no, kiddo, no kiddo, do not wake up.)

When I was a teacher, half of my job consisted of getting kids inspired to work. It didn't always work, but sometimes it did. That was in a New York City public school, and a lot of the kids had major issues. Well, that's kind of amusing. Am I assuming that I am issue free? Obviously I have issues, if I didn't I would be done with my current novel, seeing it published, and working on a new one. What a lovely picture I paint. Me, issue free. Maybe I should treat me like I treated my students, my fragile, struggling, alternately brilliant and doltish students. They were lazy, just like I am. They had dreams and dreams, just like I do, ones neither of us are completely convinced we can achieve, and which we might be terrified of actually achieving.

But considering a person (me) had the desire to write, what are the tricks that I used to help get up the inspiration. And beyond the inspiration, the habit of working.

Daily journal entries. That's right. Whether you wanted to write or not. I had a quote or a question or a prompt, and the assignment was to write for ten minutes non stop-- without worrying about what you actually had to write.

Brainstorming. That was always fun, and it pulled on the knowledge you already had. Put the main idea on the board or on a piece of paper, and then just spider web all the associations that went with it. Then you look at what you've written and you can actually see the thinking, you can catch the flow, the story, the meaning. Great way to write poetry-- just choose one cluster of the web.

Art Projects. A collage or a drawing might help you get a different perspective on whatever it was you were trying to understand or create. That works particularly well to help you understand the bigger/deeper ideas behind a complicated story. Also helped to build a personal connection to the material.

Choice. Honestly, giving the kids a choice of material helped them want to do things. It gives you a sense of control over what you are doing. And yet, the choice is limited-- you don't get to choose any old thing in the universe, but one of a selection. This is important, because the world gets so big when there are no limitations. How can you make any choices? So limiting choices, but giving free will among those really helps to create a focus.

Personal accountability. Checking up on them. Giving deadlines. Having high expectations, leading to a performance or presentation.

What are the ways I can adapt these techniques to my own practice?

Eh, looking for magic pills to solve all my problems. What I really need to do is just write.

It Is

This has been the hardest entry to write.

I keep wanting to talk about how I've decided to pay attention to all the good things I have in my life, instead of the things I am lacking, but every time I start, my brain can do nothing but whir around all the absences and failures.

Why is it so hard to live your life in blessings?

We've all got them, right? Maybe they're not huge things, but everyone can at least have a good cup of coffee in the morning, right? Or a butterfly fluttering about? Or a dramatic sunset?

How often do we ignore the things that make us happy, or could make us happy if we paid attention to them and gave them the value they deserve?

How often do we pay attention to our lives as they are, right now, this instant?

I know I don't. I pay attention only to what is missing, and it's killing me. I'm so freaking worried that I won't ever be able to be a writer, that I don't have the stuff, that I don't have the will. I'm terrified that I'm losing my identity in being a mother. I'm afraid that the task of being who I want to be is going to get eaten up by the niggling worries of washing the dishes and feeding the cats and sweeping the floor-- or more precisely, how bad I am at doing all those things.

My life has turned into this negative. My life has turned into this aching jaw full of tension.

And I'm missing out on this life that I've kind of wanted since I was fifteen-- being a mother.

I'm there for my baby, and I give him attention and love and all those things I need and want to give him, but I'm not there in the moment. I'm always thinking about what is next to do.

This isn't happiness.

But it could be. The elements of happiness are all in place. All it will take is for me to pay attention to this that is my life. THIS is my life. Not all the things I want but don't have. And certainly not the television playing non stop, a drug that allows time to pass without any effort on my part. No. This right here.

Pay attention, Rowena, to the baby sleeping next to me on the couch, allowing me to sort through all this in writing. Pay attention to the sunset lighting the tree outside my window. Pay attention to Sean, and his joy in his son and his family. Pay attention to how creating, whether in words or in pictures, makes you happy.

Pay attention to your life, and pay attention to all that it is.

I Feed, Therefore I am

I've come to the conclusion that my purpose in life right now is to feed.

I feed the baby. I am the milk bar. Every couple of hours, he cries, and I wip out the booby.

I feed my boyfriend-- whenever he is home in time for dinner.

I feed the cats. Not as much as they'd like, but they'd like to be as round as piggies.

I feed myself. If I didn't I would have nothing to feed the baby. Plus I'd be mighty grumpy and no one would want to be around me.

I also-- and this is the most annoying one-- feed the mosquitos of Brooklyn. Good lord. Head to toe, and lots of places in between. Big pink welts that take turns itching me to distraction.

This has been quite a summer.

Return to the World of the Living?

Welcome me back to the world of the living. After however many months of allowing myself to be non-productive while I was busy reproducing, I know have a little baby boy, and the beginning urges to be creative again.

Now it's all sorts of other difficulties presenting themselves. Exhaustion. Screaming baby. Need to eat or feed someone or something.

I've decided to play a game with myself. Break up life into fifteen minute increments-- see what I can get done in those fifteen minutes-- whether that's a shower, or a meal, a painting or a poem, or maybe a blog entry... hmmm....

That's quite a distinctive wailing I hear.

This is going to be a challenge.

I'll get back to you.

Reproductive/Non-productive

I never feel like writing. I never feel like drawing or painting. I barely even feel like reading.

This is a strange time in my life.

I am the person who writes/draws/reads constantly. Any blank moment is filled with one of those activities. The urge is almost unbelievable.

Except for now. Except for this pregnancy. I don't even want to write in the journals I've been keeping for, oh, twenty one years. All I want to do is lay around, watch tv, web surf, and fllip through magazines.

I suppose I have to chalk it up to being pregnant. All that creative energy is going somewhere else-- making a baby.

I have to say, that in this rational age of science and technology, that just doesn't make any sense. Why should the physical act of gestation-- with all it's attendant growth patterns and umbilical cords and oxygen transfers-- why should it pull on whatever it is that makes me an artist? And it isn't just a basic level of energy thing. There are times within my pregnancy where I have energy, but I end up decorating or cleaning--- nesting. And there are times before I got pregnant where I've had no energy, and I would curl up with my journal and paint a picture or write about how I felt. None of that now.

There's got to be something else involved in being and artist-- and making a baby, something that is shared. What is it? What could it be?

I don't know, but the idea comforts me, somewhat. A lot of my frustration right now is born out of the fear that maybe I won't be able to write and paint anymore, or even want to. Maybe my artist days are over. But if my non-productivity can be understood due to my re-productivity, maybe I can let go of that fear and frustration.

I even did one of those on line tarot readings. I actually read tarot cards for other people, but have problems reading for myself. Too hard to keep my desires and fears out of the interpretation, but the on line thing had interpretations already set up, which I could then understand in my situation. And frankly what it told me was that it was time to reconcile those parts of myself-- the mother and the artist. It also pointed out that what was truly mine could never be lost. Oh and all sorts of things that gave me faith in my ability to retain "the artist."

Society is wierd. It says all sorts of things about what a mother is and isn't. It's really easy to buy into that.

I am going to create again. Art, writing, not just babies. I am. I'm going to work really hard on it, because it's important.
But all I know is that, yes I am going to be a mother, but I am also Rowena, and that is who has something really important to give to her son. Not someone who has drowned herself in motherhood and her child. Just like in any relationship, a romantic relationship as well as a maternal one, a person has to keep her identity, right? Sure, change and transform along with life, but retain her individuality, right?

Is This About Chickens or Is it About May?

I can't believe it's May. I think I thought Spring would never come. I think I thought it was the Winter that would never end.

Silly girl. No faith.

Spring always comes.

There are all sorts of cyclical turns in life. Day to night. Winter to Spring to Summer to Fall. Life and Death. The water cycle.

It's the circle of life.

You can't tell that I'm singing The Lion King.

But within the circle, there are also unpredictabilities. (Is that a word?) Who knows what's coming next. Who knew what happened would happen. Like my internet going down for a couple weeks. I had no clue that would happen. One day, I just woke up, and no internet.

But even the surprises in life don't come from out of the blue. Okay, sometimes they do, but even when they do, you aren't left hanging. Sooner or later, some sort of cycle, habit, pattern, understanding begins to come clear.

Good thing. Otherwise, we'd be running around all the time like chickens with their heads cut off, never knowing what to do next. And even the chickens kinda run around in circles.

So Tired

I just got home after nine hours of my crappy, tedious porn job. It's cold outside. After only two days, spring slipped back towards Winter. The wind was blowing and the walk to my apartment was so sharp. My back is still killing me from hours in a bad office chair. And everybody on the subway is just too stupid to lilve.

I'm so tired I could cry. That's all. That's all I feel, this exhausted simmering frustration. I can't imagine how I could have survived this pregnancy stuff while I was still waiting tables and bartending. I can't imagine what would have happened while I was teaching. I'm barely surviving this job, and I don't have to put out any energy except the energy to put up with stupid porn blurbs like this:" watch these Meatholes (AKA whores) be verbally and physically dominated intil their worthless souls are revealed in a cornucopia of sex, bottled up emotions, and semen guzzling." Yes, this is a quote that illustrated all that is wrong with the porn industry.

But I don't even want to talk about that. I'm just too tired and hormonal. I'm afraid it just gets worse before it gets better. And I'm even more afraid that it doesn't get better for years and years. But there's so much I have to do-- I mean in my life-- and I'm just so tired.



Definitely this is a quote that points out to me all that is wrong with the porn industry.

Mercy

I haven't quite figured out the cycles of this pregnancy thing.

A few days ago I was in a frenzy of cleaning (well, frenzy for me) and then I was busy with meeting a friend and wandering around Greenwich Village in the beautiful Spring-like weather. Okay, it was actually Spring, but it's been so cold, I don't quite believe it. I went ot a movie with Sean and stayed out late-- almost 10 0'clock!

A few days before I was in a funk. Just kind of pissed off, the kind where you growl under your breath at innocent people trying to walk down the street because you think they're taking up the whole sidewalk, or something stupid like that.

And yesterday, I was a lump. Couldn't get up from the couch. Gave up and stayed there, reading, napping, snacking. At first I was angry at myself, thought I should be able to get something done, but then I realized that sometimes our bodies tell us what we should be doing. Those are signals-- hunger, pain, exhaustion-- signs we need to eat, to rest, to sleep.

I am often angry with myself. I don't live up to my own expectation. I expect I should be perfect, and I'm not. Then I get angry and start beating myself up. I'm lazy, boring, irresponsible, stupid-- whatever it is that day that makes me less than perfect.

I'm still working on allowing myself to be human. Being human in general means that sometimes you are on top of things, and sometimes you are not, sometimes you fail, sometimes you do less. Does that mean YOU SUCK!? No, no. It means you're human.

And being pregnant it's almost like everything is heightened. I am even more at the mercy of my internal workings. Workings, I might add, that I seem to have no control over.

Maybe what I need to do, in life, as in pregnancy, is to learn how to just go with the flow. Whatever is, simply is. It doesn't mean I suck. Neither does it mean I am a good person-- because then I fall into the trap of sucking again, simply because I don't meet the next expectation. I really need to stop judging myself, and give myself the same leeway that I give others.

Maybe I should also stop trying to be in total control of me. I am a self control freak, and here I am, pregnant and at the mercy of hormones and food intake and sleep urges. I feel almost as if I have to yield myself to this new life.

A wierd idea. I've been so independent for so long. Is this preparation for the kid to come?