so far (and without any concern for chronology)

3 1/2 weeks in to the new year, i have:

finished three drawings and started a fourth

read a thin book of poetry

began teaching myself a Lana Del Rey song on guitar

had my first solo art show in New York City in an apartment in Ridgewood

ate cheese cake and drank coffee with the friends who came

visited my friend in the hospital

brought her tomato bisque

brought her lentil soup

cut her hair for her when we realized the chemo had taken harsh hold of her, her golden strands coming out in clumps unexpectedly early

cried with her

held her hand

fell off the wagon

got my period a week early

bloodied our new white sheets

cried in public because i was drunk and angry

i was drunk and angry because i was hurt

got back on the wagon

wrote my husband a thank you note

cried in front of two different friends, separately, for the first time

have extended no less than 5 apologies, all of which were most certainly deserved

sent my Grandmother 2 postcards

listened to "Loveless" by My Bloody Valentine for the very first time.

asked my husband to marry me even though we are already married

watched "Bob's Burgers" for the very first time

went to work

went to therapy

sang

learning from my husband how to be married

i walk around all week
feeling sad
feeling bad about being sad
totally unable to corral it
to change the fact of it
to change the weight of it
so i try to change the face of it
try to present a Smiling Angela
rather than let the strain show.

somehow, i've started to believe that my on-going struggle with sadness is humiliating and something that i should be ashamed of, something i need to hide.
except here, i suppose.
this little land where i am king;
a single inhabitant, i reign supreme.
i don't have to smile here. i can let what is, be, rather than do what i do out in the greater landscape of my life-

muscles working
the kind we deny

heart muscles and spirit muscles
memory
love
synchronicity
anxiety
sadness

i look at my husband while he is sleeping and wonder how it is that he is here, in my care, safe and warm, readily dreaming, surrendered to this white bed, no shield, no life-vest.

perhaps i am the shield?
perhaps i am the life-vest?

he has been that and more this past week for me. and the truth of that shakes me, shatters so many things i tell myself about life and about the world; the biggest one being "i am alone."

he has watched me this week pull myself from sleep, put myself in the shower, pull on jeans and a sweater and socks and shoes. he has watched me walk out the front door and down to the bus-stop, dragging my feet, trying for grace and strength and brightness. back to work, i go. back to work, he goes. but some weeks are harder than others to do these things. he doesn't expect me to hide the struggle i am attending to and suddenly i become aware of one more place where i do not need to force a smile. it is safe to be sad in the land of my marriage. it isn't going to make him go away.

when we find each other again in the evening, we are two children excited to be having a sleep-over. secrets to share. secrets to keep. a warm bed and a safe roof. i try to remember these things when i think of the things and people i have lost. i try to see the treasures i have acquired. i look at his hands and his eyes. i look at the ring on his finger and feel my heart clench. i'm amazed by the fact of it- a sturdy gold, solid and thick. he's not going anywhere. not because i've chained him to me but because he's chosen to hitch his side to mine. i get to watch him sleep. i get to watch him wake up. these are amazing things. a grace and a beauty which, little by little, he shows me it is safe to lean into.

head cold. of course.

i have largely spent the day in my bathrobe, in bed, under the covers. despite my pathetic physical state, my bright attitude and outlook return to me. the few days i gave myself over to mourning were healthy, fertile. it was the first time in a long time i opened myself up to feel my mother's wind wrapping around me. i pulled on her old Uggs (a pair of horrendous boots i ruthlessly teased her about but she never let it get to her) and said outloud, "come on, mama. let's go for a walk."

i went to Artist & Craftsman - about a half-hour walk from my front door - to buy a friend of mine a gift. i had no idea what i'd end up buying for her but knew i wanted to encourage her artistic self. the world needs as many artists as it can get and it is a pleasure to do whatever small thing i can to encourage a person to pursue their own creative urges with joyful seriousness. it's a fact that art saves lives. art has saved my life so many times. it saves my life every single day. i have no idea who i would be or what my life would be like if i didn't avail myself of art as an outlet, as a maker and as a looker/listener/lover. i suppose it would feel a little flat, a little drab by comparison, and simply much harder to get through the day... that much harder to see the point in struggling toward a lovelier horizon. 

i ended up buying her a natural suzuri stone, a paint brush, and a chunky stick of charcoal. at home later that evening, i wrapped each piece in silver holographic wrapping paper and bound the three items together with a length of my mother's antique ribbon. i safety-pinned a pale blue forget-me-not i'd crocheted the day before to the bow. i smiled and felt glad to have the means and method to encourage another person in their artistic life... especially another woman. 

my mother spent her entire life warring with the idea of not being good enough and fearing the negative judgements of others. she burned all of her journal entries within days of writing them. she burned every bit of prose and poetry. the few pieces of visual art that survived her ended up scattered throughout thrift stores in middle Tennessee. i managed to get an oil painting she'd made in High School and returned it to her mother, my sweet Grandma. i have a small strand of paper dolls she made for me when i was in art school. they are taped to my studio wall. i have a jar of pale pink and pearlescent buttons she collected. i have her pair of Uggs and i don't let people teasing me about how horrendous they are stop me from wearing them when i need to. i have her forest green velvet blazer that she wore as a teenager when she dreamed of being an artist herself, when she played her guitar and told herself she'd be a singer someday. 

Little Bird

Year 8

slowly, and with much stealth, i creep back into this bright rectangle...

and on my mother's death day at that. 

despite the drama of the post below, i can tell you that Year 8 is not as painful as Year 1... not without pain - not nearly - but the quality of the pain is less sharp, less excruciating than it had been during the early years of her loss; more of a throb than a stab.  

i am sad but not caged by despair. i don't feel very social today and am certainly prone to self-pity, but i am not curled up in bed unable to wrest myself from the python squeeze of chronic depression. it had been that way for years and i am thankful it is not that way now. i can at least move from the bedroom to the kitchen. i have made myself a cup of coffee. i have made a cup for my sweetheart, as well. i am able to move. it doesn't matter that i go slowly. it doesn't matter than i may end up back in bed shortly. my mother would be thankful that her death is not as torturous as it once was... that i can feel her now rather than just her loss. the agony of her absence was all i could feel for a very long time. all i felt was her erasure. i have learned to walk without her for a long enough time now that i am suddenly able to feel the breezes of her energy. not always and not for long. but sometimes. 

though she is gone from my sight, she is not "gone." seems i have learned how to carry myself through the world as a "non-daughter" after all. 

at least a little bit.

though it is not a title i would have chosen, it is the title i have. i am glad to no longer buckle beneath the weight of it. there cannot be two deaths where there should only be one.

inexplicable

every year it shocks me.

i tell myself it won't be as hard this time around

that Year 8 won't feel like Year 1

not as knifed and angry

not as chaotic and desperate

nothing like that first morning:

waking beneath heartache, anvil-heavy,

my eyes opened and cried in the same moment.

the insanity of the thing

your face and your body gone

while my own little drum held fast its rhythm

how does one draw a line through their own name?

this task i have spent nearly a decade at:

how to be a non-daughter

a family self-portrait