ABAW 2012 / AAW 2012

Just an Update, still reading a book a week. I'm a little behind, but the books are listed on the page for ABAW 2012.

I've also been creating one piece of art per week in a little journal I created using index cards. I decorated the index dividers and hole punched the whole thing into a cute book (see below). And I journal on the back.

I noticed that I had been creating increasingly darker, screaming-out-for-help images about my job. Finally, I found this image of a bombed out area and used a label maker to write 'Productivity' - this goal that I am supposed to be striving for. I had decided no more.

Another image I created the week we were trying to get the seller to approve our offer. My husband was a hero that week, going all over to solve every problem that came up. Me, I was a mess of insecurities, fears, and ambivalence. When I look at that card, I remember his efforts as solitary. I know I wasn't helpful. I was scattered and confused like the birds. And I still sit with my ambivalence now.

I hope you can see the images - dunno how to turn them on my Blogger app on my phone. I am very behind in the journal as well - I have pages with little notes scratched on the back. But not until I pull out those images do I really see what has been going on inside.

A creative space

This weekend started with rain, a real bummer as we had master plans to clean and restain our deck. So Saturday started slowly, the air damp and heavy. We currently do not have a functioning HVAC system in our new house, as it has a huge crack in it that our inspector failed to catch. So the air is stagnant, our basement dank and musty, with my brain growing mold within the drywall and up the beams.

That afternoon, I retreated up as far as I could, into the front bedroom that will serve as 'my' room until we get pregnant. So there's a catch for you: I only get one - a baby or creative space. Hmm. Either way, for a minimum of 9 months (probably more because fantasies of mold does not do it for me, I refuse for sperm and egg to unite until the air is healthy - ha, as if I had that power!), this space is all mine.

I'm sitting in the middle of it now, and I just want to stretch out and throw stuff on the walls and paint big and make a royal mess. But I'm a little overwhelmed. I have 500 projects in half completion that I think I'm going to finish. There are also boxes and binders and CDs that I need to get rid of. So another catch: in order to make a mess, I have to clean up, purge, and get rid of all this baggage.

On Saturday I started. I was able to begin bringing together projects, and could see everything I have in one place. I don't have much in the way of work space but I kinda want to work on the floor anyway. I'm not sure how to do that. There are two closets in this room: one I'll eventually empty completely and one I'll store supplies in. I suppose it's sacrilege that I'm storing supplies in a cedar closet (calm down, it's not a good one).

There is so much to do in this house, and yet I'm feeling incredibly called to make and make and make. I'm also incubating ideas for my own business, and feel it could change my life if I find a way to walk calmly with fear, rather than let it talk me back like its trying to now.

Because I want to post again.

I'm sitting in a laundromat, waiting on both the dryer to dry and my husband to finish up tax free holiday purchasing (our house needs so much - I'll share that later), and to check out purchasing a second car, and it hit me in an overwhelming way that I want to blog again. Who knows, this could be the last again for six months. Or it could not. But I didn't want to put up another barrier of excuses, greatest of which is the need to tell the whole story from beginning. Where was the beginning anyway?

To catch you up: we bought a house. A townhouse to be exact, in the city but surrounded by trees. And cemeteries, but we can't see them do we just appreciate their quietness and hope the CDC is right about zombies.

It was a difficult, challenging experience I think made more difficult by all my own hang ups. I've had to deal with issues of security, money, privacy, and safety in oddly fundamental ways that have made me ill. I wouldn't confess that ever, anywhere. And it's been for the best.

I love my husband in a new way I am just becoming aware of. He is amazing. He also is driving me nuts in a brand new way, so it evens out.

Last night we attended the most touching wedding: 2 who have been together for years, a lifetime, and decided to tie the knot. Actually I think the need for health insurance and issues around growing older were also factors, but they held close to the romance. The ceremony showed how much they understood their love for each other, and how their friends and family glowed in this love, and knew it too, in a profound, true way. Joy, joy caused my heart to ache for this - I have the love, which I am so grateful for. I want the community.

So now I have some roots. I'm reaching them deep, and hope to find it nourishes me. Already I am feeling more whole, all my pieces are coming together and on a practical level, I am able to let go. Decluttering, purging, simplifying - those words don't match the experience of realizing that I don't need these representations. All I needed were roots: safety, security, home.

But today, I sit in a laundromat because the Universe is keeping me simple. I mentioned, our house needs many things, including a plumber to hook up our fancy brand new washer/dryer. I think I had to internalize and digest a lesson first.

As an aside, I'm using this post to practice blogging on my phone - I also took a picture to see how it works. That might help to keep posting.

A guide in the wilderness

I've been at impasse, stuck or hiding, I'm not sure which.  I wasn't sure if I'd write this here, but it just makes sense to do so.  I've written before that I've been having difficulty conceiving.  To clarify, I have trouble ovulating.  And well, a girl needs an egg to make a baby. 

I've been to an endocrinologist, who sent me a letter in the mail to let me know I have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome.  A letter.  Thanks.  And then I went to a reproductive endocrinologist who confirmed this diagnosis, and recommended a round of progesterone and clomid.  Progesterone makes my period come while tossing me into a black fog of tortured depression, and clomid makes my ovaries bring forth some follicles, which then are supposed to become eggs.   My supposition is that clomid will also make me a crazy weepy mess.   

Still reeling from the craptasticness of a diagnosis, months of testing, and an endocrine disorder, and oh, my feeling like a general failure as a woman, I said well fine, sure, okay.  We endured a giggling walkthrough of when to have timed relations.  Booya, love that I have to take a blood test to find out when to copulate. 

Two days later, I received several phone calls from a random pharmacy, who informed me that I'd also been injecting myself with a medication called Ovidril (it makes those follicles turn into eggs).  So I called the doctor's office, where a nurse rudely informed me I had been advised of this intervention.  That's a nada, biatch.  I'd remember if the meeting broke down like this:  endocrine disorder, failure as woman, medicine, medicine, shot, timed relations.  Nope, nothing about shots.  

I spent four weeks walking around my apartment debating when to take the progesterone, if I should call the doctor's office and schedule an appointment.  And I decided, I don't wanna. 

But I didn't know what to do next.  I want to have a baby, or three.  But I don't want it like this, this cold, mechanical, and downright terrible service of a process.  I'm mourning the fact I need any intervention at all.  I'm reeling that I have a diagnosis that will need intervention.  And I continue to be nervous about having babies, being a parent, and all that normal, gloriously normal, stuff that everyone else gets to have.  And, by the way, I am a fantastic woman, and not a failure at all.  I'm not cool with a process that makes me feel bad.

Time brought a chance encounter with a woman I have been growing friends with who shared her own story of struggling with infertility, feeling unfulfilled, unsure where to go next, and let me know about a therapist who specializes in working with women just like us.  And this lady knows all the good people.  I'm a therapist:  I know that I need some therapy around this, I know that its impacting my work and my life. 

So I saw her today.  I walked away with a page of referrals for reproductive endocrinologists, permission to get 2nd and 3rd opinions (yes! you ARE allowed to do this!), OB/GYNs, and a feeling that someone out there got it, and that my point of view IS okay.  And finally, I have a guide.

try, try again

I could be setting myself up for it, but I'm going to try this again.

Hello, internet.

Okay, so I haven't really done too much to spruce up, but I did change the masthead.  Maybe I'll get wacky and try to change it monthly.  Its so darn easy to do.  The truth is, I like it here, writing posts that I'm not sure if anyone will ever read, organizing my thoughts and finding a reason to bring it together, reaching some sort of synthesis when sometimes things just don't make sense.  And they usually don't seem to make much sense.

Perhaps that's what happened over these many months.  Everything backed up on me, and nothing ceased to make much sense.  I was working way too much, I'm supervising an intern, my own supervisor has retired, my caseload has exploded and I'm finding myself to be fairly in demand with a terrible case of unable-to-say-no's.  The pace has become ridiculous, like running on a treadmill that has gone haywire.  But I feel clear today, I feel caught up, things are clean, I've been making art.  And I will return to work tomorrow and just know it will all disappear again despite my best intentions.

Well, let's give a moment to the best intentions - there is something about putting something in writing that may make it more likely to become so.

I'm continuing to read a book a week, and plan to make one small piece of art a week.  I'm in the process of creating a book to house the project.  The optimist in me thinks I should create a post with pictures to show you.  I've updated some of my art journal, and we finally got a scanner so I can hopefully bring this up to date.  I still have oodles left to do in it though.  And I did the 21 Secrets Workshop, but didn't even get to watch the videos for some of them.  Sigh, oh well, I will keep working on that too.  I unearthed these two sketch books that I had been keeping, and have put them in an accessible place.  In one, I wrote:

I'm supposed to be
Doing something-
But I don't know
What;
And I am too
Afraid to do it.

I can't help but look back at where I left off, and notice that its purely fear that got in my way.  I had stepped forward into joining an ever growing artist community, and that left me bare and up for critique.  I couldn't handle it.  So I withdrew into my work, as it is a great source of blame and allows me some measure of distance as I get to hide behind professionalism.  And as I write that, I wonder, why can't I be professional about my art, and give myself the same allowances?  I also wrote:

A secret, shy image may have surfaced only to be scared away by the viciousness of those staring in its quiet face.

I am sad at the number of shy images I may have scared away over these past many months.  Images that may have helped me understand or grow.  But growing is scary.  Then I have to take on what I am perhaps not ready for.  I guess it doesn't matter - it seeks us out anyway.  And I need to create like I need to breathe.

So here it is, I try again.