Connections

Still feeling super-emotional and porous to the world. But maybe this has less to do with pregnancy, and more to do with who I am. Maybe it's a strength rather than a weakness--an aspect of connectedness. The world is the home of love and sadness. I work a lot, now, and I miss Horus and Treva terribly when I'm gone. Then I remember that they are with their good father, and that he takes them out to split wood, and to work in the studio, and they are never left with strangers, or institutionalized, and I feel very very lucky. And of course, I continue to make pottery, and I am looking forward to having a bit more time in the studio coming up. We have firings and shows ahead, and everything is going, and I am moving with the flow. I like being in the world. Finding balance. We women are pretty amazing.I was almost late for work the other day. I didn't stop to pick up the middle-aged bedraggled lady, hitchhiking through Rothesay. I drove on, considered doubling back, but kept going. The guilt clung for several blocks, and then resumed when I realized the initial bout of guilt had passed. Excuses excuses, enough to cover my own fear and shame. Who am I?

The older woman at the grocery store checkout seemed really grumpy at first, but I smiled and we ended up telling each other our life stories while she rang in my discounted organic yogurt, bananas and other items. I'm good at talking, and sometimes I give myself a silent challenge, to engage with someone I don't know. I try to check in with my own mind, and success is when I end up feeling like the other person has given me a gift, rather than the other way around. We thanked each other for the conversation, and I nearly started to cry, pushing my cart away. These small moments of pure beauty are so excruciating.

I made it to an opening at Gallery78 last week, and saw some old friends and some new art works. I felt loved, and known, and among peers and it was really good.  Lives on paper, canvas, within the walls of rooms, in each other's eyes. It is so good to connect with friends.

  Last week, Lee came in to the house from the studio and left a pool of clay sludge on the kitchen floor entrance. I calmed myself, and then again, day after day, as I asked him over and over again to please clean it up. Seven days later, I sent him a text in the morning, with a formal request, to please mop that 4 foot by 4 foot section of the floor. I have stopped asking him to do other household tasks, and have resolved to be grateful when anything at all happens. But when the clay was still on the floor when I got home at 10:30pm from work, I raged at him--but quietly, as the kids were asleep. Then I called a hotel in Saint John, and nearly made a reservation for that night. Then Tree woke up, and instead of wasting $100 on my sense of righteousness, I got into bed with the kids and tried to sleep while they wiggled and snuggled, delighted by having me there with them. I'm tired this morning. I wonder if the clay will still be there tonight when I get home. Lee is a very nice person. And a great artist. And I am kind, forgiving, understanding. I don't want to be treated like a maid, but I am increasingly conscious of prioritizing my kids' sense of stability and peace. I have wrecked others' lives by my [former] inability to compromise, and to overlook. I sometimes read the blogs of Christian mothers and wives, and while the fundamental philosophy behind their ideas around being a "good" wife and mother I find bizarre, unenlightened, and/or self-abnegating, I kind of get it, too. On a basic level, peace is very holy. And Love should be stronger than pride. How to navigate these waters? I have no idea.