playing house

from tree lines to brick and mortar

Can you see the distant skyline I look out to every night? It twinkles with geometrically shaped lights surrounding buildings, and when the sun sets and the clouds are drunk with rosy blush, the sun glimmers on the windows way off in the distance. Apparently it all disappears through vegetation during the summer, so for now I'll cherish it. 

Thank you so much for your sweet comments on my last post. Really and truly. They were immensely uplifting. 

so many things... in writing for a change

I'm not sure how many people still keep up with this blog- stats and comments tell me that many of you do, and for that I'm thankful. I feel guilty though, since so much of my heart lies elsewhere and posting is so erratic these days. I used to have such a routine relationship with documenting my life and sharing experiences with the online world. Ever since this whirlwind of the past six months, I've been living so presently in the physical world. My fingernails are regularly stained with ink as opposed to dirt, and instead of waking with the sheep I stay up all night painting after nannying is done and awake at an alarmingly late hour the next day. The thing is, I love it. I am so immersed in and fulfilled by my creative work and so many good things have resulted. 

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Jamie is actually in jail now, and for weeks I've been embarrassed and relieved but then ashamed for feeling that way. "I was married to someone who's now imprisoned but now I feel safe and know my friends and family are out of harm's way and none of us have gotten any more death threats so... it's okay." How do I share that  without explaining more or welcoming scrutiny. There are so many social taboos surrounding divorce, mental illness, alcoholism, abusive behavior, domestic violence, and harassment. The realities can be dirty and confusing. As terrible as Jamie made me feel while we shared our lives, as hurt and confused as I've been at the threats he's made, as scared as I've felt to even walk down the street alone- I still recognize that he's not well and deserves a chance at happiness. He's so young and it breaks my heart thinking about the pain he's inflicted and the pain he must feel as a result. I hope he finds some perspective and clarity.

That chapter of my life is very much over though. There are certainly moments when I feel something like I might be missing it. The thing I'm almost missing is the farm though, not our relationship. And it's not quite "missing," more like fondly recollecting a lifestyle experience that I wouldn't take back. Just the other night, I was searching for a particular photo on my blog from summer. It was surreal looking back on the many moments I documented. I blogged so routinely- Monday through Friday, typically in the morning. I can very clearly remember the moments leading up to the day I left the farm because it was all photographed and I can look back on them. I'm not sure I'd remember those critical moments if I hadn't done that. Looking back I can smell/feel/hear the zinnias growing, honey dripping into a metal bowl on top of the dryer, bees humming out the back door, cabbages being chopped in the kitchen, sheep hopping across the yard on a slightly rainy Saturday morning, arms brushing against overgrown tomato vines, filling the basket from Rachel with grape tomatoes and basil and prickly cucumbers, footsteps wet from the pond making fading scars on the tile porch... Then it felt like life, now it feels like moments filling up in a seedpod and exploding over the black earth.

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I've considered stopping this blog all together because of how infrequently I use it now, but then I decided (with some encouragement) to stick with it. Oliver and Abraham were a huge part of my life. They were symbols almost. They were characters in a life well lived, a life that had to shift towards a life even better lived. I am so happy now. I have goals and ideas and ways to fulfill them, I'm drawing every.single.day and have brand new experiences to look forward to having as a really happy person. And (blush)... I've even met someone special whom I'm spending quite a lot of time with. (Totally unanticipated but wonderful...) 

There are so many things I want to write about:

-what it feels like making art and enthusiastically sharing that experience and having that feeling reciprocated

-what it feels like to be appreciated and encouraged for your art

-how past experiences that were very real can end up feeling like distant dreams

-how I really miss and value the relationships I've formed online, especially after neglecting them for months

-how the absence of spring lambs is a tiny bit crushing

-but then how the anticipation of seeing Baltimore embraced by green vines and summer sunsets is almost unbearable

-writing a diary and then stopping abruptly to start living again because that's just how my relationship with writing is (brief and almost entirely translated into photography or paint)

-devouring Walk Two Moons and crying for thirty minutes straight at the end because it felt so good to

-reflecting on what that book means in relation to situations that girls and women are put in throughout life and how we all feel the same things more often than not but hesitate sharing them because the ways in which we cope with them are so vastly different and perhaps make us feel more isolated than woven together

-how I worked so feverishly to document life, probably because even among the pain there was so much beauty still to be appreciated

-what it feels like to "time travel" to future-moments and past-moments and then come back to right now

-the quieting of dreams and the energetic intensity of waking life, that undulation, ever-shifting balance, etc.

All in due time... this list can serve as a stepping stone towards future elaboration. Thanks for coming here if you still do. I really love reading your comments when you post them, even though I'm admittedly terrible at responding these days. 

I hope you're well! xo