In the middle

A paradox.  The more I create, the more stimulated, alive, and happy I am - the less I sleep.

I have a huge amount of respect for mothers that work outside the home.  As the kids get older, more and more of my friends are trickling back to work.  I am in awe of how they make it all happen, for as my own little business grows, I feel stuck.  Between a rock and a hard place called exhaustion.  It’s been such a gift to stay at home with my kids, be a part of their everyday lives, but as jobs increase, and it's my arms that still provide the primary childcare with the exact same number of hours in the day to cook, care, love, play & create - I am spent.   So if adding art back into my life makes me undeniably more content, why am I like a walking zombie?  Eyes burning, I am the picture of exhaustion, with a brain that I cannot turn off 'til two in the morning.  Jane asked me yesterday why I am always in my pajamas, hair in ponytail.  I was without answer.  I am down to only cooking two basic staples, grilled cheese or Annie’s mac-n-cheese from a box.  Just today I watched Henry tug open the fridge door and help himself to three cheese sticks in a row.  For breakfast.  I hadn’t had a coffee yet, so there was really very little I could do about it but watch.

Seems dreadful my creativity is exhausting me. I’d prefer to think maybe I am just getting old. 

Default

I find mad beauty in the way these structures make absolutely no sense.  In the past few weeks, the kids have fallen to Legos as the default heavy, with little monuments of meaningless rhythm and pattern scattered about the house.  Under beds.  Lodged in the couch.  Pieces all over the floor.  Like we live in a fallen city.  How many hours I have watched small fingers build with the deepest intentions, yet worry not about form or function.  Just gut and intuition.  Some days I cannot stop watching as their minds get into a deep groove of  attentiveness, abstraction, color.  A mating of architecture, machinery, and colors like bubble gum.  Cubism and Op Art.  I am awed by the intensity.  Then try to rationalize, was the choice based on color, shape, feel?  I guess, why does it matter?  At the end of the stretch they are emotionally and creatively spent, pieces strewn on the floor.  Someone has stepped on one and needs a band-aid.  Game over.  Till tomorrow.

{Preview} Deer Island

Roots run deep for Kate and Michael in a small town that hugs Boston’s north shore.  They live in a lovely maze of suburbia; grand old homes lined up like creamy dominoes, anchored with sweeping white front porches and patches of saturated green lawn.  We went to Deer Island where the city lingered like wooden blocks on the water’s edge.  And the hum of Logan’s airplanes overhead was like white noise; huge birds momentarily blocking the sun.  Peeks of silver water glistened while enormous boats inched by.

I leave jobs like this shaking, nervous I did the subjects justice.  In awe of the tenderness.  Or flat-out beauty.  Like Kate’s straight, strong features.  And mother’s razor-like focus.  Or Michael’s steady gaze.  Immense hands swooping up their babe.  Somewhere between their house and my home I found myself pulled over in a parking lot, flipping like mad through the photos, hoping for stills without a filter or haze of sweetness.  Crossing my fingers for just a few raw moments which define a little piece of who they are.