Month: January 2020

Something New

Depression may inspire creative bursts of energy once it’s gone, but, more often, I’ve found that giving into creativity has to happen before the depression can truly start to recede. Sometimes, that surrender starts with trying something new.

I recently stumbled onto a quote by Plutarch that goes, “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” The quote has been rumbling around in my brain for a few days now, seemingly more accurate each time I recall it.

I often paint because I cannot find words that vent emotions without being destructive. Whether or not it leads to good or bad art is irrelevant. The creating on canvas is the path away from hurt and from hurting others.

Lately, I’ve been writing more and painting less (it goes in cycles), But there are still nights I struggle to distill churning feelings and events into text. Last night, watching our orange tabby embrace his carefree, hedonistic identity and, as always, still wondering about my own, I got stuck between picking up a brush or opening the keyboard. Then, instead of sitting and stewing about it for another half hour until I was too tired to do anything useful, I got up and retrieved a journal from my office and decided to try something new.

I decided to try and make a painting that spoke.

I’ve written maybe three or four poems in the last seven years. It is certainly not a forte. As with the act of painting that leads me away from hurt and hurting, however, trying to write poetry was not about making something good, it was about actively surrendering to creativity.

Poem: The Business of Being

Fat, orange, arranged on the table

Like an idol on an altar,

The tabby invest his life, without reservation,

In the business,

Not of being born or changing or dying

But of being the libertine he is.

And I, still changing, still searching,

Craving substance, loathing indolence but filled with envy,

Can feel the faith of one who’s found

A business of being meant just for him.

Whiskers on Kittens

Thing1 is still on winter break from college, but, as we’re learning, just because your child comes home for a few weeks, doesn’t mean they’re really at home.

We see him at meal times, and have had fun and interesting conversations with him about school and politics and all the other subjects in which he’s finding an interest. But, increasingly, there are times when he is scarce.

We have a visit this evening in the living room from Princess Jane, or a little gray huntress. When Thing1 is home, she stays upstairs in his room 24/7. It’s not quite time for him to fly the asylum and head back to school, but already missing friends and the hustle and bustle of college and city life, he headed to Boston for the weekend for a get together. Jane has been downstairs with us, looking for him (and now Thing2 who’s at a sleepover) since he left.

It’s good that he’s having adventures, but we’re missing him. Tonight, for one of the few times in the last 19 years there are only two adults in the house.and we’re still adjusting to the idea that kids actually do grow up and fly the asylum. Jane’s presence is a bit of reassurance that it’s OK to take a little time to get used to this brave new world of empty nesting.

Kitchens are for Family

The morning after Christmas used to feel like the calm after a storm. Now that the kids are all in their late teens and early 20s, the morning after is more anti-climactic, or so I thought when I crept down from the guestroom to my sister’s kitchen.

I was trying to get back on the diet wagon after 24 hours of gluttony that could’ve landed me a spot on the dieting edition of “Food Hoarders”. I had almost completely abandoned my attempt, cracking open the fridge in search of leftovers, when I heard my sister in her thick socks, padding into the kitchen. She got a small bite to eat, and we nibbled and chatted about work and kids — our first sister to sister chat since start of the holiday – until my father emerged from the other guestroom just off the kitchen.

Dad made a piece of toast, and the three of us talked, keeping our volume low –a tacit recognition that a very short, rare spell was being cast as the early sun started warming the kitchen and chasing the frost on the windows. A few minutes later, my mother, perfectly coiffed, emerged, only slightly increasing the hum of our conversation.

Work conversation morphed into discussion of family summer vacation plans, and suddenly my mom uttered a high pitched, “Huh!”

We didn’t realize it at the moment, but spell had just been broken.

“I can’t remember when the four of us have last been in the same room at the same time,” my mom said. I looked at her and looked around the kitchen, and realized it had been years since our foursome had been in one place without in-laws and children or grandchildren present.

When I thought back to the times when just my sister and I were alone with our parents – our little unit, I remembered being completely different person. I remembered being unsure of and unhappy about what life would bring. I remembered times when I all but cut off communication with our unit and the reasons I reconnected.

In the intervening years and distances, we’ve all changed. We’ve recycled and renewed our relationships, almost creating new ones as different people.

Now, as my sister and I are parenting young adults, we are watching our own family units start to divide. Our children are beginning to make their own lives and become their own people, and I started to wonder how many more opportunities like this the Big Guy and I have for moments like this with our boys.

We heard one of the kids moving around upstairs and knew that our small moment was about to end.

“Do you all want to move into the dining room where it’s a little more comfortable?” My sister asked, sensing a change.

“No,” my dad answered, “dining rooms are for eating, kitchens are for talking.”

We laughed, and, even though our little spell had ended, we lingered in the kitchen waiting for the next arrival to find a little piece of conversation to nibble on.