Mindful-fun-da-mentals

Explorations of mind, paths, and life

Twisted, Illogical Canvases

Posted on September 10, 2013 - Filed Under art, fear, feelings, healing

I am back to searching… in the midst of a twisted, illogical canvas, filled with color and direction that doesn’t find its place, I feel like I am missing something. I see a word… errand, errant, err… and I jump to my bedroom looking for the list. I pull down journals – days, months, years of words, memories, ideas, feelings, thoughts, stagnant on my shelf. Pieces of my life sitting collecting dust. Somewhere, I feel, as I brush through the pages, is a piece of myself I am missing (missing as in longing for? missing as in lost? missing as in not aware of?)

The memories in word tumble through the canvas of my eyes – glimpses of sunrises and sunsets in my life, the taste of withdrawal, confusion, joy and creativity. I smell him for a moment in those pages, peppered with illustrations of dreams, fears, and hopes. I want to shake all of it, shake it hard until what I am looking for falls to my feet. Longing to pick up something familiar and hold it close.

Instead, the feeling is thick like honey. I feel like I can’t move. My iPhone reminds me, as I note my shift in mood in the last 24 hours, to “expect tears for fears.” This is the notice I set to remind me that all this muck is the normal shift in hormones that leaves me feeling sad, detached, and solitary. A gentle reminder that I am ok, and can stay present despite the wave that comes. This is when I crave my space the most, not having to do for anyone, sitting in a melancholy puddle with a vacant gaze.

I sit again in front of my canvas, Justin’s room slowing shifting into an art studio. Tubes of paint scattered like bodies in a field of green plaid material. Bonobo Radio rhythmically boxing at my ears. The paints are stacked, oozing color onto my palette, calling to me to apply the paint regardless of the direction, regardless of whether I like any of it, and I listen to the call. I don’t care how ugly it is – I destroy the canvas with a rage of colors – wishing they were words I could find somewhere in my body.

Somewhere I feel angry. I want to spew a breath of hatred I feel at him for leaving me before I ever left him, or is that a breath of hatred I feel at me for leaving him before he ever left me? And yet, I don’t want to go back to any of it, so much so that I don’t think I am capable of going back into ANYTHING new either. I am aware of a depth of grief and loss I have spent the last 3 years covering up. Anyone I let into my intimate space feels foreign and I am confused.  I don’t want my heart to ache for nights, or the pain of walking away from someone I love, or the distress of conflict, or the walls of disagreement, or the fear of the unknown.
Do I have to learn this all again?
Why am I so scared?
What is real?
I am so tired of words … I just want something familiar and safe, a space warm and easy. But relationship doesn’t feel warm and easy. It does for small moments, when my eyes are closed and I am held close, and my skin is stroked, and I hear careful tender words… and then I wake up and my head is spinning, and that little voice is saying, “am I supposed to let you in?”

It might hurt, again.
I thought I knew that. I thought I decided that was OK, what else is “living” for?
But today I am shaking, uncertain, wavering in the breeze of possibilities.
Damn hormones. Damn that part of me that has her heals dragging in the sand as the rest of her heart says, “yes, please, come along…”

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