10 posts tagged “childhood”
Here's a small art post for the weekend. I'm working on an idea that involves a character from another original painting I did some months ago. The below is more of a study. I'll be experimenting with palettes and balance and doing more study paintings. Then I'd like to do a larger final painting. It involves the themes of human evolution, spirit and motherhood/childhood.
"The beginning". Approx 16"x10", watercolor, ink and pastel:
Sketches and layers:
I wish you all a wonderful weekend with your family and friends.
i thought the world was magical. i lived in a house with a name. Casa Linda. no one else had a house with a name. i didn't really understand it was because my parents were landlords for my grandparents. as it was, it truly was a beautiful house, with it's own mind, it's own heart. an imaginary little one i was because i would trace my fingers along cracks in the walls and imagine it was her skin. she was a second kind of mother. the house was two stories tall, white-washed with moss-green stairs and doorways. a stairway crept up one of it's walls. a cypress tree stood along both sides of her. they swayed and bawled in the wind during desert monsoon dust storms. she rested on two treed acres. every summer we swam up to our eyeballs in dates, figs, oranges and pink grapefruits. i remember so much more, but mostly, i think of her, my house. i still think of her as a sentinel, watching me in her memories as i grow older. if houses can become ghosts, well... then she certainly haunts me. her breath fills my life. i see her footprints in every house i live.
this is a memory post. before it drifts away, i want to give it flesh in words.
working on this new piece now. it was a wild-card starting out with the watercolor wash, then letting the theme evolve. i didn't expect there to be a theme involving fire, but there it is. and a mother/bird woman with her child slung to her back. something about the subconscious working itself out... hmm. still chewing on that. interesting thing about painting... even when you plan, if you plan at all, a painting has it's own spirit about it. and i mean that in the most literal regard. this continues to be an intriguing leg of the trip (my life).
i often sit with jaz (my three year old) beside me as i paint. he paints too in oil pastel or watercolor. or he snip-snips away at a piece of cardboard for his own mysterious reason. he will look over at what i am painting and begin to weave a story around the figures, the colors. i embrace these tales and accept them as fact. these moments are so sweet that it makes my throat tighten. it is a magic of the highest order.
we're over our colds, mostly. just a few niggling coughs and sneezes left over. now that we can venture outdoors, it's decided to snow. we've donned our snow-boots, mittens, scarves and all the rest that is repeated like a mantra before going out. jazz-man and papa picked out the fluffiest tree i think i've ever seen. it's just so fat! last night we trimmed it, or should i say, jazz did most of the honors, hence it is rather lopsidedly decorated on one side. i came close to "evening it out" last night after the kids had gone to bed, but i stopped myself, smiling. it's perfectly imperfect.
lucas has an incredible set of six-month pipes; when we watch the lawrence welk show every week, he sings along. it's quite loud. he distends the notes like a miniature opera singer. he is also fond of singing along to mr. roger's songs when i play/sing them at the piano.
i'm getting started on the christmas baking. as i pull out my grandmother's cookbooks, i get teary. it is the anniversary of her passing in a couple of weeks. last year was wrought with a great deal of change and family hardships. this year is astoundingly different. as i stood at the window last night, gazing into a pink, snowy sky, my husband wrapped his arms around me. "it's not like last year," he said, reading my mind. no, it's not, i thought. this time around the smiles come from a very happy place and there is a mostly slow and peaceful pace to how these days unravel themselves. i could get used to this.
here we are. not in person, but almost:
is how i think about it today. my three-year-old son is the intense eye of a world i only observe from the outside. how do i put this... he is an intense human. he experiences everything to its fullest. every emotion to its fullest. i wish i could feel what he feels. if i try to compare his experiences to, say, my first time i stood atop the Alps, it would still be a miss, and i know it. also, he is utterly and completely daring and tenacious. paired, those traits make for an explosive life of energy around here. but, just when we think he won't stop jumping up and down on the couch, he becomes intensely absorbed in another more quiet activity, say, closely observing a small spider that has spun it's web overnight next to our shoe rack. he is mesmerized and it's hard to tear him away. i watch his eyes and how they change with his moods. the way his eyelids lower or his fingers splay in dance. and again, i feel i am only the watcher and it is a little sad. it's sad i can't be experiencing it as well. but it's his turn.
it's could be pretty boring living in a small city like we do. sometimes, we feel it would be exciting to move to another larger place and experience the energy of a bustling culture with a plethora of art venues, people, places to shop and good food. it sometimes feels too small here. but even as i say this, i'm not sure if my car is locked, not to mention my front door. i know it's 2007, but somehow the crime hasn't caught up with this town. and were anything to happen, i suppose bernie, who lives across the street or mary, next door, would know all about it. yeah, it's safe here. also, there are the forests in our back yard, rive with fox, raccoon, eagles and other critters jazz-man finds completely fascinating. i love explaining the ecology to him. there is a college here, so there is some influx of new thought. we go back and forth on the idea of how long our feet will rest in this mostly predictable place. so far, it's been eight years and counting. existence is very pared down and we have sort of a schizophrenic attitude toward that notion, but i guess it is suppose to be that way right now.
is so important. alive in love. alive in our experiences.
and to remember what kept us starry-eyed as children is sometimes exactly the
key to happiness as an adult. it’s been a week for feeling blissed. we traveled
to phoenix to be with relatives, and then saw Travis while there. pogoing up
and down as All I Want To Do Is Rock blew the doors off the concert hall was
thrilling; i wondered later if i could do the same at 40 or 50. heck, why not
60? and i decided i ought to. it was also just a bit of a thrill to be one of only approx 300 standing only feet away from such a huge band. we also saw some friends who we’ve known for ___
years. though the years have changed us all, we always seem to come full-circle
and find that familiar laughter and inspiration. it would be a sad day if we
couldn’t find our way home in each other anymore. what i found most interesting
was just how comfortable i felt with
our old friends. so, i suppose we’ve lost some of our edges as people – not as
young as we were, but in exchange we have become more comfortable our own skin.
i like that.
lately, jazz-man has been reminding me of my memories. that is an odd, but beautiful sensation and it is so subtle a thing. he is also so much more cognitive, alert and determined. yesterday, when posed with two choices for bedtime, he actually said, “no.... i don’t like those two choices. no, i want another choice.” how did this happen? when did he suddenly become aware he could change his destiny?
parenting draws out the best and worst. it parses through the meat and the milk of who we are. i remember my speculations about parenting and can smile now:
-maybe we'll be bohemians and travel the world, living like gypsies
-our children "will never do that"
-we will be unified parents all the time
-being older parents will make us more prepared
-i'll suddenly leap into my role as mother and be ready for whatever happens
-i'll find time for everything, including being myself
-consistency isn't so hard, just do it
and on and on. parenting has got to be the thickest slice of humble pie i've eaten in my life. thankfully, as much work as it is, it is also the MOST rewarding thing i've ever done.
what i've been thinking about lately is our focus. what is our family focus? we could focus on a million things and then there would be no focus, dividing ourselves into little parts and trying to be everything, feeling fragmented. i've read lots of books and listened to lots of people. and i'm still open to that, but, there is more. i continue to search for the existential meaning in each day, but there is more to that too. i feel there is a greater and inclusive desire to impart the need for our father, God, to our children. why choose this as the focus? in all my experiences, in all the mountains and valleys of life, there God has been, the glue that keeps my life together, my marriage on track and my selfishness at bay. despite my antagonistic relationship with the idea of church, theology and modern christianity, i still recognize God's divine presence in every day moments. enter: parenting. it is the most complex and multi-tasked experience there is. some days are willy-nilly and other days almost organize themselves. just when i feel there is some predictability, a new phase tilts life upside-down. if my attitude is a spiritual one and i am focused, then i feel excited and challenged and thankful. it's then that i see the connections, or at the very least, feel faith take over, and i can trust that there is a larger, beautiful picture that is being constructed by our actions, large and small.
this is what is weighting my thoughts this week.
do we put people into little boxes made of our preconceptions or historical preconceptions? is this good? bad? is it neither, but merely a reach for understanding what we do not? it is a topic i have loosely been contemplating ever since a conversation i had over a year ago. a good friend of mine was telling about a conference she attended with her spouse. it was a retreat of sorts for people who are in church leadership. while there, they were a part of an personality test activity in which people "found" their personality types. i recall being a part of a similar motivational activity at one of my jobs (don't you hate these things?). at first my response was mild curiosity, but the more i listened on, the more odd and uncomfortable i felt toward the idea. how could one test determine and sum up a person's entire life's motivation, actions and events. i realized with very certain clarity, duh. it doesn't. these pseudo-psychological tests have been around for ages, only the names change with each new decade: Myers-Briggs system, the Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Personality Plus, Hartman Personality Test, the list goes on. if you aren't satisfied in knowing how you fit within the ranges of these tests, then perhaps birth order might be a key to your psyche; are you a firstborn? a middle child? the baby of the family? an only child? descriptors for each birth order are many. these personality indicators are used by school teachers, human resource departments, CEO's and other professionals to better understand you, your children and the world around us. getting nervous? you should. the professional world out there is determined to understand you better than you do yourself. but what is more scary is that people determine themselves and us based on what is very obviously misinformation. read this article in the Boston Globe.
two book i'd like to read are The Cult of Personality Testing, by Annie Murphy Paul and The Cult of Personality, by Glenn Raucher in which the writers sets out to debunk the myths which revolve around said personality testing. people will continue to search for meaning in any way they can, it is,
after all, the ultimate plight of humanity. but i'd rather not put my
eggs in one basket and rely upon personality testing. it would seem
that personality testing is indeed a kissing-cousin to astrology in its
formation and how it is used by society. it is nebulous,
pseudo-scientific and frighteningly arbitrary.
it isn't suprising i would feel this way, given my appreciation of existentialism. my experience tells me that i have changed through the course of events. my personality has most certainly changed with different seasons in life, with age, with struggle, with successes. on a personal level, knowing this, i would like to allow my future the freedom to change me as it sees fit. i don't like closed doors.
i am becoming that mommy who posts rules on the fridge. it's awfully traditional... but that is the kind of traditionalism i find comforting. i wonder if i can follow the rules i've made. and of course, i have to. "lead by example" and all that. would we all be better humans if we could just follow simple childhood rules?
be kind to others
don't hurt others
say please and thank you
share your toys
would we stop gossiping and complaining and moaning and groaning and acting rash and leaving others in the wake of our bad-mood days? would we think more of others and less of our possessions as things that define us? the analogy of childhood rules to adulthood is a topic that has been explored ad nauseum. but i can't help but ponder a bit.
the rules i have for myself evolve yearly as i realize certain things just don't play well in life now. other times, rules devolve inexplicably or simply because i don't want to admit i am being a self-centered brat. i rebel against myself, my husband. cosmically, spiritually, i am ultimately ushered to a sort of "time out". on this note, i am thankful for grace. and forgiveness. will i offer up the same grace and forgiveness now as a mother? will i too keep our family rules?
childhood never got left behind. sometimes i forget where i came from, but it doesn't let me forget for long. amidst the diapers and bills and moving plans and escrows and driving for groceries and yada yada... amidst it all is a vine of life that encircles me wherever i may be emotionally, physically, age-wise and spiritually. that vine sprouted amongst the roots of fig trees and date palms on the site of an old plantation house when i was two. i am sure of it. that is where all my earliest creative memories began.
this morning, these memories came to me as David Bowie belted out of the Ipod. jazz-man was squealing as loudly as he could, "mama is dancing!!". which i was. ridiculously. picture a five-months-pregnant woman bouncing up and down to Suffragette City. Michael used to love Bowie, Buffalo Springfiel, Seger, Queen, Hendrix, Canned Heat... the tunes pumped out of that studio, accompanied by Michael's stomp-stomping foot.
so, i have to tell myself to not forgot who i am as i grow more and more into motherhood. i have to resist the forces that try to lull me away, want me to forget my identity. i want the jazz-man to know mama. who i really am. i do not want to become a robot. i've seen it happen before. know what i mean?
