Here's something strange. Tonight I'm sitting in front of a blank screen, wanting to clear my head, wanting to wish and shove my way through this moment, rather than just letting it be what it is. But nothing is working, verbally or otherwise, so here I sit, staring at the screen, with no coherent thought for miles. Out of pure - something, I went back through some old journals and found an entry dated 8-21-05. Two years ago exactly. Feeling the same then as I do now, I'd wanted to write, but didn't know what to say. Same night, same experience. Again.
I have given up trying to make every thing in life make sense, but this is more than I can stand. WHY is the timing the exact same? Does that mean on September 18 I'm going to decide to move across the country? And on October 2 (or so) we'll leave our church in a terrific implosion that everyone else will watch in morbid fascination? I really hope not. I love our church, and traveling with a baby isn't fun. The whole thing is just - odd. I should find more poetry in the moment, but I've got nothing pretty to offer. Instead, I have the line from a Jars of Clay song running through my head. Sometimes when I lose my grip, I wonder what to make of Heaven. Me too.
3 comments:
I agree. That is a good line. That is how I felt when Nat was dying. That is how I still feel when I think of her being gone, when I watch my friend as her family crumbles around her, when I can't figure anything out for myself...
Look back and see when, two years ago, you were eating chocolate or winning the lottery. Focus on that.
I'm in somewhat of a weird place right now, creatively....I can't really compare it to last year though because I was a month away from being married and the year before I was telling God that this other guy must SURELY be the one I am suppose to marry... Very different from now. Anyway... Yesterday I was working on a painting of Ella and COULD NOT get her nose right. I painted it four or five times. It was much more dramatic than that, though. There was lots of sighing and banging my head on the table and pacing and grabbing my poor dog's face to get a better look at her nose. I almost latched onto the canvas with my teeth and shook it vigourously like a bull terrier... TMI, I know. But that's how I felt. I don't really know any other artists to talk to here, but I remember small struggles like this when I was in college and school. It's disturbing because a nose is just light and shadows, like everything else in the painting...but I CAN'T get it out! I did some other details to the painting that I can't undo that really took away from it, so that was frustrating. I ended up taking a big blob of purple paint and slapped it across the nose area. When Sam got home, I asked him if he thought it would look ok if I left it like that.
All that to say, I understand possessing a talent and then relying on it to help you work through what you feel (that's what art does for me - it taps into some part of my brain that makes me feel whole and makes things in my mind fall into place)and then it ends up making you even more frustrated.
I should have blogged about this I guess... sorry so long!
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