Reconstituted

I was hearing the wolves howling again. Counseling might work eventually, but the bit at the beginning where you dump your heart out and sort the contents is really rough, and a week is not enough time to recover before having to do it all over again. I'm usually a calm person, but I've been on the verge of tears for weeks, and I cried and yelped my way through our last session like a kicked puppy. I was googling things like 'jobs in Canada', 'how to break down cortisol', 'airline tickets to Santa Fe', 'vrbo cabins Washington', feeling like a raw nerve ending and just wanting it to stop for one goddamn minute. It's human nature to feel like whatever you're feeling right now is how you'll feel for the rest of your life, and I knew it would pass, but it's a hard thing to believe when the wolves are at the door.

There are things I can control, though. Reading has always been my escape hatch, and I hadn't been able to get through more than a couple paragraphs in months, so I checked out a stack of Mariko Tamaki graphic novels to trick my brain back into focusing on an entire story. It’s working; right now I’m reading Bullet Train, by Kotaro Isaka.

When I pictured my future as a kid, I saw a quiet space with a small window and a typewriter, where I could write stories, be alone, and feel safe. Well, why haven't I done that yet? Painting is my thing, but there's room in my life for writing, too. I went down to the studio and hauled out all the old broken furniture that people have ditched down there over the years, cleaned everything, covered and stowed the pottery wheel, bought a few rugs, and stapled tapestries to the unfinished ceiling beams to catch the dust. On Saturday I came home from work to find that Mike had dropped off the kids with my mother for a sleepover, and he was ready to take me wherever I wanted for a date. "Best Buy," I said. We came back a few hours later with a new Mac Mini - the first real computer I have ever bought for myself (I draw on an ipad and blog on my phone, neither of which is good for writing novels). He helped rearrange furniture, wire paintings, and hang blinds across the small basement windows while I threw out old art supplies and set up the computer. The studio started looking pretty dang cozy. By the time we sat down in front of Inkmaster to eat tubs of Indian curry, I was feeling more like myself again.  

We stopped at the art museum on the way to Sunday dinner. The security guard who usually barks at me when I get too close to the best paintings (they are covered in glass, relax my dude) was too busy chasing teenage girls with backpacks that he thought were too large, so I put my reading glasses on and got my face right up in the brushstrokes. I thought about a line from This American Life that has stuck with me: Delight is like the butterflies flying around and landing on the thing that is joy. I felt delight, looking at those paintings.

At my mother's house that evening, I stood in front of the dozens of lined notebooks filled with handwritten stories that are crammed onto all her shelves, then picked one at random. The first page is dated May 2011. Yesterday I started transcribing it, typing away for hours and just enjoying being with these characters I've known all my life. Many of the stories aren't finished, taking up hundreds of pages before another story started telling itself and needed a fresh notebook, but they're wonderful first drafts. I'll get them typed up, and when I find the right one we can flesh it out and finish it properly as co-authors, maybe with some spot illustrations. 

Feeling okay again. And FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, as human logic goes.

Harris

I was right in the middle of dying my hair an unflattering color and thinking about cutting it all off (see: stress fractures), when my phone dinged. Harris! One of my oldest friends from high school, Harris is a wild thing who shows up unannounced from Portugal and blows through in a day, and his timing is always somehow perfect.

We spent a couple hours with his mom (very cool lady), before dropping her off at the airport to return to Molokai, then sat outside Jolene’s with a plate of brisket fries to catch up. Before he left, he gave me a very firm, very long hug, and I started crying. Needed that.

The orange hair isn’t as noticeable in the picture, phew 

Harris and me, 1996

Maybe I’ll be the one to blow through town next time, if I can figure  out where in Portugal he is at any one time.

Disconnect

A long time ago, fresh on the heels of two tough breakups, I went to a library conference in Seattle and stayed with some friends for the week. One of them had a meeting up in La Conner, and took me along. I walked through the little town and felt okay again for a few hours. I’m going to live here some day, I thought. 

A few years ago, I went to a painting workshop on Whitbey Island, and had the same feeling. Something in my chest finally unclenched for a little bit, and I thought about staying there with the bunnies and the walkable streets decorated with pumpkins that somehow weren’t stolen or full of rats.

I’ve been wound up too tight for more than 2 months, and stress fractures are beginning to show. I’ve been mixing up words, forgetting little things; that Bilbo Baggins feeling of butter scraped across too much bread.

So I applied for jobs in Washington. The best ones are East of Vancouver and North of Seattle, near La Conner. If I get an interview, I think I’ll fly out and scope the towns out in person to see if it feels like home. Maybe it’s finally time. 

Artists of Hawaii Show

Yeah, I didn’t win anything, but I did get to swan around with a free beer and pose awkwardly with my painting before getting hit by the bathroom door. 

Really happy with the frame. It was custom made by Masterworks (first time I’ve ever commissioned an expensive frame) and it’s definitely going to be an heirloom. If the piece doesn’t sell, I’ll paint something else for that frame next year.

The awards went to abstract pieces again. It isn’t that people aren’t painting representationally anymore, it’s just that the collectors think we’re still doing Postmodernism and only throw money at piles of fingernail clippings and blurry underwater video loops and bananas taped to walls. Just keep painting anyway. Contemporary Realism will have its day. 

The real crime was that the obvious showstopper of the entire thing, a couture volcano gown, won nothing. The artist could have made another dress with that award money. Jail. Jail for one thousand years.

It was a nice evening, and I fit right in with my “I’m a fancy artist” (faux) leather dress. Even if it did look like it physically hurt me to be doing something sociable.

I’ll work on it. 

Halloween 2024

The deluxe Ghostbusters costume I ordered was NOT a women's size medium, but I did not try cramming my butt into the narrow jumpsuit until after the return window closed. Irritated, I ordered a cheap moth cape, and threw in a pair of articulated bat wings for no reason other than "hey, cool, the wings move". The girl wore an Umbrella Academy uniform, and decided that she could be an alternate timeline character and the wings could be her super power. Let me tell you, I have never made a better costume purchase. While trick-or-treating, she popped her wings up to surprise people at every door, and they all jumped and gave her extra candy. She was dragging a pillow case with about 30lbs of sugar by the end of the evening. 

While we were flapping around the neighborhood, the boy was out with his friends, walking around Waialua in a historic reproduction of a World War II uniform. He also bought theater replicas of WWII firearms, but I would not let him out of the house with a realistic rifle and pistol, even if they did have orange tips. We took pictures for a What We Do in the Shadows kind of painting, though. (He's not into war/shooting, he's just a history guy. Last year he bought a suit of armor.)

We’re running out of Halloweens with these kids. I’m having feelings about it.

Edited to add: Tonight is the awards ceremony at the gallery. Here's hoping.

Symphony

A couple weeks ago the boy asked if we could go to the symphony - and if a teen shows interest in a culture/arts experience, you better try to make that shit happen ASAP.

This dress is the reason I added “chicken cutlet bra” to my list of enemies 

We wondered if we were overdressed until we got downtown and saw that the streets of Chinatown were full of Thriller flashmobs and people in fancy costumes spilling out from every bar hosting a Halloween party. Inside the old Honolulu Theater, the solo violinist had a conductor’s baton sticking out of his forehead and a knife in the back, and one of the others was nosferatu. 

The audience was a mix of all ages, full of pirates and vampires and Bridgerton gowns and people looking embarrassed about having just worn jeans. The musicians played recognizable spooky songs, with an actress telling short scary stories between sets. 

It was a really memorable night. Good suggestion, kid. Way better than broiling our butts at the pumpkin patch.

Likeke Falls

The second round of judging cut another 150 paintings from the juried art show, but both of mine made it through. Reception/results on Saturday, November 2nd. Fingers crossed.

Feeling like we should do something fun with the kids, we hiked to Likeke Falls on Sunday morning. It's the "most kid-friendly falls hike on the island", so of course we missed the fork in the trail and climbed halfway up the Pali along narrow muddy cliffside trails before realizing something was wrong. While heading back to the car we ran into a mom with three toddlers coming off of the side path, and then noticed the GIANT SPRAY-PAINTED ARROW on a tree that pointed the correct way, with orange tags to follow on low branches. We are expert survivalists.

The pool at the base of the falls is just deep enough to wade in and cool off, with a big fallen log to sit on. It was really beautiful. 

Log not pictured because I was sitting on it

I'm not in any of the pictures, but that's ok because my cardiovascular system was in full clown mode; my entire face goes bright red except for big white circles around my mouth, nose, and eyes. If I'm ever being chased through a med school, I can hide by pretending to be an anatomical model.

When the next bunch of people with kids showed up we headed back to the car, got some lunch, then went to my mother's house and used up all the hot water in her shower. She made pulled beef sandwiches for family dinner and sliced up the tunnel of fudge cake I made that morning (a cake that can sit safely in a warm car for a few hours while you get lost on a hike for kindergartners).

Really good day. Needed that.

Not great

 POV: the flowers in my studio at 3am 

Had individual intake appointment at 5am, couldn’t sleep.

 It was rough. Turns out going through a lot of bad stuff as a kid makes it hard for someone to gauge the severity of a situation; if you're not in imminent danger of being murdered, it’s something that can be worked through. Also, sudden feel-good hormone dumps are a common fight or flight response, and abrupt loss of shyness/self-consciousness is a sign of emotional detachment. 

Seems obvious, but hearing it from a professional helps.

Tried to unwind my brain and paint flowers for the rest of the day, but messed it up and wiped the whole thing out.

Driving the paintings down to the gallery today. I should probably be more proactive in getting to know the other people in the show, build a community. I need more people.

Achievement

Today I paid off my car! Took her for a celebratory wash. 

It’s been a mess over here. We’re good. We’re bad. We’re shopping for a new fridge. I don’t know. Therapy tomorrow. 

My mother and aunt want to go on a trip next month for my milestone birthday. We can’t find an opera to reenact the original San Francisco trip of 1996, so I’ve been looking at art museums in cities on the West coast to see if any have a Bouguereau. Maybe we can do an art quest instead of getting yelled at by Wagner for 3 hours.

I’m in!

Two of my paintings were accepted into the show! One of them was the one I irritably named “fuck around and find out” at the last minute. Whoops. At least if I win anything, we get to hear a respected dignitary announce it over a PA system. And then I will have set the expectation for all my future painting titles. “The fuck is this”, “that goddamn lace collar took 42 hours”, “another fucking landscape”, “tranquility and shit”. Sorry, progeny.

I’m surprised they picked the one I accidentally sent blurry pictures of. Maybe it was because it was blurry and they didn’t know better, but I have a suspicion that they just liked the Native & Naturalized theme because it’s more “Hawaii”. I kind of preferred the invasive species one, with the mongoose skull.