Making these things distracts me and makes me happy. It was my intention to write about things, real life things. get some shit off my chest but maybe I’ll come back to the other stuff later. right now I just want to enjoy the pretty things.
p.s. those are on instagram – @glacierface
p.s.s. made with an app called layout
I went on a residency last summer in the Catskills in New York. I have been thinking about that lately, probably because I recently saw a friend I made on that trip. I have also been thinking about that time and what it was to me and for me. Thats not a great sentence, I know this, but it happened and I’m ok with it. I’m probably going to elaborate.
The residency (The School of Making Thinking) focused on performance through a practice of re-preforming. We responded to one another’s work by making new works in short periods of time (maybe an hour or so, maybe) that were responsive, reflective and in relationship to others work. We would draw names for whose work we would respond to. Everyone performed though not everyone was a necessarily performer, or at least I didn’t really consider myself a performer. I was, however, trying to face down a lot of fear and self-doubt around performing and attention. That residency was terrifying in this way. I was trying to take that step, that Indiana Jones-style step where you can’t see the path and you just step forward and hope its actually there. I was taking those kinds of steps and it was constantly terrifying. I would often go cry after each performance, go walking and crying, I felt so vulnerable and seen.
One thing I have realized though, over time, is that even when I am feeling vulnerable in those ways, I don’t often portray that to others. I was feeling completely seen and no one knew they were seeing me. Because I didn’t know anyone before, no one knew the mountain of terror I felt when I stood in front of them, they just accepted that what I was doing was something that I do and took it in as such. It’s not that I wasn’t honest about myself, I was. I went into it all with everything that I could. The thing I am slowly realizing is maybe about perception, maybe thats it. I don’t know if I have an accurate perception of myself. In that setting, in that place, I decided to be a performer and I was, we were peers working through ideas, concepts and life together. I pushed myself in my areas of fear, hard. I made myself perform characters, loosely planned, or share words and moments from life. I was sometimes the focus and sometimes not. These were and are all things that I struggle to do in regular, daily life. Not in my family, I don’t mean that, but in the choices I make about art and my creativity. I so easily hide behind fear. One of the scariest and more painfully awkward pieces I worked on at the residency was a project where I made myself be a storytelling-machine that was powered by my listeners. The performance went on for however long people powered me through a variety of physical activities I had set up. I talked for something like 45 minutes, spewing stories and sometimes rants as I tried to find the story to tell in a given subject. It was terrible and exhilarating and I was so deeply embarrassed. So ashamed of having taken up that much space. And that is sort of the root of it, somewhere, deep inside myself, I don’t think I deserve to take up space. And I don’t say this so that people will tell me I do, it’s not a problem with logic, it’s this twisted emotional thing inside me. But, listen, I am writing it, saying it, working on it. I am working on believing in my own value. The end of that sentence was so hard to write. I tried to not write it. I tried drinking water instead of writing it. I tried thinking about sleeping instead of writing it. I am trying to believe that I have value.
Art-making has always been a side-route for self-value. It’s a way I can make things, say things, put content into the world without being directly seen. It has been a way to express myself sort of indirectly. I have been working on more directly engaging in the world too — projects where I am present and interacting with people, taking improv comedy classes where I have to be present or I am letting other people down. Other things like growing older and letting go of old fears, hurts and worries. I don’t know. I sat down to this with a more direct reason in my mind for writing it but, as is usual, I got a little distracted and veered a bit. I sometimes can’t help wondering if my co-residents saw the fear in my face when I was trying to be brave and strong. It’s not something I really need answered, if I did I would just ask them, it just falls into this wondering of how much and how often I misperceive myself in the world. How different is my view of myself compared to others view of me. Anyways.
Farewell today, you were a good day. You brought me both joy and sorrow.
I got back home yesterday after 3 weeks doing an artist residency in Detroit. First, in case people are curious, this specific artist residency provided space and time to focus on making art. That’s the underlying idea, that while on a residency you can think and work in space that is apart from home and home’s distractions. It gives you time to explore ideas and to also be influenced by a new place and new people.
So, three weeks – not the longest of times but long enough to be deeply impactful. Let’s see, I don’t feel like I have the strength within myself to write in an organized way so i’m gonna stream through this, blowing along with the wind of my own thoughts. Grab a wind breaker? No, that’s not good. Don’t encourage that type of behavior in me.
What did I work on – that’s a good place to start. The practical, the work. I drew pictures. I drew large drawings mostly with charcoal pencils. Sometimes I had to stand on a stool to reach the top of the drawing or crouch down on the floor (actually, when I was cleaning the studio, the bottom of every wall around the rim of the room had charcoal-ey toe and foot prints where I had gotten charcoal dust on my toes and my feet left marks on the walls). I have this project I have been thinking about for well over a year. Its is about Alvah, my son who turned 8 today. Oh that’s a thing too – today he is 8. I have a fucking 8 year old. That’s a full blown kid kid kid kid. Alvah has a way of playing and moving in the world that is unique to him and the way his imagination rules his life. He can be heard on the daily saying “sorry, I didn’t hear that, I was in my dream world” (or in my imagination world, or some world other than the present earth world we all exist on). His movements are unique and beautiful, but their differences from the average (norm) is visible, sometimes confusing or perplexing to people and always intense. His play is intense, there are sounds, stories, movements. I have been recording him in these movements over the last year (with his permission, yo, we talk about this stuff) and taking pictures of him. For this residency I pulled images from videos, moments of him in the middle of some impossible movement for in some intense feeling/action and I drew those moments.
Do you know what? I have always loved drawing. I have done it since I was a kid (Sarah Lenentine, if you read this, I heard you when you said you have drawings from when we were kids – I think I didn’t respond but I heard you). If not doodling, then drawing. I always felt like it wasn’t enough though, for some reason, for other people to be interested in. I can stare a graphite line on a piece a paper with wonder for hours. No problem. It is intensely beautiful to me. You should see the minor orgasms I go through when I look at my kids drawings. [Hmmm, I should take that sentence out. I get my humor, some other people get my humor, but some people do not get my humor. And then the idea of putting the word “kid” in the same sentence with orgasm even though the “kid” isn’t personally involved and nothing sexual is taking place might be pushing it. Do we get the idea of being so intensely moved by something beautiful and the physicality of reaction that could be fitting. But, I mean, what if my dad reads this at some point. Can I have that, hmmm, Ok, I’ll keep it. You all convinced me it is funny enough. The side splitting, rib cracking effect I am currently feeling (though it has happened yet), is worth the possibly over the line joke I made above (p.s. – you can exit this at any time).] So, drawing, it’s such a physical, simple and complex action. I feel and see so much emotion in it. So, I drew and it felt so good. So very good. I bought a roll of paper and cut large rectangles off and hung them on my walls and started to play. It felt incredible. And I sent Brandon a million images of my drawings, every time I got stuck. Looking at a picture of the drawings was amazing, it was like instant perspective. Phones, you got me there, you did me good.
I also spent a lot of time walking around. The first two weeks I explored nearer-by than further away. I also made some friends, specifically with a lovely older gentleman, we’ll call him Carney, who became my architecture and bar guide. He drove me by buildings, told me what I must see and took me on a tour of the bars in his life. He also made me promise to tell everyone out there that I had a terrible time, that people were really mean, that I was scared all the time and that it was horrible. There, see, promise upheld. Terrible time, I had. So, so terrible. I rented a car for the last week because, by the way, Detroit is a gigantic place. Humongous. Immense. Outrageously large. Do you know why it is so spread out? I challenge everyone to spend 20 minutes with the google and find out if you don’t know. Here are some hints: cars, freeways, suburbs, factory jobs, 1950s. Have fun.
I also had some great housemates while there, which made the trip even more lovely. Its weird, because having been married for 11 years and having met brandon nearly 13 years ago, and having 2 kids – being alone in the way I experienced being alone does not happen to me often. It was the feeling of not being known, by anyone, that got almost unbearable. I mean, Cheers was making a whole new level of sense to me now. It is good to be known. I will admit that about 2 weeks in I was looking at flights and seeing what it would cost. I even thought about taking the rental car and driving across the country, it wouldn’t be faster but it would be pretty radical but also pretty expensive. Real expensive. Anyways, I made it around that sad, low corner and then there was only a week left and I began feeling excited again. Only a week – why that is such a little amount of time. I can make it a week, and I have so much to do and see in just a week. Things picked back up. A new resident showed up who wanted to explore the city and drive around so I had a pal to explore the sites. Carney took us to more bars and told us to see more sites. I got to hang out more with Sarah the longer term resident too, talking and laughing, two great things. Guys, I’m getting a little summarizing now. Gotta stop with that. Thats boring. The people there made my trip great. No one needs a play by play, am I right.
So, instead, things that struck me over and over again: space. So much space everywhere. Space between buildings, space between people, space between cars, space in every sense possible. The land is so flat – that there is this different sense of being somewhere, or that you could be anywhere, sort of, because the world was suddenly flat and the sky touched the ground instead of meeting the mountains up high. There weren’t wealthy people living up high, with the views from the top of their hillside homes overlooking the city. It was flat, everywhere. And then as I flew home through Los Vegas the earth went further to jam up my sense of spatial understanding. It’s not just flat in the SW, it goes beyond that by creating negative space in it’s cracks and crevices. Ground disappears, flatness into deep nothingness, back to flatness again. And then you head north again and earth starts to push it’s way up and further upward towards the sky. Crawling upwards, reaching upwards – demanding attention from it’s giant mountainous formations. Space. It made me wonder how space reflects the people who live in it, their perspectives of the world. I know this is a studied field and that my wonderings are nothing new, but I guess these things struck me more deeply in certain ways during this trip. So take that.
Ok, it’s morning. Those are my random and wandering reflections. Take them or leave them. Just, you know, don’t bother me about it.
I keep thinking about what a friend of mine says when he is teaching or coaching improv comedy (Garrett, I’m talking about you). He always tells people to “go when they are the most afraid.” This has become my mantra over the last few days, about life. I’ve spent the last week knotted up, terrified, wrapped up in anxiety. I have always had problems with anxiety but I didn’t always recognize it as anxiety because the definition I had in my head of what anxiety is did not match the way that I feel. It has taken my son being diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder for me to see my own anxiety. The difference between my son and I, however, is that I have coping skills and he is young and does not yet have them.
Let me list my worries for you:
I think that is enough listing of things.
Tuesday morning I got up at 4 am to leave town, to go catch my flights to Detroit. I kissed my children goodbye. One thing that makes this trip so hard is that there is a whole part of me just wants to be with them always, all the time. I get teary sometimes going to work in the morning if they are still asleep. When I kissed them goodbye, Heywood stirred, and made a sweet noise. He knew I was going to kiss him goodbye in his sleep, I hope he remembers. My phone just alerted me that it is time to pick them up. I’m sentimental, all right, fine, I am, ok.
The last time I went away on a residency for 3 weeks they told me they barely missed me, if at all. They are not mean, they are just honest. Especially now, they don’t remember missing me last year. They won’t remember missing me today, tomorrow. I will though. I will wrestle with it because time with them feels fast and unprotected, in ways. I only have them as kids for so long and then they move on to the next stage. It’s too fleeting.
This whole thing is all complicated. Everything about it. But I’ve found that I have to continue to work hard. It’s important to me that over the length of my time actively raising my kids, they see and remember certain consistent strong themes. The day by day, ahhh, who cares so much about the little things. It’s these overarching themes that I care about. How to be brave. How to try things and fail and work hard for the things you care about. And about balance, I want them to learn about balance. How to balance dreams with reality, how to keep pushing, keep fighting, keep being brave. I also really want them to care about people and the world around them. I want them to understand how to ask questions, how to think about other people and try to see things from their perspectives. I want them to understand that their life and their opportunities are unique and also privileged. There are so many things, but if I can raise them to be good, solid thinkers, I think I will be happy and feel I have done my job. But I have to keep doing these things and trying to be those things so they see it and know it. I have to keep fighting, pushing, growing, being brave in my choices. So, now I am here in Detroit. And please, I recognize that this opportunity is amazing. I am doing something spectacular and wonderful. I am out trying to do art and make art and see art all around me. It’s incredible. I just got waylaid up above thinking about my boys.
I actually started this writing yesterday and then stopped and am now back. Time away led me to no better use of language. I have now spent my first day in Detroit. I slept in til 10:30. Right -10:30! What a fucking miracle! I went on my first adventure. I walked around the University and Midtown districts. This is what my walk looked like:
Almost the letter P.
Tomorrow I’m going to go a different direction. I didn’t take any pictures. I’m trying to see things right now. Listen, walk, feel, see, etc. Get a grasp on where I am. Well. This isn’t really about art, is it. It’s about me because I’m a selfish bastard. It’s about anxiety and family and figuring some shit out. I’m trying to be brave. It’s about that too, I guess. I’m just gonna post this. Hello. Goodbye.
Today is Thursday. I will leave Monday. I mean, I just looked up my route to catch my plane. Things are now on a path towards returning to life. I think no matter how much we prepare and how much I know, it will feel abrupt. It will hit hard, the leaving. It will still surprise. I wonder if I’ll turn to talk to people who aren’t there. Probably not, I mean, most the time I don’t do that so I probably won’t start. But I think I will feel lonesome. There is something incredibly wonderful and comfortable about a very full house. People are always around, someone is almost always in the kitchen. You can find someone to laugh with at nearly any moment. I find that to be a beautiful thing. Bodies close by, beings within all the walls. Closeness and space.
So how do I sum any of this up? What is the wrap up? Is there a bow to tie around this?
I can barely write right now. My brain is possibly shutting down in ways. Hyper-focusing on the last few days. On digging into certain ideas and pulling apart, being raw, emotional. Getting the shit out. It’s so intense though. Performance leaves me feeling like a giant open wound. I get mixed up about what I want, how to talk, can I talk to people after. I feel kind of terrible but I think it’s because it feels so vulnerable. I feel like I am showing my insides off and it’s terrifying. Like my mind-insides. Organs are probably fine, feel free to view my stomach, my intestinal tract, my liver if you like. But my mind-insides and my tiny, broken bits of emotions. Stay back people, or don’t, come on over and have a look, just watch out for broken glass.
This might be too freely written. Oh well. What’s the point in being so overly guarded – you know, how does that serve me well?
So, residency. performances. we do a lot of performances. Performance, being in front of crowd, speaking, etc has never been something I’m completely or even slightly comfortable with. It’s hard to do. My words get caught. I can’t look at people. It’s frightening and feels extremely vulnerable. But in this context, I have been practicing and challenging myself to different forms of interaction and performance. Using space and people to craft a story, a narrative, a language that is shared in the moment. I have some ideas to explore and to continue to explore when I get back. I don’t really know what this will mean for what I do in Portland, but I like that I am doing it. and i think i want to explore it more. Over the last couple of years I have been getting into making art that explores interaction and participation. I like that still, I think I am going to keep exploring that. I am trying to slowly step away from defining things. I get so caught in definitions. I want to relax my need for definitions. Fluidity right. I’ve long been aware of my need for understanding the use of a single word or every single word. What exactly does it mean in that context? How do I know exactly what you are saying if I can’t grasp how you use that word. Will you and I ever understand each other, reader?
Those are my questions. but maybe it doesn’t fuckin matter, you know. maybe i just need to chill the fuck out and accept that we will get the general idea, sometimes more but sometimes less and it probably isn’t the most important thing in that moment. right? i don’t know. balancing things. Alvah has a problem with this in a way, he is extremely literal. We are working on puns a lot and jokes and I think that may help him relax his grasp on the literal and maybe allow him to see the play within language. Did you guys know that language makes for a fun and interesting game. people pull words out of nowhere and form them into phrases, fragments, sentences, stories, essays, novels, etc. words are the fucking best. the best. some of my favorite authors have this beautiful understanding of how to play with language. language language language.
can you tell where one day ended in this and then another day started – the break in between? maybe 2 days passed. well. so be it. I leave on Monday, it’s now saturday. i’m busy, i’ll talk to you later.
Today is Sunday. I left home 1 week ago. I haven’t seen my kids or Brandon or the west coast for a week. 1 week, in the expanse of time, is nothing. It is small, miniscule, a moment. However, it feels like more.
This residency is such an intense and incredible experience. I have a bag full of mixed emotions. Ok, now it is Monday and I am out on the back porch and there are tiny highlights of sunshine bringing me some warmth. It’s morning and this week we are starting a thing where we are daily letting people into our rituals. Meaning that today, I am on the porch joining Thea and a group of residents in doing something that is not on my to-do list; doing something that I have been meaning to do but have not found or made the time. Hi everyone, you are my to-do list.
I am currently residing on the back porch, looking out at the rolling hills rising around us, acutely aware of river nearby that has recently also been rising due to heavy and sort of incredible rains. I am sitting with a group of fellow residents, people I have grown to love deeply over a very short span of time, and we are all doing things we don’t give ourselves time to do.
So the thing is. The thing is that this whole trip has been intense yo. I came here and when doing so I gave myself permission to use the parts of my brain that I want to and I came in ready to engage with thoughts and ideas. To spend time in dialogue about ideas around art and performance and response. It is an interesting process to meet people on these terms. We know each other so little and then we know each other so much and then slowly we begin to fill in the middle of the relationship and the knowing.
The other day we played games, which was incredibly soothing for me. I think the hardest thing is missing the closeness of my family. I miss their physicality, I miss their noise, I miss their lovingness. I miss the stories, the messes, the creativity of a child, I miss Brandon, I miss sleeping in a bed with people. I miss being squished at night by 2 kids and a grown man in a queen sized bed. I miss Heywoods cheeks and Alvah’s eyes. I miss their physical presence.
Do you know what else I miss, I miss the freedom I experience at home. I am in this place and I don’t have a way out, really. I could go somewhere else with a lot of planning and effort but it would take that planning. I can’t just go. We were going to another location where there was a performance festival the other evening about 1 ½ hours away and we stopped at a gas station and it was so exciting to go into a store. That might sound silly but there is something key to my self understanding that includes being around strangers. There is a different kind of alone that is in the presence of strangers that I think I crave, that makes me feel extremely free that is missing in this situation, that is part of how I live and how I think.
But, stop talking about deficits already. Lets talk about abundance, shall we. Food flows freely, coffee is always present. My daily needs are met. And then an incredible abundance of people. Most of them are from this eastern coast, this north eastern area. There is only one fellow west coaster here. I find it sad how little chance there is that I will be able run into many of the people here. How much planning seeing them again will hold. They feel a part of my life in a way that I would like to keep. A language has developed that is sometimes hard to grow.
Anyways, it is quite beautiful. Fireflies at night. Crickets last night. It is a lush, living environment. Beaverkill Manor. Google it, you’ll find us here.
Friends, I appreciate all your support.
hearts.
I’ll get some pictures soon
Last night I was at a goodbye and fare-thee-well party for the man who started and ran my graduate program. The program just graduated it’s 5th year of graduates (I was in the 3rd year). It is a young and developing program, I am excited for the woman who is taking over because she has been involved in the program for years and was in fact the co-chair during the last year. Anyways, back to JP, who has been running the program from North Carolina over the last couple of years so he could be closer to his mother. He and his family went back to the east coast in between my first and second years. I think that move shook most people up, and confused them. We understood conceptually but felt a little abandoned. I think mostly because we thought the program to be one thing and it was becoming something other before our eyes. Change and expectations are hard to manage. What I appreciated during that time, though I too felt frustrations about the change, was that JP just took it in stride. He must of known the way people felt but he pushed through and on and throughout he remained open to the students when they needed him, even if they were always as generous with him.
For me, those years of graduate school were a little too overwhelming sometimes. My project and researched veered into a deeply personal realm and I followed it, sort of helplessly. My oldest son was displaying traits that had people questioning whether he was on the autism spectrum or if he had other behavior and developmental issues. I was still healing from being doored while on my bike and was seeing an acupuncturist, masseuse, physical therapist, chiropractor and neurologist. There was a lot going on. And boy did my tears flow, sometimes unfortunately. I was trying to find my voice and to find a way to believe in it. And, at this time, JP and the other teachers and mentors, believed in me. I have always questioned why and how they let me in, always sort of believed that it was probably a mistake. Which isn’t true or fair to myself or to those who made that decision, but that is how I felt. I kind of always wanted to ask why. Why did you invite me or accept me into the program. It was hard. It was the first time I could say that I am an artist out loud. It almost crushed my marriage. It was a lot of things.
When something that is such a monumental place in your memory and history, seeing it change can be difficult. It feels like it should remain this tomb to your memory, but it’s not going to. In life, I will continue to move further and further from it but all the teachers and mentors and people involved will remain as points of influence, each with their own pivotal points in my mind. And I appreciate all of it, even the worst parts and moment.
I spent time last night talking to other alumni and to teachers and mentors from my years there. It really is a good group of people. Caring people, supportive people, lovely people. It reminds me that this community exists here all the time. It’s near by. Sometimes I forget the wealth of resources that are so close by.
But anyways, saying goodbye to JP is, in some ways, saying goodbye to the mythic experience of graduate school. He is sort of the icon (computer icon more than religious) in my mind for this experience. He was supportive of me, especially of my being a parent and an artist. He was encouraging of me bringing my children into the studio environment. He brought in toys for them to play with. There were times when I would be angry or frustrated with him too, and I’m sure thats a visa versa situation, but nonetheless, his practicality towards and acceptance of what ever was thrown at him made him a very reassuring presence. I guess I’m feeling sentimental but I was talking to Brandon about going to say goodbye and I realized that it is possible that I may not see JP again. North Carolina is not near by. I hope that I do though. I think he knows how much we appreciate him. I hope he knows he can come cry in my office if he needs to.
Today is the last day of my funding campaign, which is fantastic. I’m ready to move on from the raising funds and start really putting things together for being gone. Especially working on the plans for the family and, well, I’m probably going to start making lists soon. Yep. Food lists, activity lists, calendars, schedules, etc for the family and lists for myself. Very exciting. Lists.
(https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/residency-at-the-school-of-making-thinking)
Anyways, Alvah’s birthday is Monday (the 25th). He is turning 7. Thats super weird. Here are some cute pictures:
He is kind of huge now. And full of stories about super heroes and ninja turtles and so many stories all the time. He is a beautiful creature. And he is starting to have more a private inner life, which is super interesting. Anyways, yah for Alvah! 7 years old!
Thats all for today. bye.
I’m really amazed that this thing is working out, that I am actually going to go to this residency. I don’t think I’m an outwardly negative person, but interiorly, it’s a constant fight. I expect little of world/mother nature/people/etc as a whole. Wars, disaster, the way people drive, the prevalence of people hurting people in the world and taking advantage of the weak – these things are what I expect. That still makes them heartbreaking, but it’s a little bit of what I expect. Good things take me more by surprise. This is a thing I’m working on, if I could be in the middle, right, nicely balanced between the positive and negative, I think that would be a good space.
So, this residency is happening, the tickets exist and the place exists so now the main part is figuring out the details of going and being gone. We got some of it down and it involves a lot of members of my family engaging in a game of relay where the kids are the baton. Its going to be great. Their first trip up to my dad’s without us, we won’t even cross the state lines. My brother will take them up and my mom will pick them up and bring them home. Brandon gets to be home without any of us for like 5 days or so. Maybe 6. The kids get to run around outside all day at my dad’s, he has space and also a great collection of toys.
I actually think it’ll be pretty interesting, I think my dad and Alvah will butt heads a bit. I’m curious. Is it wrong to see this as an experiment in some ways? Well, too bad. It’s interesting.
Oh, my Indiegogo is still up, we are still collecting donations if anyone should be interested. But the donation of plane tickets has really taken some of the urgency out of the game for me, it’s such a huge part of it all. I also need more people to send me words or phrases for the trip, I’m planning on working from these prompts. Come on people, jump into the pool with me, the water is fine. But really, I do need more prompts. I may come knocking on some doors before I go. Searching out words.
Ohhh- shit. I totally forgot about the craziest fucking thing that happened yesterday. It involves police and a knife and gun shots and a couple blocks being taped off. Are you interested? We were at the park yesterday and we had seen a number of police cars around and there was an ambulance and fire truck out too and it was weird. But then we hear these gun shots, like 4-6 shots, which, personally, I am not a fan of. I will state it incase anyone has missed my loud mouth prior to this date, I hate guns. I think they are terrible. I think they escalate problems because they have a definite finality (yes it is more complicated, no, I do know guns have uses, hunting is cool – but acutally, i know bow hunters, that works and is really actually cool, hmm, anyways, etc). Anyways, once we hear the gun shots and realize the extent of the current police presence. 1 block up, the street is taped off, more police keep showing up. Giant police bus/van things. It’s nuts. We hightail it out of there. We don’t need to be around for whatever is going on. I’ve known atleast one stray bullet victim and honestly thats enough for me.
Welp, it turns out that a dude with a knife was walking the neighborhood, cutting himself and then he broke into an occupied house where a women with 2 young children were, they got out and the police shot the guy with the knife. They didn’t just shoot, because, seriously, lots of shots fired.
It’s really kind of awful to know that those are gun shots that went into a body. I think the guy is alive. I’m kind of assuming mental health issues but that is a guess. So many shots. I don’t know.
This thing veered quickly off path of my indiegogo/residency stuff right? Well, deal with it I guess. That’s life baby, it’s crazy.
hearts
I met my friend Nancy while we were both volunteering at the non-profit p:ear. (If you don’t know p:ear, take a minute to check them out. They work with homeless and transitioning youth – their programming includes education, art and recreation as well as 2 meals per day, safe space, help with transitional housing and so much more. One of the best thing, I think, is that their model is relationship based and mentorship based, everyone who enters is given the respect they deserve, i love p:ear.) Nancy and I met as co-volunteers, working in the kitchen I think. She is a lovely lady who spends her time split between the west and east coast. She has a very generous heart.
I bring Nancy up because she has been so supportive since I met her. And now, with this residency, she continues to be super supportive. In face, she donated her air miles to fly me to New York and back. Thats really incredible. I’m still really amazed by the generosity. I’m also amazed that I am really going, that I have tickets that tie me to a time and a place that is far from my home. It’s all quite overwhelming.
Anyways. It’s also a huge pocket of stress, removed. Simply removed. That means I have to think more about actually being gone instead of just thinking about the logistics of going. Thats scary too. We are piecing together our plans for the boys. Lots of family is stepping in or pitching in, which is really incredible. I think I’ll probably be a bit of a mess though, being gone, emotionally. I don’t really want to live apart from my kids. I’m looking forward to the time, which is like more valuable than almost anything in the world to me right now, and i’m looking forward to the brain space but I’m not looking forward to how lonely I’ll be for them. Anyways, back up, way up, into the good news again, right. (“Stop bringing us down….” -I hear you all yelling).
well, another post made without an edit. I’m really living on the edge here.
vote for me: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/residency-at-the-school-of-making-thinking
lovesey kissies
amy
Making Things 