Reflecting on Recent Big Changes

2020 brought big changes.

Perhaps most notably, I started a new job, full-time, and my daughter started at a group daycare.

These changes have resulted in: me no longer wear yoga pants most days of the week, a fuller bank account, and everyone in my family being sick for a month.

My dedicated Fridays at the art studio is a work in progress. Three Fridays were dedicated to being sick, and another to being home anyways because daycare was closed. Eventually the schedule may align closer with my earlier vision. I’m determined not to worry about it; it’ll all work out.

Daycare has been a godsend. It’s not the kind of place that send parents updates every day (i.e. Suzy drank 8 ounces of milk, had cheerios for breakfast, and chicken and rice for lunch, napped for 2 hours at 11am, and here’s 10 pictures of her playing today…) and I’m embracing the “less is more” idea of that. The director and teachers will always inform us of anything important, and otherwise, I can assume my kiddo had a pretty great day. I’m certain she loves being there, and her cravings for social engagement and activities are met better than they were when it was just the two of us each day.

I’ve also learned what it feels like to miss my child. Before this change, I knew what it was like to think constantly about her. To have an amalgamation of obsession, love, curiosity, worry, anxiety, concern, and so forth, all taking over my headspace anytime I was away from her. I thought that was what it was to miss her, but I’ve found that missing her during the day is a much less fraught experience. It’s mostly thinking about how I love her, and being curious about what she’s doing. The accompanying anxiety and worry has lifted. I feel I can be more present in activities and places that don’t always include her, and this is a welcome feeling. To remember what it feels like to exist as my own person.

I am grateful for my new job. Today, it gave me the financial freedom to buy 2 new tubes of Golden paint, and last night I bought dungeoness crab for dinner on a whim.

Vision 2020 and Saying YES

First, a plug for a great podcast out of Philadelphia’s WHYY studios, The Pulse. I just listened to the most recent episode, Vision 2020, and finished inspired.

As we all look at a new year and a new decade as a possible clean slate, I want to keep this question in the forefront of my mind: “How do I want to feel?”

I can have a childlike obsession with injustice. But the cold hard truth is, I’m an adult, and I know the world/life is unjust. Do I have the capacity to get over that? I really hope so. We can all be smart, and we can all be right (or self-righteous). But could I choose instead to be kind? To be happy? To stop waiting until the “right” circumstances finally present themselves (a futile dream)? Could I resolve in 2020 to feel how I want to feel, now? To keep striving for those things I want in life, and in the world, but, not allow those aims to stop me from loving my life and those around me, as is?

Yes, things in general could be better. There’s a lot of bad news geopolitically and environmentally, and it’s worth feeling outraged. Personal things could be better. Can I shed the habit of seeing everything as opposing dualities, and move forward acknowledging that I can be outraged, annoyed, upset, and worried, and simultaneously filled with joy, happiness, energy, creativity, and kindness? I’m a human being after all, and human beings are known for being complex, contradictory creatures.

Can I embrace the improv actor’s edict and respond to what’s in front of me with “yes, and … ” instead of “that won’t work because … ?”

May 2020 be the year I learn to say YES.

Another Year

Another year is ending. The passage of time catches me off-guard. Did I not just graduate college and move to Philadelphia? How can that really have happened over ten years ago? So much has happened since then, so many memories made, memories forgotten. As months and years go by, I wish I could time travel and revisit different parts of my life, rather than experience it all as an unbreakable forward-moving line.

I became a mom late in 2018, and 2019 was all about navigating my new and very different life. I felt like I was constantly in survival mode. Each task I did was merely done to get me to the next day, a day that would be filled with tasks to get me to the one after that. I am certain some stay-at-home-parents experience this very differently, but for myself, I was unable to escape survival mode. My days often blended together. Perhaps the glorious and mild California weather is to blame, but I frequently found myself struggling to remember what month or season it was, save for whatever packaging was on the candies in the center aisle of CVS.

Nothing in parenthood was at all as I imagined it. Though I take joy in being present for the fleeting moments of my daughter’s development, I also found I deeply longed for the space and time to exist as myself, beyond being a mother.

I am happy to report that in January 2020, I will return to the workforce, and my daughter will begin daycare.

As I mentioned, nothing in parenthood has been as I imagined it, so reality will certainly have some things to teach me (may HFM not be among them!) But in general, my outlook is brimming with optimism. My kiddo is incredibly curious, energetic, and social. She will be spending her days somewhere that will give her opportunities to learn and play beyond what I am able to give her at home. I am excited for my job, and feel like I nabbed the golden ticket, as I get to start at 4 days a week. Having a flexible day means I can still take my daughter out of daycare for routine things like doctor visits, and fun things like Fairyland or the Zoo. It means Saturday and Sunday won’t have to be exclusively relegated to getting on top of chores. It also means dedicated work time in my art studio.

Making art takes me out of my habit to mentally time travel, taking a break from replaying past events or anxiously dwelling on those to come. It is the opposite of survival mode. The experience of making art places me in the richness of action and the present moment.

I’ll leave my 2020 goal setting for a future date, and on this last day of 2019, simply smile as I embrace a new year that is certain to bring about exciting changes.

I'm Okay With Getting Uncomfortable.

Last week, I wrote about my reverence for nature, my decision to make it my artistic subject, and my distress about our climate emergency. In examining how my paintings and my concerns overlap, I put forth the notion of my paintings as “potential memorials.” It’s a dark idea, and considering the very likely physical and ecological impacts that will be irreversible without significant action, I find that darkness appropriate.

For those of us who are privileged (admittedly, like me, as I am a white, cis-gendered, straight person born in America to white cis-gendered parents who had college degrees, owned a home, and were able to send me to college) the consequences of global warming feel abstract. Even as these consequences become more concrete (like Houston having 3 “500 year floods” in three years, aka 3 floods that had a 0.2% chance of occurring) we go on, perhaps rebuilding, perhaps buying better insurance, perhaps thanking our lucky stars it wasn’t us.

When we talk about climate change, there’s this idea it’s just change, and the world is always changing, isn’t it? Change is normal, something we can write off as outside our control or responsibility. It becomes easier to brush these troubles under the rug or outright deny. And thank goodness, as it frees us from feeling the anxiety that can consume us when we see, believe, and contemplate what’s happening. Anxiety is bad for our health, so it seems almost healthy to ignore or deny the issue. But our uneasiness doesn’t disappear when we keep quiet. Keeping it buried deep down, we not only feel the anxiety, but the depressing isolation of experiencing it alone.

It’s scary to talk about the climate emergency, and the big emotions we may have because of it. But is the conversation actually scarier than the issue itself? What if talking could help us find solutions, build resilience, and feel less alone?

While I unpack my feelings about an altered climate as an artist, a parent, and a citizen, I will be exploring complicated and sometimes uncomfortable subject matter. It is not my desire, goal, or duty to censor my art or my speech to keep others ensconced within their own comfort zones of perceived safety.

Lastly, I’d like to share two articles I enjoyed this week:

6 Tips For Talking To Kids About Climate Change (I listened to the podcast version of this by NPR’s Life Kit)

How Should We Talk About What is Happening To Our Planet? (A Washington Post piece that examines how the language we use to talk about things impacts how we feel about them)

Doing what we do in a changing climate

I’ve been thinking about the convergence of my concerns, my responsibilities, and my abilities, and how that relates to climate change, motherhood, and my artistic practice.

We face overwhelming evidence that our climate is changing, on a daily basis. The changes are rapid, and have serious consequences for every living creature on this planet. The effects will be felt during our lifetimes, and necessitate massive change to the way our civilization functions, if it is indeed to continue functioning at all.

The alarm bells have been ringing so long they’ve almost faded into the background.

I don’t have data on how much of the world “believes” in the fact our climate is changing, dangerously so, because of humans. Let’s say it’s 40, 50 or 60%? Let’s suppose approximately half the world knows their daily choices perpetuate this global crisis. What would happen if that half of the world stopped driving their cars today? Stopped flying, stopped eating factory farmed meat, and stopped buying products with any single-use packaging? I wonder, but reality doesn’t show that to be a likely possibility. Individual choices matter, but their impact is negligible. Giving up my Subaru for an electric cargo bike is the eventual plan, but it won’t rewind climate change. Meaningful change will either happen (or not happen) because of coordinated and sweeping action from the corporations, industries, and political leaders of prosperous countries with the biggest carbon emissions. My personal actions won’t move the dial, but allowing that to be an excuse to do nothing feels wrong.

I find it uncomfortable to fantasize about my future. This month’s wildfire-preventative power outages forced me to see an emergency backpack isn’t large enough to comfortably provide for my family during disasters that are becoming more regular occurrences. As a mother, the weight of these fears feels unmanageable. The world my generation is bestowing to my daughter comes with a burden. I have hope they will right the ship, but it is a big ask. Hey kiddo, our planet is dying, and the moderately stable civilization I was born into may collapse on your watch as epic hurricanes, coastal flooding, contaminated waterways, wildfires, species decimation, bomb cyclone cold snaps, and frequent heat waves become the everyday. We weren’t willing to fix it in time, so you’ll have to figure out what to do.

As I contemplate what I can do on an individual level (other than biking, taking transit, refusing free water bottles and plastic flatware, bringing my own containers to the bulk bins at the grocery store, and so on) I wonder how my role as an artist can intersect with my concerns as a citizen and a mother, especially as my art already focuses on the natural world.

In early 2016, I shifted the subject matter of my paintings. My art pays homage to the beauty of the outside. My paintings are about standing in a forest, surrounded by redwoods and firs, taking a deep breath that reminds you of your essence and invites you to fully inhabit in the present moment. I made that change without a deep conceptional backing (I do firmly believe that art can, and should, be political, but I don’t believe all art has to be). Months after I began to paint forests, Donald Trump won the electoral college and became president. An administration characterized by disfunction and greed has actively reversed environmental protections we need for our water, our land, and our air. Before, I enjoyed a mix of blissful ignorance and hopeful optimism. Yes, climate change is real, and serious, but there’s hope we can slow it down, and find ways to reverse the damage we’ve done! This is no longer the way I think.

How do I proceed, without falling into despair? For now, my life has stability and ample resources, and I must rejoice in that, and share that joy with my child who is too young to know the burdens of her future. I will continue to revere nature in my art, all the while knowing, the world I am depicting will likely be dramatically altered in my lifetime. Redwood forests are no longer a place of timeless enduring. Our planet’s ecological environments are losing their battles for survival. I am no longer painting pretty landscapes, but potential memorials.

Judging and Being Judged

There’s a saying that being a parent is living with your heart on the outside of your body. Vulnerability takes on new meaning in your life. Much of that is about your intense and growing love and fears for your child. There’s also a vulnerability in your understanding of self as well. Someone tells you what they do/did, and it’s almost impossible not to hear that as judgement about what you’re doing.

Making new adult friends after your 20s is challenging enough. When you’re also a parent, there’s an added paranoia that anything you do will be openly criticized, silently condemned, or misinterpreted as you judging another parent. It’s not so much that I wake up feeling neurotic and suspicious, but that the judging and “oops am I judging?” hits at unexpected moments. Watching my child gleefully play around the park while a group of nannies loudly insists she needs pants and not shorts! A moment of joy is transformed, and my parenting choices are put on display for all the other caregivers within hearing range. Or I feel safe venting about my experience nursing, but the other mom hears it as me invalidating her own struggles, and I wonder how I can kindly navigate the conversation without hurting a potential new (and needed!) friend.

Last week, I wrote about feeling judged as a parent who is staying home, possibly until my kiddo is in preschool. Being home allows me to keep a studio practice (even if that’s only on Saturday mornings for the time being). My days have a lot of play, coffee, and baby giggles, and I love that too. My newest resolution is to be less self-conscious about the path I’m on. To not focus on the sacrifices I make, but the joyful possibilities and experiences that exist because of what I’m doing right now.

I’ve answered the question “what do you do?” in ways that left a sour taste in my mouth these last ten months. Perhaps because my adult conversations have been reduced, I fumble over my words in social situations that should be familiar but now feel alien.

What do I do? I am an artist! I am also the primary caregiver for my baby.

Can I embrace these answers without feeling that I must make apologies or explanations? Time will tell, but for now, I’ve got to get back to a painting.

"Just"

I went to the dentist last week. My hygienist is one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. She asked me what I did the previous weekend, and like any sleep deprived parent who can’t remember what day of the week it is, I had to pause to recall what had occupied my hours only a day before.

I told her that I spent time in my art studio, painting. She asked me if painting was my hobby, and I said “no” while trying not to let my voice show that I felt a bit offended by the question (ever projecting, it felt like more of an accusation).

The hygienist said “oh, so is it how you make your living?”

“Well, no.” I went on to say that was the idea, but I wasn’t currently “making a living at it.”

I have to believe the things we pursue in life can land somewhere between “just a hobby” and “making a living.” I was there for a teeth cleaning, not a career analysis, so I refrained from qualifying my answer and mentioning I am the primary childcare for my baby, allowing very little spare time for any additional job that would allow me to “make a living.”

I don’t see myself as someone who has hobbies. I see a hobby as a chosen activity that keeps one interested or occupied. But it is also something that could be stopped or replaced with an alternative activity without causing an identity crisis or triggering clinical depression. I could not stop making art and take up, say, knitting or swing dancing lessons. I could not stop making art and still be myself.

As products of late stage capitalism, we can have trouble seeing something that takes up our time without attaching value of monetary loss or gain to that activity. Everything we do is either a good or bad investment, with money as the determining factor. I reject that way of understanding life. This is my only life, and I will not allow the shortcomings of our economic and political system keep me from finding value in things that make me feel whole, regardless of their financial implications.

A few days after my dentist appointment, a former colleague texted, asking if I could help with something later that week. It took me half a day to respond. I texted, “I’d love to catch up soon, but honestly I didn’t sit down for 13 hours today so I just don’t have the time.” Well-meaning, she wrote back: “Wow! That’s terrific that you’re so busy! Do you have a new job?” I didn’t know how to explain that nothing had changed since the last time we talked, and that was precisely what was keeping me from having a moment to sit down, or carve out extra time to help on a side project. I almost replied “No, I’m still just home with Emmylou.” or “Just being a full time mom to a crazy 10 month old!”

My impulse to use the word “just” made me feel shameful. There’s no “just” about it. I will admit to having mixed feelings about being a stay at home mom. I have doubts and question my choice when I’m overwhelmed by the division of labor at home, or how difficult my child can be, or how exhausted I often feel, or how I wish I had more money, or how I miss being in the company of other adults and engaging in intellectually interesting conversations. I feel doubt and shame when others question my choice to stay home, like I have made an unfathomable decision that fundamentally alters how they see my value in this world. When people ask when I’m putting Emmylou in daycare, I often make the not-funny joke, “when daycare isn’t more than twice what I was making at my last job!”

Suddenly I feel the urge to explain to you, reader, why I am staying home with my baby. But do I ask vendors at the farmers market, nannies at the park, medical assistants who take my blood pressure, cashiers at Safeway, or librarians at the circulation desk to explain their professional choices to me? No! Because it’s none of my damn business, and because simple answers are rare, and because everyone makes an impact and has worth.

I will say there were multiple economic factors in staying home while my daughter is not yet preschool age. I also want to be there to enjoy this time that is both so hard, joyful, and fleeting. Another huge factor is that it allows me to keep making art. Not often, I’ll say, as caring full-time for a baby doesn’t allow much in the way of breaks or extra energy, but I fear making art would become “just” a hobby if I had another job outside the home. If I were away between the hours of 7:30am-6:00pm as my spouse who works outside the home is, I would want to squeeze in every moment I could with my child on the weekends. Which means: no studio time.

I want to be with my kid a lot, and I want to make art. Neither pays a living wage, but I find personal value in both.

Remembering YOLO When Scheduling Babysitters and Using Paint

YOLO, you know?

Keeping in mind that you only live once can be freeing, or paralyzing. The more present-minded, brave, and adventurous people who walk among us say “carpe diem!” and find ways to make their moments count. My own default approach is cautious. I worry about the worst case scenarios and making the wrong choices, always remembering opportunities are limited (because you only live once). I worry almost constantly I will have wasted a rare chance doing the wrong thing.

Take a mundane example: eating out. I rarely eat out, in effort to better live within my means. Now I have a child, so mindful spending is further elevated. My spouse and I have planned a date night, our first time with a babysitter! Where to go to dinner becomes a loaded decision. What if after all that planning, I pick a restaurant that isn’t as good as another option? What if we don’t enjoy our food, and we feel our money and precious time was poorly spent?

You are probably already thinking this, but that is a pretty shit mindset to have. It’s impossible to accomplish or enjoy anything when you’re busy worrying.

Without changing the situation at all, I can change how I see it: We almost never have a babysitter and we’ve lined one up, fabulous! We’ve budgeted for a sitter and a dinner someone else cooks: how delightful and luxurious! I can’t wait! Whatever I order, I won’t have had to shop for it, or prepare it, and neither of us will be doing the dishes: hallelujah!

A similar mindset shift is needed in how I view my creative time.

I can feel paralyzed by making the first mark on a blank canvas, because I never forget that paint, canvas, and my time are finite resources with a dollar value attached. I worry I’ll be wasteful. Do something bad, or perhaps do something good, but fail to make a sale, and perhaps that is still bad, because it can be seen as wasteful. This way of thinking hinders the entire process and steals joy from an activity I choose over and over and over to define the very essence of myself.

Timothy App, a professor of mine from MICA (and don’t make the mistake of calling him “Tim”…) once asked me, perhaps in an exasperated tone, “can’t you just make a mark, and mean it?” In honestly reflecting on my physical painting process, probably not. I layer. I don’t execute beautiful paintings when I try too hard to stick to a plan. But Timothy’s comment has stuck with me for over a decade, so there must another helpful meaning I can draw. I’m going to try rephrasing it: “can’t you just make a mark, any mark, and get on with it already?”

Bringing a Newborn to the Studio

Ten months ago, my husband and I welcomed our daughter into the world. Before Emmylou was born, I contemplated how motherhood would not be a replacement of my identity, but instead, an expansion.

Nothing turns plans and expectations upside-down and backward quite like becoming a parent. Taking care of a tiny human put me into survival mode, just trying to make it to the next day, the next nap, the next time I'd remember to take a breath. Figuring out how to fit my daughter into my life has proved more difficult than me-before-kids could have fathomed. Rather than trying to bring my child into my own life, I find I am trying to make space for fragments of my life within hers.

Medical professionals believe about 20% of babies have colic (defined as crying 3 or more hours a day, 3 or more days a week, for 3 or more weeks). There’s not much quality scientific information or consensus on what causes some babies to experience these more intense crying bouts, though there is a lot of pseudoscience that claims to. Parents of newborns are vulnerable and sleep deprived, and parents of newborns who cry excessively are all the more so. The continued popularity of products associated with serious risks, like Rock ‘n Plays and amber teething necklaces, are a testament to how affected parents are by their baby’s cries. The desire to soothe is innate and incredibly powerful. I am without words to describe how it feels when the standard soothing techniques fail. But I’ll say it comes as no surprise the US military used recordings of wailing infants as an instrument of torture.

My daughter cried a lot. She still does, but now there’s smiling, laughing, babbling, crawling, standing, and longer periods of sleep for us all. The early days were rough though. I watched friends with newborns get out into the world with their babies. They looked sleepy and had spit-up on their shirts, but both baby and mom seemed pretty happy, even relaxed. I kept waiting for that to be me and Emmylou, but it wasn’t in the cards.

I took Emmylou to the studio a few times during her first six months. On rare occasion I could wear her in the carrier, rocking and bouncing until she cried herself to sleep, and then I would paint for 20 minutes. I’d pack up and drive home soon after, because by then, I’d have to pee. The bathrooms at the studio have a loud fan, and an even louder hand drier, guaranteed to send my babe into an inconsolable, back-arching fit. Sometimes we would come to the studio, and she would cry and nurse and get a diaper change and cry and nurse and then we’d go home. Or she would scream, and I would walk her around, bouncing and calmly talking or singing, feeling guilty my studiomates had to put up with the crying, hoping the spell would end, but each time, Emmylou would show me her incredible persistence, and I would eventually give up, and we would go home, for more bouncing and crying.

Emmylou is ten months old today. Now, I take her to the studio maybe once a week, but I’ve shed the expectations I’ll get work done. Sometimes I get 20 minutes of painting done as she plays in the enclosed mesh play yard I have set up beside my easel. But usually, I simply show up, take a moment to look at what I’ve been working on, say hello to the incredible women I share my space with, and then decide it’s time to head home for Emmylou’s next meal or nap.

I don’t get a lot of “alone time” as a stay-at-home-mom. On the weekdays, my alone time occurs when Emmylou sleeps. I use this time to do the dishes, eat a meal, take a shower, watch Netflix, and sleep. “Nap-length studio time” is a concept with a cute ring to it, but very little basis in my reality. I carve time out for my art on the weekends, visiting my studio solo. I enjoy the quiet, focus, and body autonomy that comes with that time.

I’m not sure when I’ll confidently feel that expansion of my identity I dreamed of, but I plan to get there by regularly carving out time for my own pursuits (anything that makes me feel like I exist as someone in addition to being a mom, like making art, reading, going to a yoga class, or talking politics while having a drink with a friend).

Things will continue to change, and the way I set up a successful studio day (with or without Emmylou in tow) will ever be in flux. I still entertain fantasies about her drawing or painting beside me one day, and only time will tell if that happens.

Launching My Great Experiment

You've probably heard the term "mommy blogger" before.

At nine months postpartum, I started to wonder why they are so prevalent. The transition into parenthood is so jolting, so huge, so irreversible, and so utterly without a blueprint for guaranteed success.

When we become parents, our waking hours increase dramatically. However, the hours we spend engaged in conversation with someone who speaks in words and sentences drastically decreases. This leaves a lot of time for contemplation. As new parents navigate our “new normal” and reflect on our mistakes, obsess over what we wish we'd known, and replay what we would have done differently, it dawns on us. "I bet what I’m learning would be helpful for other new parents!" Could we save them from making the same stupid mistakes? Help them feel how we wish we felt? More confident, better rested, less isolated?

We have so many ideas, stubbornly playing on repeat, yet no one to talk to. Have you ever felt desperate for an outlet, to speak to someone, anyone? Talking to your partner about baby poops doesn’t usually take the edge off.

Countless mothers are claiming clever URLs, sharing their birth stories, giving advice on how to pack a hospital bag, sleep train, attachment parent, and start solids. Some are good, some are garbage, and some are simply a nice place for the blogger to direct their perseverations. Instead of taking up a similar path, I’ll leave those topics for the other mamas.

Those topics fill my days, but aren’t necessarily what interests me. I am interested in what I’ll call “My Great Experiment”: figure out how to maintain a studio practice, make money at it, feel connected to community, and experience daily joy, all while working as the primary caregiver for my first child. My first step in launching this undertaking involves connecting to my community, so this is where I’ll be sharing the progress of My Great Experiment.