Pendulum

I don’t really do busy… I do manic.

Deadlines are the essence of my job.
It looks like I'm wistfully painting and creating with love in every stroke of my brush… and that’s true, but underneath there is a meticulous time schedule built for curve balls.

It creates a hum within that has me building structures and solving logistic issues even as I sleep.
It is all consuming and my drive to delight and deliver beyond … is the buzz.

When your child dies people often think advice like ‘keep busy’ and ‘get back to your art’ is a thing.
There’s even books that profess that creating art is a way past your grief.

Here I borrow the words of Dr Joanne Cacciatore 'That’s not my experience’

What I have just created would not have been possible in the early years.
The required rabbit hole was blocked.

I’ll say it again…
When your child dies it’s like stubbing your toe… in that moment it is all you can think of.

Now 3352 days later I can access that rabbit hole and delve into my wonderland of creation and perfect execution.

And now it is done… the daily dosages of sorrow, flashbacks and unattended-to memories have built up like neglected laundry, now piled high and seemingly insurmountable, unaccessible.

The truth is there is nothing to be done about it.
Luke is still dead.
All the words, all the trauma … is still there
and now in a massive backlog.

Yes, its a relief to be able to create and deliver in my indomitable fashion but now the untended grief comes out sideways, this time it is illness and a massive abscess on my jaw.

And so… here I am in our spot, post op, pen in hand, allowing the tears to fall.

I haven’t mastered the collaboration of my grief and my world.

It’s more of a pendulum.
I’ve delivered to the world
And now the pendulum has swung fully
and I am undone.