I have been feeling low and isolated for reasonable reasons: state of the world etc. but also because it just happens, unreasonably sometimes. We are all miracles retained in ludicrous impossibility. This knowledge is amazing and terrifying. Social media can help, but it is a distant connection. This morning, before the school run, I read that a fellow social media friend had plunged back into depression again. As I thought of words to send in support, an idea came to me of traveling on a train.
When you are caught in senseless depression the last thing you want to hear is "Cheer up", even worse, "It could be worse". These casual statements, though well-intentioned are at best annoying. It belittles the experience the individual is suffering and isolates further, as it is obvious by saying these words they have no comprehension of what is being experienced, rendering the depressive more alone. It only adds guilt to how crap the recipient is feeling. They already know it could be worse and if they could cheer up they would do. So, back to the train.
Sorrow is part of the
journey of life we are all learning to ride. I think the best thing you can do is to accept there is
nothing you can do and that's okay. The idea I had was being on a depression train. Stop fighting it, it will only lead to insomnia and anxiety and make the journey feel longer. It may not feel like you are moving but you are. In an emergency you could pull the red cord, but please don't abandon the train before your destination. The train will stop at a designated station, just breathe and
see if you can find
a window seat. Nobody knows how long the journey will be, but you may
see something interesting. Even if it's just an idea gleaned from the enforced contemplation or
simply more empathy for fellow life. If you cannot get to a window, try to stand in a shaft of sunlight and know that you are not alone. The depression train is full of fellow travelers. Eventually you will be able to look out and discover relativity, you will indeed "Cheer up" and the contrast of your sorrow will serve to heighten moments of future happiness. You will depart at
platform "Sunshine" again.
I have discovered two interesting things recently that have proved to be just the ticket (humour remember is important!). A delight to discover is the author Matt Haig. I received great solace through reading his blog. I have yet to read his new book, but I have just bought it with my birthday money and now I am anticipating the post. Anticipation is good. It feels alive. The other is Alain De Botton's new book on Art as Therapy. Obvious I know, but he has compiled a great resource. An analysis of Serra's 'Fernando Pessoa' can be find for free on Facebook and it helped me today. Art can serve as a map on a commute to hell and back.
Stephen Fry's advice:
“If you know someone who’s depressed, please
resolve never to ask them why. Depression isn’t a straightforward
response to a bad situation; depression just is, like the weather.
Try
to understand the blackness, lethargy, hopelessness, and loneliness
they’re going through. Be there for them when they come through the
other side. It’s hard to be a friend to someone who’s depressed, but it
is one of the kindest, noblest, and best things you will ever do.”
I have not felt like painting this week, when really it is in difficult times like
this that I need more than anything to create something other,
something that hopefully stands apart from all the shit, a beacon of
truth amidst the confusion and a personal symbol of worth.
I was quite up for the idea of being positive. The plan was to get back to my art after the school holidays and not to moan for at least 24 hours, not even silently in my own head. To not even groan about having an aching, old person's tired body for as long as I can remember. Maybe if I could trick myself into behaving as if everything was great and fair, I could also trick the world and my body into giving me a break.
Alas, this is not the way life is, things are not as they are "supposed" to be, my ideals are just my ideals, not necessarily everyone elses. Imagining I have Snow White's birds fluttering above me whilst squirrels help me to wash the dishes is not going to change the reality that life is often a struggle. A nice cup of tea can help to distract you but it does not take away a reality that needs attending. We have had a week of nostalgia brought about by Thatcher's death and all the bitterness that her memory stirs up for many people and the legacy she gave us, combined with atrocities and disasters in America. Ultimately, the events of this week and the discrepancies in the news coverage of the Boston bombings and subsequent manhunt have left me unable to believe anything I am told by the media. The exposing of familiar and trusted celebrities as pedophiles just adds to the fact that nothing is ever as it seems. Looking back to the nineties, I decided to re-watch the drama, Our Friends in the North, which
brilliantly depicts our paths through time. It also highlights the sham
of our society, whatever the government. On a lighter note it is worth
watching to see the actors who will become the future Doctor Who and
James Bond.
At the same time as these world events I found out that the nerve in my daughter's eye is pale and this could mean that her left eye will never be much use to her. They don't know for sure. With doctors it is always a case of wait and come back and tell us what happens. She is nearly 6, and has had regular eye tests since the age of 2, but they have only just noticed this. I now have to cover her good eye with a patch rendering her almost blind, combined with her hearing and balance problems. The hope is that her bad eye will improve. There is no guarantee due to the discovery of the pale nerve, but we have to try for her however difficult it may be in the short term. This news was quickly followed by a letter arriving saying I owe over £2000 due to an overpayment in child tax credit made by the government in 2009. This has been passed onto a debt company. This is a complete shock, and I don't think there is anything I can do to dispute it. 2009 seems so long ago to me it has become part of the Blur/Blair years. By that I mean I can no longer remember any details. I have had to work my way through repaying a lot of debts after the break up with an alcoholic partner and I believed I had got my family onto safe ground and the Tsunami of shit had passed. As I said, life is not as it is supposed to be. Our whole idea of what life is can be ripped apart at any moment and it is not easy to pick ourselves up again and again. I have fault lines caused by the trauma of life's events that reopen all too easily.
Should I be writing this? I don't know, but I have written it for two reasons. One is that hiding away in denial does not help and revealing all this helps me to break through the isolation of carrying these burdens alone. For example, it helps me to say out loud to you that I have been changing my daughter's nappies for nearly six years now and I am fed up of shit. This is not going to change anytime soon as she is still not able to adequately communicate. It's acceptable for me to feel this way. Most parents are fed up after two years of changing nappies. This is my lot, but speaking out enables me to look at my life with some perspective. Ideally I would climb to the top of a hill and scream at the landscape "I AM FED UP OF SHIT!" Ideally as a society we would shout out together. The second reason is in reaction to the coverups in our society and I would like my troubles to count for something. We are all walking through mud and plagued by varying degrees of shit. I hope my words help someone to trudge on.
As I am writing this my 4 year old son came to me with a flower. A dandelion
he had found in the garden. Such a beautiful act, it brought tears to my
eyes. My boyfriend has been in the kitchen and made an apple pie for us.
Shall we put the kettle on then? I don't want to face things but tomorrow I will go to the Citizen's Advice Bureau and try to tackle this debt we can not afford, and begin the treatment with my
daughter's patches. If I get chance I am going to begin working on a painting I have been wanting to do for some time entitled "Modern Bacchus". Again it is a testament to what can happen in life that is often hidden. Our circumstance is seldom chosen and never certain and there is often no justice for what happens. Shit happens. Art can be a way to document and make sense of things. A billboard of distress. A flower in the dirt.
Sketch for Modern Bacchus
Photoshop effects
Above is a sketch working out colours and composition done in
felt tip pen and then altered with Photoshop. I am interested in
experimenting with this image using simple printmaking techniques. Now I had better go and wash the school uniforms which I should have done earlier.
I have not worked out yet whether I should explain my paintings or leave them for others to interpret on their own. As it is early days for me as a painter, I don't suppose it matters much either way. If it does, look away now.
This painting happened suddenly and was my response to a bad day. I just got all the swirling images in my mind that were gathering and put them out of my head and onto the paper. Here I could see them clearly, writhing undefended for me to examine. That same day was turned around as I transferred my sketch onto canvas and began filling in.
I was trying to come to terms with and integrate the gaping void between domestic imagery fed to us from the television and magazines, and the cold blooded reality of hard work and raw emotion as you fall into the role of motherhood.
The only true advice I wish I had received before becoming a mother is "Expect the unexpected, nothing is ever as it seems.". We have little experience to prepare us before embarking on our personal journey into motherhood. Of course this is true of fatherhood as well. Our dislocated society separates the births and deaths from our sanitised and independent lives. Few of our new generation have memories of the birth of siblings at home, or the final preparing of the body of a deceased loved one, as an opportunity to say goodbye. These are not easy things to face but they do not go away by hiding them. When the time comes we are unprepared and have to face these experiences with little support, and it soon has to be hushed up again. We have lost the support and guidance of women in our community. Community is a rare treasure not many of us have known.
So armed with our mothering magazines of perfect images we take our fragile selves into the labour wards like lambs to the slaughter. This may sound harsh, reality may be kind and often is, but babies are born prematurely everyday, many women don't have chance to consult their perfect birth plans as they are rushed into emergency caesareans. New mothers sink into the ambivalence of post natal depression and not everyone is fortunate enough to experience the spontaneous miracle of bonding with their child. Some parents replace their broken rose tinted glasses with an alcoholic haze.
The perfect ideal of a house in the country, in which we can be a domestic goddess is passed off to us through the media as "real", leaving the majority of us lacking. I love to watch these programmes and dream and have my fill of their virtual, vicarious pleasure. Equally it can lead to torment and dismay.
There is a phrase, "Follow me home to know me.". The fake kitchens bursting with le crueset; flowery china and copper bottomed pans are purpose built fabrications and often not the celebrities actual homes. In real celebrity homes adultery and temptations can be prevalent.
A cat curled up on a rug in front of an open fire turns into finding flea bites on your children's skin. The new cute kitten has defecated on your new comforting cushions, and left a dead bird behind the settee. Small mercy that the toddler didn't find it first. The open fire covers everything in dust and brings the extra job of cleaning up the ash and soot. We all have our dreams and then their are the practicalities never far away.
The baby in the painting is copied from a real photo of my poorly daughter, born three months early. When tragedies occur, someone still has to wash the dishes that are mounting up, put the Christmas tree up, do the festivities and put the Christmas tree back. The beautiful flowers in a vase fade and die and have to be thrown away, the bacteria filled water in the vase poured away. These simple yet heroic acts that keep a family going are often the responsibility of mothers. The little things, the disgusting things, the boring, relentless, unnoticed and essential things.
As I have got older I have learnt with great difficulty to let go of my Catherine Cookson ideals of how life should be, and to love the reality of what life actually is as it comes. A technicolour, 3D, scratch n sniff miracle. To turn chores into opportunities for contemplation and listening. We will all still have bad days but I try to face life clearly and openly and enjoy the miracles of having children and being alive.
In my painting there is a butterfly that can momentarily break you out of an inward cage of depression as you turn to look at it's beauty. A Georgian shop window, full of the promise of wonderful things reflects the storm beyond. A cottage with roses around the door, leads on to a pretty chintz cup and saucer, or is it clouds gathering. Will the oncoming storm be only a storm in a teacup. Have a cup of tea and gain some perspective, you never know what your future might hold. The gladioli symbolises strength and preparedness, and moral integrity. Exactly what a mother needs for consistency and to be a guide by good example. They are also a symbol for love at first sight, how it should be when a mother first holds her child.
Mausoleum. Oil on canvas. 32"x24". 2012.
I was brought up to care about what the neighbours think, to try to be nice and to please. These are good qualities in certain ways, to be conscientious and aware of your affect on others. It also leaves you particularly suggestible. I am learning to stand up for myself and believe in whatever I am, even if it does displease. This painting is not quite finished, I am going to work some more on the details, these are not good quality photos, but what does it matter. Until further notice I have put my cherished but sentimental notions in a mausoleum.
