No, its not a typo. Cutting up pages from magazines, adding bits of handmade paper, throwing in the odd bit of ephemera here and there...and gluing it all down without thought into my journal has become the only way I can name emotions too big for me to look right in the eye. (You can read about my technique, if you call it that,
here.)
The other evening, even two glasses of a very nice beaujolais failed to dissolve the massive emotion that was still pushing out from my brain into my eyes. I was desperate. I surrendered to glue stick and my plastic box of clippings.
And 10 minutes later, this appeared.
The Yiddish alone told me the name of the emotion: I miss my mother. She is here but she is not she any more.
I keep the little Mexican china bowl on her coffee table filled with M & Ms and slip her oatmeal raisin cookies every few minutes. I remind her that I am not just "Mort's daughter," but her daughter, too, and she also had a son. Once. I tell her the weather outside every three minutes.
I love this woman...
But I miss my mother. A lot.
to lean into it. The pain. The love. Leaning. into it.
ReplyDeleteThat is a new exercise for me, leaning toward instead of running away.As it happened, that night, I leaned and was surprised to find the peace. And after the tears,I was pretty surprised to find this really nifty piece of art!
Delete(((Julie))) love how you can write how it feels...
ReplyDeleteI am better at writing about it than feeling it, I think!
DeleteThere is little comfort for someone forced to lose their loved one by slow leak. The inexorable diminishing course of dementia leaves no way open but acceptance and sorrow. I would want to run if I were you, but I think there is no escape. Only the sense that your sadness does honor to your mother and the life you had together. Collage is a great response.
ReplyDeleteWell, she never ran from me and, actually, she never ran from her mother when it was those days for her. I am ok going through it while it is happening, I just know how much she would hate this. Yes, collage.
Deleteam at a loss what to say, I think you express your emotions well, in words and image
ReplyDeleteand what Grace said, about leaning into, rather than pulling away, yes I'm beginning to sense how that is the only way to deal with pain, once you are able to, that is
courage to you and love as always