Layby: how some of the best art collections in the world have been made.
HOME, DAY 5, 30th March 2020
All of a sudden, for all of us in New Zealand [and around the world] home means something so much more than it did.
All of a sudden, for all of us in New Zealand [and around the world] home means something so much more than it did.
Sanctuary. Safety. Refuge. Comfort. Love. Delight. All of those things for sure. But home is also now a place we are required to be in, and not leave, except for shopping, essential work, short walks. Regardless of the emotional landscape within our walls [excepting cases of the horrible violence I hope very few of us have to ever face], we are required to stay put. Screaming children, fighting adults, bickering teens. Whatever. We have lost something essential. A freedom we took for granted. That loss is so heavy that no wonder so many of us are struggling.
I'm in a loving and beautiful relationship, we're in a gorgeous warm dry home, I am financially okay [thanks NZ government], I've got no small children to look after [you parents with small children will need medals after this], my son is safe and secure with his father, my family are all okay, my dog is being looked after by a wonderful woman back in Whanganui. My mental health is okay, my body is fit and healthy. And, crucially, I’m still able to do my work. The thing that offers me such relief and release. I am so freaking fortunate. And my heart still hurts. I”m still struggling. I can only imagine how incredibly difficult it is for so many people.
I sat in the supermarket underground carpark for about an hour this afternoon. I'd gone with my partner to do our shopping. I'd wanted to be out in the world around people more than I'd wanted the food. We got to the queue only to be told it was one person per household/bubble. My partner is the cook so it made sense that he go in. I went and sat in the car and waited. I hadn't brought my phone. So I sat there and waited, and cried. I felt caged. Restricted. A big heavy weight on my chest. As the minutes passed, I stopped my sorry-for-myself tears and did deep breathing and really just slowed myself down. I thought of my mother and the pain she endured when she was dying, how she fought every bloody day to sit in her chair and watch the birds feeding, to wave at the neighbours as they walked by. To text her children and keep in the loop of their lives. I thought how her world got smaller and smaller and how she just kept fighting, and also kept accepting that this was how life was for her now, even with all the new indignities.. This four weeks I [we] am being asked to stay at home is nothing compared to that.
I realised half the difficulty I've been having is that I've been holding so tightly to how things were "before". Things aren't as they were and no amount of wishing will make it so. It's time to let go of "before". To accept that right now my life is very small. That for the next few coming weeks, it revolves around these walls I"m calling home. The beauty of accepting this situation I literally cannot change, instead of struggling against it, is that I can then begin to see all that is lovely right here in front of me. I can begin to change and respond to the new landscape we find ourselves in, and expand and deepen as a result. And isn’t that what I’ve wanted for thirty years? To walk across new internal landcapes, to expand and deepen so I can be as myself as I possibly can, and therefore be able to express something which is entirely my own as a result?
As I've said before: happiness is found in the smallest of corners.
[Home 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
NAVIGATION // Day 4, 29 March 2020
Trying to orient myself to this stay-at-home new-normal. Spent the day feeling dark and down, trying to find my way up. It wasn't easy. Full of stuttering stumbling difficult navigation.
The rain fell heavily all day. I felt trapped. Caged. Even the ridiculously excellent scrambled eggs with smoked salmon made by my partner, accompanied by an excellent kiss, didn't lift my mood.
Finally the rain stopped and we got out for a walk. Christ it was good. But there was of course the polite moving away and tight smile from every person we encountered: social distancing is horrid.
But I did see the most beautiful sight. Two kereru in flight. They are my very favourite birds. I've been seeing them all week here in Wadestown, but they've been sitting /shuffling in trees. Today they flew low down and right toward us and I got to hear the gorgeous sound of their heavy wings beating. It completely and utterly made my day.
I'm thinking that if every day I can find it in myself
to find one beautiful thing/experience/moment, then that will keep my damn wobbly arrow pointing upward, and away from the dark fearful place it seems so easy right now to get lost in.
One beautiful thing: I hereby set my compass.
[ Navigation, 2020 is available as a limited edtion studioprint.]
RED CROSS // Day 3, 28 March 2020
A red cross for all of us who need a bit of care right now.
For the nurses and doctors and all those in essential services, including two of my sisters and my brother.
A red cross for the small grief I feel everytime I pass someone on our daily walk outside, and we move to separate from them, hold the requisite distance. Small griefs that add up to feeling quite tearful by the time I get home.
A red cross for all of us who need a bit of care right now.
For the nurses and doctors and all those in essential services, including two of my sisters and my brother.
A red cross for the small grief I feel everytime I pass someone on our daily walk outside, and we move to separate from them, hold the requisite distance. Small griefs that add up to feeling quite tearful by the time I get home.
+++
Day 1 was surreal, day 2 was "i got this, no sweat - actually maybe this is kinda fun". Day 3 the reality has sunk in of the enormity of what we as a country are doing for the next four weeks. I applaud it, I support it but jesus wept this is so outside of any of our experience, this is so fcking hard, on so many levels, for us all - all of our hearts are hurting in exactly the same way.
But hey, today is today and in half an hour I'm gonna be eating a beautiful dinner my partner cooked, and then I'm gonna turn off my tech and lose myself in Westworld. Then I'll sleep and dream and today will become tommorrow and will bring what tommorrow brings. And so it goes.
One day at a time, eh.
++++
[Red cross 2020 is available as a limited edition studioprint]
ONE DAY AT A TIME // Day 02, 27 March 2020
This is the perspective I'm taking on this. One day at a time, one foot in front of the other.
I'm a recovering alcoholic [11 years sober, YES!] and in AA they teach you the value of what many would call these days "being present". If you think to yourself "I'm never going to have a drink again for the rest of my life", it makes you want to run at a sprint to the bottle store. If you instead think, I'm not having a drink today, it makes it all so much more manageable/possible. Especially at the beginning.
So that's me now. Not freaking myself out with the wide-angle view of this lockdown [or rahui, as my friend Lisa called it, which is a much gentler and less restrictive word]. Instead going, okay, today, I'm staying at home, today I'm just seeing the people in my bubble..today I'm standing in line at the supermarket, today I saw a kereru at closequarters feeding, today I had a videocall after-work party with friends. Today. Today. Today.
And then tommorow comes and turns into today too and soon enough, all the todays become the length of time we've had to stay at home, and we will have gotten through.
[One day at a time, 2020 is available to purchase as a studioprint]
HERE THERE IS US // Day 01, 26 March 2020
Drew this. Because here we are. Together. Us.
Drew this.
Because here we are.
Together.
Us.
Us in our homes.
Us in our self-prescribed bubbles.
Us in our country.
We are here doing this.
Together.
Us
is a powerful word
at the best
of times.
Now
it means
so
much
more.
[Here there is us is available as a limited edition studioprint]
Word/
feeling/
entry/
drawing.
Every day,
2025.