A Blue Apocalypse Dawn (Original Art)

20” X 20” X 1.5”

Oil Pastel, Acrylic

I haven’t touched a paint brush since May.

MAY!  

There isn’t time.  Every day is a dramatically frantic run to the end and I am deliriously tired.

In the extremely rare moment there could be time, there is too much upheaval, too much noise.  I retreat to my safe place, the one room untouched by chaos, my small sunlight second room and hang out with my cat. 

I am not stressed, perhaps a little sad sometimes.  These last few weeks of the story that is just of him and I, they are so crowded and full of fires to be put out.  I want to sleep in.  I want to paint.  I want my sweetheart to have time to sleep in. I want one more day in the strange and beautiful place called Yellowstone.  Just one more day that is just about him and I wandering about a new place holding each other’s sunburnt hand. 

I am excited and happy for what’s next.  I am grateful to be with the most bossy and ultimately capable human on the planet.  

My body is heavy now; so heavy and busy and rich.  And every morning I am even heavier then before and it is harder to get to the bathroom to brush my teeth. 

I dreamed of this little girl last night.  She and he were discussing, in serious tones, Why, why Exactly, the swing that goes up then swings down.  They waved hands, heads tilted up and back as they talked about Why the clouds built in some ways rather then others and Why they dispersed.   I dreamed about the moment all parents face when they mourn their pre-parent selves.   I dreamed I loved him and her in a rashly raw and ludicrous way I didn’t know I could before.

Ah the anticipation of being first time parents...

It is the cobalt wild mustang, watching the rise of a fierce red dawn.

.....And I am out of Popsicles...

Your hand around mine

First night of insomnia in Months.

Seriously, since getting pregnant, my body is disinterested in my restless brain's occasional desire and decision to not sleep.  It knocks me out every dang night.

I fell asleep quickly but at last, the roller coaster that is my life the last twelve months, greeted me at 12:32am.

I tried not to move.  Maybe if I pretended not to be awake, maybe my brain would forget, maybe -

Luna's cold nose softly poked my arm.  I opened my eyes to see this gentle friend watching me. She knows, my breathing gave me away.

We got up and went down stairs and she went out to go potty and I did too. When she came back in, she tried to herd me to bed but I went to the second bedroom.

Usually this room helps.  The warm adobe walls embrace me. This time it doesn't.   I think about this being her room.

I listen to the vibrations of her hiccups - whenever I move in the middle of the night, it gives her the hiccups. Her little feet start paddling gently against my lower rib cage.

I think about what this means; first time parenthood is daunting and thrilling and odd.  I feel so young these days.  I see that my thirty years something equals infant something maturity.  My grasp of life and my place in it is so small.  Infinitesimally unbelievably small.

Despite this fact, my life is overwhelmed in gifts of great grace, with astonishing beauty.  I am privileged beyond believable explanation with my relationship to the most remarkable human ever made.  Our rare, gorgeous, messy relationship will be a shadow on the wind forever.

I marinate in this until 2:30am.

Then I get up and go downstairs.  Char greets me and we hang out for a bit.

There was this moment in Yellowstone....

I was drunk with joy.

Blinding sunlight reflected off the dark blue green water below, a breezy cool wind raises goosebumps on my wet skin...  

I smiled up at him, into his silver blue eyes,  My long tangled hair lies in wet ropes on my sun burnt shoulders, my exposed white belly blazes in the blue afternoon and the little life inside me curls up tightly.

I do not fear the water as I usually would, I do not question my semi-uncoordinated feet, I am holding the hand of the one I value most and the world is ours.

His hand, warm and strong around mine, gives me confidence to jump into the deep -For the fifth time.

He counts down from three and together we jump, never letting the other go.

All the ups and disorienting downs of the last several weeks comes back to this moment.  All of the disjointed happenings in the last 365 days are summed up in that moment.

Yes life is strange and people sometimes as awful as they are amazing... Yes the unpredictable is scary and terrifying but no matter what - there we are.

As long as we jump together, as long as our fingers are interlocked as we plunge in, as long as we surface linked; no unrelenting current will pull us apart.  We will laugh, reflecting back to each other all that over flows and builds in one to the other; victorious in this story that is of you and I.