Month: September 2015

8.43am

Coffee to my right. A childs shoe box, kinder egg plastic container, metal tea pot. A brush. A used envelope with notes written upon it with a pencil. A vase and flowers from my friends garden to thank me for taking her to Ikea, uneaten piece of Lidls cheese roll. Branding. Is it necessary to mention branding and consumer names? A box of go, gos. Goal keepers gloves a candle stick holder stuffed with opened mail to deal with.

 

Pay printer. Don’t forget.

Made appointment for friend to see GP. Got up. Been awake since 6 when P got up to got to work.

Broken plastic toy.

Image of small child refugee from Syria washed up drowned on beach in Greece that went viral yesterday on social media. A dead child. It takes a dead child to bring home the desperation of these people for they are people. A dead limp child being carried in the arms of a police man etched on my brain, yes it is a distressing image, yes I did look, I wish I had not looked, but you cannot close your eyes to everything. Our government says it cannot take anymore refugees. Our doors are closed.

Child’s steps on the stairs. Heavy steps. Its Naoise. I’m surprised its Naoise, I thought that it was Sydney. I lie him on the sofa. He asks to watch Sarah and Duck, I refuse. I don’t want screens. Look at me what a hypocrisy. Here I am staring at a screen. Filling light filled screens with words.

Naoise sucks his thumb and gazes out of the window.

I ripped a favourite top getting dressed. It can be mended. It can be mended but it will need some thought and some skill and patience and love to mend it well.

Sip coffee that is going cold. Have lost some more weight. A little weight. Cannot stand the extra weight that I have put on over the summer months. I cannot balance child care with my needs. There needs demand too much of my mental energy that I feel I have no physical energy. Only three days left of holidays with Naoise and five days left with Syd. The summer seems at once a forever horizon and now a closing of possibilities and freedom. I will visit my sisyet today.

Struggling to write balancing Naoise on my knee. Naoise making squeaking noises and playing with his snuffle (an empty pillow case). He requests Sarah and Duck again. I say no.

“You just writted Sarah and Duck. hhjyuhfbvbhb bbvvb  b  sdvbfdvf c xdccvfvgffv fdff,bed,c,ffmdm ,km,foollc;,vllilc,vl..x,,v.l,.8hpiasdhasahidasdhashjhjkdohiwhifrahidslhihlcilhcisalhishpiweehowifohihicihocihdwQHIJWijchwAppHFHDGIGGHGYTGFZDDHYLKDSAGURE80WOTFRTKTFY98HFY8O6R5TTG7THUUUHUTH6GNGH7FTRTGTJUYHTVFCz

nbhbcgcvfghvhvhvvv v hvcccchchcchhhchccccgcgcccccfgcccGxgferfgf fbtgvtggyyutbtytgyhgbhhvhftyfdyrhdhdhdhddhhhdrdddd

Good bye your writing says Naoise.

BEep beep beep oven buzzer sounds.. Cant write anymore. Naoise disrupting my words.

newspaper article

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees

art and motherhood research

http://www.wallpaper.com/art/mums-the-word-trussardis-la-grande-madre-exhibition-opens-in-milan/9525#126705

 

 

8.09am

Naoise drawing of a dinosaur, a flying dinosaur. The train passing on the track. Cars on the road. Not raining. More cars hurrying to work. I am slow to work. This is work. Home is work. Children is work. I wish there was other work but for now there is this. There are dinosaur days. Days of reading and hugging and playing. Days of baking buns and eating them all up. Days of feeding the fledgling robins oat cakes in the back yard. Days that seemed to slowly pass but now speed by. Soon the dinosaur days will be gone. Naoise is back to school on Tuesday and Syd is back to school on Wednesday. Where did the summer go? Where was the summer ? So fleeting, there were glimpses of summer behind clouds and between rain. It was a pause. I feel in some ways the dinosaur days have only just begun. I mean I have just got used to this way of life and now it changes again. We leave children at the gates of the institution and go back to our adult lives.

Now the dinosaur days are disappearing I want them to stay I don’t want the comet to come,  the morning rush, the begging children out of bed and into clothes time. I don’t want it. I don’t want the reality of adult space. I fear what is next. I have to cover double studio rent and find work. Work its all work, coping without work, having work, domestic work and looking after children work.

There are frustrations in the household to contain, ignore and live with. I cannot speak of these specific frustrations as that would either be unkind, too truthful or the truth would get me in trouble. So I am silenced by my own art project that set out to be honest.

I forgot to log the day that Naoise lost his tooth. I wrote nothing that day. I think it was a Saturday. Saturday 29th August. The tooth becoming loose caused him great distress, it eventually fell out in his sleep. He woke up to tell me that his tooth was out and in his mouth. We kept it safe. Safe for the morning. He decided he did’t want to put it under the pillow and give it to the fairy as he wanted to give it to me. Naoise is the most generous, kind and loving child. I am proud of all of these characteristics.

He has started lying though, he steals my mobile phone and hides it behind his bed. Its hard to know what to do about lies. We all lie. We are not always truthful. Some days have not been dinosaur days, I have wished them past. I have wished the summer over. I have wished it over because of exhaustion and a want for adult time, free thinking, space to exercise so that I no longer expand. I try not to wish time away. I try. I hear footsteps on the stairs.

My neighbour in his hi vis jacket going to work.

My friend departs in his car, we cross a few notes, catch up on each others lives, just a little, just a moment. Often there is little to say and report.

I have to take the children to buy their new school shoes today. Back to school, there is an entire industry based on back to school. Coax your kids back with consumerism. The promise of a new pencil case, bag and shoes. Little to get that excited about. Both my children have hard feet to shoe. Naoise feet are long, Syds feet are big and wide.

Oh Syd. Oh Naoise, how you fill my days. Fill my days with romping and organising and getting through each day. By ten I am exhausted and collapse into bed. It is not a surprise then, that this project fell apart, my job of caring become full time, and if its all full time, when is the time that you are meant to make, to dream, to create. The only time to create is with your children, in collaboration with them. Facilitation. I convince myself that facilitation is the heart of creativity. I provide a situation for creative activities to occur. I pass on. I nurture. Why is this not enough ? When will I ever settle with enough?

I have lost the thread. Need more tea. Need to get up. There is more warm and light today.

Ahhh the stones I walked in-between the stones as the sun fell. It gets dark at 8.30pm now. The days are shortening. Need to loose the weight of the summer, I cannot fasten the button on my favourite jeans, I can feel the spread and the extra fat. The fat of the summer of care.

Police van passes.

I need toast. Hot toast, butter and marmite.