I am just too tired and addlepated right now. I spent the first half of the day driving up to Albany to hang a show of my Word Project, got there and discovered that there was still art hanging in the gallery and that the show was slated to be up until Wednesday... despite emails alerting the director of the gallery that I was planning to come up and hang the show today, the space wasn't ready and he did not tell me this. The morning was redeemed, however, by a stop over at WAMC, the public radio station for our area, where I was able to promote the show to the station's vast audience. Who knows, one or two of them may actually come to see it. Many thanks to Joe and Sarah, the Roundtable hosts, for letting me share their air time.
When I got home there was a message from the director saying I could now come and hang the show, the gallery was cleared. Well, despite gas being so cheap and all (ahem...), I decided to hang the show on Wednesday and dedicate the rest of the day to moving. Good intentions but I don't know how much I actually accomplished. I moved several loads of boxes, but my car doesn't hold much and I could see this was not going to be an effective use of my time and energy. So, I need to hire a mover. Thankfully, I won't need one of those gigantic vans, but it would be lovely to not have to wrestle the remaining boxes and furniture up those 2 flights of stairs. So first thing tomorrow, I call movers.
I am feeling very betwixt and between- not at home anymore here but not able to settle in yet at the new place. I have started to paint- the floor of what will be my workroom is no longer the bilious yellow the former tenant had painted it. It is now a calm off-white. I know, I know you are saying- "off-white! has she gone all Martha on us?" No, but for now I need to get moved in, I will probably embellish it later, but who knows... I have primed the walls of what will be the bedroom- they had been another primary color- and I loathe primary colors, its tertiary and sub-tertiary all the way for me. But the actual painting will have to wait- that is what winters are for- sipping tea, listening to the radio and painting.
So I need to just float with this feeling- as the man in the story says, "go up when the water goes up, and go down when the water goes down." Fighting the current will just exhaust me and not get me any further toward my goal. And for the next couple of days, my goals are to have a successful hanging and opening for The Word Project on Friday; and to get all moved before my deadline so I can walk away from here, probably crying my eyes out, but headed toward the future.
The past few days have been rather rough. I have been bounced between pillar and post and have not an unbruised spot on my body, soul or ego. On Thursday, just as I was rushing to finish a cover assignment for Cricket magazine, there was a knock on my door and it was the deliverance of a 10-day vacate order. I pretty much fell apart. I had asked my lawyer to request a boon of the purchaser(s) of the property to allow me to stay until the end of August so I could sort out, pack up, sell off, and find a new place to live.
After about an hour of pure panic, I was able to speak to my lawyer and he reassured me that in 10 days the sherriff would not lock my house and throw everything out onto the lawn. That the dance was longer and more complicated but that I also needed to make some substantial progress on getting out to show a judge I was not malingering.
Later that day I got a call saying that I had won the prize for the current show at the WAAM.
That evening I got some boxes and started sorting and packing- I had to something other than what, deep down, I wanted to do- which was to run mad into the night.
The next day, a friend announced that on Sunday, she and several other people were coming over to help me pack. I had made some progress on my own but was both aghast and terrified at the prospect. My memory shot back more than 30 years to when my father died. Our house was taken over by well-meaning neighbors, and I mean taken-over. I found someone in my bedroom picking up my dirty clothes; my (open) journal and some very, very personal papers were laying out on my desk. I went down to the space I had carved out of the basement to be my 'studio' and another neighbor was cleaning it up- throwing out the "junk"- actually a project I had been working on. There was no place to go to be quiet and grieve; our lives had been invaded by an army of action-oriented Mid-Westerners. My most persistent nightmare was of home-invasion and here it was coming true, with a grim smile plastered on its face. And now my nightmare was going to be enacted again.
Saturday evening, I went to the WAAM opening to receive my prize and was overwhelmed by the acclaim that greeted me. In some ways the outpouring of love and support was as hard to take as the harsh, "just business" attitude of the person who now owned the home and studio I had loved so much. I cannot find the still point between the pillar and the post but keep being slammed from one to the other.
It is now Sunday evening and one of the harder days of my life is over. I am exhausted and trying to deal with my feelings of admixed grief at what I am losing, anxiety about the future, shame about having to ask for help, shame about the condition of the house, grief about the future- I have two elderly cats with kidney failure, and have to take them to the vet for euthanasia this week, I cannot take them to a new place, and much gratitude to the many, many people who have expressed their support in many different ways. The friends who came today did not pass judgement on me, they went to work and accomplished a lot. Most of my worldly (household) goods are now boxed for taking with me or piled for sale. I must begin tackling the studio this week.
My heart is currently being held together with spit and baling wire. All I can do is just take the next right step and after that, the next, even as the pillar comes rushing at me and then the post.
