Gratitude

Posted on February 4, 2014 by kellyinrepeat

“Dumbed down and numbed by time and age.
Your dreams that catch the world the cage.
The highway sets the traveler’s stage.
All exits look the same.”

-The Avett Brothers, I and Love and You

I had the worst insomnia last night, filled with worry and grief and panic. Each time I started to drift off just a bit, William would wake me up with his hacking, croupy cough, and then stumble into my room and sigh, “Mom, my throat is on fire.” The last time I did sleep I remember dreaming that I was pregnant and kept feeling limbs kick out of my stomach. It could have just been Quinn, snoring next to me, who has developed a habit of crawling all over me at 2AM.

We are less than a week into the new semester, a bit behind due to school cancelations and the weather. I have assigned my AP Photography students to shoot one photo a week this semester that illustrates something they feel grateful for. As I drove home from volleyball tonight, I thought about that assignment and wondered what I might shoot if the assignment were mine. What might I shoot in the middle of a February that has been, thus far, heavy and chaotic, lonely and anxious…

I struggled to come up with an image (which is probably why I gave the assignment to AP students), but I did come up with a short list. It’s almost bedtime and I am hopeful that rich sleep and fanciful dreams will come easily tonight so instead of counting sheep (which I did resort to last night, but kept getting distracted by the uniqueness of each sheep) I will literally count blessings. These, in particular, mattered to me most this week:

1. My uncle John bought my dad pricey short ribs to cook for his birthday dinner. During a time where both my aunt and uncle, as well as my mom and dad have been helping me out considerably more than usual, I am grateful for this loving gesture that brought family together to celebrate my dad, who loves family and food, especially in combination, more than anyone else I know.

2. As I scrolled through my Instagram feed and saw Adam building his installation and Jill making these great little clay vessels, I was immediately grateful that I am living a life surrounded by artists. My mom had her own show last week and I was so happy that my kids were there to hear her speak about her paintings with such articulate grace. Even though we are having some trouble making ends meet right now, I am still headed to bed, honestly thankful to be surrounded by such creative friends, students, and teachers … even my own William this week made the coolest animation about the big bang theory and I just find myself delighted to be part of a group that goes bananas for his illustrations of atoms and DNA.

My favorite Avett Brothers song is I and Love and You. I listen to it all the time when I am sad or when I just need some confirmation that someone else out there gets caught in the in-between. My paintings, many of them anyway, are about that space. I feel like the bear, after a long winter, matted and starving, but knowing, deep in the pit of my stomach, exactly which herbs and berries to find to replenish myself. For me, that magic fruit is in finding gratitude, especially in the midst of pain.

What I guess I need all of you out there to know is that each time I witness your genius and your generosity, I am one step closer to creating a dream that is bigger than I previously imagined, one that is not caged, but limitless.

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Terms of Endearment

Posted on January 21, 2014 by kellyinrepeat

“If you’re wondering, am I capable
God knows I am
And if it’s meant to be
I will go alone, God knows I can”

-The Avett Brothers, Bring Your Love to Me

When I was in sixth grade all of my friends kept talking about how great the movie Terms of Endearment was. My parents would not allow me to see it because, my dad said, it seemed to applaud the idea of extra marital affairs. He did, however, let me see The Big Chill, so apparently, affairs are okay for fertility purposes only. In my dad’s defense, I think I was a bit older when The Big Chill was released. I was also not allowed to see a Styx concert (because I could not name more than one song) or watch Purple Rain (which, I mean, okay, I’ll give him that one). I did have a poster of Gregory Harrison (Trapper John, MD), shirtless, on my bedroom wall (I just googled “Trapper John, MD” and cannot believe that was the best fantasy I could muster at age thirteen). 

Anyway, I have been thinking a lot about Terms of Endearment the past few days because Mark had to say goodbye to his boys. For some reason I thought about the Tennyson quote on the outside of my wedding invitations, which read, “Heart, are you great enough for a love that never tires? O heart, are you great enough for love?” 

This weekend, I drove over five hundred miles, which gave me lots of time to think and cry and wonder, but that quote, and the image of Debra Winger’s face, kept circling back into my thoughts. Driving, I missed two, maybe three, tollbooths. I was in the wrong lane (which is my fault because I lost the little thingy that holds the GPS in place and then I trusted a twelve year old to read the map from his lap). I have so many thoughts that are jumbled and running that I wonder if I am spending most of my life in the wrong lane. What else do I miss because I am not paying attention?

I am ending the weekend feeling the weight of love, the heaviness it can take on, and realizing that Tennyson did not just mean to ask if our hearts were big enough to love each other, but if they were big enough to let each other go, too. I know that the answer has to be yes and that leaves me feeling very sad. As I drove today, I imagined that scene in the movie where Emma puts on her lipstick before letting the boys enter her hospital room one last time. It is really only now that I know she was looking in that mirror for courage. 

 

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Feeling My Way Through the Darkness

Posted on January 13, 2014 by kellyinrepeat

I started to get a cold last Wednesday night. I know exactly when it started because I was super weepy and tired after I dropped Elizabeth off for an 8pm volleyball practice and knew that I had to kill two hours out in the hell of Waukesha before I could drive home. It was -2 degrees, according to my car’s dashboard, the warmest it had been in several days. I drove down dark, icy roads to Target and I bought cold medicine and groceries. As I shopped, I kept sniffling and I could feel my eyes getting smaller with each passing aisle.

The checkout lady told me all about her boyfriend and her boyfriend’s cold and how he lives out in Eagle and she didn’t know whether or not she should try to drive all the way to Eagle after work. She checked out my groceries at a snail’s pace and I really did not feel like talking at all so I just nodded a lot and lifted cheap plastic bags into my cart while she proceeded to tell me which things were in them, “Now that bag, there. It has lots of the non-food items in it, while that other bag has some fragile things in it that might bruise if you are not careful.” I felt like I was in that line for two days. She ended our moment by saying, “That cold you are getting will last for about seven days. It is a bad one. You will feel better for about a day or two and then you will get the worst stomach flu.”

I shuffled my $167 worth of food to my trunk and tried, with bulky mittens, to put the fragile-maybe-they-will-bruise bags at the top of the pile. I got back in my car and let the engine warm a bit. I still had forty-five minutes, but I could barely keep my eyes open. I proceeded to drive down back roads to the gym. The roads, late at night in Waukesha, are  too quiet. I passed Rossetti’s pizza and the fire station, signs for the hospital and as I searched for a gas station, that one Avicii song that comes on the radio all of the time started to play:

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart
I can’t tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

This got me thinking about Elizabeth and about all of the time she spends at the gym, all of the hours she invests in volleyball (her butt is like a solid truck tire right now). I thought about the weekend prior where the two of us woke up together at 4AM to drive to Rockford, Illinois so that she could play (and win) her first tournament of the season. On the way there, my stupid GPS rerouted us after the toll booth to side roads that were in scary, farm country with haunted churches and unplowed roads. Together, in pitch blackness, we screamed and giggled as we tried to find a warehouse of a sports complex.

The lyrics reminded me of that drive and of all the drives down lonely roads I make while waiting for her to finish up practice, while there are three other kids to care for (and a husband, who I see on occasion). I don’t know where volleyball will take her or where she will end up or who she will be. I keep asking her things like, “Are you sure this is what you want to do? Maybe you will change your mind once high school starts. Maybe you will really want to focus on singing or writing.” To which she always replies, “Mom. Stop. I know who I am.” My head does not get this love of sports, so I let my beating heart guide me to game after game after game.

I was never an athlete. I was never super popular, whereas Lizzie has had New Year’s Eve plans every year since she was nine. As I drove through the darkness, I wondered, why on earth her little soul would ever choose me to be her mother. Surely, there are much better choices out there for her … mom’s that organize ski trips and slumber parties, mom’s that own sneakers and matching fleece things, mom’s that know how to make that puppy chow snack crap.

I stopped for gas and when I cleaned off the windshield, I took my mittens off and spent a few minutes examining them for frost bite. The lyrics kept chiming in my head, chasing me, trying to remind me of something, it seemed.

On our way home together, she asked me why I did not have a lot of friends. She asked me why dad and I don’t really have couples friends. I tried to explain how I do have friends, but that I have a small circle, like a hug, rather than a crowd. I tried to explain that I do have some friends that blog that I have never met, but I like a lot. I tried to explain how as an adult, I have occasionally met someone who I thought maybe could be my friend, but over time, I stopped trusting them. I tried to explain that I have never been “that girl.” I never went to prom (YOU NEVER WENT TO PROM! MOM!) and I never went to big, giant, parties and had fun. I tried to explain that right now my life is completely centered around being a mom and not totally fucking it up. As I explained these things to her, I realized that it was kind of like her trying to explain volleyball to me. Foreign, but okay.

At the end of our conversation, as we pulled in the driveway, she said, “Mom. If you never really have anyone to talk to, I will be your friend.”

It was then that I realized I had been listening to the wrong part of the song. I was supposed to hear this part:

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
Hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don’t have any plans
Wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes
Life’s a game made for everyone
And love is a prize

Love like crazy, right? Maybe she chose me because she knew I could do that.

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(photo credit to the mom’s who bring cameras to the games)

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I have been hibernating, I know. I spent most of winter break in my pajamas. I slept until after ten. I drank lots of drinks. I did not draw. I did not even write about Susie’s birthday and how the entire cake that I baked exploded on my lap. I did not write about our cozy Christmas or about how much I love the giant icicles dripping from our gutters. Full winter withdrawal.

Anytime my eyes were closed, I was consumed with thoughts and prayers for Mark and Jenny, who spent their winter break in the hospital, and now, in hospice.

It’s nothing I have felt like talking about or sharing, mostly because it makes me too sad,  but then tonight, four things happened all in a row and all I heard was God screaming, “FUCK! Get it out of you,” (which I am learning is what happens when you pretend that everything is fine).

1. While Lizzie was at volleyball practice I went to Target and tried to avoid watching some lousy mother coral her abused toddler by continually shouting at him, “GET OVER HERE. GET OVER HERE. ONE, TWO, THREE (three, apparently means, “I will physically hurt and embarrass you,” until finally I had to leave the store. Do parents like this not realize that children are human beings? I wanted to scratch her face off and shout, “You idiot. Why don’t YOU have brain cancer? Why Mark?” Then my aunt Sue reminded me that each of us is fighting a battle that no one else knows much about and that our only response can be pure love. I tried, really tried, to fill in her imaginary scratched face with imaginary violets.

2. I came home and scrolled through my Facebook feed and my brother had shared a photograph that read, “LOVE,” and then in much smaller type, the words, “like crazy.”

3. I then switched to my Instagram feed, but instead of my feed, another image popped up, and I kid you not, it was a white porcelain sculpture of a brain, shaped like a grenade. It was posted by a person with the username “lapolab.” I have no idea who this is and was floored that the image showed up: http://instagram.com/p/ilcxf4Gx5v/

4. When I saw the image, I immediately turned off my phone because I thought maybe the image was “wrong,” like a dirty picture, but the minute I turned off the image, Lizzie began singing the song Soulmates, in the shower. She was more than singing it, she was wailing these Natasha Bedingfield lyrics (she has been sad for Jenny too):

Who doesn’t long for someone to hold
Who knows how to love you without being told
Somebody tell me why I’m on my own
If there’s a soulmate for everyone

I did not cry when I heard her singing this. I felt grateful for everyone who has ever loved me unconditionally. I felt grateful that Jenny gets to love Mark (the big soulful kind of love).

You know the first time I heard that phrase (love unconditionally) was at my Great Grandmother’s memorial service in Racine, Wisconsin. Our family was holding hands. I was sixteen. My Grandma Jean spoke then, softly, about her mother, and she said, “She was the only person who ever loved me unconditionally.” I remember wondering if my aunts and uncles and my dad understood that or if they resented it (or if they heard it at all).

I have never made a real New Year’s resolution. I have written about this before, but once, years ago, Sean asked me what my resolution was and I responded, “To watch more TV from bed.” This year, though, I think I am resolving to love like crazy.

Right now that seems almost impossible because it is ten 0’clock and Quinn just woke up from a five hour nap and he and William are playing with a super loud remote control truck, which has prompted Elizabeth to up the television to full volume, which has prompted Luke to keep shouting, “Turn it DOWN!” So I am not quite sure how to practice love when everything seems like a giant brain grenade, but I think I will start with surrounding myself with photographs of the people I have known and met who exude love and joy almost each time I have seen them. I will have a picture of Martina and Jacque and Lolo and David … and of Mark.

Posted on January 3, 2014 by kellyinrepeat | 1 Comment

Tada

Posted on December 8, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

PicnicWithGhosts

I finally have the show work (or much of it) loaded on Behance. Hooray. Thanks for your help, Ryan (who shot everything except for the blurry ones … those are mine, sigh). The work is still up for a few weeks, so swing by if you are local. I’d love to see you. There is this very friendly button at the bottom of the portfolio that says, “APPRECIATE THIS.” Kind of bossy, maybe, but if you are so inclined, punch it and spread the word.

and the drawings too:

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Landslide

Posted on December 8, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

Last night Elizabeth, on her way to babysit Jenny and Mark’s boys, was searching for a blank sketchbook so that she could show them how to play the monster game (something my family made up when I was a kid). In her hunt, she stumbled across a little rectangular book in my closet and then ran downstairs and said, “Mom, is this your diary?”

Turned out that it was not my diary, but a journal that my dad kept the spring semester of my senior year in high school, when he was my English teacher. He wrote in it, weekly, daily sometimes, and then gave the journal to me as my graduation present; a testament to our time together. 

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The funny this is that neither of us remember him doing this. It’s hands down the nicest gift I ever received and I didn’t even know it existed or that it was sitting, waiting for me, alone in my room, a slice of my life in the closet.  

I have not read the entire journal yet, but I flipped to a page about my Grandma selling her house, the one she raised all of her children in.  My dad wrote,

” Grandma Jean told me yesterday that before she left for the closing she lay down on the dining room floor, the house empty of furniture and people and full of memories and imagined what it was like way back in December of 1951 when she moved in. I was almost two. John was four months. My dad told my mom that he’d drive her to Racine to spend the night with her parents and he would come back with friends and Uncle Rollie. She said that after that, it was like leaping through all the years from time to time. (Lying there on that carpet) was an experience that left her smiling. She said the bad times were never bad because, ‘Well, look at us. Here we are!’ It was good to see her so happy . 

On the day of the rummage sale I took Nick upstairs to show him where his dad and I played basketball with a rolled up sock. I took him to the other bedroom where John put the weights in my pillowcase. Nick couldn’t help smiling. It was fun to see him try to imagine his dad and uncle as boys, playing and fighting in that house. What are the key moments we’ll remember from the houses we lived in?”

My dad, younger than I am today, wrote this about his mom, who, in this scenario, is my dad’s age today. I was Luke’s age when my dad wrote this. It just doesn’t seem possible that we move through milestones so quickly and that life really is the thing “that happens when you’re busy making other plans.” 

As I was doing my usual taxi run after school last week, picking up each kid at their respective locations, Landslide came on the radio, which always makes me cry. Damn you, Stevie Nicks. If the Avett Brothers ever sing that one, it will be the end of me. I changed the radio station, not wanting to get lost in nostalgia and stuck in traffic at the same time. God had other plans though because Little Drummer Boy was playing on the other station and that is the song that the choir sang to our family at the NICU on the day we brought Quinn home from his four month hospital stay. I played my drum for him, I played my best for him…Damn you, Josh Groban. 

To me, that treasure of a journal is kind of what my dad must have been trying to do. He was, without really knowing it, feeling Stevie Nicks and Josh Groban simultaneously. “I am getting older, you are growing up, but by writing this now I am playing my drum for you, doing my best for you.”

I probably didn’t really appreciate that journal when my dad gave it to me on my graduation day. He probably guessed that I wouldn’t, but his forty year self probably knew that one day I would be a mom and one day I would love someone as much as he loves me and that I would understand.

One day, I might also understand what it feels like, lying flat in a house that gave kids both roots and wings, to let go of motherhood, to let go of memory, of anxiety, of plans. I will let them go with love and ache and warmth. I will be able to answer Stevie Nick’s question, “Oh mirror in the sky, what is love?” 

For now, to me, it seems that love is a string in the shape of a circle, that ties us together, moves us along, and then brings us back home again.

 

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Are You There, God? It’s Me, Kelly

Posted on November 26, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

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“I like one hair, tuna fish, the smell of rain and things that are pink. I hate pimples, baked potatoes, when my mother’s mad, and religious holidays.”
― Judy Blume, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret

So here I am, lit by the familiar and comforting glow of my computer screen, reeling in the demands of my role as “mommy of 4″… the t-shirt I threw on immediately after the first volleyball team meeting.

I sat at that meeting, a little bit nauseous and completely overwhelmed, and 100% resentful of any parent there who has an only child … even two kids… If you have only two kids, tonight, you are on my shit list. I know I chose this life and I really do love, love, love, all four of my bambinos, but that meeting? It killed a little piece of my soul.

I started to blank out and hear Charlie Brown adult murmurs after I looked at the tournament schedule. Sports, team building activities, auctions…”Playing with aggression and playing to win” is so foreign to me that I think my immune system just kicks into protect me and my ears start buzzing. I hate team work. Always have. I remember being a sophomore in high school, the first week into a US History class, and our teacher asked what our least favorite things about school was and I raised my hand and said, “group work.”

It makes me think of Quinn and his three year old need for independence. These days, everything is, “I can do it myself.” Turns out, that raising four kids and working a full time, highly demanding job that pays shit (but is fun), also demands that I rely on other people.

As I sat through the two hour presentation (“those ankle supports were designed thirty years ago and she really does need the newest technology for support/you are required to order warm ups and a back pack”) I just thought about these five things:

1. Quinn and how I am failing him as a mom because I have not even seen him today and holy crap, look at this schedule and all of the time in the car and all of the weekends away and really, I should be home with him, reading books or teaching him the alphabet.

2. Wow, this is really an amazing opportunity for Elizabeth and I am so proud of her and this coach is gonna be great and how the fuck did the assistant coach break her back playing volleyball and how am I going to pay for this and why on earth does Lizzie want to spend four nights a week working out when she could be drawing or reading or making pie?

3. Oh my gosh I am so glad I don’t have to follow this tournament schedule and help Luke apply to colleges in the same year, but man he was good in Godspell and it is so terrible that I did not bake something for the cast party. I did not even send a bag of chips for crying out loud. Jesus, Quinn, one day you will be the only one home and I will be that mom who makes cupcakes with every cast members name scrawled across the top and I will volunteer for shit and all the other moms won’t hate me or think that I am selfish.

4. William. Sigh, William. He fell off of his loft bed in the middle of the night and sprained his wrist, which made his tryout for volleyball a giant suck fest. Plus, he has to try out for U13’s when his birthday is only two weeks away from being a U12 and so all of those boys were taller and they all knew each other and William did not get an offer and he cried all the way home and oh my gosh what can I do to make that hurt not sting?

5. My mind flashed to all of the instagram photos that my cousins David and Jodi took this month on their amazing trip to the English country side. These made me so envious and kind of panicked, like maybe I should have done that (stayed in a hotel facing the sea) before I had all of these kids and maybe I missed my chance to really be somebody and maybe I will never get to travel because holy fuck I still have a three year old and oh my good lord what will I do with my time once all of these babies actually have their own lives?

And then I came home and had a giant vodka and two lemons. Once my heart stopped racing, I thought about the Judy Blume book, “Are you there God, It’s Me Margaret?” and about that quote about tuna fish.

I like sitting in the audience of a darkened theater watching Luke sing. I like watching Lizzie jump four feet off the ground and make a kill. I love peeking into William’s room to see that all of his erasers and skateboards, and wristbands, and sunglasses are lined up in perfect form, just like any designer would do. I like sleeping in a circle, with my body wrapped around Quinn’s, with his little feet wedging themselves into my thigh, the sound of his breathing setting the pace for my own slumber. But I know that I like motherhood, so can I make a Judy Blume-esque sentence about me that is not related to being a mom?

“I like lemons, vodka, gouache, the smell of kid skin, Gary Soto poetry, and avocados. I hate traffic, long lines, loud voices, cleaning, eating on the grass, and any sport that makes my boobs bounce.”

Knowing that about me … just truly knowing that those two sentences are wholly true allows me to trust myself and to know that even in my shortcomings, I am capable and okay and that I am “still in there,” despite the “mommy of four” demands.

Sean just walked into the room behind me and started to undress for bed. He said, “I know what I want for my birthday now. I want an American flag and satin running pants.” In a million years, I never would have uttered that sentence, or, for that matter, Judy Blume’s.

I think what finally made me calm down from the meeting was not the vodka or Judy Blume, but in coming to the realization that Lizzie’s story is not my story and I am not the one who has to show up to play aggressively and to win at all costs (with a group).

I just have to drive her there.

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Winner!

Posted on November 16, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

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Congrats to Nick H. winner of this week’s holiday giveaway. More chances to win fun stuff will be posted next week. Until then I will be watching Luke light up the world in Godspell.

Xoxoxo K

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Free Print

Posted on November 13, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

I love mail and love free stuff, so today, I am giving away this print.
To win, leave a comment that, in a single sentence, tells me about a “bad mom” moment, and a winner will be chosen at random on Friday. If you do not win, no worries! There will be more treats throughout the holiday season.
Here is my bad mom-single sentence memory:
When William was very young I treated his constipation with strong coffee and then sent him on a field trip to a park.

Happy month of thanks.

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Souls Like Wheels, Say the Avett Brothers

Posted on November 10, 2013 by kellyinrepeat

Ever have those moments that you greatly anticipate and then they pass and you are left wondering, “Now what?”

So it goes with the show opening. I feel the way I did after delivering Elizabeth. After months of bed rest, she was finally born and I remember walking up our front steps, carseat in hand, thinking, “Well. We’re home. Now what?”

I also kind of feel like this show happened just when I really started painting again and now that the opening has past, I want more. More shows, more painting, more gatherings. An insatiable appetite for art and affection…

Big, heartfelt thanks to all of you who came out of your cozy houses to see the show and to see me.I have yet to shoot the work for real, but here is a glimpse of our night: 

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Image(holy crap; we are all 25 years older)

Image(my dad) 

Image(The St. Joe’s Painting)

Sigh. I don’t know. November is this nice little lull for our family. School volleyball has ended and club has not quite started. Luke’s opening night is a week away. Family is coming into town for the holidays. It’s dark outside by four o’clock. We are deep into the season of leggings and socks and boots (though last week, on my way to work, Sean told me that I looked like a storm trooper, so thanks Starwars, for ruining leggings for me forever). 

Most of the work for my show was created as I listened to the Avett Brothers new Magpie and the Dandelion. One of my favorite songs is Souls Like Wheels: 

One little girl
Bring me life from where I thought it was dark
Be the spark that has a chance to light the candle
Love that I can handle
Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go
Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go

Souls like the wings
Spreading out away from bad memories
Make us capable of taking off and landing
Alive with understanding
Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go
Let me go, let me go, let me go, let me go”

It’s funny. I did not realize what my work was really about until I was talking to my dad’s friend, Dr. Lewis. He was asking me what all the little drawings were about and, forced to explain my madness, I said, as if I had known all along, “Well, the drawings are all about home. They are about memories, good ones and bad, and about the things that take up earthly space, but if you look closely, you will find things that lead your eye up to the heavens… arrows and ladders and airplanes … things that lift us up (i.e “make us capable of taking off and landing”). I explained to Dr. Lewis that the work is a form of prayer and in that prayer I am hopeful that there is a heaven. 

My friend, Mark, is battling brain cancer, but he came to my show. I think, I don’t know… I just think that if I was battling brain cancer and I had two little boys that I would not give a fuck about somebody else’s artwork. But he and his whole little family came out in the cold and came to my show. I was not going to point out to them that one of the paintings was about them, but I did because, well … because I wanted to “be the spark that lit the candle.” I wanted them to know that I think about them all of the time and that I really, really, really do not want Mark to die. 

There are a lot of people that I know that could die and I guess I would be comfortable with that, but the idea of Mark dying, a man that I do not even know that well, is just kind of like the idea of Santa dying. He is the nicest, warmest, greatest guy. So I made a painting about him and when I think about him, I imagine him there and it is how I communicate soul to soul. 

I first met Mark shortly after I launched my LoloINK website. He and his wife Jenny were at a party at my parents. Somehow I ran into Mark in the upstairs hallway and it came up that I was an artist and he asked me if I knew LoloINK and I said, “I AM LoloINK,” and he said, “YOU ARE LOLOINK? I LOVE LOLOINK!” And from then on I liked him forever. After the party I asked my dad, “Who was the hot dad with the shaved head?” And that is when my dad told me that his head was shaved because he had just had an operation. That painting that I made for Mark… I just made it, but I think I have been imagining it since that moment:

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I am sharing it with you here now because of three reasons:

1. When Quinn was in the hospital, about halfway through his four month stay, I asked my friend if he was going to live and she answered, “His soul is still deciding.” If everyone who sees this painting can just close their eyes and picture Mark and his family living it in … well, maybe that will be a powerful enough image that even his soul will feel it and it will help his soul decide to stay. I am not lying when I tell you that Quinn was very close to death several times during that stay and if you do not believe me, look at him again: 

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And now look at him:

ImageI am just saying that it is possible to survive anything and that souls can change their minds. 

2. When I was in second grade, there was a boy in our class, Nate, and his mom had brain cancer. Nate invited the whole class over for his birthday and I remember that his mom was in bed the whole time, behind a closed door. I remember that I bought Nate a stomp rocket. I remember Miss Eileen, our teacher, sitting us all in a circle, and praying for Nate’s mom. She did not live long after the birthday party. Just a few weeks more. Maybe if we had a bigger circle . . . more souls spinning their wheels, well, maybe her soul could have decided to stay. So even though Mark’s story is not mine to tell, I do feel like the pink painting could create a big enough circle of souls for his to hear us chanting, “staystaystaystaystaystaystay.” Personally, I am going to imagine that stomp rocket from 1978 and I am going to imagine stomping it up to heaven. On its side I will scrawl, “Leave Mark alone.”

3. Charlie and Will need their dad. Jenny needs her person. 

In my artist statement I wrote that 

Drawing and painting, for me, are about finding answers that only appear for a split second and then are gone. It is about giving voice to things that have hurt me or intrigued me or betrayed me and without having to retell the whole story. It is not in the details of the narrative, like writing is, that I find solace. It is more about the spaces in between the narrative and the heart that matters to me. I rely, often, on the image of an airplane and on ladders. I cannot be certain of why they appear, but my guess is that I am interested in the idea of heaven and I am scared of dying and leaving my children behind. 
 
You do not need to be a painter to know that fear. So if you can take a moment or two . . . any moment, when you are pumping gas or walking from your car to the grocery store or waiting in line for a coffee, just take a second and imagine stomping on that rocket, sending it to heaven. In fact, each time you order a coffee this week and the barista asks you for your name, tell them that your name is Mark. Each time that a barista writes Mark on the side of yet another paper cup, it will be a prayer, and together all of our souls will spin like wheels and together, we will make room for miracles. 

 

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