Moody...Move...Darker...Darkest

Camilla doesn't know, but I do. I could cheerily write about how cool and delicious the air is this morning, on August 24th...breathable for the first time in awhile, still carying grass pollen and Ragweed on it, yet moving us into Fall. A few days ago, after my landlady announced simply "we need the apartment" I went into emotional shock, then dragged through most of the Kubler-Ross steps, and now accept her declaration with a handbag of changing emotions...sadness, humor, swirling new manic energy, all reminders of earlier moves when a young, married Navy wife, and the family was uprooted frequently by changes in duty station.

I, for one, became enured, numbed by the Navy moves and frequent losses of young pilots and repetitive memorial services...but this recent announcement that I would have to be out by December 1st (giving me over three months) completely blindsided me, and left me...angry. I am not quite out of it yet, and have written a couple new poems which are too brutally honest to post at this time. One is called "Votive." A few of my close friends have read it, as well as Melody Gough, instructor of an online poetry course I take over and over again in order to hone the craft. She was wowed, I think, by the ability to emote, something that becomes easier with age, in my view.

So, for propriety's sake, I will share a series of simple drawings turned into paintings, illustrating a change in mood. Beginning with a simple line-art drawing of Camilla, painting it cheerily (I was not cheery actually) and deciding she was riding on ocean waves; then trying to get the tonal values right, moving into darkness where I stay, but not without some color and the understanding that everything works out because one makes it work out.

First, in order to connect old feelings with the pervasive new ones, here is poem written many years ago, probably on Whidbey Island in Washington State:

Moves

There they go again,
My bright periodicals
Sprawling across the table,
Refusing to become organized:
Muscling in, the grayish fibers
Outnumber my own energies,
My own living pages.
I think they might even predict the future.
Well, let them!
Let them try to pack me up,
Take me away!
I’ll do more than acquiesce!
I’ll beg them to box me,
To whisk me away without pain,
I’ll beg them to bury me
Until I’m comfortably settled
In the damned new place,
My table solid on all fours,
My thoughts fanned out
For everyone to read.
I’ll beg them to organize me
Until I’m neat and numb and sane--
Until I love goodbyes,
Until I’ve forgotten everything
But my own name!

Kay D. Weeks
1971

LIGHT TO DARK -

Now...here is the recent Camilla drawing, turned painting...reflective of my moving into the dark, so to speak, but simultaneoulsy beginning to do the work necessary to get back into the light (maybe take a painting course?). Work that involves searching, researching, exploring, talking to many people, and then finally finding and settling upon some new place that suits us. Camilla is the reason I keep most of this to myself during the day while alone in the current apartment, so she won't feel my fears of being uprooted.

Camilla as ocean cat, riding the waves

attached to the side of my apartment

dryer in the kitchen.

Yesterday, as I worked through the several issues that framed the day...not just the move...I kept picking up a paint brush in the spare moments. The cat became darker and darker, even though I pulled out a tube of white, purchased upon recommendation of my friend, artist and teacher, Trudy Babchak! But I pulled out the black as well and ended up with this. I think I will stop. Camilla doesn't know OR care. The best advice on the impending move came from long-time friend, Leslie Lewart, who suggested that I "...sage the place, and let go." Yes, and thanks, Leslie.

August 24, 2010

Blog content/photos KW