July 18 – Trying To Keep Busy

 

I continue to need to keep busy at something or I drop into the depths of sorrow again.  I joined a Fodder Group for some free instructor’s teaching new ways of making fodder for art journaling, or art pieces.  It does not take any sinking into intuition or into depths of symbolism.  It is light and instructive.  I am catching up for the week’s instruction and am only done 2/7 lessons.  I am crunching two lessons a day to catch up.  I am using this as a distraction so I can get psychological relief from the heavy grief that has come over me. 

Lesson One was making topical type leaves using watercolor and pens. I loved making these and will make many more.

 

Lesson Two is all about collaging a front page for an art journal.  She had made four so I made four, using her painting technique and wrapping of the cover.  She challenged us in doing collage work on the page. 

 

I moved through my day getting things done that needed being done.  I made five pints of tomato sauce, had friends drop over, and worked on training puppy.  In between times, I quietly worked on the Ribbon skirt.  A busy mind is a healthier mind, I believe.  It is for me.

In the night, the sadness returns.  I have lost a child, a wounded child, a hateful child, and because our relationship with her was complicated, we have complicated grief. 

I am remembering the funny and sweet things.  I am remembering outfits I got for her.  I remember pulling up her longest sprigs of hair so she had one floppy piece of hair lie a ponytail on to of her head, I remember how sweet she was with puppies and my parents, Grandpa and Grandma Woolf.  I remember how fearful she was of blizzards and thought they were monsters.  I remember getting her to feed her bottle to our dog and how she came back later crying because Gretchen had eaten it.  (I tricked her into giving it to the dog who could have cared less and I grabbed it and ditched it.)  I gave her as satiny blanket to trade…later she sucked her thumb.  She never forgave the dog.    She was beautiful baby girl, toddling and laughing, her eyes sparkling.  I adored her.  She was a mama’s girl from the beginning when we got her when she was 13 days old.  My first baby girl.  There is a special bond between a mother and a daughter.  Mothers are quick to forgive, will stand up for them, will be their shelter.  If they let you.  At twelve, she began to change.  If I had known about bipolar, I could have helped better.  And some of my reactions to her came from my own woundedness.  It was then that hwr whole life changed, She needed professional help, I know now.  Then there was the divorce and she cried to grandma asking, “Where will I go?”  She thought the adoption was nullify and they would take her somewhere else.  She went to live with her Grandparents on her father’s side.  There she was taught to hate her mother more.  How wound34d she was, right to the end, my beautiful girl.  I held space for jer every moment of every day.  Waiting.  Waiting.  And I wait still…waiting for a sign that she remembers she loved her mother.

And, so, I slip from remembering to focusing on Lesson Three.