Stirrings

Has it really been almost a year since I blogged here? I'm still here! This spot on the internet is one little space I've left open for my creative self to exist, to come and visit from time to time. It's not much, but it's also everything on some days, you know?

Lately, there have been late night stirrings, a call to come back to my art practice in some form. So I've been writing some, and sketching some, but not sharing much with the world yet. And I've begun to dream bits of new arty dreams.

I have to push aside the feelings and trolls that tell me it's too little, too late, and instead lean into the kinder voices asking, "What would be fun?!" and "What would you like to do?!"

So I'm letting myself explore and play and dream again. And art or words (or maybe both!) will be born, I'm sure of it, in due time. But for now, I'm gestating and feeling mighty peaceful about it all for a change! Stay tuned for all of the goodness yet to come--my best work is still ahead of me!

I am but a Worm Warrior

“Courage is getting clobbered by the deeps— then waking up, getting dressed, and doing it all over again.”

The school year is going well, a nicer class I haven’t had in a long time! But my battle with depression has been off and on this year, and lately has me beat. I haven’t written or arted in eons, and maybe that has something to do with it—I’m too brain dead to analyze, but whatever the case, depression is on a winning streak and some days I am just exhausted, defeated. But then I realized I’m doing my best. I get up everyday to potentially face it all again, every damn day. Go me. And go YOU too if you’re in the same battle as I am. Some days are just hard and you do what you can. But gold stars and confetti for getting dressed this morning and rising to face the day, come what may. We are warriors, even though we may feel like worms. Truth.

1Laura Tulics Hall

pigtails

today i brushed a girl’s

headful of knotted hair

her pigtails were askew

did daddy do your hair this morning or did you i asked

(because mom is no more)

i did it she said

come here i said

bring your brush

and she did

and i brushed her hair and talked with her

in the middle of class

during the morning chaos

and other little girls looked at us and wanted me to brush them out too

but you have mommies i wanted to tell them

i’m not brushing hair i wanted to say

or making perfect pigtails

i am trying trying to mother her

to say i’m so sorry sorry sorry your momma is gone forever

brush brush brush

here is a bandaid for your gushing wound

but here are hair elastics instead of a tourniquet

i tied looped them over and over and over again just so

and i stroked her head and hugged her

and i don’t know if she felt anything or if i’m making a difference

(am i)

but what else do you do when you see a headful of matted hair

and two ponytails askew

-j. avellana hongo