Stark plain unhappy brutally honest truth. No literary eloquence to make that anything else than what it is. It was unbelievably hard leaving her at college and going by her empty room at home is like someone has died. I miss having her here.
What has this got to do with Creating Art? It is almost impossible to create when there is a burden of sadness on your shoulders. It sometimes seems like I am moving through mud. Just trying to get the everyday stuff that needs to be done. To pick up a brush and create something new when sadness is clinging seems like way too much, too hard to do. This is not to look for sympathy, just putting it out there that state of mind absolutely affects the creative process.
With anger, it is a relief to take some bold colors and strokes and relieve some of the emotion onto the paper. It is like the anger is transferred to the paper and I don’t have it anymore. But Sadness- How do you put that on paper in a way that helps relieve the feeling? If I create with sad and muted colors it makes me even sadder. Take Beige for example. I hardly ever paint with beige. The color is so sad that just looking at it zaps the life out of me. It would not be a help to paint a beige picture. It would look sad, it would be sad and I would still be sad. Pink makes me happy. But I am not feeling happy so I can’t paint with pink today!
How to put the sadness on the paper in a way that I no longer have it? Should I paint a sad subject? Like a person crying alone, or a gray raining day in late winter? I can’t think that they would make me any less sad. Probably just looking at it would make me feel even sadder. I have no answers here. I will come to terms with this, but for now, I am just plain sad. Sometimes changes in life are like that. It just seems like I should be able to put it down on paper just like I can with anger.
To end on a happier note, there were some funny spots in the week we were trying to get Miriam in her dorm room and everything set up. Like when we had to go to three different stores to find the perfect garbage can that was the right size and price. Because Miriam is now very tight with her money for everything except music items. Or when I tried to get her to buy an extra bunch of clothes hangers from dollar tree…. And she had to think hard about it! (really one dollar for 12 hangers!) Love her, miss her, she is thriving where she is.
Oh Sarah, I know this sadness well. Both of my children have been gone so long….Evan in Brooklyn and Abby in Pennsylvania, California, Alaska and finally Bangkok for the last eight years. Even though they are much older than your baby and went to school here at UB. When they left for college, they left. I have spent nights awake in worry, sadness and sometimes sadness that we make no memories anymore. Just this week they were here for my birthday. Evan left but Abby is hanging around in Buffalo….you never know!
Yes, who knows where she will end up! But I don’t think it will be here. It is getting better, and she is loving it there. Sounds like you had a good birthday.