Dear Lizzie (30 Jan 26)
Dear Lizzie
I was thinking of you home alone this morning, first day back for school, wondering if this new (but brief) time to yourself was feeling a bit overwhelming? I remember those days when my girls were gone and there felt like such a pressure to make the most of those hours between 9 and 3 when sometimes all I really wanted to do was sit on the couch and knit and watch Sex in the City. ( You’ve just text me, not completely alone today, maybe good to ease into it). I remember the day H started school, I decided to drive across town to buy some quilting fabric, not that I am a quilter mind you, just thought a new hobby might fill this new time. I parked the car next to a park, a park that maybe I had taken H to once. I had sat knitting while she played and suddenly, out of nowhere, the thought of all of those thousands of days I had spent watching my girls play in parks was over (it wasn’t really but I was feeling dramatic). Then I started crying, and not just a tear running down my face sort of crying, I was heaving and bawling my eyes out. I really needed that cry. I still miss them being little.
It has been a very strange Summer. I abandoned the family holiday about three weeks ago. My looming deadline was making me cranky, snapping at my lovely mother, panic rising time ticking away. So, I left, early one Monday morning and here I have been, alone (mostly). I have spread myself out across our large dining room table, my art books open, sketchbooks filling up, little vessels and flowers and things left where they are, greeting me when I get up early. The weather has been all over the place so painting days in my studio have been a bit limited as it’s so hot out there, but I’ve managed to make a start on half of the work. I’m happy with it one minute and then the next I’m completely unsure. The work feels very quiet. I have been looking at Matisse, his colour and patterns and brushwork, but in contrast, my work feels more muted then ever. I think the opportunity of a show in Berlin is playing on my mind, I just need to paint how I paint, and maybe quiet and muted will always be my authentic style? Maybe I’ll call the show SERENE, what do you think?
This letter is getting long. What you said about your need to burn cortisol with hand work really resonated Lizzie. That need to be always making and doing, I really feel that too. You’ve made the most of your time, as you always seem to do, and as hard having to rest was, it feels like this time to ponder, and plan is maybe what you needed. Time to think and read, but now absolutely dying to get back to painting, I can’t wait to see what comes from this forced rest. Ok, I’ll stop now, I am reading a beautiful book, Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon. It’s a heartbreakingly beautiful Scottish story, hard going but with the effort.
X Stacey
