Tag: art heals

29 August, 2018

I still have the socks I knitted for Gary, that first pair of hospital socks. Like everything about my husband, writ large. He had self-described “Hobbit feet”; size 10.5EEEEEE. Kinda like having tissue boxes for shoes. I had finally convinced him that handknitted wool socks would neither be itchy nor uncomfortable. I let him put ones that I had knitted for my ownself on his hands so he could check. He never trusted implicitly, never believed anyone at first glance because you know, he was smarter than everyone else.

The colorway I chose was called The Audacity Of Hope. I bought it during President Obama’s 2008 campaign, part of the money from my purchase went towards the campaign. We were audacious for hoping, audacious for thinking that this could solve our problems. And it did for a while.

The Audacity of Hope, gorgeous #bfl#bluefacedeicester #handdyed #superwash #merino#wool #sockyarn from #blackbunnyfibers soon to be made into #handknitted #socks for my husband.

Nine months gone. 13 June, 2018

Nine months.

Nine months, six hours, and twenty-nine minutes ago, the doctors called your time of death.

You’ve been gone the same amount of time it takes a human baby to be born.

I spent most of today hoping for distraction; trying for oblivion, something to keep me occupied enough to not think. I went to the pottery; that piece I’d hated? I reglazed and put back in the salt. It is gorgeous, Gary, transformed, glowing with a deep intensity and quiet. Nothing resembling calm, no, but definitely Quiet. There is a depth to its finish, a complexity in details that didn’t exist before; details that only came through after another 2300° fire. There is a warmth, there, as if it holds on to some of that fire.

I’m trying so hard to make it through a day without weeping openly, trying desperately to choke down all of the sharpness, and then I think, why? Why bother trying to not feel? I mean, sure, keep it together in public but in the car? The bathroom at work? At home? Why not just melt? Why not just give in? Why try at all?

This is why. Keeping enough of my head level and my hands steady so I can make this. This is why. Bringing this bowl from a hunk of raw clay through three firings, neglect, dispassion, disapproval. This result, this bit of beauty, this is why I need to try.

I know that if you were here, I’d be excitedly explaining to you why this piece is so special, the unpredictability of this perfect a finish. You’d listen, not really getting why I was so excited about something at the furthest extreme, an unorthodox version of beauty, but maybe by now you’d be able to appreciate my passion, even without agreeing with it. Your inability to appreciate so abstract a piece was just beginning to soften when you died. You were getting it.

You were getting me.

I can be happy, with that. That very beginning; I can be happy with that.

I miss you, today and every day.
always,
your curious girl💜💜