parenting

The Key to Silence

by artmuse12

A painting left unfinished… I originally started this painting in the summer of 2017.20190105_151123.jpg

If a painting can depict an artist’s state of mind, let’s set the tone of 2017:  The loss of my muse, Single mother of 3 teenage boys, Graduate Student, Working a full-time job, and a massive writing project. I was over extended to say the least.  Trump had been sworn into office and my role as a woman in America felt threatened.

Where does my art fit into this world? I longed for more female produced art. Desperately craving the influence and impact that women have on the art world. I studied female artist and the feminist movement. These artists were angry at patriarchal society, although justified, I struggled with this emotion.

Yes, I am angry sometimes, but I want to heal the energy not continue to rip open the battle wound and pour salt on it.  As the mother of three boys, who will someday be men, how can perpetuate this theme that men are the root of the problem.

How do I balance my semi feminist art and still raise better men, who are masculine yet emotionally and physically strong?  How do you raise men that treat women better, if I can’t figure out how to treat myself? How do I teach them that it is acceptable for a woman or girl to be able to communicate their emotional, sexual, and mental wants or needs? This is a strength, not a weakness.

Frustrated with life and feeling completely stifled, I started on this painting as a way explore myself, my art, my sexual control, and my relationship with my pussy.

I was looking for that euphoric state of mind for clarity and how to really achieve what I wanted for myself.  

How do sex and creative live on this wavelength?

Why does the statement, by our now president, “Grab them by the pussy” invoke so much rage among my gender?

Especially, since in the right setting this statement would have been funny to me.

A woman’s self-pleasure was never talked about growing up and female pleasure was not the center of the discussion. The theme of sex was that men wanted it and it was about them; lay down for him; procreate for him; and all on his schedule or command.

Girls are told that touching themselves is disgusting and that they shouldn’t do it. This mentality surrounds girls with feeling wrong, guilty, and dirty yet, this touching doesn’t feel wrong or dirty. Boys are not fed the same guilt or shame that girls are.  

Porn has become the definition of sex in our society and is a male control field. Boys and Girls are being flooded with imagines of woman serving men and setting unreal expectations of sex.

What if sex was taught as the center of pleasure or as ebb and flow between two people?

The original theme for this painting was about women having the courage to grab their own pussies. I put out a call for a woman to send me their self-pleasuring moments. Once I received a few photos I began to work.

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I was feeling proud of this painting and the overall direction. It was going to be incredible, but the noise from the out world invade. My eldest was mortified by this piece and our already turbulent relationship exploded with a list of all the things that were wrong with me. All of the things my 16-year-old thought of me and all of the things that he wanted me to change in order for him to be in my life.

Now this was not the first time I had been told I was too much and should change, but it was the first time those words halted all of my creativity. I didn’t respond to his demands and we didn’t talk for over a month. I journaled and worked through the tigers and self-doubt that this list sparked and this painting sat on an easel unattended. Mocking me….

I started new projects and let the idea percolate, hoping I would eventually get back to this painting. There were parts of it I like and yet it still wasn’t conveying what I wanted it to.  The list is all I could think about.

I continued to write, and my mentor introduced to half dozen female writers and artists, who were about going inward to fuel change. At this point I had altered and changed this painting and tried to salvage the parts I still liked, but I was still unsatisfied with it and feared it was a lost cause. A deflated concept and it went into storage.20180223_113858.jpg

I moved to other work and read more books by Regena Thomashauer and Lisa Lister.  The best lines were,”Hello, Gorgeous” and “Fix the feminine energy and the masculine energy will heal too” This is the concept rolled over and over in my head.

I had just completed “Fate or Free Will” and was preparing another canvas. But I pulled out this old canvas and brought it back into the studio.

“Heal the Feminine and to heal the masculine”   

Sometimes when I sketch, I will pull a book off my shelf, opened to a page, usually its page 44. I went to line four… “I’ve cultivated a deep and thorough, proactive of listening, dedication, surrender, and responsibility,…”

I sketched and carried these words for a few days… Surrender rolled over and over in my brain… How do I save the center of this painting? How do silence the list?

Why encourage female masturbation?

Why encourage women to honor or worship their pussy?

Why encourage women to touch them self and to find their own pleasure?

Why do I masturbate?

Surrender. Surrender. Surrender, sang in my brain.

To black out the noise was the answer… I lay in bed at night and the lists roll through my mind like a tidal wave.

Recapping the ever evolving “to do” list.

The electric bill was due 11th

Will the baseball cleats from last year still fit?

Where is the crockpot for Saturday?

The dishes didn’t get done, maybe I’ll get up early and do them.

Did I lock the back door?

Did I send that email for work?

The exhibit deadline is the 13th

Pages are due on 19th, I should write more

Look to left and see the empty side of my bed. Look to the right and see the clock… go sleep

Random recaps of lovers and what went wrong

Recap of why the old man at the bar flashed his dick at me.

Why do men only want to sext and not actually meet?

They all want a mother to marry and a whore to fuck.

Is there a happy medium to this?

The words throughout the day, week or month…

Whore

Slut

Mother

The balance in my checking account

Dirty girl

My puss

Powerful

All racing around as if there is a finish line and my hand moves south.

To explore a forbidden land.

To explore the thing that men desire and fear the most.  

As I feel the warmth radiating and fingers find their rhythm the noise gets quieter and the sensation of pleasure moves up my body. I have to surrender and the noise fades to black and for the next 30 seconds to 10 mins I am lost in self pleasure, nothing else matter and the world doesn’t exist for this moment it is ALL me and the sensation of surrendering to myself  to climb the mountain in order to calm the tidal wave and center my thoughts.

Release the expectation of others and regain my control.

Thank you, Gorgeous, you are the key to silence.
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Change and begin again

by artmuse12

Sometimes when I am stuck I have to begin again…

Stop giving to others.

Find my center and than fucking breathe.

Stop fucking holding it in

Stoo holding it fucking back

Focus on the center;

that breath;

Say I am… and chase the spinning words

Trusting My Voice

by artmuse12

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So last night I sat staring a white blank Word document with that cursor flashing and blinking. I started to write and then I hit the famous delete delete delete.

Even wrote a paragraph on parenting struggles of raising teenage boys, with my lack of male role models growing up.

I asked for some suggestions on topics to write about. I am tired of writing about my personal life, which has more to with being so publicly vulnerable than anything else.

I mean for fuck sakes, I am strong, independent women and I don’t need a relationship. Yet sometimes I want one. Maybe to reassure me that I am worth someone else time and energy.

I have multiple posts saved and waiting to be published some of them are perhaps passed the expiration date to actually post them, or they may not apply and/or were simply fleeting thoughts.

The suggestions of topics to write about were the possibilities or the idea of a parallel of universes, timeline crashing into one another, or perhaps maybe in an alternate realities where we end up with everyone we ever dated.

Would it be Blissful or would it be torturous… What would the outcome be?

What I should be working on is my book.  The one I have been privately writing for the last nine months and I am at the rewrite and editing stage. I am almost at the finish line, but multiple doubts come into play as I get closer to the final version.  You know the doubts, its like a loud judgmental voice stating “that no cares about what you have to say” or that my voice will shame the ones I love.

Fear prevents us from doing and changing…
Yet softly my inner voice says, “Lean in and trust your truth”

Doubt

by artmuse12

I had this dream I was sitting in a room. “I don’t doubt his love for me” I say.

He says, “I don’t doubt her love for me”

A non objective person in the room says “If you don’t doubt his love and he doesn’t doubt your love, then what do the two of you doubt?” Unanimously we respond, “my capability of loving the him/her enough.”

Sometimes Our Demons Win

by artmuse12

I have held them at bay for weeks and months, but this last week they loudly rattled their cages, where they were being held captive. I was barely holding myself together.  I even went to a couple of art shows, thinking it would lift my spirits and I would be able to keep them at bay.

However, I woke up Saturday from a dream that I can’t even remember and cried. The person I wanted to text/call is no longer an opinion for more reason than I can count. The others depend on me to be happy, bubbly, and positive. The demons had broken free and whispered, “See, you have no one, you are alone.”

All those words that had been shouted at me over the last few months true or not, didn’t matter to the demons. The words are fuel for them, whispers that come from nowhere.

You’re not a good mother

Even your own child hates you

You are a failure

No one will ever love you

You are not worth their time

You are not good enough

You were only a sexual objective

Your pussy is the only thing men want

No one really cares

You will always a secret

 

Most of the time I use satire to get through any of my fears, insecurities, or self-doubt. I’m the one with the quick wit. I’m outspoken, confident, and usually self-assured but sometimes life’s just too heavy even for me. Even though I am willing to carry the burdens of another; I don’t want to be a burden. Many times, I accept the blame that is not solely mine to carry.

For years, I wanted the approval from others so I would wear a different mask to accommodate to them.  One day, I looked in the mirror, I didn’t even recognize myself and it was that moment I knew my life had to change.

I faced some of my demons through that process of self-discovery.  However, there are still some that sit deep within my physic.

The logical part of my brain and screamed at me loudly, “get up and fold the laundry. It is just sitting.”

“Paint or clean, get out of bed!” Logic screams.

The tears would pour out and I couldn’t stop them.

The demon mutters “No one will ever understand your pain because it’s stupid. You deserve to suffer.”.

I would even yell at myself to stop crying and feeling ridiculous because I couldn’t make it stop.

It was around 1pm on Sunday, and I was on the countdown, the kids would be home and I would have to pull myself together. I folded laundry, did some laundry. By 3 I finally got dressed and left my bedroom to clean, but continued to cry. The rain had stopped and it was dry enough to dig in the dirt and choked down the tears. I couldn’t let them out anymore. I needed to put the demons back into their cages or release them into the atmosphere.

I had to be the mom, who has it all together. I didn’t want them to know I had fallen apart. I didn’t want anyone to know that I was sad, that I listened to my demons. I especially DIDN’T want anyone to think I was suicidal. I was hurting from not just one thing, but a culmination of several and I needed to live there for a little while.

This is the longest amount of time I have ever given into my demons and/or my emotions and I don’t fully understand these moments.  It was a series of several events that create this physical and emotional break. Perhaps through this flood I have given it to the universe and released all the bullshit we tell ourselves.

I’m still not a 100%, but I will get there one moment at a time.

There is no plan, there is just right now

by artmuse12

I am a planner. I plan out my life. After, I graduated from college, I figured out that the plan changes and that’s ok.

I have changed it, altered and moved it.  It’s a work in progress.

I survived marriage, a divorce, unemployment, heartbreak, and parenting

I learned to listen to my voice, even when no one else understood. I discovered that there are more free thinkers out there in the world.  I wasn’t looking in the right spot or I had become to shut off.

I know lots of things and at the same time feel like I know nothing.

Today, I realize there is no fucking plan, there is just right now!

Paralyzed by Fear

by artmuse12

Paralyzed by fear.

If reading and comprehension come easily to you, you may not full understand the paralyzing fear of reading or reading out loud. The fear of being told that you are dumb or stupid, to have teachers and peers make you feel like you less than because it takes you longer to read or process. This was my experience from elementary through middle school and even Jr. High.  It was better in High school and much easier during my undergrad.

Tonight, I am sitting at my desk with my printed out essay that I need to read. Its only 9 pages. I start out pretty confident, after all I am 36 and have learned ways to cope with my dyslexia. I have found programs that make my life easier, things that assist with my writing. I buy dual copies of books in paper and audio this helps retain me as I follow along.

In the event that I couldn’t get a text on audio. I would just read it out loud. This works for the most part until I get into textual work or theory, when I get to words I can’t pronounce and start to stubble. I start to get lost in the unfamiliar words. I completed last paragraph on page 3 and the tears start to fall.

I start the next page. Suddenly, I see myself as that 12 year old working on homework for hours, crying and telling my mom that I am stupid.  I would get frustrated and she would should different ways to work a math problem, and even though I would finally understand it. I would still cry because I knew that Mrs. Ragor would count it wrong because it had not been done her way.  I was teased and told I was stupid by not just my peers but by educators. If I had not had a mother that was determined to help me, I would not be where I am today. It was my hungry to learn and her determination that made us unstoppable.

I continued to struggle through this 1930’s essay that yes is still relevant. I hit record on my phone, thinking I might be tempted to share and exert of my reading, but that may be too scary. Online classes add to these fears and anxieties, it’s all textual and becomes a sea of letters and words that I am drowning in. I read through my fears. I can’t read this in my head because it bounces off like my brain is rubber.

Finally, I get through it, the notes were not taken and it took me about an hour and a half. I sat there the tears leaking out of my eyes as if I can finally release the sea I was just drowning in.

It was at this moment, I sent another message to my professors and asked about dropping a class. I felt like a total failure. I couldn’t do this. Two classes, children, and work. There is no way! It’s too much and the reading has me feeling like a failure. All I have ever wanted to do was write and make art, but maybe it wasn’t meant to be. These thoughts of the things my middle school teachers use to say to me were screaming, so loudly in my head. I felt so defeated in that moment. I hit send on my email and let the tears flow.

One of my professors had responded to a previous email. He reminded me of my accommodation and advised me to submit my documentation.  I haven’t had to do this in years, but I will dig out paper work. He told me about PDF reader opinion “read out loud,” which I had to google.  I pulled up the pdf of the textbook my other professor had sent me. The “read out loud”, was the lifeline I needed last night. It’s not ideal, but it worked!!

After I complete these sections. I was going to scan in the previous essay, then I realized that I had a theory book that was on audio, low and behold this fucking essay that took me nearly 90 mins to read, was on the audio text I have.  I listened to this essay and took notes for another 20mins, it all made sense to me.

It was 2 AM by the time I finished. I sat with my 12 year old self. She reminded me of all the things I was afraid of and I reminded her of how far we have come. Together we cried not because it was over, but she is the only one that truly understands.

 

Every Negative has a Positive

by artmuse12

Negative: I couldn’t get a single book on audio this semester.

Positive: I spent Thursday and Friday ready out loud to myself in funny accidents to get through the pages.

Negative: I should have than work on the video and the paper, but I was not able to focus on it after all the reading.

Positive: I was inspired to work on my book which has a deadline coming up. So, I got lost in this story and the words.  Relived a few life lessons and before I knew it was 1 am.

Negative: My youngest, who is a night owl.  Requested an hour of TV and in my bed at 1AM. I explained to him that I am going to fall asleep and that he is too big to sleep in my bed.

Positive: I could snuggle with him and after 30 minutes before telling him that I couldn’t keep my eyes open.  He agreed to end the movie if I will tuck him in.

Saturday was just one of those days and was not nearly as productive as it should have been, it was full of interruptions.  There are several reasons as to why this weekend was going to be full of changes.

Negative: The older teenager was going to be here and his plans change from hour to hour. Consisting of mom take me here, mom pick me up there. This is not unusual for a teenager, but I was trying to write a fucking paper.

Positive: He re-met and a friend of mine, and for the first time since the divorce he said. “I like him, he seems chill”

I reminded my oldest that this man and I are just friends, and that I have too much on plate to date.  This idea of me letting people met my children is hard for me, even if they are friends.  The fact that he liked someone even if it was a friend was huge because he doesn’t like anyone new.

Negative: Unexpected visitors:

Positive: My wonderful supportive mom stops by and for the most didn’t interrupt me directly.  She drove with me to drop the boys off and even stayed late to watch a movie with them, while working on my paper.

Negative: I don’t like going to the grocery store. It feels like a waste. I understand that we need food to survive, but it mostly feels expensive. It used to give me a panic attack. Now it’s just annoying with the time and the crowds.

Positive: I got to go grocery and my mom made this trip more pleasant. Plus, the kids brought in and put away all the groceries away for me.

Sunday had just as many distractions, but there are ways a better way to look at the situations and find the best part of it.

Overwhelmed

by artmuse12

Well, I feel overwhelmed and I want to have sex, but I am taking a break from that. I want to forget that I feel like my life is spinning out of control.  The reality is that it’s not out of control, it’s just finding a new balance. My fears kick in, “can I read the material fast enough and I will be able to maintain the schedule.”  yet I always find my way.

I am a 36 year old dyslexic who knows all the coping skills with a 4.0 GPA and yet there are moments that I feel like the 12 year old girl so afraid to read out loud.

It’s only 10 weeks

by artmuse12

“It’s only 10 weeks,” the phrase that I keep repeating to myself as I start my third term at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) this week. It’s 10 weeks two classes, which equates to an additional 40 hours a week on top of my full-time job, my children, and my book. “Lean into it,” is the other phrase that rings loudly. The extra class mean I can complete the degree a term sooner.

However, my day job can be mentally taxing, and there are days I just want to melt on the couch after work. Let alone do all the responsible parenting things.  My boys are great with their encouragement and even reassure me occasionally that I am not being selfish that I am showing them how to follow their passion.

Except as classes start, I’m suddenly filled with fear of time management and mom guilt. It’s only 10 weeks, right. 400 hours….

The clock is ticking, Friday is the deadline to drop a class and I stand on the edge, leaning, armed with coffee and my cape.