Slow Painting

I did another so-called slow painting today.  I say so-called because I'm not sure I'm all that slow anymore.  But I really like the feel of doing these pictures.  I seem to do them standing up and looking down on the paper.  And by the way, my still life objects have turned to mush.  The pear fell over, the red pepper shrivelled and the lime changed colour.  Only the apple survived pretty much intact but they are all down the organic garbage chute now.

Dead Still Life

I give up on the still life painting.  It's turned into a photo subject.  My usual holiday disease has set in.  To quote Fred Flintstone, "My get up and go got up and went."  If I'm lucky I can sit and read.

First Footer, First Nightmare

I started the year with a nightmare.  And actually a timely New Year's Eve nightmare.  The first person through your door after midnight determines your luck for the year.  Or something like that.  Details are scarce for me.  I know that it's best to have a dark-haired man be your first-footer.  That's why Grannie like my father.  Hmmm.  Sounds to me now like she didn't much like him for anything else!  Anyhow, that's all I know about first footing.

I received a few such facts during my childhood, summed up in one sentence each -- no elaboration, no questions.  I've been thinking about this lately in relation to Grannie and wondering why she never taught me more.  Hogmanay, Robbie Burns night, whatever.  It came to me that Grannie seldom invited us to her apartment for dinner (she came to us) while my other grandparents went the whole Sunday-roastbeef-Yorkshire-pudding route.  Could Grannie cook?  Had she had a housekeeper to do it for her?  She pickled things.  Made pickles and relish.  That's a fact told by my mother.  Just thinking that this might explain my mother's lack of interest in cooking or teaching it to me.

Back to my nightmare.  I opened the door and a huge cat was trying to get in.  It was all grey, had no tail and was almost as large as a lion or tiger.  Much bigger than the usual cat.  I gasped and slammed the door shut -- and woke up gasping and shaking.  Horrible.

Tiger

I had two huge dreams last night.  One was definitely a nightmare.  I was playing in the back yard at my parents' house.  My brother was there.  He had a tiger with him.  The tiger belonged to my father.  I was terrified.  He put the tiger back into the basement by the outside steps and door.  But he didn't close the door.  I yelled at him, "Close the door, asshole!"  But he refused.  The tiger was huge and filled the entire basement.  I was upstairs in the house yelling at my father and my brother.  "If you don't secure the tiger in the basement I will call the police!"

I notice that in a couple of recent nightmares I yelled at my father.  This is new and is probably a cool thing.  That doesn't, however, stop the dreams from being nightmares.  And another new thing is that I felt them as nightmares at the time, in the night.  That is, I woke up terrified.

What hurt the most ...

The same night as the trunk dream I had another nightmare.  This one was about the end of a relationship.  I never saw how horrible the relationship was until this moment when it all turned to dust.  The dream relived the time when a former girlfriend told me that she was leaving me for another woman.  I was shocked and so hurt.  In the dream I tried to speak to my girlfriend.  I was so very upset but she wouldn't listen to me.  Finally I said that I had only one more thing to say -- that what hurt me the most was that she had stopped speaking to me.  In the beginning she could hardly stop telling me about herself -- but then she did.  The entire thing was a horror.  I cried so much.  Eventually she told me to stop crying because it hurt her too!  Imagine that.  And I had no come back.  I was drowning in tears.  I did stop crying and to this day still cannot cry.

Nightmare

I was in a car driven by my mother.  We left from our house and I asked her where we were going.  She replied that we were going to the airport to pick up my father.  He was there looking at a museum even though he was blind.

Later my father was in the car and no one was driving.  My mother was in the trunk.  Locked in the trunk.  I could hear her in there.  She said she had to go to the bathroom and was now locked in the trunk.  It was horrible.  The car then was a flat metal thing with a clasp locking it shut.

I got into the driver's seat, stopped the car and got her out.

We were at my grandmother's house.  My father's mother.  I yelled at my father.  There were several strong young men there to help and protect me in case he attacked.  I told him that he would be in the trunk next -- and to never ever put her in the trunk again.

More Slow Painting

I did a couple more slow paintings yesterday.  A lot of feelings get stirred up as I paint -- mostly sadness and some anger.  As I was beginning the first one and noticing how it was going, I said to myself, "Life is not pretty."  So that's the title.  It's true too.  And then last night I had nightmares.  And I knew they were nightmares.  They felt like nightmares.  That's new.