When I started this little journey of finding myself through expression of my thoughts and feelings via blog, I had no idea how much it would affect me. The first post was fun and cathartic, but now I am struggling to figure out what is the next most important thing to share with the Aesthetisphere. ( Aesthetisphere is one of my concepts from years ago…you can read more at http://www.aesthetisphere.com/).
When I wrote “backtrackin” https://bohemiantiger.com/2013/12/05/backtrackin/ the other day. I was set to write a book on the subject of art and rejection when my mom called right in the middle of a thought…you can probably tell when by the sudden change in my tone. All the thoughts in my mind vaporized when I heard her once booming but now very timid voice ask if I could help her move some books. I remember the day when she didn’t want me to touch her books…
My mom raised me by herself with a lot of help from my grandparents. My dad wasn’t in the picture until I was 23…(that’s a story for another day too.) Because she was alone and my grandparents weren’t much for socializing with her, I was her social network and companion. She did have 2 friends that we would visit sometimes, but for the most part I was to be unseen and unheard when we did.
When we got home from our visits, my mom would vent to me about how much she “hated” her friends because they always talked about the same things and smoked like chimneys. She would cry because she was alone… and I didn’t at the time understand how she could be alone when I was standing right there…She would send me to the fridge to get her ice cream and taught me how to bake cakes and cookies so I could serve them to her for years to come. I was her chef, servant and therapist. When she wanted to kill herself, I would beg her not to and strain my brain to figure out what I could do to be better… or as I got older just gave up on being good enough and accepted my fate as “not in the room” and decided “why even try” was a better way to cope. This got me through for a while…It’s amazing how good denial and withdrawal can protect your psyche…
Things did get better for while…When I was 10 my mom tried to get herself up off the bed and back out into the world. She went to school, got a certificate in commercial art and by the time I was 12, she was working for the city teaching art classes to kids and making posters for Parks and Rec centers around the city. Life was good. I even got to take some classes taught by other teachers and found that I was very good at ceramics. So good in fact that by the ripe age of 14, I was teaching beginning pottery classes myself.
I joined the Ceramics Club at the high school I attended. I tutored some of the football players that needed art credits to graduate…(why they needed a tutor for ceramics I will never know…math, science reading would have been a better use of their time if you ask me…I guess its all about the GPA. Bring an F to B and now your other Fs and Ds look better in the stats!)
Anyway…I really enjoyed life and art for a period of time and me and my mom got along better and she wasn’t as sad and lonely and didn’t want to kill herself every weekend…God!!! that was so liberating for me!