5 :: thicket

It is a cool, damp, pristine Sunday morning, and we are in between rainspells. I stand in the open doorway, facing the garden out front, to finish a cup of rapidly-cooling coffee. My hoodie is in full operation, tucked beneath goosedown and pulled up over my head. The birds are going crazy in the Moneterey pine out back, some sort of starling gang sqwawking like Cantonese peddlers; the robins declaring spring on the clover, titmice hanging upside-down and talking, apparently, to themselves…in the oleander? I carry the empty glass mug by my side, out onto the footpath and start deadheading the frigid, rainpounded pansies and violas.

Before long, the honeyed beeswax scent catches up to me, and I’m quite distracted now, so Sunday-morning-giddy to hang out in the studio by myself, and I wipe my feet, set down the mug, and walk into the warm studio. Everything has melted in the tuna cans, by now: all the reds, brewing in a cluster; the turquoise in the corner; an array of brushes stand like swimmers for the next heat, poised and all facing me.

I take a wood panel and layer on color, in no particular order, but dictated by mental limbus. I can’t possibly stay away from the reds and the chalky turquoise. I don’t know why. And there they go, irreverently, in patches of relief on the woodgrain. That groove sets in, you know, where the cortex falls asleep and your body follows instinct, and your face relaxes, and your eyes no longer see but transmit data to your soul, regardless of judgement or analysis. That’s where I am when the kids wander into the room.

I love these kids, and I’ve mentioned that I willingly share this space with them, but I know that you know that I know this is craziness for a person in this current mindset of mine to accept, and I all but groan and whine when Ford comes up to me and tells me he wants to paint with wax. Right now?
And so does Chas.

So. Behind his back, my brows cleave a furrow into my skull and I bite my lip. Sure, hang on. And he volunteers to use one of the panels from my stack of freshly-sawed plywood, the one my husband just dropped off on my desk, straight off the tablesaw. They’re still warm from the energy of being cut. He is holding a plywood square and standing before me. For a second, that selfish ass of me stands there, all pissy and annoyed, until my cortical brain emerges from deep sleep, probably high on particulates and formaldehyde effluvium, and lays a hand on the situation.

That’s so awesome! You’re going to paint with me? You rock. Wax is so much fun. Let’s open some more windows, ok?

And meanwhile, as I start scribing into the wax, somehow returning to the groove despite my mania, I look down to find Chas adorning Seti in wrapping ribbon. As if the preppy sweater wasn’t adequately humiliating.

We worked, in this manner, for about a half hour; shuffling around each other like moving puzzle pieces among the clutter. Finally, the rain commenced, and I lost the boys to the outdoors, where they ran circles around the sundial, in the middle of the lawn, trying to drink the rain in mid-orbit. The thing is, I’ll lose them, soon enough, to many other things. That’s what I’m trying to remind that harpy ego of mine, when she’s about to snap at these little dudes. It’s all good, it’s all fun. I can’t believe I even harbor her within me, but nobody, no parent, is perfect.