Once upon a time, during the pandemic, when we were in lockdown in our homes, I had this idea that I’d make a series of still life paintings of corners of my home to mark that period in our lives— to tell my family’s story. I only managed to make two. Our home life got really weird pretty quickly after that with the death of my father and then my husband’s cancer diagnosis and death so I stopped. I really wish I hadn’t. These are recordings of a time that are somehow so much more meaningful than the gazillion photos on my phone of that time. It’s not even about the content so much as some molecular displacement. It’s like I popped in an old cassette tape and heard voices from my past and time traveled. More sneaky ghosts.

I’m up way too early this morning with an introvert hangover. The dogs are not getting up yet. I am tiptoeing around. I made tea. I unearthed an old sketchbook and thought I’d draw a little and these fell out. Feels like a sign.

These are such weird times. I don’t know what to do with myself some/most days. I don’t know how to be in this fractured world anymore so now, at the time of morning when the ghosts are loudest, this little sneaky haint has got me thinking about and questioning how I can or should document this dark time. I’m not a documentarian. I’m certainly no Pollyanna. I don’t have a lot of sunshine to share. I’m not debilitatingly bitter (yet) either though. I hover in a pretty unsentimental place. I don’t like looking back. Looking forward is only giving me smoke and shadows though. I just tread the waters of now most of the time and watch what drifts by. I never look for or expect hope. There’s a rumble hidden by the white noise of fatigue and anxiety though. It feels like something that needs to be coaxed out. 

I wish I could say I’m going to start making still life paintings again but I doubt I will. That road feels too introspective. This glitch in the matrix has made me pause though. It’s got me thinking about the threads I want to pull this next year. It’s got me trying to imagine the ghosts that will fall out of old sketchbooks or be found in the back of drawers and closets or in the rubble after I’m gone.