Thoughts and fragments.

I’m thinking about home again today, and the tenuous line between fight and flight. I feel right here, I feel as though I belong in Ballyvaughan in this moment, and the first half of my trip has been fruitful, but I worry about getting in my own way.

Being here has made me gentler, in a way; more vulnerable, and more loyal to the people that I love back home. I’ve spent the evening thinking about how important it is for me to be a decent person: to everyone, to send good into the universe, to be just in the eyes of God, to be loved unconditionally by my closest friends and my family. I don’t want to go back to a version of myself, though, much improved, is not as good as I know I can be.

I had a panic attack tonight in front of someone else. I cried as well. I fell victim to taking a Klonopin because I knew it would physiologically register in my body so that I could breathe normally, talk normally.  I was ashamed of having such a lack of control over my body, the vessel for my spirit, which I have been tending so well, and nourishing with fresh country air on long walks and by avoiding things like cigarettes and heavy drinking and other self-destructive habits. I was afraid, too, that it would seem insincere, because there was someone to witness it. I hate the idea that someone would think I am in favour of dramatics. I am mortified.

Tonight is a night to contemplate humility. I speak a lot about removing Ego. My work doesn’t contain my ego, and when R insulted my talent, and my position as an artist a few weeks ago, it wasn’t just a feminist struggle and the re-emergence of the topic of being “beautiful” and a “woman” and all at once an “artist” that begged to be taken seriously as such. It was also about Ego. For that I am ashamed, and will continue to feel embarrassed over for a while yet, particularly after being called out about it. Perhaps I’m mostly ashamed because it took someone else to call it out for me. Being ashamed of that unawareness is, once again, the rearing of my Ego’s ugly head. The cycle continues. I need to break it, for myself and for my sanity.

Graduate school is the next step; it needs to be the next step so that I can make it as a professional artist and as a teacher. Everyone I’ve spoken to here (two peers and a professor) seem to think it’ll be, in their words, “no problem” for me to be accepted into a graduate school. How is it that relative strangers can be certain and yet I’m so wracked by fear and doubt?

It comes back to the notion of standing in my own way and wrestling with the new duality I’ve discovered in myself while being here, musing over my work, spending time alone, spending time with friends, out and about and charismatic with makeup done up and a swing in my walk. There is Persona, and there is Personality. And Persona, who is loud, and charming, and commands a room because it’s her job to do so, she is all intellect and a little bit of magic. Personality is all intuition and feeling; she wants to run away into the woods and lie in the grass with sheepdogs and talk to a horse. Personality is true nature, all heart and a hint of Slavic melancholy (which is something all Slavs possess, I am convinced). And Personality wants less and less to deal with people. She would rather arm herself against it, so as not to speak and suffer a verbal or social misstep. Personality is getting worse at dealing with human beings, which is probably why she spends time communicating with the trees and the bumblebees in the language of silence. It’s freer. It’s more honest. There is no Ego there. Nothing to trip her up.

Tuesday, I wrap everything I’ve made and ship it home. Maybe I’ll keep these love letters:

But everything else? Everything else flies home. It’s harder to think clearly in the studio, with all this energy stacked up on a wall; these invented stories, they murmur among themselves and breathe against my back. It’s time I returned to myself. Tuesday I pick up my brush and no voice, mine or otherwise, will bring me out of my self-induced spell.

Far from glorious.

So here was last night:

After having a brilliant evening with Kate and Victoria for Kate’s last night, Kate burst into tears outside the pub when it came time to say goodnight and goodbye. I’m terrible at goodbyes anyway. I hate parting ways. Of course in my cowardice I was crossing the street, trying to avoid her sadness, and was sucked into it anyway. I crossed back over, and I held her little shoulders and she was hysterical.

Victoria walked me home in the dark, through the Burren Way, which was only slightly less terrifying with one for company. I let her avail of my “fancy” face products when we got home and she spent the night. Truthfully it was nice to have another body in the bed. Losing Kate is bad enough; feeling the imminent loss of Victoria was almost too much. I slept deeply and mournfully.

She woke up early and went home, and I slept in until eleven. I already feel not so grand when I sleep half of my morning away, but this morning I was already feeling uneasy. I not only have this bad feeling that my landlord and his family don’t like me, (probably my paranoid projections but there you have it) but I was struggling with getting ready to say another goodbye after this weekend, losing track of my old friends here, and feeling like I had done something to offend by asking a friend to take me into a town with an ATM.

An aside: the issue of cold hard cash is a difficult one — there is no ATM in Ballyvaughan, and the nearest one needs to be driven or hitchhiked to; the one in Kinvara, as I found out yesterday, is out of order. Well, shit. I am not yet behind on my rent, but officially have a tab at O’Loclainn’s, which officially makes me not-a-tourist. That’s kind of nice, if I didn’t hate  the idea of owing anyone money.

So I progressed through my day — while sending an e-mail, Victoria showed back up at my place, and I spent the afternoon with her, and later with Helen, a local she befriended in her first few days here, and is a lovely and kind woman. The three of us had a late lunch at Logue’s, after which I made my way home, still feeling a little weepy, and taking my time on the road.

[Helen and Victoria.]

Later in the afternoon, I returned to the school for Gordon D’Arcy’s gallery opening. He’s my modern-day equivalent of James Audobon — a lover of nature and a pioneer of ecological awareness and preservation in the Burren. His drawings and paintings of bird species are gentle and serene. He bought my first ever large-scale work — a seven-foot tall self-portrait with a flock of swans, and I’ll be forever grateful to him for that honour. My heart broke when I realised I wouldn’t be able to afford any of his pieces in this show. Perhaps if I budget my money well until the end of my stay here, I can buy a small work. But that’s a huge “if” for someone with no income at the moment.

There was also a big concert tonight in the field behind the school. Paddy Casey, The Walls, and lots of local and semi-local artists performed. I originally went to support my friend Dominic on stage, and was able to catch his entire set, but also found myself falling in love with Paddy Casey’s music. It was a brilliant set; I was able to be front-row-centre the entire time, and I found a new artist to inspire and uplift me. From the first song, I thought, I have to buy this on iTunes when I get home.

After the set I stuck around, in line with a bunch of giggling fifteen-year-olds, so I could come up and shake his hand. I observed how funny it was; I was these girls ten years ago, but felt very aware of my age standing there, thinking, Right, someone will take the piss out of me for being here. Hope my friends aren’t anywhere nearby. After about twenty minutes I found the whole thing silly, so I gave up.

On my walk home through the Burren Way, I thought about how, when Victoria leaves, that will be the end of my lady-bonding time, and I’ll be left to my own devices. I told myself, Monday, I would revert back to befriending animals again and largely avoiding human interactions. When I came home, I saw Mikie’s greyhounds, and it cheered me. I reached my hand over the top of the fence to pet them, not realising, stupidly, that the electrified tape was across the top of the fence now, and on, and before I could do anything, I heard four terrified squeals and a burning smell. I had unwittingly convinced four dogs to shock their sweet little faces in the pursuit of my affection.

I was inconsolable over this. I sat on my steps outside the house and sobbed. I even wrote Mikie an e-mail about it because I was too ashamed (and it was too late in the evening, I think) to knock on his door. I hurt animals tonight. I don’t care if it was an accident. I feel like a horrible human being. When I was in Nepal, I watched a puppy get beaten, and it was one of the most traumatising things that’s ever happened. I can’t say any more about that experience. I think this is the first time I’ve ever told anyone about it — aside from a close female friend I made in our group during my time there.

Tonight I’m not feeling glorious or powerful or charismatic or light. I feel like I’m at the lowest point of myself, and I hate it. I’m contemplating shortening my stay here, but the money for the program has been paid, and I have almost all of my rent paid as well. But I feel paralyzed with anxiety, with sadness, and I’m not even sure what I’ll work on next in the studio. Maybe it’s time for a clean slate. Maybe I’ll wrap up all of my current work on Tuesday (Monday is a bank holiday here; I won’t be able to get the supplies I need to do this) and ship it home this week. Maybe this month is something entirely different.

Even when I’m completely aware of the fact that fear is keeping me bound, when I can intellectualise what’s happening in my brain and put it into words, it takes away a little of that fear’s power, but not the primal emotion of it. I still feel afraid, I still feel weak, I’m still feeling the primitive urge for flight — change the plane ticket, tell no one; run away. But I can’t and I won’t do that. I just wish I could go to bed and sleep through this stage, let the problems resolve themselves, and wake up amazing. Wouldn’t life be funny as a sit-com. How effortless it could all be.

But what would we write about, draw about, express, if nothing was a struggle?