Ho-Hum

Laundry.

Laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry.

Laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry, laundry.

Find the laundry, sort the laundry, put in it the machine, wait until that beep goes off – that makes me want to break things – get the laundry out, hang the laundry – most likely repeat all of this once or twice more. When laundry is dry carry it inside, dump it on chair. Because the laundry basket – wicker and white cloth – is already overflowing.

When people ask where things are, direct them to said basket, chair, corner.

Laundry.

Ode to laundry

Laundry 

Transitioning Toddler

 

This is a house of little and broken sleep. Everyone is sick. I was going to write more about it but it is so boring, so I won’t.

But here’s another sketch of Toddler, just chilling out. She’s pretty special.

Back to painting and snotty tissues.

Please, bless us with some unbroken sleep.

There’s never any time

I painted that.

It took me a over a month, many layers, many hours in the heat, many hours aching to get to it to finish it, but I painted that.

And while it sits on my mantle piece, unframed, I steal glances at it while I am vacuuming, mopping, being screamed at and told to go away. I admire that bit just above the little toe. I think yeah, that’s a pretty good painting moment Lily.

But I feel grief. I feel grief because this is just one painting, this is – really – just a study. I imagine what portraits and larger pieces would be like, if I had the time. Actually, I am delighted that I can’t really imagine them because I think I would surprise myself.

Except that I won’t. I can’t. There is no time. There is no space. There’s the heat, the chores, these long and lonely days with no visits, no help – the most dangerous days of them all. There’s the concepts that I have no time to conceptualize. The models I have no time to sketch and photograph. There’s all that money I will never make.

And it breaks my heart.

So I just tell you about it blog, and anyone who reads you.Then I’ll just get on with my day, trying not to think too much. Because in the thinking I do the realizing and in the realizing, I do the upsetting and in the upsetting, I do the depression and in the depression I do the falling and in the falling, I become someone I don’t want to be and in becoming that someone I don’t want to be – I hit the bottom.

And I have too much responsibility to go there.

The Nagging Housewife

It’s Sunday morning, not even 9AM and I’ve texted my husband instructing him how to take out the bins properly, in future. Can taking the bins out please mean that you also put it back with a fresh garbage bag. He apologizes, he had to hose the bottom of the bin and leave it out to dry. I know, I say, but if you had of done it earlier in the day like I had asked, then it would have been dried in time to be replaced. Instead it was left too late and now I have to do it but there’s extra bits of stuff all over the kitchen – old tissues and teabags, bits of cantalope infusing itself onto the chopping board – all these things could have been out in the bin and would be less for me to clean up. Okay he says and I feel bad.

He’s had to go to work, again, on a Sunday. After his daughter has cried and him after little sleep he’s at work again. I feel bad because I’ve been working so damn hard over these last few weeks trying to support him, to support Toddler, to make sure we all get fed and rested and I’ve texted him to tell him about the bins. Because they do matter, it is extra work for me and now I’m angry because it’s been a bad morning with all the extras and the feeling bad and mostly I’m just so angry that these things matter. The fucking garbage bins. The fucking cleaning up. The fucking dishes and old food and stupid, gross tea bags stuck to the kitchen sink from being left there over night.

I burnt the bagels and there’s a nappy that needs changing.

When I’m elbow deep in tuna oil, teabags, rotten vegetables, hard pasta and god knows what else I think about my degree. I think about two people deciding to have a child and one has to work impossible hours to hardly ever see his child and the other has no time to even think about anything else. Then I think about all the people who tell me it’s a reflection on how I feel about my daughter and I feel angry, I feel dismissed but I know anyone who thinks like that has absolutely no idea. None.

I think too that maybe leaving Berlin was a bad idea, at least there I had childcare. Here, I applied for the family tax benefit and nothing. I’ve gone in, I’ve called but there’s a delay without any reason. I have to justify and qualify everything. It’s punitive. It angers me and disempowers me and there’s no where to complain.

I’ve a degree, I’ve a daughter and a kitchen sink full of dishes that seem never ending. I’ve texted my husband who I love more than this life to complain about bins and I don’t understand how it turned out this way.

I’ve got to change that nappy.

He's back

Stacked Tea Set

Umbrella stem – a bad drawing on a tram

Sometimes my sketches are bad. Like this one. This is not a great drawing but it is a drawing nonetheless and still as valid as my more competent drawings – this is a diary of sorts after all.

I have very little time to myself these days, which is overwhelming. When I do have moments – moments that feel much like borrowed time and are not something I can count on – I soak it up.

Long, boring tram rides are a luxury.

I swing from utter frustration, to sadness, to feeling very lonely and then there is the happiness and the joy.

My daughter is so awesome, I just need a little balance and a chance to work. I just need my life to be a bit more about me – not just about following someone else’s work and cleaning.

I will get there.

Domestic, urban & landscape – landscapes

Slowly I have been gathering strength and changing my sleep schedule .. jet lag is super boring and drags out more when you have a two year old to ‘train’. But I am really enjoying co-sleeping with her at the moment – we don’t have a cot so the change to a big bed involves training I can’t be bothered with right now.

She’s so sweet when she is sleeping – her little sighs, her still little hands .. and then she farts or rolls over and begins kicking me – then it isn’t so sweet.

I picked up the brush for the first time since leaving Berlin yesterday and I thought I’d paint some landscape. Since traveling I appreciate landscape paintings on a whole new level. Snowdonia in Wales was the first place I understood it and then in Italy on a small but terrifying boat ride around Capri island. I was pretty sure I was going to die but I had one of those calm moments within all of the fear – I looked out at the ocean, the sky, the costal lines and mountains – I felt like mother nature kicked me in the gut with all of her beauty.

I’d paint that.

This project has also helped me look at the things and spaces around me. I had always drawn people and since my life was sadly empty of them I had to retrain my eyes.. Focus on other things around me – there’s no such thing as nothing – so I began to draw the domestic and urban landscapes around me.

I think there’s a big project brewing but I have to – have to – use this time to relax and just get back to some basics.

But I’m still going to draw – drawing the new smoking.

Paper cut outs

I don’t have a home to decorate – so I decorate my blog – a lot.

I love wordpress for it’s simple, classic layouts but also because I have the little header at the top I can make new things for when the creative bug hits me – not the drawing bug.

Todays bug came in the form of paper cuts outs – I can’t be bothered drawing ( though I did a bit ) and I don’t want to make more origami ( but I have to soon.. )

Here’s the one I made for this blog:

and here’s the one I made for the Berlin Domestic facebook page:

Now, to clean up..

… but probably not..

A little time away

People are starting to ask what will become of Berlin Domestic when I’m no longer in Berlin – honestly, it is the last thing on my mind. What I do know is that I am looking forward to closing this chapter of our lives and starting the new one.

One that isn’t here, one that doesn’t keep me up at night, one where I feel at home.