The Days, The Hours, The Moments: Day 235 ~ The Day My Body Catches Up…

It is almost 8 p.m. It is getting dark and I haven’t even started making dinner. I thawed out some grass fed burgers today to cook tonight but I might just open a can of tuna and call it a day. You’d think I’d remember that these days happen, but I forget every time. I just realized, a few minutes ago, what this day had been all about.

Today is the day after I work several days in a row until at least 11 or so at night until I am falling down tired and then get up and do it again and again until the current painting is complete. I just finished the painting of Maisie and her angel yesterday mid-afternoon. I don’t know if this is part of my being bipolar, very likely so, but I have been a writer for over 40 years, all my life really, and I have written books, run small presses, and more and even though I loved the projects and was very excited about them and worked very hard at them nothing, no thing I have ever done in my life has completely changed the rhythm of my days like it has since I started painting Maisie’s world. I am in such a heightened state, so deep inside myself, nothing else exists. I take care of my animals, I barely take care of myself, and I’m sad to say that I finally watered the garden today and it was hanging limp like a dish rag. And THEN my hose broke and I had to finish watering half of the garden by filling gallon jugs with water. I thought I’d lose my mind but it had to be done.

And here’s the part that is downright eery to me. I woke up a little before 8 to go potty but was still very tired. I thought I’d just “rest awhile longer.” I WOKE UP AT 1:18 P.M.! I NEVER sleep that late. I mean, seriously, I am usually up by 9ish, 10 at the latest, sometimes I’m up by 8, but lately I’ve been sleeping so much later (Not as late as today, like 11, once noon) that I started setting my alarm for 10 just in case I slept that late I wanted to at least be up by then. I forgot to set it last night.

I don’t even know how it’s possible for my body to do this kind of thing. And when you get up so late you are so discombobulated, and after walking and feeding Molly and taking care of the birds I didn’t sit down here and take my first sip of “morning coffee” until 2:00. I was so startled by this it gave me a funny feeling all day, like I’d been in the Twilight Zone, like I had stepped out of life and when I stepped back in all that time was gone, lost, and the earth kept turning on its axis and everyone else was living their lives, doing their work and so on but I had been gone. It wasn’t just that I slept so late it was as though I had been in another dimension.

This kind of thing has been happening to me with the last several paintings. At first I was just having fun, playing, it was joyful, and it’s not that it’s not now but it is so deep it is as though when I am painting I am in Maisie’s world, not here in mine, and the transition back to my everyday life is a bumpy one. There is a day, like today, between finishing a painting and resuming my regular life. What in the world is this all about?

I don’t WANT to sleep until 1:18, I still can’t quite believe that I did, but this last painting was, in some way, the most important thing I’ve ever done. It was, as I have heard another artist say, like a “download from the angels.” It has taken me as long as a week to just draw many of the other ones and then several days to paint it. This time I woke up, I “saw” Maisie and her angel as if someone whispered in my ear, “Here, this is what you are going to draw now.” and I had the drawing done in less than I day and started right in to painting and it was an intense 3 days of painting. It is like I look back over the last several days and can barely remember them. When I’m in it I’m IN it. At 65 I’m experiencing something I never have in my life.

It’s kind of unnerving, but it’s okay. I will just have to allow for these shifts, these days of coming back to myself after having been in Maisie’s world for a few days. It seems that this is what my life is now. It’s kind of fascinating, I don’t really understand it, but I will carry on.

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Comments

  1. Wow! It does sound eery and fascinating equally. I reiterate, I love the colors in your palette. You have such a unique story to tell, and even though parts of it are horrid, you have emerged with a lovely spirit. I pray that the Lord will bring you peace and joy. Love and hugs, Memarge

  2. katya taylor says

    it’s called creative inspiration, channeling, giving yourself to your art. celebrate it. let your time-table and rhythms be a bit wonky! things will balance out. there’s nothing like being immersed in the flow… embrace it. then, “cut wood carry water,” as the saying goes. as long as you care for your animals, water your garden, and feed yourself, you’ll be fine. and look what you are giving the world, maitre. you, maisie, daisy, the angel, the hedgehog, the snail, the flamingo, the stars and moons and aprons and yarn and lamps and tea sets!

    xo
    ka

    • Thank you so much sweet Ka, I am doing my best. And I have JUST after hours and hours come to what I need to draw now and am about to start. I think this one will tickle you! 🙂

  3. Dearest Maitri, please take very good care of yourself. Much love to you and Molly. xxx

  4. cindy lonardo says

    Maitri,
    I agree with Katya, I also get like that when i am writing poetry! I also have a mild case of Bipolar. Just take good care of yourself,molly,birds and your most beautiful garden.
    Love Cindy Lonardo

    • Thank you Cindy, it’s a much better day today and I’m about to start drawing. Onwards and upwards! 🙂

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