Get It Out: Art Saves

I just got news that a rather big happening which was going to change life as my husband and I know it is probably no longer happening.

It was all probably not but maybe happening… then definitely happening… and now… probably not happening once again?!

Life, man. It’s a real thing.

Before that ambivalent-yet-leaning-towards-bad news, Mother’s Day came and went and throughout it I remained all chipper and socialist about it with faux ease I NEVER EVEN HAD A MOTHER BLESS ALL OF YOU WHO DO AND WHO ARE and I no longer feel I have to push down my grief over my mom because it’s been pushed down so long it just stays wherever it’s been stashed.

Yet, that’s just the anger talking and, besides, my life mantra and also PhD research was, in the words of my nine-year-old co-researchers, all about

GETTING IT OUT!!!!!

Healthfully. So it’s at times like this when art and music and all of that becomes therapeutic and life-saving. This is what I once learned from/taught kids.

Back in 2009, in a small classroom in Scotland, a group of kids seemed to really get it:

I was knocked back on my heels by the enormity of what the “normal” children in a small primary school classroom produced in their art.

Get it out, indeed.

So, never one to not at least half-try to practice what I preach, I figured I’d give art/visual expression a try today…

But my attempt at visual expression above ( 🙄) just reminded me of Slender Man as, when upset, I really can’t draw so…

Of course, imagining Slender Man on a bad day isn’t really getting what I need to get out… out.

Yet, even when getting it out visually doesn’t work,

there are other creative, healthy ways to cope.

Because, despite our very best efforts, life rarely goes as we planned or hoped (I think that’s somewhere in the small print of the contract) but it goes on regardless.

With or without us.

But life is way better with us in it.

Consequently, even when things are particularly overwhelming, and we’re feeling in rather shit condition, it’s important to remember that life can turn around as fast as it can fall apart.

Case in point, my PC died in the middle of writing this. Suddenly, I was staring at a black screen and the computer was non-responsive.

But then it came back after twenty minutes of really thinking about whether it was worth it.

Life is like some kind of sick riddle.

And we have to hold on.

Tonight my husband and I are looking at an apartment I found which allows dogs that is located in a neighborhood where bullet holes are not patched on interior walls.

Well, it’s Milwaukee so there probably will be a few bullet holes patched on some interior wall but…

dogs.

Dogs also help.

However you choose to cope, just be sure that you’re taking care of you.

Because, as the toddler in this post’s feature video learned, other people may be able to help us but, when it comes down to it, we each have to learn how to take care of ourselves because there won’t always be someone else there to save us when a pack of wild animals suddenly trample us just as we are finally finding our footing.

Life is tough so we simply have to be tougher.

Hugs and love and also…

music is medicine. 🖤