I just spent a few hours at the Nevada Museum of Art.
I drive or pedal by their front of the building design sign and giggle read. I always want to post a picture of it to DDOI.
I end up on the doorstep of the museum when I need somewhere to be and when I am uncomfortable inside my own skin. I look at the art and get so angry that it's so talented, so well put together, so beautiful that I end up leaving inspired to do. I read the blurbs and make notes of my own, take pictures of things that move me in an effort to remember the impact. I dance and wiggle in front of each installation and presentation.
Today Ani DiFranco accompanied me because I need(ed) her and she's always there for me. I put her in my ears and let her words tell me it's okay to cry, to be angry, to dance, to feel, and to fight. Together we spent much time on the third and fourth floor. We spent a lot of time with the Annie Brigman exhibit and the put together exhibit Laid Bare in the Landscape by the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation. The strength of art, the creative drive, the moodiness of landscape and humanity and the inter-respectful reflection of one onto the other, the dichotomy of being human and woman, the freedom of nature, the wildness of the land, the voice of the nude figure, the power of isolation, the need for portrait, the manipulation of materials, the understatement of femininity--all these things and so so so much more were on display.
It made me cry.
Yes, Mallory goes to museums and cries.
Often.
I've cried three times in the last 24 hours.
-in the jeep outside the courthouse
-at the computer being gifted
-face to face with creative expression bearing witness
My crying comes from being a glass that's too full. Like, it's not a conscious choice, it just happens in reaction to too much liquid in my skin. Like, I've been holding too many saturating emotions and thoughts inside my flesh and form that my body glass starts to drown, and it all has to come spilling outside my body... and sweating... sweating just isn't enough.
All the feelings I've swallowed and the spit I've withstood are all compounding into the biggest glass of ''hafta cry soon'' and I kind of just hope I'm sober and aware enough to catch all the feelings as they come pouring out in violent, wet purge.
It's like barfing a river or water rainbow and I only become slightly familiar with it as it all flees and exits my body.

And after it's over. After I'm emptied and the wet turns to mist turns to air and dry and I'm left only pruned and dried on the inside. There's room for something now. There's space for the rest of me to breathe and for a moment I feel relief. Like, my spine can expand and the weight of everything eases up slightly so I can throw my shoulders back, I can touch my toes, I can reach into the air and exhale. There's room for something now.
In my time in personal therapy, in my time in the classroom with kids, in my time as a grief counselor, and in my time as an aunt, friend, and stranger, I've learned how to ''hold space'' for people.

I've "held space " for children and family, for strangers and people... people I don't respect or like.
No one teaches you how to ''hold space'' for yourself. How to bring your entire presence to yourself. How to walk along with yourself without judgment, while sharing my journey to an unknown destination. I've never been completely willing to end up wherever I needed to go.

And here I have this LO. This tiny bodied, massive energy of light that I ushered unto this plane through the portal of my body and... she needs a strong me. She needs a Mom with two working wings, with security... and she needs tangible. She needs and deserves.
All this crying and all this not painting. I feel like I've shrunk and I'm just a speck of what I used to be. I have no idea how I'm supposed to do this.
How am I supposed to do this?
I feel like everyone else is living life like it has written directions on paper and to me that feels like... some sort of game I wasn't constructed to be able to play. I can't see the pickup stix under all the stix. This game of Twister is in color and I'm color blind. I'd rather use the plastic as a cape anyway. Red light, green light and I have my earbuds in. Red Rover and no one wants to hold my hand.