The Conference Room

in the studio - Carol Es

I know, this might be getting a little confusing, but I am going to continue some of my thoughts from my blog post that I last wrote on the Shrapnel blog. Isn’t that lovely? I guess having all these different avenues of expressing myself goes along with the whole theme of having all my different “parts” – something I am starting to come to terms with by the way. And I’m starting to see that there are many of my parts that haven’t been given a voice for a very long time either. Does that make sense? Well, it does to me, and does to some people out there in crazy town. It’s easy for me to blame myself for failing to ignore some of my parts. I mean, who else can I blame, right? Still, that’s my knee-jerk reaction. To blame myself for every god damned thing. But now I’m trying to break the cycle of that whole lame-blame-shame-spiral. I’m trying to do this by calling up my other parts to come help me.

Maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this whole DDNOS thing after all, even if it is DID, which I know it pretty much is. It became pretty clear to me after I did this fun little exercise with my therapist. It turned out, I wanted to turn it into an actual painting. I sort of liked it. It made me laugh and it blew off a bunch of steam for me, or should I say, it blew off steam for all 10 of us? Ha!

the Conference Room - by Carol Es

Finishing this little watercolor marks the first work of art I have completed in a very long time. Sad but true. I think it must have some to do with sitting at my new table and looking out at my beautiful little view. For me, this is all something to celebrate, even though I am in no way a celebratory mood. I am still going through my ups and downs. Lots of downs, but I am starting to notice that, well, while maybe my downs aren’t better, my highs are. That must count for something, right? I had to be social last week. I dropped off my work at El Camino College Art Gallery for the Personal Matters show and got to meet a few new people, which of course forces you to be social. I met one of the artists from the show, Said Abdelsayed, and his wife while they were hanging some of his colorful paintings. He was so nice, so kind, almost like a healer or something. His art has that quality too. In some ways both he, and his work, reminded me of an artist that both mjp I love and collect named, Tibor Jankay. I’m sure I’ve mentioned him a thousand times.

Anyway, later that day, I hung out a little bit with Rochelle. I swear, I have not spent time or hung out with anyone in – I can’t even remember how long. I’ve been isolating for centuries it seems. It was a little overwhelming to let somebody inside of my house. I have one of those little cubby/peek-a-boo doors in my old 1920s mission style front door. It’s a great way to talk to people without having to face them. Once she was in there a while, she insisting on taking me to the Mexican restaurant we always go to when she comes over, La Fiesta Grande. I had a drink too and I’m not supposed to drink at all, so I was drunk by the time she dropped me back home.

Then, thankfully, everything went back to the way things were.

Carol Es' new drafting chair

I guess I haven’t shown ya’ll my new fancy chair. All I can say about it, it looks a lot more expensive than it was.

It’s usually pretty quiet around here. But I’ve been noticing that I’ve been feeling really irritated by the smallest of sounds. Just really on edge. It’s like, if it isn’t one thing, it’s another thing…

my hero

It just gets worse and worse. Can all of this be from quitting smoking? Can all of this be from having a bit of a breakdown in the desert? Finishing up the book? What ever it’s from and from whenever it started, this has got to be the slowest nervous breakdown of all time.

Speaking of the book, I heard from Lisa again today and she is not as close to done as I thought. She is more like close-ish. That’s okay though. I can wait. In fact, the further I am distant from the whole thing, the more I don’t really care about what gets cut out.  It will probably make for a better book. Or something.

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