I am wondering which way is up?

my garden is producing so many cucumbers

I have earmarked this week as a week that I stay put and try and make something! I miss making my work; thinking and trying to make the colors work or the concept appear as I feel it. it has been bumpy so far, focused time yesterday maxed-out at about 20 minutes, before calls, and emails and my brain just collapsed.

As of late, my life has been my parents...all engrossing, notes on the phone and scraps of paper. I drive into town at least once a week to deliver a couple prepared meals and make sure appointments are known and addresses are marked down. Remind them of what is required of them and how they should react to particular situations. I attend all the doctors appointments now, with exceptions for mental health care appointments and now my fathers in-home physical therapy.

I am the decoder ring. My parents don't absorb information and so I attend and answer questions that bubble up after we leave. Sometimes it was who did we just see and why?

My father finally was finally diagnosed with NPH , which in short, is extra fluid on the brain that doesn't resolve and leaves his brain compressed from the internal pressure. We saw a brain surgeon and she mentioned that he indeed has it and it appears it has been in place since his fall in 2024. She said that a valve could be placed in his brain to drain the excess fluid. She described the process and when she was done, my father said " you aren't gonna drill a hole into my skull!"  She said that he didn't have to have the surgery, but call her if he changes his mind. This is not a fatal disease, just a functional one. I suspect it was there before his fall but ignored or downplayed by his neurologist. It doesn't matter now how long he has had it, we are all going to have to live with it because he refuses to have surgery for it. Frankly, I am not sure he would be the best candidate for the brain surgery anyways...he would be required to do a lot of PT afterwards to recover from it and I don't think he would commit to it. So he will continue to be confuses, unsteady and experience funtional issues.

I made a promise to myself recently (in the last three weeks) that I would like to try and have a relationship with my parents and not spend my time fighting, bargaining and being run over. 

A friend of a friend mentioned this option with their children being picky eaters...they said, I could spend my time with then yelling and making them miserable or I could let it go and have a relationship with them. Most things work themselves out...I took this idea to heart when I was having a panic attack thinking of all the things I was trying to get them to do for their own good and falling flat and being run over, and snapped at. 

So now my voices' cadence is cheery, I don't debate, I don't engage with the bait to fight about something. I simply say "okay" and put down the conflict that is building.

My mother( the better of the two)  has become resistant and more forgetful, but it is hard to know if it is from her lack of sleep or lack of attention to what is being said to her. She seems to retain less and less and is procrastinating more and more. She cries on almost every phone call we have and says she needs help and then when it is offered, she snaps and says that we have overstepped and she doesn't want it. This usually means that she will reflect about it and a week or more later say she needs that help again and we will try again....except I think this time my mom might have burnt a bridge with my brother. Only time will tell....

So while all this swirls in my brain, I am trying to put it down and think about my studio practice. The Barren took the week off work and said he wanted to support me in my focused time: he said he would make me lunch and do laundry etc...so I would be less distracted with responsibilities; but has so far, he has not been home for most of the day. He leaves to play music with his friend late morning and comes back around 8pm, as this was his usual "music camp" week* (a week he takes off annually to attend music workshops etc...with his bandmate) I am glad he is relaxing and taking time to feed his creative vein. 

All this time alone is like still air, I am left to also make food and clean up and reflect on how far away I am from creating something. 

My heart is broken...I feel so afloat. I am used up in so many ways...

I try and find things that would lead me back to the path of thinking about my work: doing yoga early in the morning to kick start my brain, watering my garden to clear my head. Clearing clutter in the workspace....making food and writing down what might pop into my head...but I am having a really hard time not feeling so very dark. I am exhausted and often feel like I am dragging my body around from place to place. I want to sleep for days, but I can't justify it in my mind, I would waste all those hours of potential creative making. I am at a loss....and when things get that quiet, my parents creep back into my thoughts. Long lists of things I should do, need to do, need to call....it is everywhere.

I had a nightmare the other night that I was standing in traffic at a very busy intersection, and when I saw a muscle car speeding towards me I couldn't move. I froze in place. I felt the car wiz past me, I felt the air vibrated past me and I got knocked by the side mirror...but it also felt like it had hit me and I traveled through the car, feet cemented into place. I stood there and wondered if I was still alive. That is when I decided it was time to wake up and get the day to begin.