As the World Turns

I sit in the living room of my grandparents' home in Connecticut as a child of maybe seven years. An ironing board is set up in front of a television. My grandmother's part-time housekeeper, Bertha, presses a hot iron to dampened cloth, creates hisses of responding steam, and brings each item of clothing to crisp wrinkle-free majesty while I am simultaneously introduced for the first time to a soap opera, As the World Turns. 

As the world turns, and turn it does, change is the name of the game. As 'my' bit of this world has turned, a year has now passed since my last 'routine' overnight visit to hang out with my dad in his home in Maine. An emotional touchpoint. So many changes.

detail, work in progress
one change after another as I move along

A Bridge

I traversed a bridge of discomfort between languishing and behavioral activation just now. 

Well, no, that might not be it exactly. Maybe I used behavioral activation to cross a bridge of discomfort from languishing to … to what? That's the part I'm not quite sure about. I guess I crossed to a canvas that looks different from what it looked like earlier, different from what it's looked like for at least a couple of weeks.

No small accomplishment. 

The fact of the difference is what matters to me. The behavioral activation that brought it about. Not the actual content of the difference on the canvas.

But, that bridge! It's formidable! 

detail, work in progress
36 x 36"