Rowing

 

One from a series entitled 'Me, We'.
Small daguerreotypes punched and then embroidered.

During the worst winter of Boston's history I have been hibernating, incubating, germinating, researching, ruminating, learning and quietly growing. It has been an uncomfortable space sometimes, and lonely, but productive.

It's been time spent trying to make meaning out of my values, ideas and experiences. Trying to sort through what I know, and what I think I know but don't. Synthesizing what I'm trying to say and how to say it. Figuring out what to include and what to leave out, both physically and in the abstract.

My thoughts are evolving so quickly, and my process so time intensive, that my sculptures begin with one idea and end with another. I'm unable to find the words for what I'm going through – words to capture the elusive process of process – and thus the absence of my usual blog chattiness.

It feels confusing and aimless with moments of frustration when it seems I'll never figure it out. But a good friend told me to let that part go, because it's about the figuring out, and if and when I do figure it out I'll have nothing left to say.

And then today I found this poem by Ann Sexton entitled 'Rowing'.  Below is an excerpt that particularly resonates with me. You can find the complete verse here.

I wore rubies and bought tomatoes
and now, in my middle age,
about nineteen in the head I'd say,
I am rowing, I am rowing
though the oarlocks stick and are rusty
and the sea blinks and rolls
like a worried eyeball,
but I am rowing, I am rowing,
though the wind pushes me back
and I know that that island will not be perfect,
it will have the flaws of life,
the absurdities of the dinner table,
but there will be a door
and I will open it
and I will get rid of the rat inside me,
the gnawing pestilential rat.
God will take it with his two hands
and embrace it.

It feels good to talk about it.