BJPentecost

An odd thing happened to me awhile ago. It was not profound or magical or worldview-changing- just odd. A few weeks have passed and I’m still not entirely sure what to make of it.

One early midsummer evening, I sat on my front porch eating an overdressed salad to a serenade of suburban working class dads all mowing their lawns in unison. A splendid breeze conveyed aromas of lilac and freshly mown grass under a subtle mist of gasoline. The weather was almost unseasonably cool for mid-August- a perfect reason to eat outside and avoid the ever-fulminating chaos inside. I lazily munched on soggy greens while watching a chipmunk dart around under the bee-harried hydrangeas. It was nice.

Twilight approached in a phalanx of rose, gold, amber, and lavender led by a vanguard of opalescent cumuli. One by one, the mowers retired, leaving an almost eerie hush in their wake. Much to my gratitude, a breeze eventually broomed away the unpleasant stink of gas. Where the mowers left off, a chorus of birds picked up, percussed by crickets, rustling leaves, and the shivering of dry grass.

Such rare, quiet, unbothered moments are what sustain me in the face of all the chaos I’ve suffered since my mother died. There were, in this brief idyllic span, no screaming children, no screaming sisters, no impromptu adventures in indentured servitude, no angry tirades, no call to chauffeur anyone anywhere or mediate arguments and confrontations or go shopping or appointments to keep or cleanup duty or shouts for help or anything. No one encroached onto the porch as so often happens when I dare to enjoy half a second’s worth of peace and quiet. No such things happened.

I sat there enjoying the nascent glow of twilight shimmering and gleaming through a canopy of peridot leaves. Disbelief mounted with every passing moment that I did not hear someone shouting my name or a child screaming or someone yelling angrily about something or a UPS or FEDEX truck barreling up the driveway or any one of the two dozen other forms rain on my parade typically takes.

It was a memory compilation of being interrupted so many times by mail trucks that reminded me to go get the mail. There was no record_scratch.wav or screeching car brakes sound at this realization. Barely even a blip. Because it was just a thought that came to mind. It was “I’m going to go get the mail” rather than “DID ANYONE GET THE MAIL!” furiously yodeled from some indeterminate corner of the house.

I trooped down the steep steps and across a concrete landing to the front lawn. My feet slid into crispy golden-brown grass baked by a merciless heatwave which only deigned to yield that very morning in the aftermath of rain. Hints of petrichor still flavored the air.

I watched my feet passing by little periwinkle cornflowers, tiny white tendrilly flowers whose name I do not know, dried leaves, colorful pebbles, twigs, the occasional acorn. Honeyed god rays of twilight aglitter with dust blazed across the tawny grass, casting long crooked shadows that stretched well out of sight. I remember feeling like I was in that area of Skyrim near Riften where the colors are all fiery autumn and you almost fall into the sounds of nature. There was no end in sight, no way out, no escape. I was destined to walk this never-ending expanse. And I was totally okay with that.

I’m an atheist with no belief in the supernatural whatsoever but I recall thinking that if this is heaven or purgatory, that’s fine. More than fine. I could be happy with this. I wouldn't mind being proven cosmically wrong by this solitudinous embrace of perpetual twilight. It was as if I had fallen into my own little pocket universe where nothing else existed but what my mind had turned into a late summer woodland paradise.

I imagined a tributary brook winding off into a waterfall-tiered creek buttressed by towering cedars and awned by gem-leaf weeping willows. Deer gathered in the shade. A Rivendale-like town lay off in the distance, barely discernible against a cool blue mist. There is no climate change here, no PFAS in the rain, no war in Ukraine, no corrupt politicians with corporatist ambitions, no microplastic pollution, no pay-walled basic necessities, no inadequate healthcare woes, no countless phone calls trying to find a damn dentist who will take my insurance AND also do extractions. None of that. Just a long, lovely stroll into the sunset serenaded by birdsong and crickets as a rainbow's worth of flowers passed underfoot.

And suddenly pavement.

wat.......

I stood there staring down at this bizarre gray mass like the witches from Hocus Pocus who had never seen asphalt before. Hopefully, none of my neighbors were watching because I’m pretty sure I stood there for a solid half-minute or more just staring groundward like a drooling slack-jawed orc. I felt as if a great deal of time had passed, way more than a standard march across the front lawn would take.

I looked back at the house which seemed like it should have been long out of sight, swallowed up in an eternity of flowery fields canopied by pearly birches, scarlet oaks, gem-leaf weeping willows, and violet maples. I half-expected to see distant crystalline mountains looming up to a billow of pastel rainbow cotton clouds. Instead, there sat the house, a hulking behemoth of wood that doesn’t belong to me. There was something jarring in the sight of it. The sun had sunk enough such that a shadowfall of trees cast a gloom over the hill where it lurked like some Bloodborne boss fight in waiting.

I turned back around and suddenly mailbox! Right in my face. I blinked in surprise as if it had just abruptly popped into frame out of nowhere. After staring at it for a solid ten-count, I pulled open the metal door and fished out a credit card bill, a Central Hudson notice (they’re raising our rates again, this time by 60%), and some furniture magazines. With one last dazed glance around, I began my trek back.

Would I slip into that place again? Would I return to that strange and beautiful ever-twilight world? Alas, no. My return trek was ordinary in every way and over in the blink of an eye. Most of the golden glow had fled, given over to gloomy gray-blue shadow. I plopped down on the top step then set the mail aside. For awhile I sat there wondering what in the everloving red white and blue star-spangled trombone solo fuck just happened.

Did I encounter a glitch in the Matrix? Did I become actually hypnotized by, of all things, grass!? Did I fucking time travel? Because I swear upon the bowling ball-smooth sheen of my shiny fat white arse, it felt like twenty-two entire years from front porch to mailbox. Why Twenty-two specifically? I dunno. You tell me. Maybe half my brain fell asleep like a dolphin. Whatever the case may be, the whole ordeal felt stranger than I could hope to encapsulate in words. It really seemed like something adjacent to an out of body experience. Like, my brain went on a little mini-vacation or something. Nothing like that has ever happened before and neither has it happened since then.

I’m not worried. I don’t think it was anything bad. Maybe stress-related. I do wish I could make that happen on command though. That would be great.

It's been a fair few months since my mother died and I'm sad to say that things are not going well.

My family always ran like a fucked-up, co-dependent but basically functional jalopy. I was the front wheels. My primary jobs were chores, errands, and working as a commission artist. My BIL, Daniel, was the back wheels. He's developmentally delayed but he's a good boy, capable, and he worked hard. He was responsible for some chores and errands and taking care of his wife (my younger sister) and their child, both of whom are also developmentally delayed. My stepfather, the breadwinner of the family, was the engine. I cannot overstate how pivotal this man has been in keeping the shitshow afloat. I don't know anyone who deserves a long, happy retirement more than him. And then there was my mother, the driver. She steered the shitshow down the long and winding roads.

Some months ago, my mother died. Lung cancer. I have been through some next level shit- various kinds of abuse, a murder attempt, psychological and physical trauma that would stand your hair on end; none of it comes even remotely close to watching my mother fade away as cancer and pain meds slowly eroded everything that made her who she was. I try not to think of her because it feels like a lifetime's worth of memories have been buffaloed out of my mind by the last two uniquely horrible weeks of her life.

When she died, there was no one to steer so I had no choice but to jump into the driver's seat. It was difficult being both the front wheels and the driver, but I got the hang of it eventually. We were just nicely finding a new equilibrium when BAM. The back wheels went out. We were not expecting Daniel to be diagnosed with cancer only a few months after my mother died but the universe just has a way of kicking you when you're down sometimes.

So now I'm the front wheels, back wheels, and driver. Likely, the next thing to go will be the engine. He's an old man who will either retire or die sometime within the next few years. That will leave me as the sole caregiver of four disabled individuals, two of whom have cancer, one of whom is a rocket-powered 4yo, and one of whom is a sociopath with an IQ two standard deviations below the mean whose entire existence revolves around doing as little as possible and making messes for me to clean up. Oh, and TEN CATS that no one wants to rehome.

I am exhausted in ways that cannot easily be conveyed in words. But I'm still here. I'm still doing art. I still have plans. I can't say how well those plans will go being that life seems to enjoy fucking them up as much as possible. But so long as I have functioning eyes and hands, I'll never stop making art. There's that.

How bout you? How you doin?

Bad things happen to everyone, right? That's life. Shit happens. There's always another shoe waiting to drop. I'm sure that's what it's like for most people. We adapt, we deal, we move forward. It's all we can do. But sometimes, I feel like I'm trapped in the midst of a shoe monsoon and I'm not so much waiting for other shoes to drop as I am waiting for the next steel-toed boot to bean me upside the head.

My brother in law was just admitted to Montefiore in the Bronx. They think he may have an extremely aggressive form of cancer, possibly leukemia, myoma, or both. We don't know yet. My poor sister is having to go through this only a few months after having lost our mother to cancer.

Daniel was a lynchpin of this family and now that he's down for the count, I'm having to step into a lot of the roles he had taken on. I will still be putting out art. That is my job. It is my reason for living. But please be patient. Big, high-detail pieces may take a little longer. I've been thinking about experimenting with quicker styles too since I've gotten my mitts on Rebelle and ArtRage.

Nothing to do but keep moving forward.

Turns out being the primary caregiver for two developmentally delayed adults, their child, ten cats, a disabled stage-4 cancer patient in extremely poor health, and a household, is a LOT more to deal with than I anticipated. Don't get me wrong, I knew it was going to be a lot. Just not quite this much.

I don't want to gripe about specifics because (a) we'd be here all day and (b) I don't want to spill that particular tea if I can help it. Some of it's pretty scandalous. All I can do is promise that I'm working towards trying to find some equilibrium in my life and when that happens, there will be more artwork and more activity on my Patreon.

That said, addressing my Patrons specifically: If anyone wants to go, please do so guilt-free. I don't want anyone feeling obligated or guilted or anything like that, especially since I've been putting out so little recently. Believe it or not, my biggest problem right now isn't money. Er... not exactly? Let me put it this way: A lotto win would save my life and set everything right (but that's not going to happen because I have the worst shit-luck in the universe and I don't play any lotteries anyway). Small amounts of money from Patreon and Ko-Fi are nice and I appreciate it immensely but it's not going to help much towards alleviating the vast number of issues I'm facing right now.

A lot of the difficulties that have come down on me since my mother died can only be solved with WOW amounts of money. I'm not comfortable just asking for it and even if I did, I likely wouldn't get it anyway. I accept that. All I can really do is keep doggy paddling along. I remind myself often that my life could be worse. I live in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Most of my basic needs are met. I was able to afford a nice new computer recently (if a bit overpriced). It's just hard to be comfortable because the situation is tenuous. This isn't my house. The rug could go flying out from under us at any moment.

I feel like the last year of my life has been constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop and there's always another shoe. It's like a shoe-monsoon. Most days it's flipflops, crocs, and sneakers I can deal with but some days, it's steel-toed combat boots and stiletto heels. I just need a moment to breathe every now and again but it's really hard to come by that.

Nevertheless, I'm still here. I'm still doing art. Just a little bit at a time.

Thanks for all your well wishes and condolences. I am grateful. It's been a rough few months but I'm back on my feet and trying to find some new flavor of normalcy or at least a taste of tepid equilibrium. The Shitshow hasn't imploded yet. I do sometimes have to remind myself not to dwell, especially on the last two weeks of my mother's life. It was bad in ways I can't quite put to words and those of you who know me know that's not something I say lightly. But I'm trending towards okay. More or less. I'm trying to see every day as a "new adventure" and taking little pleasures where I can find them.

Right now, the biggest problem I'm having is messes everywhere. Getting the shitshow to clean up after itself is like pulling teeth. Though, there are also some concerning expenses looming on the horizon. Let's just say that dying apparently isn't cheap in America. I can't say that the Shitshow is swimming exactly but we're not sinking and I count that as a minor victory.

In any case, thanks again. I read every comment and I'm grateful. ♥

If any of you have any good news, I'm all ears. Seems like it's been bad news all the way down for the past few years and I'd love to hear something encouraging.