Portals

Portals and water, reflection, reflecting, deep space and pretend space and structures that come together but don't exactly make sense but somehow still work.

I've been dreaming, daydreaming about water and quiet places, and that underwater swimming feature in super mario 64.

February 3rd marks six years since my mother passed from cancer. I thought it was seven. Somehow seven is almost a decade, but six is only about five. That's basically yesterday.

I haven’t named it yet - 20 x 30 inch collagraph in two plates. I was hoping writing about some of the ideas would help with a title. Tikva Lantigua.

I wouldn’t say that it gets easier. But maybe it does, and that’s scary, too. Like losing hold of the last little scrap of something precious, or maybe just a photograph, which is just a reminder of what isn’t there anymore. Your favorite, but broken, pair of shoes. It hurts to walk, the sole is flapping around even, but anything is better than nothing. (it isn’t though).

Grief is not a line and isn’t a rollercoaster, its more like a maze maybe — you don’t know where you are or where you’ll end up next, and it’s totally surreal. And something about crying in an optometrist’s office. Thank you Magdalena for all the hugs.

another recent untitled collagraph by me, Tikva Lantigua.

It changes, it becomes something different. A negative, or the space between, becoming a form, evolving to something tangible, something you have to respect.

And you learn to interact with it differently. Learn to live with it as you and it change together.

you guessed it, untitled collagraph by me, Tikva Lantigua.

I used to get so “sad”, I’d feel empty — I put it in quotations because I’m not sure if that really describes it, or which came first. Like nothing in the world could touch me in my bubble, and I couldn’t reach outside of it. Floating away was a distinct possibility. I think that was less of grief, grief of losing someone, and more the grief of being unknown, of fading away. Of forgetting to swim in strange and beautiful places and walking wherever you want to walk, while you can. And of protecting something precious from everything bad and everything good at the same time.

Sometimes I think of water and how much I’d like to be swimming. And then I continue with my day.

dead ends?, collagraph, 15.5 x 22 inches. Tikva Lantigua.

They say loneliness is deadlier than a box of cigarettes everyday. But I wasn’t alone.

Disconnection can feel like loneliness. Disconnected from yourself and what you need and want, like pretending you aren’t really carrying anything when it’s really been wearing you down, maybe as long as you can remember. Or ignoring the thing you want because it feels too big, or even too small. Recognizing that is a kind of grief, too.

“Snap tip crop bit, snip snop drop #4”, monotype by me, Tikva Lantigua.

Part of learning to carry around grief, in whatever form or reason, is acknowledging it. Feel it and never take it for granted that you’ve somehow managed to nurture new and neglected places to put your love (of a loved one) (love of self). Holding your own hand through it, as well as those around you who are willing and able to hold it with you.

I’m learning to pause, learning a little bit at a time that taking time to swim, or making the perfect cup of coffee every morning is less indulgence and more a celebration and another reason to keep going. That making and sharing artwork is a reason. We need more than necessity, more reasons.

Portals, thresholds, windows, and entryways, from one place to another. Sometimes they’re set with traps, or they just mark all the effort it took to arrive.

Either way - exhausting. They’re reasons to pause, and if you’re up to it, do a little dance.

Maybe this all sounds cheesy but if you’re not afraid of sounding stupid - then nothing will ever happen (inside your bubble), right?

Do you have your own bubble? Does this make any sense? I think we don’t talk about grief very openly, especially different kinds of grief.