Out of sync

Darkness comes in stages 

12x48"/30.4x121.9cm mixed media on canvas

© 2016 Megan Chapman

I have a cup of tea, the window is open blowing the paper prayer flags in the wind. I am listening to the beautiful music of Ólafur Arnalds "Island songs" on my headphones and tears could easily come to my eyes, but just now I can blink them away. There is something in the air today, a cool melancholy.

There are so many things I would like to write but it is complicated as this is an art blog, it is complicated because my attention span seems rather limited and because I am not sure how to form my thoughts into words. I just know I need to write. There is so much for us all to process and everyone is experiencing some form or another of grief and it is not going away.

Racial hate and divide, xenophobic fears and hate, transphobic hate and murder, a global pandemic that isn't magicking itself away, the desperate loneliness of so many bursting to be touched and loved as they flock to the beaches and parks leaving their human mark, so much litter to say I WAS HERE. WE WERE HERE.

We are back in a celebration of trash and consumerism. We are back in a forgetful haze. We got too close, saw too many, hashtag black lives matter, can I have some of your crisps, the bin is full, just leave it.

I want to love you. I want to put my arms around you but we are out of sync. I always cheered for you, always believed the best, always hoped for the future but now I must believe what I see. I don't want to.

I am so damn tired and I am not even sure I have the right to be.

I will never understand why we can't love everything and everyone. I will never understand that there are actually greedy people, bad people, mean people, people who hate and kill, people who prey on the vulnerable, people who do not think about the animals, the earth, the air.

But then again I must understand humans and I know we are messy creatures. I have hurt and disappointed other humans. I have not done my best always. I do take responsibility, I do try to learn how to do better and I try again and that's all I can do. Sometimes it is not enough.

I'll keep loving you because shame never fixed a damn thing. Protests and boycotts do, voting on your ballot and with your money can, making the personal political can help, dedicating yourself to creating tiny changes in your community (it starts with you, then your household, then your friends, then your associations) and that can help a lot.

I developed this quality slowly over time where I come to the table with problems and then I think about all sides and then I shift my perspective and then I think of positives and ways to change, ways to help, and ways to make a difference. So I came here to write from deep sadness and some rage but by the end of it, I stop myself and hope rears it's head again. Hope doesn't stay down for long.

I wish this was true for us all but I know some brains don't work that way. Some have been hurt too deeply, bruised, abandoned, and let down too often.

Collective hurt hurts us all.

Deep in our veins, it flows through us and we change shape. We flow through our cities' arteries spreading, spreading, spreading.