Excerpt from my book “WRECKED”

To not have your suffering recognized is a form of violent neglect. Until recently I couldn’t handle silence. I had to have some sort of white noise. To drown out those thoughts that squiggle to the surface.

But now I crave silence. The neglected memories no longer lay dormant in the back cages of my mind. I’ve freed them. But they still hang around. Laying their permeable surfaces open to new memories. In a interfusion of past and present. Creating something new in me. Like the blend of my art and my writing. Writing preexisted my art, but again I neglected it for a solid twenty years. Like my hometown, I loved it-but I left it. My friends, I loved them-but I left them. My writing-I loved them, but I left them. My house, the land-I loved it but I left it. Self protection I suppose. To leave those things, and people that were bound not by their will to my virulent past; was not only self-protection but temporary salvation.

My painting of the woman floating in the water brings its exquisite silence almost tangible upon viewing. Part of me floats in the water with her. Hauntingly still. Waiting.

After the epic battle of my past and my present, the old me and the new have found a way to coexist. I had no idea that there was room. If there’s room, then there’s room for me to be a mother, wife, writer, artist, sister and often daughter.

All these years the guilt I carried like an albatross carries little footing. It barely holds on as I kick it off my foot every morning. “WRECKED”©️