Peel the Love Like an Artichoke

Good Evening -

So, I was going to simply title this "Family", but then decided that a one-word phrase didn't quite capture the essence of the artichoke image I had chosen last night.

Thinking "artichoke" led me to "peel", which led me to the title of an Ana Castillo book "Peel My Love Like an Onion", which almost had me calling this "Peel My Love Like an Artichoke" except that it's not my love that is prickly and draws blood, it's the family love that comes with pricks and needles and requires careful, careful navigation.

Since "Peel the Family Love Like an Onion" felt a little too cumbersome, I trimmed it down to what you see above.

Yes - family. There's nothing like wandering to the "school classmate search" section of Facebook in the name of blowing some time and coming across your sister's page (which you didn't know existed) and seeing recent photos of your nieces and nephews (whom you didn't know had gotten so big in the year plus or longer or never since you had seen them that once) to send you to the basement for an extended Virgen making session, complete with gluing little shell beads all around the edge as you sort through the "ouch" and poky edges that is relations with your family.

Yes - this tile hearkens back to the cathartic art I did a lot in my earlier days - the art that is loaded with heavy, obvious imagery and is so less about aesthetic and so much more about getting the feelings out into a visual.

So - we have the poky artichoke with it's layers and needles and tight leaves that - with perseverance - reveal a tender, nourishing, beautiful heart. This obvious image is overlaying the bright red shiny foil wrapping and is soaked with all that red is - blood, pain, love, life, etc., etc. Surrounding both of these clumsy metaphors are shiny shell bits that form a boundary - a wall, if you will - but also a defining of the issue, the pain, so that it doesn't bleed all over the place.

Cathartic art, indeed.

Many good years and co-pays later, it doesn't feel so bad. I know how to take care of myself in these times - how good a hot bath feels, the importance of letting myself just sit with the sad, the usefulness in talking about it - all the good self-love that one needs when one is visited by Family Sadness for the holidays.

Because of that whole body-mind connection, with the sad came a cold, so in the name of self-love and listening to my body, I'm going to wrap up, down some fizzy cold medicine, and curl up for some deep, cleansing sleep. I do such good work when I'm sleeping and trust that I'll have moved through more of the sad come morning.

Here's to that. Here's to moving through the sad. Here's to listening to your body and acting on what it asks for. Here's to the complicated layers of love and here's to finding the heart that lives beyond the prickles.