SHARE 2

11.17.09. prompt: TEMPORARY

Artists:

shawn bowman, interdisciplinary domestic artist

noah nakell, sculptor

stacy bolt, essayist

chad crouch, musician

russ hoffman, illustrator

gigi little, writer

dan williams, artist

From SHARE 1: lorna nakell, painter; margaret malone, writer; sarah nordbye, graphic artist/screen printer; kathleen lane, writer

Dan Williams: THIS SITE IS TEMPORARILY UNAVAILABLE

Before we start, interdisciplinary domestic artist Shawn Bowman passes out temporary pets

Chad Crouch's temporariness

http://podingtonbear.com/Temporariness.mp3

Noah Nakell's puddle, inspired by the ever-changing puddles he bikes through on his ride to work

Russ Hoffman's "just before disaster" illustration

Temporary by Gigi Little

Touch of sun on the bedspread. Angling down from the window to turn a perfect tea-saucer-sized spot of burgundy quilt to pink. 
I put my hand in it. Let it warm my palm.

Sun on your palm in the eight-o’clock-Sunday-morning chill is so lovely you’d think you could fold it up in your hand and squish it through your fingers.

I quick lay back on the bed. Pulled my shirt up to let the spot of sun sit on my stomach.

Nice.

But not good enough.

The comfy of my jeans and the rumpled up t-shirt across my chest – these were warm too, in their own boring way, and that was too much of a distraction. I wanted to feel it pure. One spot of heat and nothing else.

Hurry – before the clouds take it. Drag that t-shirt over your head. Press the jeans down, kick them away. Bra, panties, all of it, get rid of it.

I sent it all off the side of the bed and onto the floor. And finally, unfettered, stretched myself out – arms and legs wide – and let the spot of sun warm my middle like a grand gulp of wine.

Perfect for a moment. Until a cloud took it.

Sarah Nordbye's manipulated photo of taxidermy


Essay by Stacy Bolt

1996

The hardest thing I ever had to write was my father’s eulogy. And I insisted on doing it, not because I thought I’d do a better job than anyone else, but because it was something to do. A way to be useful and to pass the time that was moving so ridiculously slow. As eulogies go, it was fairly trite. It had its moments, some funny stuff in the middle and a real tearjerker at the end. But still, pretty amateur. He would have liked it, though.

Of course, he would have tried to make me stay home, to avoid the pain of going to my own father’s funeral. I was the youngest and he was always trying to shield me from painful things. He even tried to kick me out of the hospital when he was dying. He didn’t want me to be upset.

Writing the eulogy helped, but only for a little while. Grief, it turned out, was a long, insufferable slog through enemy territory. And it only got better when I paid someone to listen to me moan about it.

“This is just temporary, feeling like this. Life will get back to normal soon, right?” I asked my therapist.

“This is your life now,” she told me. “This is your reality.”

God I hated her.

2002

I’ve been planning this fucking wedding forever. And in one day (one day!) it’s over. And because I was too cheap to hire a videographer, I don’t remember anything about it. I walked down an aisle. I stood at an altar. I punched my new husband in the stomach because I thought he was laughing when in fact he was crying. And then there were some toasts. And some dancing. And my friends got spectacularly drunk. And then it was over.

2003

This is it. Tonight, I am going to get pregnant. It is a sure thing because, for the first time in my life, I am having sex without birth control. And if my mother and my 9^th grade sex ed teacher are to be believed, that means I am absolutely 100 percent going to get pregnant. I might also be getting an incurable STD and a lonely life as a used-up hussy. But whatever. I’ll get pregnant. And then, I can get on with my life.

2004

“Jesus Christ, do you have to do it so hard?”  My husband had just stabbed me in the ass with a syringe full of very expensive fertility drugs. We were at the end of the cycle and both of us were cranky. Our lives had been consumed with sperm counts and FSH levels and there was a goddamn medical waste container on our kitchen counter. Right next to the coffee maker and the pink Kitchen Aid stand mixer. Can we just get this over with, please? So we can get on with our lives?

2006

“She changed her mind,” Faye told me over the phone. “I’m so sorry.” It was two days before Christmas. There was an infant car seat waiting by the front door and a bag packed with diapers and impossibly tiny clothes. And the birthmother of the child we were about to adopt had just changed her mind.

We were going to go to my Mom’s house on Christmas day with our son. We were going to start our new lives as parents. That was the life we were supposed to be living. Later that day, the doorbell rang. It was a friend bearing gin and pie. It’s good to have friends who know you well.

2007

“Faye, we quit.”

I told my caseworker this as I sat on the couch in my pajamas at 1:00 on a Saturday afternoon. We had just decided not to adopt a baby whose mother had taken every kind of drug known to man and a few that had yet to be discovered. There were people who were qualified to care for kids with the kinds of needs he was going to have. We were not those people. For the record, that was four adoptions that had fallen through and we were done. If the universe was giving out signs, we’d gotten the message. After I hung up, I commenced an epic wallow that included, but was not limited to, flannel apparel, a Lifetime movie marathon and many, many butter based foods.

Four hours later, in the middle of a gripping thriller called, I kid you not, “Baby Monitor: Sound of Fear” the phone rang. It was Faye.

“You’re not going to believe this,” she said. And I didn’t.

An hour later, Dave and I were speeding down I-205 toward Willamette Falls Hospital where a baby boy had just been born.

2008

“That swelling is totally normal,” the nurse told me. “It’ll be gone in a day or so.”

My 2 year old son looked like the Elephant Man. No. Make that the Elephant Toddler. The entire right side of his face was swelled up. Bad. He couldn’t even open his eye.

“Dora,” he said. “Wanna watch Dora.”

Of course. Why should a little thing like brain surgery stop him from watching the most annoying show ever created?

I put the DVD on and left the room. My husband and sister were there to watch over him and I needed to stretch my legs. Walking around the circular PICU was a tricky thing. The key was to keep your eyes on your feet. Do not look into the rooms. Because in those rooms are things you don’t want to see. Kids. Babies. Someone’s sweet little peanut hooked up to a million wires and tubes and machines. That sweet little peanut wasn’t going home. This was his life now. This was his reality.

In three days, my son was going to be released. He was going home to his bed and his toys and his life. This was only temporary.

Painting by Lorna Nakell