We are nearing the exhibit for this project with only two days left before installation and another day before my presentation to finish my essay that reflects on the work and its connection to class. Yesterday I cleared out my school studio and in doing so have begun the process of leaving Goldsmiths. With the stress of these deadlines and our move my body yesterday tried to tell me to 'stop the insanity,' that is the insanity of trying to do all these things perfectly or to a level that does not take into account the fact that we have a two year old to care for. The way my body likes to do this is to give me a panic attack. And often times, like yesterday during class when it started I try not to listen and try to just avoid and get out of the attack (which I did by going outside for a breather). When I do, I rarely stop and say, hmmm so why did that happen and let's depict it and work with it. I just chalk it up to “stress” as if stress is an unavoidable byproduct of a/my situation and I don't have any choice or responsibility for it. And I know better. In fact, this year as part of an art project I did for my art therapy class I made myself a personalized “Panic Attack First Aid Kit” and discovered this idea of my anxiety not being something to avoid and run from but a way, a very loud and obnoxious way, but still the way my body has figured out how to tell me something. So, since I didn't listen too well yesterday, today I woke up with a migraine...and after taking my medication for it and sleeping a few hours I decided okay, I'm listening, I can't read the amount of research I want to and write a perfect essay and put up the show and continue moving our house all in three days and I'm a nutter to try. So, instead I'm listening to something I wrote as a reminder to my perfectionism from my kit: “You are allowed to do only the best you can with what you have right now.”
With that I've been writing here and there today while taking care of myself, Carrie and Gryffin. When we put her down for a nap, we took turns cooking. Carrie made her potato soup with the homemade chicken stock she made the other night and I made us a puff pastry pizza. It didn't turn out as well as I hoped but we ate the outside pieces anyway. As a topping I made my flash carmelized red onions—when I don't have the time to cook them on low heat forever, I start them on high and stir a lot, then when they start to brown I lower the heat and simmer for about five minutes.
Carrie went to her last Yoga class here and I made Gryffin her favourite “soup with berries” which isn't made with berries but is an organic miso that comes in sort of a paste with barley grains that she calls berries. You add it to hot water or in this case I used our homemade chicken broth. For myself, I looked at the two middle pieces of the pizza and couldn't bare to waste the good sauce, onions and cheese so I decided to make a dish my old roomate Eric and I used to love.
We call it “Pasta Povertza” (poh-vare-tza) which is pasta with whatver you've got in the house. I had extra sauce but not quite enough so I added some olive oil and cut up the top of the pizza into little chunks of the cheese with the onions stuck to it. It was spicy from the pepperoncinis from Italy I used (hot pepper flakes in their pods) and the sweet bites of onion made a nice contrast. Mr. Cooper would be proud.
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