I forgot! 🌲 (+ new sticker)

Hi friends,

This time last year my life was very simple. I was home from the hospital, a few days shy of going back in. I was deep in my body. I was lying down, I was sitting on the steps at night with Miko, awake and listening to the late summer sounds. I was cleaning incisions, emptying drains, taking my blood pressure. In a lot of ways it was a time of suffering, but even then I remember saying to Danielle how thrilling it was to realize that I could just clear out my whole life and lay down for a few months. I would say, I could do this when I’m well! And I wished I had. All plans were cancellable. This had always been a fact and now I could see it clearly. Things piled up and went undone and I enjoyed it, no longer feeling that if I loosened my grip something bad would happen. Something bad was already happening and here I was living through it, still myself.

So much of my life had been one big misunderstanding. The leaden demands I felt were actually flexible. The big boulders of responsibility I carried around could just be set down. I could see how feeling productive had been such a shitty stand-in for feeling like myself.

I wanted to get well, but I never wanted to go back. I did not want to return to my focused and efficient life, always on edge, feeling that I am not doing enough, that I am not living enough. I remember thinking: If I am well and alive next summer, I will not forget this freedom that illness has brought me.

Now, it’s this summer. I am well and very alive. And I forgot! Somehow my mind filled back up with dreams of being on top of things, thoughts of money and avoiding mistakes, a sense of pressure that I am behind on everything and responsible for all of it. The misunderstanding returned.

This time it’s easier to blow away the clouds. Each time I remember, it’s easier to return how simple things actually are.

Here’s a painted version of a small to do list I sketched for myself in my notebook one day in lieu of the long list. I felt better just looking at it. I saw it and remembered the big space. This misunderstanding cleared.

Go eat a little something and then take it easy. That’s all you have to do.

love,
brit

I wanted this one as a sticker and thought you might too. So we’re doing a run of these and sending them to the July Patreon members. If you’d like one, join any tier with a sticker reward. The cut off is in two days — midnight PT July 31.

July New Art Print

I made this piece as meditation on being with my body as it keeps changing. It’s so out of my control! It’s an experience of finding out. It’s not about being timeless, but full of more and more time; every day stacking up practice at being myself and seeing the world as it is. Being marked up by things, being part of things, each in my own way. Keeping my hunger. Lifting what is heavy. Allowing suffering. Not holding on to who I think I am just based on who I’ve been before. Read more

Join any Patreon tier with a “New Art print” reward before midnight on July 31 if yo'u’d like one!

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