The Levee, the Beach, and Everything in Between

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A couple of weeks ago at the school district retirement dinner, one of the board members gave speeches about each of the retirees and handed out gifts with fun but special meaning. I got a jar of Skittles and a metal sign that outlines a move to the beach, because I always say I want to live near the beach. One of my friends recently asked me what I am waiting for.

A few things:

Is there a beach I can afford?

What about my house in Colorado?

Will Shayne be okay?

I have some obligations:
a. Finish the painting on the levee.
b. Update the mural at the Baptist church.
c. Finish my memoir.

I have been concentrating on my obligations first. I am writing three hours a day. That seems like a lot, and I should be able to finish the project. But a lot of that time is spent trying to figure out how to write a section of my life—like college—in a paragraph or a page. I haven’t started the church yet, because I have used my two ideas and I only like painting animals, not people, and there are way more people than animals in the Bible. That leaves the levee.

A few years ago, I blogged about my experiences painting a mural above the Arkansas River in Pueblo. I was so excited to participate in the Pueblo Levee project. I felt like painting a giant mural suspended on ropes would give me mad street cred as a muralist. During that time, though, my son had one of his worst psychotic breaks and was missing for days. Painting on the wall became how I coped. Every time Shayne disappeared, I wondered if I would ever see him again. That time I really did think he might be dead, and I wondered if that would be a relief for him. Living with the voices screaming in his brain is pretty horrible. Then I had all the mom guilt for even thinking those thoughts. So I would go down on the wall and paint my fish and try not to think or feel.

When the project was over, I just sat at the edge of the river and looked down at my work. It felt anticlimactic. I had done this big thing and I wasn’t even really sure that it mattered.

I went on with my life. Shayne was found and we started our dance of him trying a new medicine and me pretending that he was doing better until the next episode. I had some ideas about painting on the levee again, but I also thought it might be a one and done for me. It was expensive, the drive was a lot, and honestly, my last years in the classroom took such a toll on my emotional well-being that I was just mostly surviving. I didn’t have the creative energy for much beyond occasional humorous quips on social media.

Last year, though, I decided that maybe leaning into my creativity could help me get through the hard stuff, and I agreed to do another mural. I did a watercolor sketch of horses thundering in the sunset. In my mind, it represented power and freedom. I got the paint, but when I went to the levee, I couldn’t step down on the wall. Fear froze me. I forgot how the equipment worked. Panic set in. Three times I tried. All the memories of Shayne lost came flooding back. All the feelings I hadn’t let myself feel came rushing back. I didn’t want to be on the river or remember any of it, and I didn’t want to paint the mural anymore.

However, part of me did want to paint. I wanted my horses up there. I wanted the mural to live somewhere. I didn’t want to walk away and regret not painting it for the rest of my life.

I met another artist working on a mural. She is from Oregon and only here for another week, but she has made painting a kind of community and helps other people. I always work alone and I hate asking for help, but I also knew that getting back on the ropes was something I wasn’t going to be able to do without an intervention.

She walked me through it. I felt the fear on my first trip down, but then I relaxed enough to be able to go up and down and side to side, and then I painted a little. Then I painted longer, and now I feel ready to start my painting.

To be honest, I don’t know where the beach fits in my future. I just know the ocean calls to me. I don’t know about Shayne or my house. I don’t feel like my list is an excuse or postponement. The list feels like finishing what I started.

All I know is I got on the wall again. Fear isn’t controlling me. The horses are going to run on the levee, and then I will be ready for whatever comes next.