Night comes creeping

“Fading light means more than just the end of another day. 

Night is when terrible things emerge from their sleep and seek soft flesh and hot blood.”

-- Jim Butcher, Turn Coat 

 

Self portrait with spider 6-6-13

“The thought burrowed into her heart as darkness fell. 

It coiled in her guts as she wedged herself amongst the boughs of a tree to sleep.

And in the morning, it woke with her and clung to her back,

riding on her shoulders as she climbed down, hungry and exhausted from nightmares."

-- Paolo Bacigalupi, The Drowned Cities

 

 

Self portrait with spider (2) 6-6-13

“You have been my friend. That in itself is a tremendous thing. 

I wove my webs for you because I liked you. 

After all, what's a life, anyway? 

We're born, we live a little while, we die. 

A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. 

By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle.

Heaven knows anyone's life can stand a little of that.” 

-- E. B. White, Charlotte's Web  

Night mares

“When she woke up crying for one of her nightmares, the Kolker would stay with her, 

brush her hair with his hands, collect her tears in thimbles for her to drink the next morning 

(The only way to overcome sadness is to consume it, he said), and more than that: 

once her eyes closed and she fell back asleep, he was left to bear the insomnia. 

There was a complete transfer, like a speeding billiard ball colliding with a resting one." 

-- Jonathan Safran Foer, Everything Is Illuminated

 

Night mares 2-22-13

Fighting my demons

Sometimes I wrestle with my demons.
Sometimes we just snuggle.

Fighting my demons 2-5-13

I suppose there are people who don't have to constantly watch their backs and look over their shoulders for a potential ambush from their cadre of personal demons.
 
I am not one of those people.

I have demons-a-plenty. Insecurity. Fear. Self pity. Addictions. The Past. Failure. Doubt. Shame. Guilt. Anxiety. Rage. They circle me constantly, like cheetahs camouflaged in the tall grass. Stalking. Watching. And I'm just a weak gazelle hanging out a little too close to the edge of the herd.
Sometimes I escape. And sometimes the cheetah sinks its claws in deep and strangles me with a bite to the neck. But even if I do slip free, I know another strike is coming. Because the cheetah is a hungry, hungry cat.

Keep an eye out

Nightlight 1-24-13

I did not grow up in a religious home and I don't know who gave me this little praying nightlight figurine. Maybe the same person who gave me the Holly Hobbie faux scroll that hung above the bureau on my childhood bedroom wall, the one with the menacing prayer of doom: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."  If I should die before I wake? As in, DIE? In my sleep?

It's no wonder I have battled insomnia since I was a little kid. It's no wonder I still feel the need to keep an eye out. You never know what might be lurking in the shadows waiting to snatch your soul while you sleep.

This eternally praying face is usually so serene and placid, with her long lashed, hand-painted eyes resting gently shut. But wearing these knowing, grown-up eyes with their sideways glance, she has a decidedly different psychology. She seems wary. Suspicious. Watchful. Distrustful. A little bit skeptical. Like she's seen a thing or two and she might be up all night.

Face your fear

Monsters under the bed. Bogeymen in the closet. Nightmares. My most frightening memories.
Real or imagined, day or night, fear comes calling.
I started making self portraits as art therapy, specifically as a tool to manage anxiety. Rather than let anxiety paralyze me with fear of the unknown (or the all-too-well-known) I made pictures of it. If a particular "monster" was too scary to talk about, I could always make a picture that said all the things that left me so tongue-tied.
Bad things happen. Bad things have happened. Life can get awfully, awfully scary.
When the monsters start creeping up and I've nowhere to run, it helps to point the camera at them and make them say "cheese."

Worst nightmare 1-20-13