Wednesday
Yesterday I drove Hank to sleepaway camp in the woods west of Salem. Today I sent Milo off on his first unaccompanied flight to meet up with Colin on tour in Salt Lake City. I said goodbye at the gate - I nearly cried - and drove out to Astoria for a few quiet days by myself.
I nearly cried because my eleven-year-old is growing up and that’s bittersweet. But also because of the flat tire that stranded Hank and me on the side of the road for two and a half hours last Wednesday. And because of the stomach bug that Milo came home with on Thursday. And because I have a close friend who is really sick. I nearly cried because Delta’s IT outage plunged the airline into a days-long chaos that suspended all travel by unaccompanied minors until midnight last night. I nearly cried because I woke up at 4:30 this morning wondering if Milo would be allowed to fly to Salt Lake City and I never fell back asleep, even after I’d spoken to a ticket agent who assured me that he would.
It was a bad week.
When I got to Astoria I had a rare impulse to draw a self-portrait.
I was inspired by the audiobook I listened to in the car on the way: My Struggle, Part One by Karl Ove Knausgård.
For those unacquainted with this publishing phenomenon, a Norwegian author wrote a series of six autobiographical novels and gave them the same title as Adolf Hitler’s memoir: My Struggle, or Min Kamp. It was a massive success, especially in Norway where one copy has sold for every nine Norwegians. Colin read all the books - rapturously - so I know about them, but they didn’t appeal to me then. It was hard to imagine how a 3,600 page memoir detailing the life of its nordic author from childhood to the present could be anything but a chore to read. Also it seemed self-indulgent.
I don’t know what made me rethink My Struggle all these years later. I’m getting ready to publish my illustrated journal from 2001, and have had to reckon with my own self-indulgent literary experiment. Maybe that’s part of it. But it caught my eye yesterday after I finished listening to Train Dreams by Denis Johnson for the umpteenth time.
I’ve just started My Struggle - I have about 3,545 pages to go - but so far I like it. I was expecting a quiet, stoic, classically Scandinavian narrator. Instead the book is full of dark pathos and rumination. Part one begins with a drawn-out childhood memory centered around a mean dad. Then there’s a sudden, brilliant transition to the present day, and Karl Ove is looking at his sad, old face reflected in glass. He describes his features - deeply lined, mouth set in a permanent frown - and wonders what happened to make this face so miserable.
Anyway, this was what made me want to draw a self-portrait when I got to Astoria.
Self-portraits are not part of my regular art practice, but I’ve made enough of them over the past forty years to have created a pretty good record of my changing face and my evolving skills. I wanted to study my own face, which looks older to me lately. I wanted to take an unflinching look at it and to think about the life that shaped it.
I made a bunch of drawings. I didn’t love any of them but I did observe, unflinching.
For the rest of the day everything seemed to be imbued with the melancholy of My Struggle. I spent a while looking at the picture hanging next to my sink. I bought it in a bookstore, from a rack of historical photos backed with foam core and encased in mylar. It’s a picture of a woman hiking in Eagle Creek in 1920. She’s wearing a long plaid skirt, a necktie, and an outrageous bow. She stands on a cliff, looking down into the chasm below.
I love the photo, partly for the outfit and partly for the chasm. I don’t think of it as a sad image. I think of it as mysterious. But today she did seem sad to me, a woman staring into the void.
Out on the Columbia, a barge was moving three mountains of ambiguous white stuff up the river. I could not say why, but it made me feel lonely.
My Struggle
Every year I write a newsletter on the topic of hating summer.
I don’t hate summer. I like hiking and camping and throwing parties. I like sunshine and blue skies. I like traveling with my family. But at some point every year, usually in July, I start telling everyone that I hate summer. I don’t. But as an artist, an introvert, a freelancer, a working mom, it disrupts a lot of the systems that make life manageable for me. I pack the whole summer full of activities and trips because you only live once, and before I know it I’m in my bedroom studying my reflection in the mirror and wondering what happened to make this face so miserable.
But now it’s Thursday. I had a good night’s sleep; woke up and got my period. I spent the day hiking with friends alongside a creek in a lush, mossy forest. My friend Jess put a pod full of trillium seeds in the front pocket of my overalls. I’ll plant them on the slope behind my house and with some luck they’ll bloom in four years.
It was a good day!
I hope you’re all having a nice summer. If not, I recommend getting your period - if that’s an option - and taking a long walk in the woods.
Alternately, lean into it.
Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.
Love that you took on My Struggle. Lots to learn from that part of the world.