another late night post

It’s the start of my work week. Today was a good day, I’m really happy to say that.

I can’t sleep tonight, I’ve been tired all day but now when I want to rest my mind stays wired.

Let me review my day before I let my mind wander.

Today I woke up and looked at my paintings on the wall. It’s the first thing I ever see now since I took my TV out my room. I thought about reading another excerpt of In The Buddha’s Words but opted not to out of laziness. I got up spat some blood out and washed my retainer. I went to go wash the dishes after. I made my tea and then scrolled TikTok on my laptop before I had to head up to my first session for work.

The 40 minute drive to work feels more and more like nothing now. I wonder if I have spent too much time at this clinic. While waiting for my child to arrive I played a game of chess and got checkmated right as they came through. Pairing with this little boy isn’t much of a challenge anymore.

It’s interesting if all the kids I’ve had to work with since becoming an RBT none have been vocal. I see other techs being able to have a full blown conversation with their kid and I wish I could have that sometimes. But these sweet kids need someone to know them too.

Now that I’m learning creole I understand their perspective a bit more. Being incapable of communicating is a daunting feat, especially in their age. I understand why they have all this heavy loud emotion, I’m glad I can help them a bit.

That first shift wasn’t anything terrible, today he scratched my face kinda hard for the first time ever. I’m shocked this is the first time I’ve actually been annoyed by a scratch in the slurry of hits and kicks I’ve gotten over these months with him.

Getting back home I started on some music. Playing around with my bass guitar and a personal drum kit I made on Ableton I found some pretty interesting sounds. Then I finished up my practice painting of some shapes, I really wanted to try having very straight lines (which is much more difficult than you might think). And then I ended my break sketching out what I would want my next long form painting to look like.

In my second session I’m working with a much older nonverbal child. I can tell he’s getting a bit more annoyed about how repetitive our sessions are. He liked the structure at first but we’re nearing 8 months of refinement on the same tasks and he’s bored. Last Friday I had gotten some children’s books from the library to help with his vocalizations and possibly even review some comprehension, but his mom canceled our session then. So this week I was thinking we could read on Wednesday and Friday. To not just break up the monotonous schedule that I’ve cultivated but also in helping him find his voice.

This session went about as expected for a Monday with a three day weekend. There was a severe thud storm that happened while I was in teacher mode and it was a lovely sight to see the rain skip from house to house in such high winds.

Once I returned back home I was tired. My work day carries me from 9am to 7pm most days. But my day wasn’t over.

With how this week is looking I knew I needed to start my next abstract painting for my YouTube video art piece but also as my form of therapy.

My mind has been stuck on the ways in which context informs an art piece, and I have been trying my best to express that in my own way that makes sense to me.

But before that commenced I ate dinner and played some more chess. This time I won this match which satisfied me since I was so unsure how it would turn out with how it started. Then I got my Grandfather and we read some of the Bible in Creole. I’m not religious but we’ve been sat down a couple times a week to read in Creole to help me pick up the tongue. We switch between reading the Bible and reading a book of poems titled ‘Open Gate’. It’s been a nice moment to share since he’s such a cold stoic individual.

But after that is when I started my painting. It started off with pale muted colors. My first stroke was with grey. I wasn’t sure about what was going to be put on to the canvas but I knew I wanted to start its story. After the grey and pastel mix of purple and yellow I added a sharp blue that crawled out from the frame. But even its short lived clear walk it was obscured and blurred with a vanilla that added a sheen on to it that made it reflect like water or like you were staring at it through tempered glass. But today’s session ended with red wild whips in the shadow of a phoenix flying across the board.

And then I settled in to bed.

I read a little more about some art history and how the impressionists challenged the salon and were met with scathing critique.

I thought about what rules does my art break compared to those standards.

and then i stayed up.

it was such a good note to end on reading that passage but my mind refuses to let my light dim.

eyes closed trying to sleep or meditate an empty feeling of awake and aware sat still with me.

i think about my blog.

i want to write so much more on here again

i want to write another piece on Caribbean Discourse.

Why did I pause

writing takes up a certain energy and space with me but it doesn’t need to be perfect.

to express yourself is to love

to express yourself is to live

i hope to sleep soon

but there’s still so much more to write