I do think this is the Most Barbara one I’ve made so far.  And I think all you who loved her would have to agree.  As she discovered – at some point, there can’t be any wrong colors, as long as it’s flowers.

I’ve been waiting until late at night to do the dishes, so I can be in the kitchen by myself.  I feel self-conscious about disturbing my landlady with the hiss of water and clang of pans, while she soaks up her Shows in the next room.  It’s reminded me of the excruciating month I stayed with mom in her bed-sit on Ebury Court.  I’d be up all night, listening to the radio while she slept, finally dozing off about 4 am.  She would be furious at me for sleeping so late everyday.  The quarters were just too close, the two of us in that one room – so I think I found a way to cope, living as myself while she was sleeping.

The spring and summer of 2019, I made so many pictures from inside my life.  Unmade bed pictures, late night pictures – imagining someone wanted to see inside this room, see inside me.  Then late last spring, my heart got broken and those pictures stopped.  I don’t know.  If things had been different, would I have found this path?  This way of making things has been one of the happiest experiences of my life.

I really understand now why she wanted to look everywhere except her own life for her work.  And if I thought for one minute I could get away from myself, I would be only to happy to learn to sing that song.  But I know that’s impossible.  It doesn’t matter where I look. A tangle of covers and cupful of improbable flowers all draw the same picture.  Love was here, almost real, almost within reach.