The October Game Begins Again...

It's October again, which means it's time for the October Game! That means a painting a day for the entire month of October, which I totally didn't do last year. But I did take the kids to Greece, so I guess that counts for something. This year I'm going to do the October Game again to help me work through the pain of Cara divorcing me. Even writing that makes me tear up. It's a terrible thing to be thrown away, but I don't own her and her life is her own to live however she chooses even if that choice is being apart from me. Painting isn't going to take care of that, but my hope is that it will help me deal with it.

The empty canvas awaits

I really only have one friend left in Norway: Anette. Today we talked for a long time about the pending separation with Cara among other things. She sang me a Norwegian prayer that I'm going to learn for Dell & Nancy. If I can help it, Cara will never meet Anette and I will retain her friendship. Anette is handicapped by a genetic disease which the Norwegian government has decided is to expensive to cure, although medicine exists. She is also an artist and next month is doing a show to raise money for a group lobbying the Norwegian government to provide SMA patients the best care medicine can offer. Such is the dilemma of socialized medicine: it purports to provide for everyone's needs, but decides who will live and die based on costs. Anette's show features her work where she limited herself to the blue and white of the handicap symbol. That inspired the start of my painting tonight...

Blue lines

I've never been particularly good with constraints though. Once I drew the lines I saw the potential for more color. Should I add red, the third color of the Norwegian flag? The lines appeared like bars though, and I could see a man trapped behind them. So I painted him: a faceless, grey man trapped by the blue bars.

Grey Man

The US flag has bars of red and white, but I have never felt trapped by them like I feel trapped here in Norway, like how I imagine handicapped people feel trapped by their handicap. I have Asperger's, a mild form of Autism, but I've usually felt it to be a superpower rather than a handicap. Cara sees it as terrible handicap though. She has most of our friends now. She was my communicator. She is divorcing me. Maybe it is.