Today I hung a painting (well, a print) on my wall.<\/p>\n
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I realize that I never actually wrote about the AFA conference I went to back in October. Suffice it to say nothing I heard was really new information and I didn’t have any big “ah-ha” moments. It was a little strange, really… I felt like an outsider for some reason… a lost, cynical veteran among bright-eyed, hopeful novices. There was so much more darkness in my heart, I was a shadow moving through.<\/p>\n
There were plenty of booths there, promoting clinics and adoption agencies and selling little things. There was also an artist there – Ellen Spencer<\/a>. Now I am not really a fan of most “art,” I normally just don’t get<\/i> it. But every time I walked by her table this one painting drew me in. I kept stopping to stare at it. So I ended up buying a print, which of course was far more than I had intended to spend at the conference.<\/p>\n Today I finally dug it out of the bag it was carefully kept in, framed it, and hung it on my wall.<\/p>\n It’s obviously trees in an almost abstract, dreamlike mode. But to me they look like women holding up the upper branches… holding up the world. I guess that’s what spoke to me that day in October, shouldering my grief and infertility and loss. And yet the image is not dreary… the women-trees are stretching up, reaching towards the sky. It’s almost joyful. Serene. The image is empowering to me… reminding me to stand tall, telling me that I can keep holding it all up. It is hanging on the wall opposite our bed so I can continue to be reminded.<\/p>\n In a way I kind of feel like I went to that conference just to get that print. And it somehow feels worth it.<\/p>\n