Pushed By Silent Confidence

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Water World – cold, restrictive, uncaring,

Sitting in it’s dark ——– just staring

At the blackness. Blankness.

Walls Without Windows.

Screaming so loud that no one can hear

In the isolation of my still infinity.

Unmovable arms, muscles pounded by waves.

Strength dissipated by the struggle.

Each year another breath of water

Engulfs my being, body and brain.

Dying Alive. Dark Death.

Arms at my sides grabbing for life.

Rocket screaming energy propels me from a watery grave.

Into the Red-Orange Sky.

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I wrote this piece on May 15, 1978. My marriage was ending. I was about to become a single mother to two young sons, and I was terrified. Since marrying at twenty, I had not worked outside the home. I was facing a frightening future with no particular skills for earning a living. Visions of starvation and homelessness enveloped my very being every day and every night.

But there was a core deep inside me that propelled me. A belief within me that I was born with. A silent confidence. Not something I was groomed from childhood to believe. Not something that was instilled by outside forces. Certainly not something that was supported by outward measurements of success.

I somehow knew I’d find a way to make a life, a good life, for my little family of three. Because of this core belief in myself, I did make that life for us. There were setbacks, tight money in the supermarket at the end of the week, long hours of commuting to a decent job, the heartbreaking sadness my sons were feeling at the loss of their nuclear family. I propelled us forward through energy, flexibility, intelligence, planning, and complete commitment. I refused to be a victim of circumstance but to make my own future.

I did in fact, propel myself out of that watery grave. I showed my sons that I could work hard and build a career. That starting over is not an end, it’s a beginning.

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Notes on the illustration: In September of 1974, “The Red-Orange Sky” is the first oil painting I ever made. I was taking Wednesday evening art classes at the YMCA near where I was living in Queens Village, NY. Each week, all the students brought in calendar photos to use as models. A year later, I enrolled in college to major in art.

On November 16, 2013, using Photoshop, I digitally added the rocket explosions and fireworks to the oil painting image to illustrate this earlier writing of mine.