Calm Under Constraint

Staying Calm is a unique piece within the Holding Pattern series. It is the only drawing in the group that I think of as being entirely about me.

The other works were developed through experiences surrounding my father's care, his decline, his death, and what followed. Staying Calm turned inward. It came from thinking about the internal structure I had developed to continue functioning while so much of my attention was directed toward someone else. Caregiving reorganized my time. There were appointments, medications, meals, changing physical needs, decisions, and the constant awareness that something could change. Much of my day was structured around what my father needed and what needed to happen next.

Within that structure, staying calm became practical.

It didn't mean I felt peaceful all the time. It meant creating enough internal order to move from one thing to another without becoming consumed by everything at once. I learned to compartmentalize. Some things could be addressed immediately. Others had to wait. Some feelings had to be acknowledged without being allowed to take over the moment in which I still needed to function.

That is the structure I recognize in Staying Calm.

The blue lines layer and overlap, creating individual areas within a larger composition. They are connected without collapsing into one another. When I originally wrote about the drawing, I described those areas as compartments, and that description still feels accurate to me. They reflect how I organized myself internally while the external structure of my life increasingly revolved around caregiving.

Like the other seven drawings in Holding Pattern, Staying Calm was created on paper rather than the recycled polyester synthetic paper I usually use for my ink drawings. The paper absorbs the ink into its fibers, changing the way the lines develop and interact with the surface. Within this drawing, that absorption contributes to the layering. Individual marks remain visible while becoming part of a denser whole.

The small format matters as well. The image occupies only four inches within a six-inch square sheet of paper. Working at that scale has a contained quality that feels particularly appropriate to this piece. The drawing does not expand indefinitely. Everything happens within a defined boundary.

When I made Staying Calm, taking even a small amount of time to draw meant temporarily directing my attention away from my father's immediate needs. I wasn't trying to make a statement about caregiving or create an image of resilience. I was making something that reflected the structure I needed at that particular moment.

That is why this drawing occupies a different place within Holding Pattern for me.

The series was created across the period before, during, and after my father's death, and much of it records my responses to circumstances unfolding around him. Staying Calm records something happening inside me instead.

Looking at it now, I don't see calm as the absence of tension. I see a structure built within it.

For a brief period of time, on a small square of paper, I made that structure visible.