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Art Exam

The exams have started.

This week began with 2 full days of art.  First thing I heard about it was from Husband while I was away for a family 80th knees-up over the weekend.  Husband hears from Lily that she's been given extra time to complete her sketchbook but it is due in at the beginning of the exam on Monday.  I am reeling - the timetable we have been sent indicated the art exam is in June and I know Lily has done nothing,

n-o-t-h-i-n-g 

towards preparation for her final piece.

Husband is suitably laid back and indeed, when I speak to Lily, she too seems fine.  I ask if she's ok?  How can this be?  I assume she has just found out about it because she missed 2 full days of school and some mornings last week and she agrees that even her best friend didn't know.  I ask Lily if she knows what she's going to do for her final piece - only a week ago she had changed it completely for the third time and when I expressed some reservation and asked if she'd talked to the teacher she was furious with me.  She says she does and she just needs to do some printing when I get home on Sunday although she's indicated to husband that she will be doing art all weekend.

When I return at 2pm on Sunday she's up but not dressed and definitely not ready to do any printing.

I phone a friend whose daughter also does art to check this is even happening - such is the level of doubt and confusion that Lily weaves around her.  My friend confirms that it is indeed happening the next day and that they were all informed at Easter.  My first thought again is that Lily did not know but as I write this I begin to think that she did.  She took the opportunity of my assumption that it was a surprise just like she took credit for cleaning the bathroom when in fact Husband had done it.

I take solace from knowing how often I asked Lily about her art - I prompted her about it all through the Easter holidays and on the last few days told her she would regret not doing anything because she would run out of time.  I even asked if it 'art' was the reason she missed school last week.  So my tack now is just to do everything to encourage her, reassure her, keep her calm.  She goes through the motion of preparing something, we print some images and she works into the night but Husband and I don't truly believe she will go on Monday.

But she does.  Just.  I have to leave the house first because my comments about the time her 'making her not go'.  She comes back happy and although she cuts it fine again, she goes again this morning.

I am exhausted, not just from a partying weekend, but from the emotional tightrope of will-she-won't-she and this every present fear that it might be something I say or do that causes a collapse.

I need to think about this some more I think because it's really punishing me.

Meanwhile, just when I'm patting myself on the back that we can actually count art as 'in the bag' and move on to the rest I get a call from school - can Lily come home early? She doesn't feel well.  

What's going on?  There are just 40 minutes of the school day left - really?  They assure me she can finish the exam tomorrow.  I wonder, if she's sick enough to come home now, why anyone thinks she will be well enough tomorrow (and simultaneously foresee another morning's hell of trying to encourage her out the door)?  

Lily arrives home, not obviously at death's door, I suggest a Lemsip which she agrees to but as usual the symptoms are an odd collection of nausea, tummy ache and headache.  I ask her how the painting went and she says she is pleased, very nearly finished, everyone will have more time tomorrow because of how the timings work and she hopes she will feel well enough.

hmmm.

I put it to her that she does not appear to be that sick and speculate on the decision to come home - could she not have just got to the end of the day?  I share an observation which is that she does not like finishing things and that maybe it is that which is making her feel sick.  She is, of course, immediately defensive that I am suggesting it is all in her head, which it isn't.  When I can get a word in edge ways I tell her I am in no way suggesting the sick feeling is not real but it sounds like she has had a conversation along similar lines with the teachers before leaving so I'm not going to get anywhere.  She's been trying to lay the ground work for food poisoning, or being sick, or other people in the art room or God knows what since Friday - thanks Covid.  

So there we are - an art piece nearly complete, sketch books not handed in and another morning of all the multiple mornings to get through for the next 5 weeks.

Joy 


Photo by Jadson Thomas


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