Grief. Grief is a cruel place. There is no hiding. There is nowhere to hide. I have no skin. I cannot face out the world. I can only be me, raw in pain. I am "sans vetements" - excuse me, I don't speak french and I don't know how to put the hat on the e but those words are the ones that came to me.  My being, my belonging is gone. 
How do I reach out from this awful space. It is so huge. So unlike anything I have ever known before. I am alone here. I am alone and I don't know how to move on. I don't know how to move, period. I am fixed in this terrible solitude. I have reached into my solitude before, solitude can be ok, can be a sanctuary, but now it is deep loneliness. Deep knowing that here in life there is no-one who will understand the world as I do. 
Maybe we all carry this grief in us. Maybe it sits in us waiting. Waiting to meet us. Waiting it's moment. It lurks in the shadows. And we look away. Refuse to acknowledge it's existence. Paint over, wall up, shut down in order to protect ourselves. 
What do I do now ? What do I do now that it exists within my body, something I cannot deny, something I can neither repress or express. I am locked into stand-still. And yet the world moves on. And asks that I move on too. 
I am letting deadlines pass, this, that and the other, submitting a proposal for an exhibition doesn't guarantee you a place in that exhibition, but not submitting guarantees that you will not be in it. I know that what I have to do now is draw in to my studio practice, make the work I need to make without care for how it is received by audience or witness. It is a test of my resolve because it is easier to give the world what the world seems to want to see. Clap-clap, well done, oh yes, this is pretty, this is good, this is accomplished, mathematically sensible, technically excellent, creates order, or shocks only in ways that we understand and accept shock. 
I can't fall back into technical brilliance, I'm not technically brilliant, if I could, life might be simpler. My primary medium is thought and feelings, from those base points I attempt to make work that makes visible that which I'm thinking and feeling in order to offer a window into my being. At the moment my mind and heart are blown away and my thoughts and  feelings far out and beyond. I can't draw them to order they will do what they will, go where they will, be what they are. 
Slowly I am reconnecting with my workspace, it is, I know, where I will make sense of where I am, but I am bringing in to that space something bigger than me and it's daunting. I will be fighting my demons I'm sure and that's scary but what else can I do, where else can I turn, this is my battle to stay good for my family and there is no one but me that can fight that battle. Death is stood at my back at the moment and I'm having to force my face to look at those I love here, to let myself plant hope in my future, and joy. I think I'm not unusual in living this space. I think it is probably common to anyone who has loved and lost to death. But, it sure as hell is not comfortable or cosy.