I had the jitters pretty badly this morning. I’m pretty sure it was related to the plight of my mother. Last week I traveled across the country to attend her 90th birthday. She told me six months ago that she would ‘hold on’ until I got there. There actually was nothing acutely wrong with her, so I wasn’t worried. Besides, that was how Mom talked. (She always was concerned that I worried too much and was always assuring me that she was ok.) She had had a bad night, the last night I was there and was to be checked by the nurse just after I left for the airport.  Just before I had to turn off my phone to prepare for takeoff, I got a call that informed me that Mom had been admitted to the hospital. I talked with Dave, my younger brother during the week, to find out that things were serious.

Dave called or texted me this morning (I don’t remember which) to say that I should think about booking another flight back east soon, to have a conference with the doctors. Perhaps today, he said.

That might have been the point at which the jitters overtook me.

I’ve noticed that the jitters are a sure sign that compartmentalization is failing.  Sometimes I have trouble distinguishing the jitters from feelings of hunger or low blood sugar. The feelings this morning were definitely the jitters.

Here is my visual rendition of this morning’s feelings:

I started with pencil. I wanted sharp angles, but the jitters caused some lack of control. The pencil marks and brush strokes were all done rather quickly. I did overload the blue color field to cause dripping.

I would characterize this as a kinetic abstract as a result of lack of fine motor movement control.