Carrying

Fall into my world
Hear me whisper to you

I don’t know what to do with the memories my mind can’t afford to keep

I carry them with outstretched hands
Searching for a place to set them down

Nowhere feels right
Doesn’t someone have to carry these?

Is it strange to worry about abandoning painful memories, or is this just another nonsensical act
of nurture?

How many can I carry on my back?

I strap them on one by one and drag them across the field. I walk the expanse in search of a place
to put them down.

Only as my body buckles do I consider letting God take them from me.
Please take care of them.

I walk this journey over and over again
I keep thinking I have set them down, but continue finding things to carry.

Have you ever walked the beach and had no control over the shells, sticks, bones, and oddities
that you stuff into your hands, then into the pouch of your shirt until it is heavy?

Compelled to collect and care for all the small things that aren’t yours.

I Can’t Carry Your Grief, photograph, 2019.

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Cortney McConnell is an interdisciplinary artist living and working in Oklahoma. In her work, she explores themes of familial trauma and motherhood of adoptive children. In her process, she utilizes practices that help her to connect to her body and the house her mother grew up in, witnessing abuse. The goal is to access inherited trauma that needs healing through acts such as frottage, writing, drawing, performance, and photography. Artwork made indoors is taken into nature and surrendered to the land and God. It is the hope that these acts release the hold of familial trauma. McConnell received her BFA from the University of Central Oklahoma and her MFA from the Pacific Northwest College of Art. She has exhibited artwork in galleries across the nation. Currently, she is the visiting assistant professor of art at the University of Central Oklahoma.

cortneymcconnell.com