What’s In Your Passenger Seat?

 

Okay, I am frustrated this morning. Wanted to post a new poem on my poetry site, but kept getting knocked off when I tried. Was trying to copy and paste because of some of the wordage within the piece, but every time I would click the paste button, the entire page and all that I had written would simply disappear and I was back offline again. So, decided to let it go for the moment.

Because my time is being regulated by other circumstances, I had pretty much decided to stick with this blog and let the others go for a while. But then found poetic inspiration on someone else’s blog. It’s been a while since I wrote any poetry and I dove after the idea with a bit of eagerness. After the third attempt however, I chose to come here and not allow the frustration to waste any more of the few minutes of free time I have been gifted this week.

My usual routines have been scattered to the winds of late. That includes my journal writing. Normally, I get up and immediately settle in to do my journal page for the day. But, I’ve been staying at my Mom’s and fixing her breakfast and waiting for the relief team to show up before I can get home to my computer. Because my morning pages signal the beginning of my day, it’s been a bit discombobulating to begin that day at 2pm, or even later on occasion.

I had a counseling session a few days ago. My counselor, after listening to my none-stop descriptions of what’s been going on, asked me a very simple question. “How are you taking care of yourself in the midst of all of that?” I promptly went blank. My response to her question was somewhat vague even to my own ears. So, of course, she asked it again. Thank goodness the session was almost over, because I was stumped.

I drove home with the question in the passenger seat, belted in with the safety harness, but very present and leaning in to hear something other than vague hand motions and mumbled replies. When I walked through the door of my apartment, I immediately had several clear answers. Why does that always happen? Maybe because on an almost daily basis, I am moving a great deal outside of my own small comfort zone? It takes time to think and I don’t have much time for anything at the moment other than the current changing situation, dealing with whatever task needs attention and what, most often, seems and feels like some sort of controlled chaos.

When I walked through that door, I took a deep breath and found four very specific answers to the counselor’s question. Number one, I was keeping my counseling appointments. That outside space to vent is incredibly important.

Number Two, my oldest daughter was staying with me for a few days, relieving me of planning and cooking meals, but also providing me with a sounding board and a very deeply needed sense of not being completely alone.  

Number Three, I have not given up or let go of my sketchbooks and the relaxation and play that they provide for me. Those few hours I spend exploring the realm of color and shape, allow me ease and comfort, while allowing my mind to bend itself around something completely separate from the current emotional situation.

Number Four, and probably more important than the others, I have not missed a day in my journal. Talking with others, being able to vent to a listening ear is terribly important, but that contact with my own person, that one on one dialogue with myself is far more essential. I would go so far as to say that that is the very reason why, when I opened that door and took that deep breath, I wasn’t scattered and lost as I had been in the counselor’s presence. She is paid to ask those kinds of questions, and if they were easy, I wouldn’t being paying her to ask them.

As a matter of fact, that particular day, I had slept over at my Mom’s, fixed her breakfast, changed her bed, cleaned up her apartment, got her settled in and a load of wash going before my younger sister came in, and I could go home, take a shower, get dressed and get to the counselor’s office. When I got back home, my only thought was to get on the computer and get my page done for the day. That’s when it all fell into place and I had all of the answers I needed.

It isn’t easy staying sane, or healthy,  in the midst of chaos. But, I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else in this moment. Yes, I am moving outside my normal comfort zone, but I’m making sure that I hang onto the most essential aspects of that zone even if the beginning of the day doesn’t happen until quarter after eleven in the evening. My journal pages are always the beginning.

What are you doing to take care of yourself in the midst of whatever chaos life might be throwing your way in the present moment? Do you have a safety harness and do you use it?

The Stranger

 

We are all frightened of the Stranger.
     Probably because the Stranger is not nearly as far away as we think. She can come upon us suddenly, after an act of cruelty, the death of a loved one, or stumbling over an unknown dog in the forest. For no apparent reason, we cross some hidden border and the Stranger is born. In a heartbeat, we do not even recognize ourselves.
     Our own fear with a face —that’s who the Stranger is.
     And that is what makes her so very dangerous.

People of The Owl
___Kathleen O’Neal Gear and W. Michael Gear

 

 My younger sister handed me this book several weeks ago, in a bag of books she had read and dropped off here. I have somehow become the depository of books that my siblings have read and now wish to get rid of without needing to throw them away. My sister knew that I had read most of the other books in this series of fictionalized stories about North American prehistory. She had no idea that I was not familiar with this particular novel, and that her actions would create a bit of an issue for me.

Years ago, I became fascinated with the series and would latch onto the books whenever I came across them. I thought I had read all of them. But, just because I had read all the ones that were available, didn’t mean the authors had stopped creating them. I had definitely moved on to other things, and wondered, when I saw it, if I should even bother to read it.

Would it pull me in as all the others had done? Would I find, within its pages, some message aimed directly at the aspects of life that deeply interest me, or had while I was so engrossed in their pages? Or would I be disappointed to find that I had changed in those intervening years? Would I no longer find those wonderful nuggets of truth and wisdom that had so informed me in the past, turned on the light bulbs of my mind and given me so many filled pages for my journal and different ways of seeing my own reality? My life has become complex and busy and could I afford to distract myself from this new and different routine?

I finally stopped wondering and opened the book to read. And found all the same things that had fascinated me in the past, along with new messages that I certainly needed now. I have not yet completed the reading, but am closing on that quite quickly. There are several passages, like the one above, that have stopped me in my tracks and forced me to think through much of my current situation, as well as many in the past that have brought me to the place I now find myself in.

This blog is essentially about keeping a personal journal in an ongoing effort to know ones own person. As far as I am concerned, one of the most primary tasks of being born human. Within the story, one of the major characters has spent her entire lifetime working toward a specific goal. She has put all of her skills and abilities toward accomplishing that one goal. And as will happen, just as she is about to see and grasp hold of that reality, life steps in and all is changed and altered. She becomes a stranger to herself and to all around her, completely lost in a grief process that resembles dementia. No longer able or capable of taking the position she has worked so hard to attain. She has crossed some unseen border and no longer recognizes her own person, let alone those who surround her.

This isn’t an easy book to read, yet my time, in the present moment, has been freed up so that I can do just that. I have set aside other activities in order to finish it. Those other activities, doodling, writing, making gifts, continue to call to me, but I invariably pick up the book and tell myself I’ll just read one more chapter, and then get lost for an hour or two instead.

I couldn’t possibly pass up the quote that introduces this blog. It holds within it, the very reason I continue to struggle to maintain this space even as my life changes and I am changed by it.

My Mother will be 91 years old tomorrow. She is struggling with a fast and progressive cancer and has been informed (yesterday) by her doctor that she might want to consider stopping treatments and let Hospice make her as comfortable as possible in whatever time she has left. She has refused, until now, to even consider such a thing because that would be giving up and she is not a quitter. She is facing the Stranger inherent in all of us. And we who love her are doing the same.

Meanwhile, I am stumbling through a work of fiction, finding small, but very hard  nuggets that lighten the path that I find myself walking on. A path that would seem to end in darkness but for those nuggets my sister so casually dropped into my hands. Illuminate the face of the Stranger I could have been if I had taken another path. I am grateful.

Avoiding A Cart and A Horse

 

One day, last week, I was impulsively prompted to start reading this blog from its very beginnings. I made it through almost an entire month’s worth of articles before being called away to other things.

This morning, although I came here to add yet another blog article, I found myself dithering around, distracting myself with other thoughts, and simply avoiding the task at hand. Eventually, I went back and started rereading my old posts again. I made it through several weeks worth and am now here and present. I think.

I have been very busy of late and my days, although full, seem to run from one into another without much time spent in reflection of any kind. I do my journal writing, but it is quickly completed and then left for all those other obligations and responsibilities. But, I really stalled out when I got here this morning. Although I had a lot of things running through my mind, I simply didn’t seem capable of plucking out one of those thoughts and just going with it to fill this page.

I tried several other things, getting up from the computer, rambling around my small apartment, doing small things, coming back only to get up and ramble a bit more. I tried doing something in my sketchbook, but put that away almost as quickly as the thought of writing here. Nothing was working, let alone, coming together. So, I went back to the rereading of the things I had written many months ago.

What I found was me. The one who does all of this writing, and often wonders why she does it to begin with. As a matter of fact, she was stuck right there this morning. Distracting herself, looking for herself, and accidentally finding herself in her own words. Bummer? Or an amazing coincidence? A neat little piece of synchronicity to get her back here, on the page, laying down words, and hoping they will all come together somehow and make sense. Hopefully, to you the reader, but more importantly, to herself.

Avoidance does work, at least for a time period. But, no matter how much we dither around, ramble through whatever rooms and things are available, attempt to distract ourselves, we invariably end up back where we needed to be all along. Back to the very thing and place we have been avoiding. Why do we do that?

Good question and one I’m not real sure I can answer at the moment. All I know is that I am here because this is where I am supposed to be, doing exactly what I am supposed to be doing. And I am here, because I found myself telling me, in my own words, to do just that. Finding that message in words I wrote over a year ago. Words that made all kinds of sense, and had a much deeper meaning than I thought at the time they were written.

The message was quite clear: Just get on the page, start, and it will all go where it is supposed to go and become whatever it is to become. Perhaps, even more important, was the fact that those words contained an element of joy and satisfaction that I was definitely missing in this present moment. Missing, and incorrectly thinking that one must have the joy and the knowledge of satisfaction to even begin. That’s putting the cart before the horse and expecting it to roll itself uphill and drag the nag right along with it.

I want to be a good writer. By that, I do not mean famous or profound. I want to be coherent and enjoyable on the page. But, if I’m not feeling those things in the moment, how can they happen and become that? It might sound completely silly, but I forgot in the present moment, that satisfaction and the attendant joy that comes with it, are a result of the doing of the task, of and in actually completing it. Dah!

Laughing at myself also helps. It lightens all the tangles and knots I was creating by dithering and rambling. And believe me, those knots were getting really really tight. If I had let them, they might have paralyzed me for hours, maybe even days, wasting daylight and lots of time accomplishing nothing other than tighter knots. Preventing me from not only this task but all those others I spoke of earlier.

Going back and rereading my journal, often has the same affect. Yet, it is so very easy to forget the simplest things and have to relearn them again. Or, at least make contact with them frequently. Which, in turn, is one of the most important aspects of writing a journal in the first place. Staying in contact with the most important individual in ones existence. That of self.

At the very least, for today I do know that ideas and thoughts come first. Then comes action based on those thoughts and ideas. And only after action, come feelings. Now the nag is at the front of the cart, pulling it up the hill that is today. That works much much better. I might even be able to find a carrot with which to keep her moving in whatever direction I find myself in need of going.

What are the thing/s you avoid most often and why? How do you avoid and does it work for more than a short time period? Do you feel a certain satisfaction in that avoidance? What is it you want to accomplish and are you somehow avoiding it? Just some questions for thought, or even for words on a journal page. Who knows? They might actually become carrots.

The End Is Ever A Beginning

 

I started to fill the last page in my sketchbook yesterday. This one will have words on it as none of the others do. The same words that title this blog. I have two new sketchbooks that should be arriving this afternoon. And I look forward to filling them and being just as surprised as I have been with each new page. Perhaps these new pages will have words on them as well as images, bits of poetry, partial quotes, and other things. I won’t know until I get there and begin.

When I realized that I had gotten to the last page, I knew that I needed to honor that actuality. And I let the sketchbook alone for a couple of days before I decided how to do that. I didn’t know how the words would go on the page, but when I heard them in my head, I knew they were the right ones. Strangely enough, I did that at a small family gathering, held in honor of Labor Day and the end of summer. Also appropriate in my mind.

I only had enough time to print the words when one person, then another, stepped over to see what I was doing. A very interesting conversation followed. How did I get started doing this? Have I now given up writing to pursue this new interest? Where do all the ideas come from? And how someone else would never be able to do that because it took way too much concentration and patience. I never got back to that final page, but have it to look forward to today. Again, very appropriate, in my mind.

The ending of one thing, often means the beginning of something else. But, it doesn’t necessarily have to be so. I have no intention of giving up my writing and it looks as though it will become another step in my pictorial journey. The two will blend and become something more than either was alone. I particularly like that idea. Expansion, rather than a choice to eliminate one or the other.

I also find it absolutely delightful that the idea occurred as I was finishing the first sketchbook and looking forward to the new ones that will be arriving. Haven’t mentioned this yet, but I was surfing the net the other day and hit on an idea for a whole different set of images for one of those new sketchbooks. It would be a series. Similar to what I’ve been doing, but different and distinct. I will have two new sketchbooks and two new roads to travel down while exploring this new place I have entered. Am definitely looking forward to both of them.

If we look at the ending of something as no more than that, all we will experience is the loss. It might be a necessary loss, but it doesn’t have to be only that. There are always lessons to be learned from every experience we encounter. Yes, even the death of a loved one who has been extremely important to our existence.

When I was much younger, I dreaded the knowledge that my father would have to one day pass away and no longer be a part of my landscape. He taught me a great deal about life and I wasn’t sure I could continue if he was not here with his gentle and loving encouragement. He died over twenty years ago, and his passing was a tremendously spiritual experience for me.

Having written about him and our relationship, I know that he continues to encourage and support me, teaching me gently as he always did. And those lessons will stand me in good stead as I face the loss of my other parent, as well as those of others I care deeply about.

Loss always has some amount of pain to accompany it. But pain can be expressed in so many ways and they don’t have to be negative or destructive. Writing through the pain, drawing its contours, giving it shape and meaning can be healing and life affirming. That is a necessary part of our growth process.

I felt sad for the gentleman who told me he could never do what I was doing in my sketchbook. He was determined to close himself off from that experience, even though he asked more, and deeper probing questions about the process than anyone else did. He simply kept shaking his head no, when I explained that mistakes were simply opportunities to go in a new and unexplored direction, mumbling about “how that would never do.”

I was very tempted to tell him of a phrase that someone had told me they had found on a t-shirt recently. One I agreed with and was tickled with enough to find out where I might get the t-shirt. “Yes, I have character flaws and I know how to use them.” But, at that point, he hit the last and final page of my sketchbook that he had been paging through. He looked at the words and said, “The End. That’s appropriate,” and went on to talk of other things.

Morphology

 

6. study of structure of something’s parts: the study of the structure of anything made up of interconnected or interdependent parts

I have not been here for several weeks due to being busy in other areas of my existence. First, came a nasty summer cold with all the attending hacking, sneezing, and sniffling. Second, was a family crisis with my Mom which continues and will do so for some time. Last of all, my router went out and I had to order and wait for a new one to get back on the Internet.

But, I have found a new word to play with, Morphology, and one of its several definitions is listed above. I, at first, intended to use it to define all the doodling I have been doing. I started out doing Zentangle Mandalas, but that morphed into something else that morphed into yet something different again. It just kept morphing, thus the new word. Before you get completely confused, I’ll give you examples.

Zentangle Mandala 8/12/09

 

This is the sort of thing I started out to fill my sketch book with. That however, morphed into other images.

Zentangle 8/13/09

And morphed again when I added color and realized that the images were a bit of fantasy.

Fantasy - The Gate 8/25/09

I was happy and content with the word, until an older and far better artist than myself, pointed out that these images could only be two dimensional and therefore couldn’t actually be considered a structure. Semantics!

We did explore other possibilities such as Doodlology (I had to try it four times before I could actually say it, and laughing didn’t help), as well as Scribblosophy, because, of course the images have stories built into them. But, semantics aside, I still am leaning toward my original choice.

During all of this stress and busyness, I continued to fill the pages of my journal as well as my sketchbook. And began to see a definite connection between the two. My journal is written in English, but my sketchbook is an entirely different language, one I am learning and watching expand on a daily basis. I truly want to title the sketchbook The Art of Morphology. Then realized that might be a good title for my journal as well.

My life is morphing with each new day. My consistent journal entries are actually my own study of the structure of my personal existence. The pieces and parts of that existence are definitely interdependent and even, sometimes interchangeable.

I think that the best part of all of this is that my sketchbook is actually another kind of journal. One that is far more deeply connected to my subconscious awareness of what is happening in and around me. One I might have missed entirely if I hadn’t been cataloging my attempts on my daily journal pages. It has been filled with wonderful little surprises and a plethora of connections to all sorts of other things, including some of my poetry from many years ago.

If we allow it, we all grow on a daily basis. We change and become other than we were yesterday or the day before that. In that sense, we morph from one level of existence into others. Being aware, studying those changes, can and does make that process easier at moments. Journal writing and doodling are ways of accomplishing that process. Simple ways that can result in deep satisfaction and also moments of delight.