Yesterday

I am not feeling the best this morning.

A little thing has set up a chance for a day of frustrations.

So, I am going to try something a little new.

I found this as a prompting in a book on how to look back at a day, so I decided to use it today, for yesterday. Since I generally do better in the morning, I'll do it most likely as a looking back. Just thinking about the first part has me past the discouragement a bit this morning.



A beautiful lesson came by way of a friend of mine who has been doing healing work on herself for 10 years. We recently met up in Florida to work together and she shared an exercise with me. Yesterday was my first real attempt at it. I really wanted to clear myself of negativity before I started working on a drawing. The amount of time it takes to get into a headspace of clarity, where I can focus and enjoy the process, seems to take an hour or two.

This exercise was meant to clean out yourself, in a way, I think as I understand it, of the negative. It is called "Grounding" and I mean to look more about it, but for now, what I feel she told me, is what I am going with.

Take yourself and stand firmly. Envision your negativity, for me, it is a goopy, oily mass that drips and oozes out onto everything. Then you are to envision that at the center of the earth is this giant mass of light that everyone can access. My mass of light was so bright, vibrant, and constantly shifting and throwing out spurts of color. You are then supposed to envision yourself being tethered to the light somehow, and then you let the negative stuff flow down, then it flows back up to you, cleaned out by the light.

I struggled with it. I had problems envisioning the tethering or the connection. I had problems getting the negative down, but yet the light coming back up seemed to work well. I ended up having these because vines that just had the light absorb into myself. I got my negative goopiness down to a drip, where it had been a cascade of ooze.

I then moved on to draw. The drawing itself went really well. I am working on the images for a mural. It should be simple to get and do, but yet, I've been having trouble with it because I am SCARED that it won't be accepted.

Which is odd because really, rejection is a part of an artists' life. A large part.

That is part of the good I did yesterday. The other goodness, would be taking care of my daughter Autumn. We had a really hard first day back together, I think due to a molar breaking through, and yesterday, we enjoyed our time together.

Some good that happened to me was connecting with a possible artist in the Seattle area that may be a guest artist in my booth at the Tulip Festival coming up in April. :)

The day was a bit overshadowed by my guilt at not having a clean house. I am still carrying it forward to today. I feel an intense shame over not being to to "do it all". I feel like I spend too much time on something other than cleaning or don't keep consistent enough and that is a failing.

I'd rather just move on though. I do want to clean the kitchen today, but I also want to play Diablo III, finish that mural mock-up, and enjoy time with my beautiful family.

Every day is another chance to practice moving on from my shame.

Trapped

I feel like I keep making up little traps for myself lately.

They start like this, "Oh, I'll just put the dishes away really quickly then that is done, and I can finish cleaning up after breakfast, and somewhere in there I'll get the garbage taken out, then I can make sure that meat is thawing for dinner tonight, and then I'll be able to do some artwork while Autumn is sleeping."

This is what really ends up.

I open the top drawer of the dishwasher and at least 4 of the plastic containers still has food stuck on so I gotta hand wash those, which I have to get through the sink full of dishes to get to hand washing those, which I have to clean out the dishwasher to get those washed out and I wish I could figure out what was making the dishwasher not clean the top shelf very well and yeah know, if you weren't such a spoiled brat you could just hand wash everything after every meal you do and keep up with it we wouldn't need a dishwasher and you could be better at this and fuck these stupid plastic containers that I chose they are wrong anyway they are the wrong size and I just cracked a lid yesterday so now we'll have less lids to containers and I should've been more careful and I still need to clean up after breakfast and you didn't even do the workout that you meant to do which you wouldn't have to do if you weren't such a fucking fat ass that is was too lazy to keep the weight off and you couldn't let go of something but no...

I ended up crying very hard curled around a pillow wondering why I was so angry so much lately and I figured it was because my counselor now wants me to love myself.

It is not enough to just think I don't deserve abuse from my ex, I have had to face that I don't deserve it from myself, and NOW she wants me to actually find love for myself.

This has angered me quite a bit. I want to yell and scream about it (or just cry curled up over a pillow).

I really don't understand these emotions and I have been trying to.

I've been imagining journal entries lately and I had some much better ones planned out. For example, my daughter had eaten so much body art glitter that it showed up in her poop. This actually delighted me, because it made her poop look better and I find it hilarious. My husband worries she'll be hurt, but she didn't eat that much. Truly.

Or the Thanksgiving we had the Saturday after we had our own and I got to enjoy my Mom (step-mom Judy) revel in her emotions during a play we attended. I love watching people light up with joy.

Nope. Now I am writing about this anger because I wasn't sure what else to do with it.

I don't want to write any of it out or down because then there is PROOF that I am not what I wanted to be to be in a good life.

How can something like me have such a good life? There are so many other people that deserve it.

I keep being told though how much I do. Even by people that used to elucidate my murderous shortcomings to others around them. To the point that a group of people though I deserved bodily harm.

I think I may have hit the problem though. I just snatched at a thought. I have trapped myself in a wonderful life. I have to realize I was wonderful to get there. That those things that I thought were the epitome of what would make me be a better person and then lead to a good life- the fit physique, the good mental health, the well-paying job, the well-traveled experiences which added up to this perfect person that OF COURSE people would love to have around are nothing compared to my kindness, compassion, patience, creativity, joy in others, and absolute love for those around me that I keep no matter what is going fucking haywire in my life or my head.

I feel like the lyrics to the "Dog Days are Over" to Florence & the Machine have been ones that resonate.

Happiness, hit her like a train on a track
Coming towards her, stuck still no turning back
She hid around corners and she hid under beds
She killed it with kisses and from it she fled
With every bubble she sank with a drink
And washed it away down the kitchen sink

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
The horses are coming so you better run

Run fast for your mother run fast for your father
Run for your children for your sisters and brothers
Leave all your love and your longing behind you
Can't carry it with you if you want to survive

The dog days are over
The dog days are done
Can't you hear the horses
'Cause here they come

And I never wanted anything from you
Except everything you had
And what was left after that too, oh.

Happiness hit…

Maybe I am hitting the anger portion of the grieving portion of letting go of that portion of me that held so tightly to the abusive-deserving thoughts I had. It was hard to even say that I was something worth more than I have been given by some in my life.

Now I have to learn to love myself? LOVE? Something not even my own biological mother could figure out? Loving the unlovable? Me?

Fuck you.

Thanksgiving

While I don't want to be trite, I thought that doing an entry around this holiday seemed to be a good idea.

I re-read my last entries and man, does it ever seem a good idea that I put entries on this online journal of mine.

I have felt for months now that I should be writing down what is going on in my life. I wish I had done more of it before. Yet, I always felt I needed to know how to write to get anything written down. Not just write, but write well.

I am almost done reading "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris and that has changed my mind.

I don't want to get into that though. I want to share this Thanksgiving. A day where my little family, composed of an anti-social husband and a one year old that seems to share more with the mythical krakken than ourselves at times, had the day we wanted.

Holidays are very important to me. No, the making of good memories is important to me. When I say good, they can be anything that doesn't involve an intensely drunk man peeing on himself while yelling from the armchair about how the animals are about to start talking because it is almost midnight (Christmas circa 1995).

I would enjoy this memory and chalk it up to crazy wanna-be step-father antics if this was not also the same man that shot at us as we fled our domicile once and since he couldn't aggressively coerce me into fucking  him (I always threatened him with jail), he did it to my younger sister.

GOOD memories are important to me. Extremely. Precious. This same man, who was the companion to my biological mom for some years, would only put on his non-drunk hat, at the holidays where my grandparents showed up. My maternal grandmother had a look of iron disapproval that still fascinates me. This was the man who made my biological mom weep on the floor from the latest round of let's-punch-my-pretend-spouse, yet he cowered underneath that slight frown that my grandma seemed to fix him with.

I loved my grandmother.

So, I love holidays. Holidays where it is the good memories to be made. This may be a point my step-mother doesn't understand since she made a concern known the day before, when we were firming up plans for my little family to visit my father and her this coming weekend, that we should take the time we can to make memories with people while we can. This was in reference to her finding out that we were not visiting my ten minute away in-laws for the actual holiday day. "We and his parents are not getting any younger and won't be around forever", she admonished, "you should make memories with us while you can."

This hit out of left field left me feeling a bit bewildered and wondering if there was more to it, but in the end, we did make holiday memories. Good holiday memories.

For me, it is not attending every single possible family function we can. It is about making good of the family function we have. The meal was a simple fare to us. You only had to make room on your plate for approximately 5 things, not 20. My daughter got her first little cup of sparkling cider, which she proceeded to dump on her high chair plate and then dip her turkey in. This also became the highest of styling products on her bangs. The krakken wants you to know, sticky is in.

I was able to start the morning with baking and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. I got to reminisce about my pre-step-mom, whom I made plans to see the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with. While her death is an impediment to that, it was a warm feeling to see the floats, the people, and balloons, and remark to my daughter about them and talk about going to see it ourselves.

The day really rather ended at 3 pm. With relative ease everything was stowed and cleaned up. The turkey carcass in an instant pot to make a stock. 

I kind of wonder what my steel faced grandmother would've done. I like to think we'd open up that face to the dazzling smile she really had. She'd tsk at the krakken hair products, but most likely have a wry grin at my husband's gravy-making skills, and chuckle at my still making stuffing out of a box.

These are the good ones. This is a holiday. I am grateful.

Sweetness

NOTE: This post was originally made on 10/05/2014.

The Random:
Feeling disconnected again.

Trying to recapture earlier. The Rothko paintings in the rain. The exhilaration of such sweetness running down my face and the cold in my veins.

Too much time indoors?

There is no lack of going outside. No lack of people. Just that he is not there.

Maybe the real problem is... I don't know who he is anymore.

The normal:
I find myself coming up on midterms week. I just keep taking one day at a time and finding it amazing that lo and behold, time passes and I am passing classes. My favorite is my art history one, I am thoroughly enjoying going through 19th century art in Western Europe. The instructor connects the pieces to later on modern pieces, I love it.

So, to deal with the stress in a positive way (not in the I-broke-down-crying-for-three-days-almost-straight-way like a weekend before), I decided to do "Fresh Baked Cookie Friday" which is honestly going to turn into "Fresh Baked Friday" because I want to do a cheesecake or cobbler next.

Yes, the slight reference to someone getting high is not lost on me and not altogether untrue, because there is something about baking that is just relaxing to me.

Which I guess is funny, because other people find it stressful when things don't turn out correctly. Which totally happened with the cookies I was making. These coconut caramel things. The dough did not mix correctly (my butter was not soft enough, I keep my house too cold!), so some of the cookies just flattened. Those were the first to be eaten.

Ze finished product.

Then the caramel. Oh caramel. I have not made you in a long time and I forgot completely how to. So, it was the fifth try that was the charm.

It was my finding of someone explaining why you want a corn syrup or honey added to the sugar. While sugar molecules are very jagged (they love to catch onto things and hence why they crystalize so much), they change as you heat them. So- add a sugar that has molecules that does not change and voile! Able to make the caramel stand. I did it with corn syrup, the next I will make with honey.

Yet, for me, that is half the fun. The figuring it out. Don't take anything out of my hands. Give sound advice if you really have it, but if not, don't tell me to do it some other way than how I am trying. Don't tell me to just do it "this way, its easier". I was not looking for that way. I was looking on how to do it the way that I know I had done it in the past and that others have done it.

I have dreams of my house being full of people. People with varying ideas, stations and creativity. That they come together and share.

Maybe over a plate of cookies.

I am just not sure how to get there. Or that I really want to. I am getting used to being alone.

Or am I just resigned to it?

I don't want to bother people. That is my biggest fear. I am not sure exactly why.

So, trying to move past that, I invited some people out again for a walk. Found myself driving C and I exploring a place I had never been that was super close to me. It was gorgeous. We decided to walk up a random person's driveway, where there was random beauty.

The Good: I have practically a 100% in every class
The Ugly Truth: Czarina needs to go to the vet and I don't have any money to take her.

The return of star shine

What to call this first post after two years of not posting.

Resurrection. Breathing in New Life. Resuscitation.

The honest answer is,  I just want a place to put these adventures at. Before, this blog was to catalog items to help me feel at peace with a time of my life that was extraordinarily chaotic.

The chaos is gone.

I find my soul overflowing with all those bohemian ideals- truth, beauty and most of all, love.

So what does one do when there is so much fulfillment to be had?

Go back to school of course!

To finish a degree that has thwarted some employment gains by being that "pursued" and not completed hole on my resume.

I start tomorrow at Idaho State University. Chosen for its location,  program and the ability to transfer a lot of credits from my previous school, the University of Alaska.

I am very excited to go. I love learning I love going to school. I am very curious to see how this experience goes. It's been since 2003, since the last time I went to school.

So now this blog will become my adventures in this. My adventures in the art that I do. My attempts to get into galleries. My frustration and exhilaration with class, instructors and art in general. And my ever-present conundrum of finding the balance between what I love to do and the confidence to do it.

The Airbrushing of our Lives

I have found something within myself.

Wait, let me put that a different way.

An ideal in myself has shall we say, evolved? Grown? Broadened?

When I was younger, I was told how ugly I was. How no one would want me. To those of you that have heard me talk about this time in my life, you may be weary of its mention. It affected me to the point that I became obsessed with beauty and the idea of what it is that defines beauty.

I discovered my own beauty in my twenties. I cried after a Mary Kay party because for the first time, I was beautiful. Beautiful because I too, could have a face full of make up that enhanced these awesome features that I have and make them look- beautiful.

That is not what I want to talk about. Just giving a little backstory.

The idea of that beauty has evolved into a love of natural beauty. I have always loved and appreciated nature. Nature has cracks, fissures and rotting leaves. It has beauty even with those things that we would consider ugly.

I watched the movie Willow recently. In it, I found beauty in the characters for not only their actors, because the make up in the movie was simple. It was not flawless airbrushing that we have become accustomed to.

There were cracks.

There were fissures.

I am growing older, I now appreciate all the cracks and fissures I am gaining of my own. I look at older women and get excited at their unique faces, to see where mine could be.

I am enjoying the rotting leaves of nature.

I am finding that I am saddened by how airbrushed we would like ourselves to be. Only those without any pores in our skin or wrinkles around our eyes become important enough to deem beautiful. You can even get a program that has learned what beauty is supposed to be and puts in your picture!

Are the pictures after they've been retouched beautiful? Yes. Are they beautiful before? YES!

Let us maybe take a look at ourselves and our lives. Are there blemishes? Spots? Wrinkles? Yes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not looking for the grotesque to become the standard bearer for beauty. I am asking that if you made choices, then stand by them. Accept yourself at every awkward, bizarre and funky moment and realize- you really aren't as bad as you think. You could use a little touch up, but you are beautiful.

I am asking that we find some balance, some moderation with it.

Go ahead and airbrush out a little bit, but don't take out everything that makes you unique and shows what your life has been like. I know I've found myself attracted to things that add to it.

World War I and Sunsets

I am still learning to find my balance in life. I do think this will be an eternal thing for me.

Wednesday found me at the Museum of Idaho. They were having a one day traveling exhibition stop by.

It brought tears to my eyes.

It is called "Honoring our History" and is completely about World War I. It took things down to basics as well as it could. The events leading up. Life during it. Life after.

I had a bit of a line to get in. The cold was too much for my husband who left to get a coat.

Once you got in though, it was warm and you couldn't stop reading and looking. Pictures adorned so many different descriptions. There was a section where you walked into a 'bunker' on the Western Front. I found out, I was just the right height that I would not get shot as I walked down it.

It was sobering.

In the end, what I really thought of was, lets please not repeat things. Let us learn from all nations and walks of life. Let us learn to remember that the other person across from us often has the same dreams, goals and fears. We just wear it all a little differently.

Respect.

Tolerate.

The end of the day, I decided to really try to capture a sunset better. I have many, many, many pictures of sunsets and sunrises and I thought, its time to improve an area! I found what I could about it and I know that for most anything, hands on is the best way to learn.

So, I chose my spot an hour before hand. Took my dog Toby on a nice walk. I chose an area in downtown Idaho Falls near the "Greenbelt". This area runs for quite awhile along the river and is right at the "falls".

This is what I feel like was my best capture at a quick glance. Though I may change my mind after I go through them more thoroughly.

I am excited to do more. Different seasons, different angles.

I will be a sunset catcher.