A Little Update

I'm currently over my eyebrows in a watercolor class that I'm in absolute love with, taught by a beautiful friend whose amazing work makes my socks go up and down. I'm easily the slowest student in her online course, I'm sure, probably because I'm completely out of my element there (ACK! Color!). But I've chosen to temporarily forget all that I've taught myself over the years and become a blank canvas (pun intended) and start from absolute scratch, as if I'm finally in Art School learning the basics....

But this class isn't the topic of my post. (I promise to give it equal time here so you can see how things are going.) I watch the lessons online and do my homework during studio time so as to be completely uninterrupted by housework and pets and fill-in-the-blank. That's been my plan all along, anyway, but I find that I'm still frequently interrupted. Only this time by leaves....

I'm pretty sure I'm spending precious class time on them because I'm anxious as hell.... So much is going on in the world right now that I'm really really not OK with, and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help. I don't even know how to help MYSELF. The best I can come up with is to just breathe....

So when the real world intrudes in my head, calling a halt and just breathing has been a helpful reboot of sorts. But then I have to pick up again with something soothing that I am comfortable and familiar with.

When I'm 'leafing' (just coined this now and it makes me smile), time stops and a conversation starts. It's a convo at its most basic, between me and Everything Else.... It's like the Universe or whatever takes over and creates while my overactive brain enjoys a break, just floating in an imagined blackness like an untethered astronaut staring at stars and listening to the sounds of her breath.... I need to be in that peace for a bit before I can start entertaining thoughts again. Which might also explain why my class progress is slow....

My leaves are getting the paint treatment now because my watercolors are front and center at this time. The results please and soothe me. And I want to share them with you. What do you think?

(P.S.: Since writing last, I've received all sorts of Studio Name feedback (thank you!!). And I've been holed up in my wonder-filled spot at RRAC, drawing/painting on leaves and contemplating my choices.)
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Great While it Lasted

I should've knocked on wood. I should've waited for the other shoe. I should've known better, suspected something was UP.

:(

When I wrote last I was feeling amazingly invincible. Absolutely super-hero-ish! Impossibly painfree. And it was that last part that was probably the most surreal thing about my day. It's hard to explain. Maybe it's that you don't know just how uncomfortable you've been -- for so long -- until suddenly you're not. Then the absence of pain is so monumental that you just go around all day waiting for it to find you again. Because you know it will.

That day -- the day I wrote last -- was one of those days, those 'dipped-in-gold' days. A switch had been thrown and I wanted it to stay that way forever....

I was tempted to write down every little thing I'd done, every change I'd made, just so I could hopefully recreate the circumstances and feel That Dang Good again, whenever I wanted. Was it the way I made my coffee? Was it because I had peanut butter on rice bread instead of wheat? Was it because I went straight to the shower after getting up instead of immediately feeding the Zoo? Nothing I'd done seemed out of the ordinary....

Yet the absence of pain was like being in an impossible dream. I was focused; living in the moment instead of fractured in pieces as usual, a victim of sensory overload. My joints didn't feel like rusty coat hangers. The feet didn't hurt, the side didn't burn, the wrist didn't cramp. There was a pleasant peace inside my head and a silly smile on my face. My bus ride was a joy; the sun beaming through the window onto my face felt like I'd been transported to Paradise. My lunch was sublime; my tummy was so happy for it that I literally danced in my restaurant seat, James laughing at my ridiculousness. No negativity invaded my bubble. My head was quiet, my body weightless, my thoughts serene and sparkly and one-at-a-time instead of all rapid fire.....

I'm sure I've written here before about Chronic Fatigue and Fibromyalgia and being old enough now to feel some arthritis, blahdy blah. And I'm sure I've bored you silly about what it's like to be me, feeling uncomfortable so many days/weeks/months in a row that pain is the new normal. And with that pain comes limitations, and with those limitations comes depression, and it all works together to disturb my sleep and wreck my life and pack on the pounds, etc. Poor me. (Poor YOU, more like it, reading about my aches and pains....)

So when a day dawns that's not normal, it's noticed in spades. James even noticed it. He'd laugh out loud for no reason and when I asked him what was so funny he'd say, "It's nothing. It's just that you're so happy." Was it that unusual? Apparently. All day long I felt like I was stuck in a Disney cartoon, with little bluebirds on my shoulders and everything.

But then later that night? BOOM! Serious sore throat. Sniffles, coughs, chills. Maybe it was all the pre-cold symptoms that had me dancing earlier. Maybe I was drunk with fever.... Or maybe I'd tempted Fate.... All I know is pain had found me again.

And since then it's been doing the Happydance....

:(

Granted, it all could be worse -- I've got some tricks up my sleeve now to deal with things like this that lay me low. And to my credit I've been able to continue the Neverending Studio Overhaul, allbeit in slow little bits.

But it still surprises me how hard it is, how different it is to recover from stuff now that I'm older. Now there are naps involved. Plural. And a lot of plain old shutting-down-and-taking-care-of-myself. It's not like the Old Days when I could just knock back some Dayquil and soldier on.

And just because I stop doesn't mean everything else does. Valentine's Day (one of my fave holidays) came and went and I did my best under the circumstances. And messages continue to pile up and go unanswered. Work remains undone. There are comments to acknowledge and 'belated happy birthdays' to wish. I look around and there are still boxes to unpack and sort. Cages to clean. Dishes to be put away. Olympic games to catch up on.... Bummer.

But all that will have to wait a bit longer. Because for right now it's tea and a book and a quilt and a cat.
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Hello Stress....

Wearing this stuff would almost beat drinking it....

Yesterday I woke up already wigged out.

Then I looked at all the Fest-related stuff that I couldn't seem to wrap my head around.

Then I panicked and went for a walk -- saw a swallowtail butterfly, found some treasure, picked a flower, appreciated the clouds, determined that it was easily the best summer day of the season.

Then I pulled prints and organized postcards and ordered more product and walked around in circles, wringing my hands and verbally beating myself up.

Then I tried downloading a library book to my Kindle. (Stressed? Grab nearest book. Hide in it until better.)

Then I e-chatted with a librarian who dumbed the process down for me and walked me through it because I make things harder than they need to be, apparently.

Then I streamed a great book to myself -- Eggs by Jerry Spinelli (a fave author who writes for children and young adults).

Then I sunk into the hammock with it until the neighborhood came home from work and turned my quiet time into Crazy Town.

Then I poured myself a glass of homemade white lilac wine.

Then I grimaced mightily before growing accustomed to it. It's like drinking cologne -- tastes more horrid with each passing year but dang if your breath doesn't smell AMAZING afterward. (I suspect that when it kills you, any post-mortem people will thank you for it....).

Then I made popcorn for supper and watched an episode of Hercule Poirot.

And then I went to bed and willed the flowery goodness to knock any thoughts of Fest out of my head.

It didn't.

The End.
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It's That Kind of Day

Every quilt needs a rosebud patch....

It's a curl-up-with-a-cat kinda day. A don't-answer-the-door kinda day. A turn-off-the-lights-and-pretend-I'm-not-home kinda day....

It's the kind of day that wants a cup of tea and a picture book. The kind that wants my shoes off and my feet wrapped in Grandma Slippers, the handknit ones with pom-poms.

I want flannel jammies and a robe that isn't scratchy. I want old-school Sesame Street episodes on the TV. I want Bob McGrath singing 'Windy Day.' I want Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood immediately afterward, and I want to imagine living in the land of Make Believe, where it's always overcast, and kittens wear dresses and live in treehouses and speak in meows and I understand what they're saying.

And my day should be chicken-noodle-soup-scented. There should be Colorforms on my bedside table. A quilt on my lap made of swatches of fabrics I wore in school, squares that I can trace with my fingers as they march up the patchwork hills like little hand soldiers, an edging so soft and silky that it makes my eyes close involuntarily. A dimestore sketchbook at my elbow where I can draw horses and erase the hooves until holes are worn in the paper (hardest things ever for my little hands to draw!).

And at 3:30 I want to hear the school buses go by. And I want to watch the day turn to dusk outside my window. And then I want to curl up in a Rip Van Winkle kind of sleep, where long healing years pass slowly but when I wake it's only the next morning, full to the brim with undiscovered magick and impossible possibilities.

Yup, that's what I want.

And -- no surprise -- just writing these words has made me feel better. :)
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