quietly

There's a lot going on - in my head. But it doesn't have words. I'm just looking. And listening. Which is nice, for a change :)

How are you?

waiting

Curves, right? I love curves! I love soft, glowing, stretching! Colourful curves! My own feminine curves - sure, why not?! & I'll take Ireland - rolling and green. But my mind is more like a Picasso at his most cubist - upside down & all. Yes, I've got a flair for the dramatic - working on it - and as far as metaphors go, this one is a stretch, even for me ;) But I travel rugged terrain at times, & I get lost.

When I wrote about waiting for the next curve, for life to veer back to me, that's true. I don't mean I stop everything, get a nanny, a cook & a cleaner and find a quiet spot to suspend - I know full well that I need to be available for the curve. Whether the curve finds me, or I find the curve, it happens inside my life; not on a mountain top or in an attic room. I have suspended myself for about 10 years, so I know this. When you hide from life, Fabulous can't find you. I'm living proof - to myself if to no one else - that you can untie yourself, finally, eventually. But it's a ridiculous effort, and it costs, and I don't want to do it again.

But I do wait. While life goes on. I don't wait for wisdom, or insight - I know by now the truest stuff clatters onto your life path when it bloody well feels like it - much like Fabulous, quite unbidden. And it falls inside your life. It doesn't come haloed, with a free retreat (yes! The rolling green hills of Ireland, please!) to practise welcoming it, unwrapping your own version of picture-perfect upon returning home. No. It comes and you leave it where it fell - almost unseen because it doesn't fit quite yet - or you pick it up, take it in and try to wrap yourself around it - all while ironing an evening meal onto the cleaned table. High heels optional.

But still, I wait. While life goes on, because I've got an awesome 4-year-old who doesn't wait, for no man, nor his mamma. And I'm so, so grateful for that kid, because I can't adjourn myself. And he makes me laugh out loud of course, and he makes me angry, and he makes me feel clueless and fun and he makes me want to throw my hands up in despair, and he makes me feel alive! I'm living lives in my days, and although this isn't about the boy, and he's got no responsibility to keep me sane, he does, inadvertently. And he rocks. Because and solidly despite.

But I'm waiting, nonetheless. While I live, care, draw, do laundry and talk to fellow moms at the school gates, about nothing in particular. I wait for zest and juicy to come back. Yes. I know. Curves. I know life isn't all awesome and Flow and Fabulous. I spent enough time observing life from a lay-by to know that the fast lane kills. But somehow, and I haven't figured out the why or the how quite yet, I never dip to cruising speed; my engine splutters and I swerve! Not quite into oncoming traffic - not much, not always, anyway - but it feels like I'm going the wrong way all of a sudden. Like nothing makes sense anymore. Like an alien inside my own skin, inside my own daily, unchanged life. Like I said, my moods, my je ne sais quoi? I curve Picasso-esque! When Fabulous leaves, comfort leaves in her wake. Is that crazy? Pathology, anyone? Wait! Don't answer that ;) This is my life, wonky as it gets at times, and the skipping little girl-part of me doesn't want to know, she just wants to learn to deal!

So I wait and wear daily routine as a life vest of sorts. Holding on to what I know matters, even if I can't feel it then and there. Going through the motions. Trying to stay afloat while mild to moderate panic and despair wash over me, and nothing feels quite good enough to keep me grounded where I know I live. I can't pinpoint where it starts, or why - eventhough I think I know at times. In the end, it feels like everything. Like I lose the healthy filters between me and my world and everything washes over me. I feel defenseless - I don't know what's important anymore, so everything becomes weighty and serious. While I still deep-down know I don't need to quit or give up on anything I'm learning to embrace as solidly me and beautiful, I can't touch that knowledge and it takes most of my energy not to let go, to wash out; change my skin and start over again, being who I'm not - apologise.

This cycle is familiar. I'm just starting to recognise it, but the truth of it feels old, well-worn. Like it's always been like this. Not Fabulous, she's still quite new - she introduced herself when I emerged from where I wasn't. But how I lose my rhythm, my song, how I disappear - even now that I'm generally - really - quite comfortable inside my skin and my life? Old, old fabric, right there... From Fabulous into hiding. Never past go to collect salary or a soft pillow to land. Straight into that austere place where I can't quite grasp where or why I matter anymore. Until it passes. Because it does. An unmarked doorway, unobtrusive - corner-of-the-eye stuff, never there when you look for it? I don't know. Hindsight, looking back, I can never see how I came to that place nor how I left there. It just - unhappens. It dissolves. So yes. I wait until it does.

So I know this, about myself. I disappear. I go where I need to go, but I can't go out of my way. I've known this for a long time, and I have a grudging understanding for it - for no other reason than the fact that it comes and it hangs out, regardless. But I'm not okay with it. I can't stand shapeless things! Of course I've always poked and prodded, tried to turn it inside-out. Because it bites me where I'm trying to be soft! It feels like everything I've learned about being me, everything I'm learning to accept, to laugh about, to respect or to cuddle, suddenly becomes moot. Ridiculous, weird in a faulty, flawed way, all over again - until it isn't anymore. Until I'm back, re-hinged, oiled & in working order. Just like that. Everything that gained weight till it mattered becomes ridiculous in turn and I'm made to look like a fool in my own eyes till I smile, grin, laugh out loud and shrug.

I'm waiting my way up and out right now, and I think I see light ahead. About time, because I've been here for weeks. I'm reporting from the inside, and it's hard. I've been writing and rewriting this for days. But it's important. It feels important. To remember this when it takes flight again  - the whole thing, as it is, not the snippets in my journal; those just reflect the quality of frustration, yellowing before the ink is dry.

This is a wart. A big one. One that's been colouring my life for as long as I can remember - now that I allow myself to really look. And I have an inkling about it. The first idea that I might not have to just accept and live with this, for ever, just the way it is. Something about the why of the whole thing. Something really changes once you start looking at yourself as essentially okay. Even when you feel like you're solidly not. Stuff that I always saw as proof for not quite, suddenly becomes the raw material of who I already am. It feels like - somehow - I just need to translate this. The little girl inside has been telling me this all along, but it's taken me long to listen: I need to find out how to DEAL. 

I need to find out how to deal, because after all this time, after everything, I refuse to accept that I'm faulty, flawed, or even weird. How's that for a salty truth?! I'll go with intense. I'll give you that. Because I don't believe it's a flaw - it's a trait, and one that I'm okay with. One that I'm starting to value even! On good days, of course ;)

I'm intense, and I'm open. And I don't know how to hit the breaks. I don't think I have to change, pull up my guards - I'm learning to like myself and my honesty - but I need to learn to break - get quiet and assess. Before Picasso breaks for me and everything turns wonky. And this is new and tentative, but I think I can learn to save myself - before I fall apart. And knowing that this comes from the bottom of the barrel and I'm all naked in there, shouting anyway? As a woman in progress, I think that means there is truth in it. And hard work. Yes, that too ;) But I'm good with that - there's courage and hope in finding something to work with!

So how are you?! Do you know how to break?

IF - Myth

I've linked to Illustration Friday for the first time ever :D

I wish I could say I'm going to be doing this every week, or even regularly. As far as this week's topic of myth goes, having time to do everything I'd love to do - that's a total myth, too. I've been trying to climb the walls of constraint, but heck, they're slippery! I know I'm going to have to accept that bit of truth, right there, but I'm not ready. Not quite. In fact, these days, the limits time puts on what I can do is my biggest frustration! It's like living at home with parents again - kicking against a regime that won't budge! Darn ;)

There's a blog post in that, but not today. Time has put a spoke in that wheel & all. But it's okay - I'm here, and that's what counts! Besides, things have been a little on the heavy, soul-deep side here. And while there is nothing wrong with that, because I'm embracing the way I think about things, and this is the perfect space for hugging my warts in public - perhaps it's good to break it up with something light & fun ;) A reminder that whatever else I write about here, my life really is good, and I do have a fully grown funny bone! My kid is hilarious, and he so takes after me ;)

I bought this pair of heels spur of the moment. Cheered on by my four-year-old - he loves heels, and that's not because he regularly sees me in any ;) I'm 1m80cm tall. That's always been my excuse not to buy heels. I'm not sure why - but I guess that's what comes with being almost forty and finally finding comfort in this skin. Why not? I asked myself last Wednesday, in the face of hot sales prices (they were a bargain!) and a dancing kid.

It didn't take me long to figure out 'why not'. Haha, it will take me weeks of indoor practise before I'll be able to merely take them around the block. On my feet, that is ;) Talk about outside my comfort zone! But in a way, it's perfect. It's called for. And I will practise :D

I did this drawing for Koosje's ecourse Just Draw It! I'm having so much FUN!! I'm being dragged out of another comfort zone - pen and watercolours - to get into the basics of drawing, and it's awesome! I taught myself everything I know about drawing, so far. And by teaching I mean a process of trial and error on repeat. Which is great, of course. But it's really informative to be taught the basics. To go back to where I've never really been and see both what I already do know - just from getting my hands dirty for about three years now - and what could use (serious) practise. And I am practising - all the pockets of time I can find! Up to my wrists in graphite this week, and loving even the eraser rubbings - which is a stretch ;) Koosje is a lovely, patient, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, inspired and inspiring teacher. I'll share the next course dates on this blog, because I really think you'd love taking it. I'm just sorry we're not in class together now :)

One day, my son will bring home a girlfriend in heels. That's a given. All I can promise him until then, is that I'll work my butt off to be able to walk him to school in these one day. While I'm the woman in his life. And before he's too old to care ;)

What's taking you out of your comfort zone these days - and are you leaning in? :)

tools

Here's number 10* in Red Parka Diaries' drawing challenge: draw your favourite drawing tools and pay homage to them. Because let’s face, they are awesome and we’d be lost without them.

From right to left - because I can ;) - my Japanese brush pen, through JetPens, along with carbon ink cartridges that are permanent and waterproof (I used it to draw the bike in Amsterdam)! I love that pen! Especially because it's cherry red and because it takes courage to put it to the page, so it keeps me on my toes :) Next to it, one of my Big Girl brushes, and one of my Koi waterbrushes (that I - let's be honest here - use a lot more often than my Big Girl brushes these days...). Dr. Ph. Martin's India Ink - I use black the most, but I have a gorgeous colour wheel of them and they are all waterproof! My go-to dip pen with sketch nib. And of course, my watercolour set - a Van Gogh box filled with Winsor & Newton. Mostly artist grade, but there is some cotman left - I'm slowly replacing empty pans :)

At the bottom of the page, my less adventurous but definitely trusty tools. The ones I grab most often really. The tools that take the least amount of courage to pick up - and let's face it, not every day is a day of Great Courage or experimentation. There's my orange mechanical pencil, filled with B leds, my eraser (or what's left of it), and one of my Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners :)

I suppose this is what my drawing could have looked like if I'd kept it simple. Because these are the tools I use most often, and without these, I'd be lost. But I love all the stuff I use. And most of all, I love that it's there to use! That I can grab whatever my mood guides me to and draw! That all of these things are always out on the dining room table - my dudio - making me happy and excited even when I'm not drawing, but merely walking past, or dusting around them! 

I loved drawing my art supplies :) I love looking at art supplies! But of course, most of all, it's about using my art supplies. That's the best homage you can pay them! But it was fun putting them in the spotlight like this, and I think they appreciate it too.

In case you're wondering, I'm still working on my morning coffee. In the first version, I misspelled twice, and in the second version I used colours that are - not quite it, to be very mild & gentle ;) Version three is in the works. It might be up next. But you never know what happens when these tools and my mind start on a trip all their own ;)


* you can have a look at this challenge's number 2, number 9 & number 1 if you want :)

Day 26

It's my birthday today, & I'm not keeping my age a secret ;) I'm not ashamed ;)

I am proud of who I have become over the years. That's not something I say lightly, not something I say easily, but it needed to be said. It's been one hell of a trip so far, but I think I'm getting closer to being who my inner 3-yr-old wanted to be when she grew up :)

This past year, including our move (in fact, the actual moving started on my BD last year!), has been the best year in a really long time :)

Today, I'm grateful for my beautiful 'old' friends, and for the lovely & amazing new friends I've met since I turned 37 :) I'm grateful for the fact that I finally feel like I've got something to offer and to share. I'm grateful that those who knew me 'when', stuck with me through a whole lot of anguish and crap.

Here's to friendship. I feel a lot stronger for knowing my friends, for finally living geographically closer to them. I always knew it would be beautiful - & I've felt SO incredibly alone without, living away from the people I knew, hardly knowing my neighbours for the previous 11 years! This is the first year I'm actually feeling in my bones what it means to have friends! I'll be celebrating you with food today, people, lots of food & cake :D