But, without further punishment, I quickly blot this down before I find myself distracted.

This class I took because it require no previous knowledge of drawing.  “Perfect!  Because I draw like my hand is in a cast and I’m looking through one eye at a Van Gogh painting!”  My version of drawing is to take oil paints and smush them into beautiful colors and splash them all together until it is a colorful representation of a thing instead of that thing itself.

In general, this class was about reporting, journaling, memory mapping – the things that a photograph just can’t capture.  The emotions or sounds or flow of people.  What makes something interesting, why it stood out to you, and why you would spend time journaling it by drawing.  And always have a small sketchbook with you.  No need to make it any smaller than will fit in your purse or glovebox.. just something little to draw in while waiting.  I’ve found this to be immensely more enjoyable than playing a game on my cell phone while waiting in a drive through.

Our first days of class we practiced Reportage.  This is the fabulous practice of drawing the people and activity you see, without really needing to pay attention to how recognizable these things are to everyone else.  That girl looks more like Jabba The Hut?  The dog looks like it may be mounting a flower?  Is that tree somehow melding into that building?  No Problem!  The point is to get the outline and show the movement or the important things.  You don’t have to show emotions of the people or accuracy, but do take your time to feel the moment and the lines the people make.

You also want to try doing just little drawings for Reportage.  Too big & you’re going to get caught up in details.  Thumbnail drawings of the people and movement work great.  I’ve attached my awful first-day drawings.. believe it or not, the bottom left one is the one that is most like Reportage.  Like I said, doesn’t have to be great, just what you see.

Now go outside & try it.  Sit down anywhere and draw for 15 minutes the people going by, the busy cars, quick sketches of important things you notice, like a little kid talking to a dog or a guy in a business suit trying to eat a hot dog. 

Next: Nature Journaling

Do Spiritual people have a look about them?  Is it a positive or negative? For them? For others seeing them?

Is someone spiritual only for a specific religion?  Is Spirituality related to a religion at all?

Is being spiritual an active or passive activity? If you are feeling spiritual sometimes, but not others, are you faking it?  Does it count? Or does one make all of their decisions & actions based on the spirituality?

I’m just wondering.  I mentioned today that I have a Book of Shadows.. and then wondered if I actually did, and what is that, anyway?  *sigh* I once followed the Wiccan path, celebrating sabbats and recognizing the magic in everything.  Now, I follow no written truths other than “harm ye none”, but that seems more like a basic rule to follow from birth than a religion.  At what point do we stop being spiritual or religious, and instead recognize that these are just how we become true human beings?

Back to the point.. I wondered if I should go back to recognizing the Sabbats, creating my own Book of Shadows, teaching my daughter what it means to be Wiccan so that she had advice if she needs it.  I thought of all that would mean, what changes to my life would have to be made, to become actively Spiritual. I would have to take some time to contemplate actions and intentions, to appreciate that around me and judge my actions, and maybe others’ actions.   For a moment, it seemed to become less of a straightening to a line than a new obsession, like noticing how many cars look like the car you want.

So that’s what I’m wondering.  Is Spirituality like straightening to a new line, or is it a new obsession?  Is it aligning yourself with the mystical forces to make yourself a conduit, or is it recognizing that you are just a bubble floating along the path that something else has built, and you should appreciate that time?  Or is it a compass to ensure you get along with society?

I read once that there are rules societies must live within to be a society.  A philosopher wrote that it can be a society enforced by police and institution, or by internal moral compass of each person.  The latter proved more effective, but more intrusive – is it moral to change a society’s innermost moral compass to fit your own?  If you want a dog to do something, do you put a collar on him to do it, or do you make him want to do it on his own? And if he wants to do it on his own, what have you done to change that dog, you monster! Why can’t he just be a dog?

Hmm, I think I have gone farther than I intended to go.  The point is… I’m 35, and I am still trying to figure out who “me” is.  I’ve discounted Spirituality for the last 10 years under the assumption that I am doing right.  Maybe I should become more active, and less passive.  Maybe that is why I am so restless…

When you are born, there are few promises made to you.  You are not promised love, money, shelter, food, success, or power.  You are given some extend of free thought and action, but even that is slowly taken from you when you do not realize it.

You are given life and time.

“You got what anyone gets.  You get a lifetime.”  (Sandman Comics)

So what does it mean that we now trade our time for money?  I give in my 8 hours, and a forced 1-hour lunch, and for that I am paid.  I would like to say that at some point I wouldn’t exchange my lifetime for money, but I have to pay for my house and my family, so I will take whatever I can get, just like everyone else.   I exchange my lifetime for as much money as I can, so that I have a house and coffee and dresses and my daughter’s hair dye and my husband’s computer.

But once you realize you are exchanging the only real thing you own, the only thing that can never be taken from you nor that you can get back, you start wanting to hoard it. Why spend time cooking if I can just pick something up on the drive home?  Then my time can be spent enjoying the money for which I exchanged my life.  Doesn’t that become the new mentality?  My time is worth $30/hour, so anything that costs more than that isn’t worth it.  Why return a $5 item if it takes an hour to go through the line?  Why clean my house for 8 hours when I can spend $8/hour to have someone do it for me, then I’m still $22 ahead!

And with this mentality, every aspect of life officially becomes about money.

“It was like to stop consuming is to stop being human.” (Gotye)

It is that thought that I am having problems with.  My lifetime is mine.  I get what I get, and I don’t actually want to sell it.  I want to enjoy every moment of it as much as I possibly can.

And that is where I am.  Seeing the commerce around me, and wondering where I am, where I am headed, and where I want to be… and having no answer.

There is a story we tell ourselves about ourselves.  The story of “I” that dictates the picture of us, our past, our present, and our future.

Some of it is made up of our past, actual events that happened. The time your mother slapped you for swearing, or the time you saw a stranger getting teased mercilessly.

It is also just as importantly made up of things that both did not happen to you, and things you chose to forget.  Your friends not doing drugs in front of you and one of them dying, a friend not winning the lottery, being molested but forcing yourself to forget, or just forgetting a family trip where you lost the dog.

And, some of it is made up of how you choose to remember it.  The macaroni & cheese your dad made that was the BEST FOOD YOU EVER TASTED, without the inclusion that it was because you hadn’t eaten all day.  Your favorite movie being Beauty and the Beast, but not remembering being thrown up on after seeing it for the first time because your little brother ate too much popcorn.

But of course, it’s not just a story of events, or the lack thereof.  It is also all the internal monologue, the painting you make of yourself.  Sure, the tangible attributes of a small chest or big tummy or little toes or brown hair paint your mental picture of yourself, the self you think others see when they look at you (though they probably don’t – they probably only see you the way you see you after years of knowing you), they all feel important.  They are important for your explanation of how the world interacts with you (“he only talks to me because of my chest, but he’ll be caught by my beautiful eyes”)… but it is far more interesting to see the underlying picture.

What I love most is the story you tell yourself about why and how.  These two things explain your future.

When I was young,  my family and I went for a bike ride through the center of the city.  At an old abandoned warehouse, we all stopped, and looked at the dilapidated building, with a few glass panes still full, and they all threw rocks at the windows, feeling their power and hurting no one.  I could not.  It was not my window, and I had no right to break it.  It was not right, and I didn’t know it’s effect, so I refused to throw rocks, I refused to break the glass, I refused to break the rules.  This is the story I tell of myself, that I am someone that does not take an action outside of the acceptable rules unless I am sure it will hurt no one.  I base my daily subconscious decisions on this, knowing I am not a person that would ever willingly hurt someone or something for no reason.  This is who I am, as the story I tell myself.  This paints the inside picture of me.  I take my responsibilities very seriously, straining very hard to never be less than I must to fulfill my responsibility, once I have decided that it is mine.

If you could see the entire story I tell of me, you could see every choice I will make in the future.  I will never abandon my daughter or husband, or the story of I will have to change.  I will live a mostly normal life, and take pride in little things.  I will make most of my choices based on those I am responsible for, and when two roads are given to me, if you saw the full picture of me, it would be easy to predict which I will choose.

But it is difficult to see someone’s full picture.  Because this is my story, I often have to color my responsibilities with streaks of being a victim, but blaming myself for it.  And so, I am scared to go out, and I am scared of people that could hurt me unintentionally.  I hide inside and trust only a very few.

I could begin telling myself a different story, and on occasion I do.  “I am a person that enjoys being thanked, and so I will be the person that thanks other people.”  Sometimes things like that work, and a am a beautiful, fuller shade for it.

Sometimes, stories like “I only need to eat until I am full, and I am satisfied with lighter meals because I am a smaller person” only work for a short period of time, and then the story of “When I was young, I at ice cream at parties, and I enjoyed having my friends around at those parties, and I was happy, and so ice cream makes me happy” pokes it’s head through, along with my favorite place to be shouting out with “I love laying by the pool, soaking up sun, drinking Dr. Pepper and eating peanut butter M&Ms and Cheeto’s!” and before I know it, I’ve surrounded myself with foods I associate with love and sun and happiness, without actually having love, sun, or happiness.

One new story is sticking.  My husband believes I am beautiful, and that because I am beautiful, then every part of me is beautiful.  And my story of him is that he would never hurt anyone in the entire world intentionally, and so he will forever paint the picture of me with me – both  a terrifying and exciting thing, to entrust your story of you, in any part, to someone else.  It makes you feel both translucent when they are away, and full when they are near.

In fact, I wonder if that’s what they mean when they say “Your other half”…  and yet another reason you have to be so careful when you choose a mate… they really do become a part of you.

They had 5000 entries, and only posted 10.
This was my first entry, where I found 600 words REALLY limits you.. as I had written 600 words and was originally only 1/4 the way into the story.
Anyway, this is what I submitted. Maybe one day I will go back through & write the story as I really saw it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some people swore that the house was haunted. I knew it was. Once every summer it sucked me in and wouldn’t release me until 5pm, when mom could come get me.

“Hi Great-Grandma. I’m here. Going to get a drink, ‘kay?” She glanced at me for a moment before smiling and nodding, then going back to a glittering Mr. Barker. She seemed big in the tiny room, holding a loveseat, her chair, and the other lazy-boy, still holding grooves as if it was still occupied, instead of empty for years.

A table took up the entry room, extended as if all 5 kids could come to dinner at any moment. Her bedroom door sat open, and I averted my eyes as if just peeking in crossed some unknown boundary into the spirit world. I passed instead through a small doorway, into the green-tiled kitchen. Finding a small empty jar in the cabinet, I filled it with yellowed water, the sloshing echoing through the house, an intruder on the houses emptiness. Retreating to the room that held a willing prisoner, I eyed the loveseat, dusty, decaying, and overfilled with handmade doilies. Enraptured by the next Showcase Showdown, lost in her own world, I wondered if she even knew I was there. Crossing the room, I sat tentatively in the grooves, the chair enveloping me. I eyed a strange arm groove, and put my arm in it, across the arm, and the angle causing my fingers to brush her chair.

The moment the connection was made, the air crackled and shifted. I pulled my arm back, but the room was replaced by one with a toddler racing small metal cars around an infant lying on a blanket. I glanced in the chair next to me at a young woman, and we watched a girl bringing her beau into the room, excitedly introducing him. The boy scrutinized the floor as the girl looked above me, then continued to my chest when I stood up. I stepped softly into the main room, into a thanksgiving feast where children and adults sat around the table, eating and laughing as the youngest took a sip of wine. Movement in the bedroom caught my attention, and I watched a couple laughing and playing the dance of lovers, teasing touches and mischievous looks. Right on top of them, the couple entered again, aged ten years, the dance angry, frustrated, and violent. The both men raised their hand, and both women fell to the bed laying over each other. I found myself crying out and turning away, into the kitchen teeming with life and lives, lights twinkled along the walls, everyone danced, shared, laughed, and lived. The family at the dinner table exploded with laughter, and watched the youngest slip down his chair and under the table with a smile.
A break in the crowd and a teenage boy carried a bag from the kitchen, through the crowd around him, and tears fell from every watching eye. When he opened the door, an icy wind whipped through the house; the crowd braced and then washed away – taking with them everything but the dust.
I moved back to my great-grandmother, and my great-grandfather in the empty seat next to her. She looked over, through me, and smiles. “You know, sometimes I think this house is haunted” she said.
Haunted by time, lives, and memories. Within a year, it was haunted by her, and I never saw it again. And with the knowledge that one day I wanted to be haunted, nothing was ever the same again after that.

(the picture is from the Utah Land Management website, I think. I found it years ago, and is actually of a house we once lived in, not the house I wrote the story about. I can’t remember the address of that one…)

And Bash.org will tear it apart.

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“You Okay?” he asked.
“yeah.. just.. umm..” and for just a moment, I debated telling him.
Telling him about the upgrades that weren’t running right, that I had to go back and fixed, and wondered how many times in the past hadn’t gone right, and how far back I would have to go to find out.
Telling him about the idea that I had to fix an object in a database, it’s process, and how it had seemed like a great idea, but it wasn’t working right, and I hadn’t had the time to figure out why, although I had spent at least an hour on it. Though that hour was 3 days ago, and I’m not sure I remember now what I was doing.
Telling him of the song stuck in my head, the beat that twirled through my head like a hurricane, making me feel dizzy, drunk, and some part of me didn’t want to be pulled out of it.
Regaling him of stories of ghosts and gods that play around in my head, words not yet put to paper, but events that are building themselves together into their own little world, worlds, universes really.
And, for anther instant, debated pulling away, turning back to the words in the tiny screen on my desk, the one with no scripts or problems, but instead held it’s own world. The one of shadows and light, caresses and heartache, imagination and superheroes and emotions so strong I knew even as I looked at him, that I was someone else completely when I turned my eyes that way.

And I looked at him, all of it growing..

and then I blinked. And smiled as I realized he was waiting for me to answer.
“Yeah, I’ve just been a little overwhelmed.”
And he smiled back, and we discussed fixing a single word that would cascade changes across a million places.

Because, unlike silences, words can do that, you know.

Nope, silences only change you.

Pardon the format, but my time is so limited lately..

Here is this mornings adventure with me & Eury:

She barked at the cat for 20 minutes. I finally got the squirt gun & shot her in the face
then hid the gun
she blamed the cat first & barked at her
to which she got squirted again

but she was staring at the cat when I got her

so she turns..
and looks at me
in the “Why? WHY would you DO that?”

paces toward me, sees the gun behind the wall, paces back to the cat..

growls under her breath..

looks at me..

looks at the corner at where I am hiding the gun..
and Huffed.
just huffed. LIke “Fine, But the MOMENT you put down that gun..”

to her credit, she did bark again when I went upstairs, but only once
I poked my head out & she was gone

So, I figure I’m save & go into my bathroom to start my hair.
I hear her come upstairs, and then I hear nothing
Then I hear her tromping back downstairs..
and then quiet, then romping.. then quiet..
I poke my head downstairs..
and she is TOSSING MY GIR SLIPPER UP IN THE AIR.
Looks at me up on the stairs, tosses it in the air one more time, catches it, then TAKES OFF around the house.

I tried the “thank you” exercuse to her.. brought her a food piece.. she dropped the slipper for a microsecond, ate the piece, and IMMEDIATELY TOOK OFF WITH THE SLIPPER AGAIN.
Of course, The next thing that usually works is throwing a handful of food at her face, which does work this time, as she needs more than a microsecond to find where all the pieces go.
so I take away the slipper, put it up on the counter.. and in that time, she beats me upstairs to the bedroom.

want to guess what she did next?

Found my other freaking slipper.

*sigh*

She is too smart for me.

For the Hatred of Word Problems

“Numbers and words should never be mixed”
my daughter states
in her fifth grade outrage,
and a part of me cries for all the numbers I’ve loved.

I reminisce with 2 and 4
about all the times we played with pi
the laughter we shared when we created 8.

And I pluck up 6 and 9
and hold them like newborns
listen to them pout that they are not as loved as Bs or Ds.

I tell 3, 5 and 7
that I appreciate their prime reliability
and they salute me and carry on, alone in their duties.

1 cries in the corner
and I tell it that it’s the most important of all.
It doesn’t believe me, but it puts on a brave smile anyway.

Together we dream of hypotheses becoming facts, and backwards creations.
We define circles and build houses, fill in Jell-o molds and change the human body.
We lived ages and deaths, and found answers to it all.

While they will not help me dry the frustrated tears that splash on 5th grade math homework,
I can’t help but wish they could.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I know I don’t deal well with change.  As it’s coming, I try to steel myself up for it, surround myself with distractions as well as comforts.  I remind myself that there is Xanax & a cookie shop close by.

I usually do better than this.

6 people removed themselves from their world & entered mine to uproot me and plant me somewhere new.  They rustled my leaves & a few decaying ones fell off.  They tore out my roots I had planted, a few in very strategic places, and plopped me down in cold, unused soil.  They showered me with some artificial sun and patted down the soil very, very lightly, and then they were gone.

They did this all for me because I asked them to, and they were kind enough to do so.  It would have been a lot more difficult to do it all by myself, don’t think I blame the people that re-planted me.  I thank them for everything they did, everything they gave up, and all they help they gave.  It is difficult to pull up your own roots completely, and it takes a lot more time, but just as much pain (if not more).

But after they left, I realized I was in shock.

I found myself suddenly reaching into myself at decades-old comforts of destruction, hatred, and guilt.  I yelled and battered my fists on the ground.  I lashed out to hurt anything around me, and consumed anything that would hurt me the most.   My careful precautions were lost amid a haze of grime and dirt, clouds of poisonous words and evil thoughts.

Simple fixes, like walking, a sun lamp, baking, or Xanax were lost amid efforts to over-react and self-belittlement.  The healthy was replaced by destructive, and I found myself wanting, again, to run and hide, to close myself off into a corner & never come back out.

In a normal time, that is where I would continue to live.

Somehow, the voice of reason tugged one root a little deeper.. opened up one leaf a little more.. and a little sun got in.  Of course, that voice of reason is, as always, my only voice of reason I ever have.. my husband.

It’s funny.. if I ever leave, it will be because, at some point, he won’t be able to get into the hard shell I keep trying to create.. and I fear for all of us then.

It’s going to take months to get our roots growing deeper again, until our leaves open up completely.   All three of us are going to need to remember our coping mechanisms.  Hopefully, together, we’ll get it.  We have the next 30 years to perfect it.