A Drawing For Today

           Sometimes in life, we pick things up and then we drop them.  Sometimes it's a bowl of cereal, a crush, a style, a diet, a job or a hobby.  For a big part of my life I drew.  I would draw for hours, forgetting about time, the world around me, my problems.  Fully pulled into whatever marks I was placing on the paper.

            I haven't finished a drawing for a while.  During my drawing drought,  I have done some scribbles, doodled while talking on the phone, started something, didn't like it, then either quickly turned the page to either stare at it and close it or make a couple marks and then move onto something else.  I couldn't find a drawing inside of me.  There was nothing to pull out. The whole process was extremely uncomfortable. 

            Several years ago, I went through a writers block.  It happened sometime after my mother passed away.  I didn't write anything for several years.  Not a page in a journal, not a postcard, not a holiday note, or a wish for a Birthday.  I finally wrote a birthday card.  The process was painful.  My handwriting was shaky and my writing seemed forced and extremely unnatural. I would even go so far as to call it painful.  1 year later,  I was filling up a notebook a month with thoughts, desires, dreams, nightmares, obsessions and memories.

            Well, on November 11, 2013,  I finished a drawing! In fact I did two, but the first one I consider more to be my warm up.  For the sake of it though, we can go ahead and say I finished two.  To my astonishment, the process wasn't painful, wasn't forced, nor was my mind  filled with thoughts of judgement.  I simply went along,  made some marks and continued till I said that it was done. I accepted it for what it was.  Not passing judgement was a relief I wasn't even mindful of at the time.

             Someone famous once said something along the lines of "If you don't know what to draw, just draw lines. If you still don't know what to draw, draw more lines" that is of course loosely quoted since I can't even remember who said it. Draw On!

Take Me To The Ocean

          I am hesitant to write this.  It seems that there are a countless other amount of posts that chronologically fit before this one.  Many stories and photos that lead up to this very moment.  I want it to make sense.  For there to be some order.  Somewhere.  Yet, lately I have been feeling exhausted, depleted, sad and despondent. My mornings have been filled with to do's and my evenings have been occupied by me passing out or zoning out to whatever noise I hear in the background coming from the ocean, from the tv. It hasn't been all work,  I've made enough time to take many photos, appreciate the flowers and remember many stories. 

           I traveled to Kauai to throw the mixed ashes of my grandma and grandpa in the ocean.  With to do's from my mothers death and family obligations and arrangements for my grandparents final memorial,  I have been feeling like a fragmented form of myself.  Self care had gone out the window.  That being the case it took me some time to remember that a swim in the ocean can solve almost any problem.  At least for me.  Its a recharge.  I have always said "Take your problems to the ocean and she will take it away." I had made no time for swimming for three days and the result of that was a shell of myself.  So like most self care acts, I made the time to go swimming.  I left the rest of the world behind and dived in.

When I came to on the other side. Walked on land and found a long lost friend.