I have to make a small backpedal from an earlier post where I expressed upset about spending time online looking at other people’s creative work instead of creating my own. What I didn’t acknowledge in the post is I do that sometimes because my body and my brain can’t cope or process any other information when I’m feeling pain. I also do it because I’m trying to learn new things, new ways of expressing myself creatively, since I don’t currently have the freedom to go out and explore the world on my own terms.
The proof that I’m learning – even when I don’t immediately open my journal and grab my pencils, coloured pencils, coloured markers, or paints – is that each time I create something new I’m incorporating a technique that piqued my interest enough for me to learn it and show it off. Surprisingly, sometimes looking through the work of others helps to resurface pleasant memories from when I learned, and used to do, similar things when I was young. I loved art classes, but stopped taking them when I got to high school because I had to focus on subjects deemed more serious. Looking through the work of others is reconnecting me to my creative self and it feels good.
This morning, as if to affirm that these thoughts and feelings are true, I found a video online that has one simple message from artist Nina Paley that “all creative work builds on what came before”. It put a smile on my face and it’s exactly what I needed to bring light to this grey stormy day.
I’ve been feeling off-balance all week. Almost as if I have vertigo. I know that the main causes are my health, the pain medications, and lack of sleep, but the situation with my mother certainly didn’t help. And let’s not forget the ongoing legal battle with my horrible boss, which requires attention that I have not been able to give so my lawyer can finish filing my case. I also had another appointment with the second opinion surgeon on Thursday, but I’m too worn out to write about it today.
The only thing I could muster the energy to complete this week was my first attempt at creating a mandala. It took three days to finish. It’s not the tidiest thing I’ve ever created, but I feel proud in a strange way for drawing it freehand. I’m looking forward to making another one when I feel more energized.
Mandala #1
I’ve been running into a lot of information about mandalas and their spiritual nature in my travels around the interwebs. There is one blogger I found who is working on a 100 Mandala Project. Her name is Shilpa Sharma and her mandalas are incredible. You can find her creations at Shilpa Sharma Online.
I have to admit that creating this mandala had a meditative effect on me. As I was drawing the lines and filling in the shapes, lots of thoughts pushed their way into my mind and I had to work hard not to engage them. I knew I wasn’t having success quieting my mind each time I found myself responding verbally to some of my thoughts. Then I tried to apply the practice of just witnessing my thoughts. That worked a bit better. Although, I must confess that talking to myself is helping me work through some of the emotional turmoil in my daily life. I hope my therapist won’t feel threatened that talk therapy works even when he’s not in the room with me 🙂
Yesterday I was angry. I was so angry I had to cry to release some of the emotional pain the anger made me feel. I was angry because I spoke with my sister for the first time in just shy of five years. Her reason for ending contact was trivial and petty. I learned that she decided to cut me off based on a false assumption. Within ten minutes of talking about our different perspectives of what happened five years ago, it was clear that we could have resolved the issue without losing so much time out of each other’s lives.
I called her yesterday morning because I feel like I need to get myself organized. Because I don’t know when I will have surgery or what might happen when I do, I feel the need to contact people who I haven’t communicated with for a long time. Not acquaintances, but people I believe hold a significant place in my life. I am contacting them to let them know – if they don’t already – that I am (still) ill and I am adding their names to a list of people I want contacted after my surgery with news about the outcome, especially if it’s poor. I want to call these people because I believe in preparing for the worst while hoping for the best. The worst of what I’m preparing for is that something could go wrong during or after surgery, and I don’t want a phone call from a stranger to be the first time they learn that I’ve been sick for so long or worse. I feel like it’s a thoughtful thing to do. I know it’s self-inflicted stress, but the fact that I keep thinking about how these people might feel tells me it’s something I need to do. For obvious reasons, my sister is on the list.
Nonetheless, let’s get back to my anger. My sister made me angry because she chose to stay angry with me for a petty reason for five years. In fact, she said she felt she had the right to be angry about what happened. She held on to her anger even after my many attempts to make peace. After almost a year of reaching out and having her respond with coldness, I gave up. I figured she would contact me when she was ready to talk. That never happened. Then to add insult to injury, she said she didn’t feel angry while we were speaking.
Her rationalization and justification about her behaviour made me boil. Then she said, “Well that happened.” As if there was no more reason to discuss the matter further. I felt my blood pressure rise at her cavalier attitude about five years we could never get back. I reached dangerous temperatures when she swiftly changed gears and started to ask me detailed questions about my condition as if we just spoke a few days ago and I was now calling for a heart-to-heart chat.
Sadly, the more upset I became the more I cried and the more my pain increased. I had to cut our conversation short. After I hung up the call, I needed to find something to calm myself. Surprisingly, I reached for my art/gratitude journal. I got to work on a page I started the night before. I lost myself in colouring the shapes traced on the white page. I worked on it for hours until it felt complete. While I worked on it, I was able to calm my anger and empty myself of all thoughts and feelings about everything except the page in front of me.
Filled Found Shape
I put myself into that page. I had no plan for where I would place the colours. I didn’t know I would draw patterns to fill the coloured spaces. But, when I finished, I was calm and my anger was in the distance.
My Small Surrenders 