MUSINGS ...

 

After last week's offering about pain I needed to talk myself into a better frame of mind - looking back at recent pages I got the distinct impression that I might be "wallowing".  I tell myself that I'm doing all I can to stay positive about the future, but sometimes (without noticing it) I do get a bit bogged down!!

So I painted this page a bright yellow with touches of orange - you can see from the pictures how differently the colours photograph at various times of day - and added a piece of bright red collage.

Then I set to work on a collage border and added the figure with wings and a crown just for their cheering effects!  I often use this rubber stamp for a face to represent myself, and I have a big pair of silver wings on my studio wall to help me remember that I can still fly ...

And then, because I am inclined to worry at things, over-analyse and generally fret ... this became a page about remembering who is really in control, and affirming again that I can trust that all will be well and turn out to my/our greatest good.  Its easy to forget that ...

So here's the finished article with the usual doodly decorations - and I am there in the middle of all this glorious technicolour wearing my crown and smiling. 

I hope I will look back at this page sometimes to remember what I learned in this process.  Let go, let God.
Rosie

WASTING TIME ON FEAR ...

 

This page marks a substantial shift in my thinking, and one that I hope I can hold onto in the coming hours and days.  The nearer we got to the major surgery, the more time I spent praying desperately and frankly allowing my fear to completely overwhelm me.

A day came when I realised that I was assuming the worst rather than hoping for the best, and that this approach didn't make any sense!  Its one thing to be realistic and acknowledge the risks of the operation, or the reality of the survival statistics, but its as if I was so determined to be sensible and pragmatic that I was failing to allow for hope, not to mention grace.

I knew when I set down the paint below that I wanted to describe and record this change in thinking, but not exactly how to do it.  I've learned that all you can do is BEGIN, so that's what I did using ordinary craft paint in three different shades.

Then I added some collage and it shouldn't be any surprise that it turned into a sort of sunrise image ... it really had been about the light dawning!  I've set these pictures side by side so that once again you can see the difference that a black outline and a grey shadow makes.

And then I started writing down everything I'd come to understand, and my decision to choose hope rather than assume the worst.  I do know that bad things might still happen, but overall the statistics for this type of cancer are good, with a high survival rate.  Removal of the bladder sounds really scary, but the more I learn about it the more I realise that its actually quite straightforward to manage and no big deal.  So, as I wrote at the head of the page, I'm not wasting any more energy on fear, I'm hoping and believing that this operation can be a total cure - words used by the surgeon. Maybe I got a bit knocked off course by the sudden death of my friend's husband on the operating table ... and feared a similar outcome.  I'm (trying) not to do that any more.

And then as per usual I got busy writing and drawing etc etc adding squiggly bits and generally filling up the page until it looked finished.  I do feel that a page should always have some human element - a face or an eye - just something to represent myself or humans generally.

The surgery is Monday, and it will be a long day (about 6-8 hours) before we know he's come through it OK, but I and many others will be holding him in prayer the whole time.  I've got my lovely daughters here at home with me, they've rallied to our side magnificently, so if I do have a few wobbles they'll be at my back.

I thank God that this is the kind of cancer on which its possible to operate - many aren't - and that we have a good chance of coming out on the other side of his recovery with a chance to start the retirement fun that's been put on hold.  Bring it on!

GOOD THINGS AHEAD ....

 

It has taken me about ten days to complete this page - generally I do one in two days at the most, but having one or two other things on my mind has meant I haven't have much time just to "play".

I rarely do anything fancy in terms of background because I know that I will be covering it up - and the picture below shows just how simple it is!  Just acrylic paint - the ordinary kind you can buy at hobby stores.  In this case I didn't even bother to go right to the edges of the page, because I wanted to do a collaged border.

So because I tend to stay in one colour range I then dragged out my drawer of orange/yellow/ gold/brown elements.  Its a very simple technique to create a border in this way and to be honest right now I can't really manage anything more complicated.  I don't worry about my collage pieces being the same width, because  a varied edge gives it more interest.

You may notice below that I've added a shadow and a black line around the inner edge - I hope you agree that this makes a substantial difference to how the page looks?  I found this Modigliani lady among my images, and thought she looked kind of reflective, or wistful even, as if she might be looking back - and that's why the writing tells her/me not to!

The rest of the page was added here and there, as I had a few minutes to spare, and is of course (as always) a message to myself.  We're in a new place and have left all but a few special friends behind, so life can feel a bit lonely and isolated at times.  When I get to feeling that way I remind myself not to look back, but to look ahead to a time when we've made new friends and become better established in the area - we HAVE only been here one month!

Still there's no doubt that life feels a bit quiet and our social life is distinctly limited for now.  Maybe that's why I feel disappointed that while almost a thousand people have been by in the past week, only ONE person opted to leave a comment.  Now I am NOT a comments junkie, and that's not why I keep this blog up faithfully, but right now it would be nice to know that you're out there and that I'm not just talking to myself - so say hi if you have time and tell me whether the blog helps you.  It would be so nice to know its making a difference to someone.

JUST BREATHE .....

If you're a regular visitor here you may notice something unusual about this page?  Its got lots of empty space, which is not like me at all!  Generally I fill every corner with bits of writing and doodling, but not this time ....

It started out like this ... a background made with Caran d'Ache crayons with a little bit of pink ink dabbed through a stencil.  Then I drew some strange, almost organic shapes (was my brain still thinking about arteries and body parts like the other week)??  Dunno really, who knows what goes on in there, I don't even remember most of it!

The black lines were done with a Promarker - I like doing wobbly thicknesses like this, and anyway if I tried to make them all neat, of equal thickness and regular I'd never do it!  If wobbles are inevitable why not make an artistic feature of them?  Then I wrote  "breathe slowly" - and its funny how I didn't know that I needed to do so until those words appeared on the page - my journalling is often intuitive like that.  It felt like I was getting a message from Herself upstairs, especially when the other words turned up.

I do have a bit of a tendency to worry about stuff, instead of handing it over and saying "I can't deal with this, but I know you can", but I think (I hope) I'm getting better at it.  A bit more writing (in my own handwriting yet!) and it was done.  No more words, message received and understood.

Obviously I couldn't resist doing a few dotty decorations, but even these were restrained by my usual standards, and I was quite comfortable with the empty space.  Actually I've been looking at journal pages on Pinterest recently, and noticed that some of the ones I liked the best were very clean and simple.  You wouldn't normally describe my pages that way - another message from Herself?  It may have been divinely inspired, or (possibly more likely) I was in a funny mood.  Whatever.   I like it though!

PS I've just noticed that my visitors have passed the 10,000 mark - and that's with a reset from 0 when for some reason I lost the blog counter!  I'm awed and amazed.  Thank you for coming by.