All posts tagged: introspection

Escaping the Humid Isolation

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This is not a pity-party post even though it might seem like one. The last two months have been so oppressively hot and I am so much heavier now from pandemic isolation and inactivity. My mind imagines all sorts of wonderful things I could do and then I am sabotaged by my body that seems to say, “rest, rest, rest.” So I have been resting. I am listening. And, deep down, I know what I have to do to regain my spark. Yes, I know what I need to do. This year many of my loved ones are dealing with difficult health issues. I want to spend time with them all but it is simply not an option—logistical challenges thwart me. Many of my friends have died. I swing back and forth between wanting to talk about them, to write about them, to honor them in some way, and wanting to stay still and quiet and stay in the moment and trust that they know I care about them, even if they are gone now …

Random Acts of Correspondence (Part 1)

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I have a new typewriter. I say “new”, but it’s really over 40 years old. I won it on eBay for 30 bucks plus shipping. It’s a Royal Mercury portable typewriter from the 1960s or 70s; not the same as the typewriter I had as a teenager, but it’s bringing back all those same feels. It’s only had one owner before me who had it since his childhood and in his listing he said it was time for him to let it go. I told him I would take very good care of it for him. I cleaned it last night, and today it took me over four attempts to install a new black ribbon. It seems like this machine had been sitting around in its case for dozens of years, so naturally the old ribbon was dried out. I wonder now if it would have been easier for me if I had chosen to install the black and red ribbon. I think the orientation on those spools would have been more obvious (deep sigh) …

circles and shadows pattern

Finding the Upside

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For this month’s topic, I will highlight a form of visual poetry I have been creating during this time of self-imposed ‘social distancing’. So, this is my attempt to focus on the upside of isolation; an opportunity to explore creative projects I enjoy, but at a deeper level. However, I will begin with a personal insight from earlier this week.  You see, as I come to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic that is totally changing our daily lives right now, it occurred to me that my life has *already* been shaped by another pandemic. I grew up with a keen awareness of the sudden, devastating and traumatic power of influenza. I was aware of this because a beloved Aunt’s mother was struck down by the Spanish Flu when she was just a small child (1918-1920). Her widowed father re-married and he had two more daughters, the younger of which became my adoptive mother. My Aunt V loved her step-mother (she called her “Mamma”) but the loss of her first mother was always acknowledged as a …

My 2020 Notebooks

Preparing for 2020 (Keeping Notebooks II)

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FLOW is my chosen theme word for 2020 and I have been focusing on staying in a calm, creative mindset  as life swirls all about me. I am exploring all my art supplies, organizing all my music projects, and gathering and sorting all kinds of multi-media materials–my inspirational triggers, all in an effort to keep me in a creative frame of mind for the year ahead. Today, when I decided to write about this theme here, as luck would have it, my first issue of Flow Magazine arrived in the mail from the Netherlands–a holiday gift subscription from my mother. I took it as a confirmation from the Universe that I am truly in the groove! Part of my personal process, as one year ends and another begins, is to prepare a daily journal to reflect on my theme and to note the things in my life that make one day different from the previous ones. I find that if I do not keep this practice, one day can blend into the next and into …

Shift Happens

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We can stay “in the moment” all we want to, be mindful and appreciate each passing second–but, even if we do nothing else but count each breath we take, something, something somewhere, is shifting. Shift happens. As I count down the hours, minutes and seconds to the Gregorian New Year we will all think of as 2019, I am preparing a book to use as my daily journal. A place to write down 2 or 3 moments of each day that made it special, or just different from other days. A way to keep each day from running into the next in my mind, as they seem to be continuous lately, no definition. For me, writing specific events down keeps this misty time-haze at bay. For 2019, I have decided to also start to keep a little book I am calling “Joyful Thoughts & Happy Things” that I can carry around with me. It will be something I can refer to when unproductive or sad thoughts occupy my mind; I want to be able to immediately …

Introspection and the Collage Process

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I have made paper collages since I was very young, maybe 4 or 5 years old. One of the first pieces I remember making was a butterfly. I used the image of a carrot as the body of the butterfly, but I do not remember what I used for the wings. I wish I could see it again. I do recall that I had to use “baby scissors”. They had small thin embossed metal blades that had little rounded tips so I could not cut myself. I was also given a bottle of mucilage, a plant-based non-toxic glue, which I don’t think they even sell any more. (That kind of adhesive is not very useful in the long run as it turns yellow or brown with age. So, even if I still had that butterfly piece today it would probably look like a monochrome moth now.) I now follow a more introspective practice, using slightly more dangerous tools. I will outline my process here as I have found it to be a very relaxing, contemplative and often …