Step Forty Six: Tree

Dear Fi,

My plan for today was to post all of my December posts. Yes, that was the plan. However, there were also other things I wanted to do today too ;) It is late, we just came back from our anniversary dinner and are supposed to watch a movie together. So, all I can do is to try to post as much as I can. I have four posts ready to upload and publish, if I can just post this one today it will be great.

The picture above is one of my old drawings I found a few weeks ago and decided to bring back to life. I wanted to draw it with black ink or marker and then add some colours here and there. As you can see (below) it didn't go according to my plan ha, ha, ha. I just drew the tree and then ran out of time and decided to leave it as it was.

I hope that you had a great time and survived the Christmas craziness with a smile, this is what I was trying to do for the last couple of weeks. I didn't want to take a break from our steps, but I had no time for posting, and I still have one more paper to finish... However, I want badly to update my steps before the new year, so see you soon!!! 

Love :*

Sylvia

Step Forty Two: Stomach flu, a funeral, and tears...

Dear Fi,

Last Tuesday I tried to recover from a stomach flu (which attacked my entire family), from a few sleepless nights, from writing an existential and very personal paper, and from the funeral I attended that day. 


I didn’t want to think about anything that day. After the funeral I came home, lied down in bed and fell asleep, for the first time since Friday. I woke up on Wednesday morning... 

On Tuesday I saw tears everywhere. All I could think for this post was a paper full of tears. I imagined tiny tears on a silver wire, black tears falling down from a white paper, layers of tears hanging out from a celling, and tears of various sizes dancing on a wall. I knew I wouldn’t manage to do something time consuming so I just drew a few tears in my notebook during my break at work and that was all I could do.

The clouds of thoughts surrounded me that day and I couldn't free myself from thinking. All I wanted was to have a still mind, with no thoughts flowing, with no movement - just peaceful stillness. And maybe some clarity instead of the foggy confusion about the whole Universe and the purpose of my tiny life.

With years I’ve noticed that these “things” always escalate in my life around my birthday...    

“Awareness is the key. Do we see the stories that we’re telling ourselves and question their validity? When we are distracted by strong emotion, do we remember that it is our path? Can we feel the emotion and breathe it into our hearts for ourselves and everyone else? If we can remember to experiment like this even occasionally, we are training as a warrior. And when we can’t practice when distracted but know that we can’t, we are still training well. Never underestimate the power of compassionately recognizing what’s going on.” {Pema Chödrön}

I’m trying to experiment for the last 38 years and still mostly fail miserably every day but I keep experimenting anyway ;)

Love :*

Sylvia

Step Thirty Five: Sweet love... sweet souls...

Dear Fi,

It is not the same without you :( 

Posting alone feels weird. 

Come back!!! I really miss you :*

***

I wrote about the special meeting in Coleman but then something happened and I couldn’t post it... 

So instead of the detailed rapport on this amazing encounter I will leave you with a short description of today’s artwork.

It is hard to believe but today is the eighth anniversary of my marriage. So it seemed only right to do something to mark this passage. You might remember the picture of us from last year I posted in our flickr pool while doing my 365: self-portrait. I considered taking another, more recent, photo; but I really like that one I used because it speaks volumes about our relationship.

So, eight years.

Today. 

Still together. 

Still in love. 

Still happy. 

In awe.

***

I could write the whole “love story” and list all the great, wonderful, amazing things I know about my husband, but somehow I don’t feel like I want to share all of this on our blog... I am not comfortable with doing this. So, I won’t ha, ha. Besides, I think you already know the story anyway ;)

***

The change happened Dear Fi. I experienced some kind of shift. The last experiment with Zentangle and the previous one with spontaneous drawing brought me back to the “old times”. I feel like something opened inside my compressed (and maybe broken from all that social conditioning and self-judgment) soul and I can finally feel the freedom. She is coming out, calling me, and dancing through this little crack I’ve created with these 35 steps so far.

I am drawn to the simplicity of black and white now, and to the effortless, playful lines, circles and dots forming the new worlds on paper. I am grateful for discovering the lost pleasures anew again. I wish I could find the right words to better explain it to you...

One day maybe... when we finally meet I will try ;)

:*

Sylvia 

P.S.

My Dear, I cannot wait for you to came back and play with me again next week. I hope you will bring lots of pictures and stories to share, and tones of new fancy French inspirations ;)

Love :*

Step Thirty Three: Spontaneous drawing...

Dear Fi,

I started to work on my step around lunch. I was actually quite happy with what I did. No, not because I like the effect but because I felt like I regained an ability I once lost.  I drew spontaneously without judgment and finished my drawing in a few minutes. This is how I worked before with freedom and curiosity, without great expectations, just for the pure joy of scribbling on paper. Drawing and painting this way usually started with one dot or a circle or a line without any concept of what might have happen or where it will lead me. It usually ended with something totally unexpected created on paper, almost as if I wasn't the person who drew but a medium through which the drawing came. This is why these quotes from Piet Mondrian "The position of the artist is humble. He is essentially a channel" and "Intellect confuses intuition" were for so many years appealing to me. 

Anyway, this is today's story. 

Pure happiness! Except... the fact that after drawing my piece I became busy with my life and went to pick up my son from school, shopping, then had my hair done, come back home, put my children to bed and fell asleep with them. I woke up after 11PM and scanned my drawing and started to write this post. My plan for today was to scan the drawing and then paint the original and a few printed copies with different colours. However, since it is so late I don't think I will be able to paint more than one tonight. Also, as I'm writing these words right now in the blogger, I see the message below "Post was not saved due to form errors" so I'm not even sure if I can post it right now? I will try and see what happens, and I will update my post when I finish painting.

I cannot believe I will be here alone for the next two weeks...

I hope you will enjoy your vacation and come back happy and ready to play with me again. I wish you could join us for our unravellers meeting this year, but I know that we will meet (sooner or later) anyway. As you know I've recently met one pretty amazing soul from our tribe and I cannot wait to meet others soon, and I cannot wait to meet you in person too :)

Love :* 


Sylvia 

Update:

Step Twenty Three: 30 second drawing {it is all the RedBull fault! Seriously...}

Dear Fi,

I know... lame. But all I have for today is a 30 second drawing, which I scanned and attempted to make it “say something” by using Picnik. Ha, ha. Not even Photoshop...

At least the words I chose totally resonate with me :)

I blame the RedBull I drank yesterday. Yes it was helpful and I was able to finish my paper and felt light and free until 2AM ;) I even felt that way in my dream. Oh! I had such a beautiful dream!!! Looks like all that time spent on commenting in our pool yesterday payed off ha, ha. However, the one thing about me and the RedBull is the fact that the next day is really unpleasant. I don’t know maybe it is just me, but I felt drained all day today. So, I decided to take it slow but then unexpectedly things started happen... and things got complicated... and I needed to take care of totally unplanned things... and this of course stole my time for posting...

So, first I panicked but then I did this drawing, and contemplated if I wanted to paint it or not. I knew that if I chose to paint it might take me forever. I was sure that I would add some gluing and sewing and who knows what else. It was tempting, but then I decided to be honest with myself. I didn’t have time to work more on this today. I decided to play with the leaf in Picnik for a few minutes and then stop.

Leaving that poor leaf “as it is” completely hurt my ego...

ego: a stupid leaf??? C’mon! You can do better.
me: yes I know I can do better, but not now.
ego: you’re kidding, yes?
me: nope!
ego: you cannot be serious, that is so “not you”!
me: ouch! that hurts... (he, he)
ego: the most unimpressive post ever.
me: unfortunately you’re right.
ego: you will regret it!!!
me: who knows, I might...



My Dear Fi... The good thing is, that at least I didn’t miss the post ;)

Love :*

Sylvia

P.S.
I’m leaving in two days. I decided to post something from Osoyoos, BC next Tuesday, but I have no idea how it will go and if I will be able to do this. I don’t want to pre-post something for next week, but it might end with no posting at all. However, I will prepare something, and if I won’t be able to find an internet connection, I will post it next next Tuesday (after I came back).
P.S.’
I still want to do the “thing” I have planned for last time, but it will take me muuuuuch more than 30 seconds, so I couldn’t do this today, and I won’t take it with me. So it must wait for the right moment ;)