Monthly Archives: June 2010

Holding Myself Hostage

3 Replies

Ode to Bonnie Parker, originally uploaded by nhungsta.

Sunday morning I had a dream of myself at 10. I am rollerskating through the neighborhood and wearing this filmy pink nightgown that my grandmother had given me for my “dress-up box.” I used to wear this over my regular clothes and run or skate around with my friends, who were also dressed up in funny, older clothes. In the dream, I am skating in this outfit through lawn sprinklers, and I am happy. So very happy and joyful and laughing.

As I awoke, I saw that image morph into another from that time period. I used to dream that my father was a terrorist holding my family hostage. Unless I met all his demands, he would blow my mother, my grandmother, and my grandfather up. This Sunday morning, it wasn’t my father as the terrorist, and it wasn’t my family as the hostages. It was me–me at 10 years. I was the terrorist holding the gun, and I was the hostage. If I did not meet my terrorist demands then my life would be destroyed.

Two images of my life — one carefree and joyful, the other constricted and miserable.

I’ve been talking with my teacher about the need to free up my life to allow more time to just be and let creativity percolate. I run around so busy with my self-imposed responsibilities to others. I was ranting about this to my husband Friday evening — because I have “responsibilities” and I am “dependable,” I can’t just let things “drop!”

But I am holding myself and my life hostage, and that needs to stop. And that bomb needs to be replaced by some green and white rollerskates!

Working on Art Today

Leave a reply

Spent today at home. Working on some art in progress and embellishing a Touch Drawing from last month. Experimenting really with oil pastels and beads and Modge Podge. Decided that I needed a circular saw, but would rather just get a friend to cut the pieces I need. Sharp, rotating blades in my hands are not a good thing.

Tonight after cooking dinner, I’m planning on journaling a bit about a dream I had this morning and then creating another necklace to take to Florida with me in October. I’m vending at the Parapsychology Expo in theVillages and need to have inventory!  I’m also looking at vendors to print note cards featuring my digital collages and Touch Drawings.

I need to get PhotoShop operational on my newish laptop. I forgot to transfer the registration when I de-installed it from my old laptop, and now I can’t get it to work on my new one. Not good! So, it looks like an afternoon on the phone with Adobe is in my future at some point.

Anyway, I leave you with this photo of an embellished Touch Drawing. I don’t have a title for it yet.

Let’s talk

1 Reply

“Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people.”

This aphorism has always irritated me. Maybe it’s my wee, little intellect, but I love talking about people.

People are so complex, messy, fleshy, and  juicy. I look at humanity and I find us brilliant, wonderful, curious. We are lovely in both our bigness and our smallness. We are lovely in our joy and our angst. We are fascinating in our kindness and our cruelty.

See, I don’t think it is what we talk about — ideas, events, or people — but how we talk about them.

You can talk about an idea like patriotism and either inspire people to do great, big, beautiful things, or small, mean, and petty acts.  All in the name of ideas and ideals. 

You can do the same about people. There’s gossiping about your neighbor’s misfortune or picadillos, and then there’s finding ways to help make people’s lives better.  And that usually, if not always, takes dialogue. 

Maybe instead of definging someone’s intellectual depth by which of three broad categories they discuss, we should look at how they express their hearts…and their minds.

 

“Colors of Life” by Ketzirah (Creative Commons)