More of the purple kitty story on Instagram

10
Jul

You all were so supportive of the purple kitty and trying to name her…him…it. You can read more about the naming process here. I wanted to just pop in briefly and let you know I’m sharing more of the story this week on Instagram. I’m taking over the Get Messy Art Journal account for the week, and each day I plan to have story time. Come follow along over on Instagram so you get to hear it too!

I won’t be able to tell all the details of the full story, but along with the shortened story, I’m putting up pics of the drawings I’ve created. Here’s one example, just to wet your whistle.

Be sure to join me on Instagram both this week at Get Messy Art Journal or all the time — my handle is @tclmn . Hope to see you there!

So this’ll come around every year, huh?

25
Jun

Here we are, getting to the end of June. It’s a great time of year, people are past those initial sunburns and more dutiful with that sunscreen application. We’ve found the beach towels and swim toys, the lake water is finally starting to warm up, and the trees are stretching all the way to their fingertips with leaves. Birds frantically feed their peeping chicks, young squirrels are ripping around the yard playing tag, and dogs are finding more cooling comfort on the kitchen tiles.

Ain’t summer great?

I’d mostly answer with a resounding yes, but I’d keep one silent popsicle of ‘no’ stashed in the back of the freezer because I know this month holds a difficult anniversary. Today is that day.

Anniversary isn’t quite right, but what do you call the date of a loved one’s passing?

We’re long past the funeral, and we had a ceremony to commit my dad’s ashes, so now what do we do on this date?

I got curious if other countries mark the date of someone’s passing. I came across some things that would have been difficult four years ago, so if your grief is new you might not want to read how other countries do funerals (or you might find it fascinating. For me it would have depended on the day. Take care of yourself). Also, as makes sense in our abbreviated culture, people have morphed death and anniversary into, you guessed it, deathiversary. I can’t decide if it’s clever and useful, or just dumb and trite.

Here’s one site that had some ideas and very practical advice about marking the day, and yes, they use “deathiversary” fluently.

It was interesting to see how other cultures mark these dates, and how for some — but not all — it’s tied into ancestor worship. Is that really that different than Western cultures saying that someone is smiling down on you from heaven?

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For one of the first anniversaries of my dad’s passing, it fell during a very busy week. Luckily, at the time, I worked at a place where I ran into friends, and especially this week, two of my dearest friends would be accessible. I bought a few of the world’s best apple fritters because my dad loved them, picked up coffee (which he also loved), and my friends and I sat together in the grass for a few minutes. It wasn’t the only thing done to mark that day, but it felt good to do something with people from outside my own family, with friends who are family but in a different way. It was almost like an acknowledgment that this loss existed outside just my family. It was them seeing the realness of loss for us.

This year?

I’m just not sure.

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The expectation is sometimes more difficult than the actual date, because it’s just one more day he’s not here. Just like all the other days he’s not here. There’s really nothing that makes it any different than all the other days of the year, except if you focus on a calendar.

There are times when that calendar focus is not helpful, especially if you think you’re somehow supposed to feel something different, or there’s supposed to be some breakthrough. For a while, I know my mom diligently marked the time from dad’s passing, maybe as a reassurance to herself, maybe as a comfort to think she could be closer to it being easier to go on without him. Because there’s this prevailing idea that it gets better after a certain amount of time. It’s not inaccurate, but it also sets up the bereaved to put their hopes in a certain time frame, as if one day they’ll wake up and their grief will be magically lifted.

That sounds so much better than the reality of it being a slow shuffle towards mostly less-hard.

Lately, I’ve been watching Grey’s Anatomy, because apparently this is what I do. I watched it in the year after Dad died, and I think it was the permission I wanted to cry…on the surface it was about someone else’s fictional pain but it was really my own.

Last night I visited my mom on a beautiful evening. We sat outside with a glass of wine and a tasty tapas-type plate she had thoughtfully put together. And we talked.

This morning, I got coffee and donuts.

I wore special sandalwood beads that remind me of the travels Dad made and the beliefs he deeply held.

I’ve exchanged texts with my family and we’ve remembered sweet moments together.

I’m going to paint for a little while this afternoon.

Tonight we will have giant hot fudge and banana milkshakes (well, I will. The rest of my little fam will probably have something else. But there will be ice cream.)

Maybe I’ll feel sad. Maybe I’ll feel numb. But I will carve out space to remember and give myself grace to feel whatever comes.

Grace.

Love.

Friendship.

Family.

Good eats.

Yup, that sounds like my dad.

Season of Story: meet our fuzzy main character

14
Jun

As I stated in a previous post, I want to finally complete a story that I’ve been puttering with for a few months…well, maybe longer than that if I trace it back to its origin. Anyhow, this Season of Story is the perfect moment to kickstart my story into becoming a real boy — er, cat. So I thought I’d introduce one of the main characters.

Two sizes, same kitty.

Does this character have a name? Not formally. She’s been Purple Kitty so far, but that’s cumbersome. So I reached out online and people had some really great suggestions. I’d love to hear if any of these grab you:

Ruthie

Plum

Luenda (submitted by a lovely little sweetie who is like 5 years old)

Thistle

Iris

Lavender

Maeve

Periwinkle (which could be a copyright problem (ha!) because of the old Blue’s Clue’s dog)

Jaspar

Peggy

Prince (hard to resist this one)

Molly

Violet

Callie (another submission by an adorable young friend)

Raisin

Lilly (which would end up as “Wiwwy” if pronounced by any young readers…which could be part of the fun?)

If you can believe it, this list is not even exhaustive! There were even more suggestions, which absolutely makes my day.

Because I know that in my own household, our animals rarely have just ONE name, I’ve decided to go with a very highfalutin name, one in the tradition of aristocrats around the world, one that includes basically all the names your parents either had to include or liked and couldn’t decide about. For our rough draft, I think we should go with this name but I reserve the right to revisit this decision later:

Prince Ruthie Raisin Callie Olivia Violet Luenda Iris Periwinkle

She’ll go by Ruthie Raisin or Ruthie for short. And she might be a he. But either way the first name (or is it a title?) is Prince.

Now that we’ve met Ruthie Raisin, I need to go finish up the other main character, Jewel.

Jewel and Ruthie Raisin love the Fair, and the merry go round is one of their favorite rides. Jewel loves getting that crazy Fair Hair done, the kind where they put your hair in two big pigtail puffs like cotton candy and then spray it with color and glitter that stains your pillowcase and gets in your carpet for the rest of the summer.

Yeah, she loves that.

And of course that’s not even getting into all the yummy Fair foods, like mini donuts, buckets filled to the brim with chocolate chip cookies that you then haul over to the milk barn for all-you-can-drink milk, before or after you find that one place at the Fair that has the footlong pronto pups. You come home sweaty, cranky, sticky, exhausted, and oh so happy.

But this year it might not be quite like that for Jewel. Some big changes are coming her way. So come back soon and I’ll introduce you to her and tell you more of her story. You could subscribe and then any new posts would come straight to your inbox. Wouldn’t that be handy?

Rollerskating, risks, and the season of Story

31
May

Once upon a time…

Did I tell you bout the time when…

You won’t believe what happened to me today…

These are all invitations into story.

Whether formal or conversational, they all extend a moment of connection — to us, to our experience, potentially to something on an even bigger scale. Even if someone relays a story written by someone else, it’s something that registered, landed, something they retained as significant, if only for it’s humor but possibly for the meaning behind it. When they share it, it’s an opportunity to learn more about someone, to know some of their history and their life.

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When my kids were little rascals (as opposed to the bigger rascals they are now) I started writing my first novel. It began as a story about rollerskating.

Yup. Rollerskating.

See, when I was in college the school organized rollerskating nights at the local rink. They were fantastic. There was pageantry as we donned out best Ragstock 1970’s rainbow suspenders and tube socks. There was romance — you felt like a junior higher again as the DJ announced it was time for the Snowball and you dreaded the wrong person might ask you to skate and were mortified if the right person did. There was drama under the disco ball lights…and in the snack line and in the bathroom.

My story morphed into a chapter, which morphed into a section, which morphed into a novel.

And all of it happened while my husband and I were teaching one child to stay in their crib, potty training another, and trying to make sure the third could identify the color green.

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Once I wrote the rollerskating novel, I realized there were more novels in me. I’ve written another, more than half of a third and have the beginning of a fourth (which I am not allowing myself to work on until the third is complete). Throughout the process of writing I have tried to learn about the business of publishing and what people do to pursue traditional publishing.

All that learning, all that writing, but very little risk-taking.

I’ve taken very few steps to pursue getting my novels out into the world. I’ve done a couple things, but was more like a turtle peeking its head out and then immediately pulling it back inside its shell.

I need to take more risks. I need to collect more rejections. I’ve registered for a writing conference and at that conference I’ve made an appointment with an agent. TERRIFYING but true. Nothing might come of it. But something might. Without taking that risk I will never know, so I’ll do it even if my hands shake and my heart races.

Did I mention that the next season of Get Messy Art Journal is the Season of Story?

The Season of Story — can you stand it??

It’s just perfect. And it comes at a perfect time in my own writing life.

I’ve felt like I need to exhaust more options before I can let go of this publishing dream. (You can read more about this revelation here.) I want to knock on more doors, make a few spreadsheets to keep track of where I’ve sent letters of inquiry (or query letters if you want to get all formal), basically really go for it.

This sounds crazy. I realize that.

But I want to know I did everything in my power to go after getting my writing published before I look at more “indie” options. Those are totally valid and pursuable options; I just want to cross off more traditional options first. So, I’m going to start doing that. Now.

There’s also been a story growing in me that’s quite different than the novels I’ve worked on. It’s a book intended for folks who have a child receive a diagnoses of Type 1 Diabetes. The story involves a purple stuffed animal kitty and a little girl who both love the Fair. Any resemblance to actual living people is not at all coincidental. I’ve got the characters down but I need to write the rest of the story. That will happen. Now.

During the next eight weeks, the Season of Story, I will share bits of the purple kitty story here on the blog. I hope to have illustrations to go along with it. Problem is, my cat drawing skills are less cat skills and more squirrel/spikeball/giraffe drawing skills. That’s okay though. You’ll know what I’m trying to do, right?

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I know you’ve heard me talk about Get Messy Art Journaling before, because it’s been such a fantastic place for me to connect and grow. This year I have the tremendous privilege of being on the Creative Team. Yahoo! Well, besides all that, I think I’ve forgotten to share an important piece of information, in case you wanted to know more about Get Messy Art Journaling. Here’s a quick summary:

They have tons of content, some of it for free, some of it for members only.
People can buy a membership for a whole year, for a month, or for a specific season. The Season of Story memberships are only available from June 1-7 so if you’re thinking about it, now’s the time to make your move. (Details here.) **
When you have a membership, you’ll be in for a mind-boggling amount of arty goodness (meaning tutorials, webinars, classes, forums, prompts and general inspiration).

It makes sense to share more details about Get Messy now because of the Season of Story (which launches tomorrow, by the way). I’m so super excited about the Season of Story because I feel like it dovetails so well with the world we’ve already created on this tclarson website. Of course there is absolutely zero pressure on you; I just know it’s been transformational for me, which is why I want to share it with you.

I hope to pop in more often, if only to hear you make fun of my attempt at drawing cats, but I have to admit Instagram is my favorite spot so let’s follow each other if we’re not already. Thanks for coming along on this creative journey.

**If you sign up using this link, I receive a small commission. YOU ARE NOT CHARGED EXTRA and it totally does not affect your purchase.

Recap of the Season of Play

29
May

It’s now the end of the sincerely rejuvenating season of Play. I’ve found so much freedom in releasing my expectations and allowing my curiosity to lead me. I didn’t want to worry about how something turned out or if it would be pretty. For this season I wanted to listen to my intuition and allow my curiosity to guide me.

See, when you play, you’re not concerned about something looking right. You’re just in the activity you’re doing. You’re fully present, caught up in the world you’ve created, whether that’s badmitten or baseball, Monopoly or being an imaginary character in a game of pretend. That doesn’t mean you’re relaxed about the activity — some times playing is super intense! — but you’re relaxed about self-evaluating on a micro level.

Adults need play just as much as children do. We connect in totally different ways when we’re playing. There’s something that allow us to see one another differently in play than in other circumstances. We get to know a whole different side of people, we find out the mild-mannered person from the cubicle around the corner is a baller (or the tall guy from marketing is NOT) or someone has a wildly competitive side we never would’ve predicted.

I’ve worked at a place that tried to encourage non-work interaction within the staff. As a part timer, this was difficult because I was already trying to cram a lot of work into a shortened work week. But in hindsight I can understand why these non-work activities were important. They allowed us to know each other better, connect different parts of our personalities in new ways, and form memories together even if it was because we could all look back on the time Bob from shipping and receiving got hit in the face with a bean bag whipped by the killer arm of Glenda from the mail room.

Glenda aside, playing is good for everyone for lots of reasons! It’s definitely been good for me. Here are a few more pics from this season:

Finally we’ll do a quick flip-thru of the two altered books I used this season.

I started with one, which I knew wouldn’t have enough pages, and then added a second book which size I liked quite a bit. I’d try to find one that size again.

In the video below you’ll see that some pages I’ve included in this post and previous ones aren’t in the video. I try to work in the same journals during a season but sometimes I just go bananas and bust out into a different journal without trying to. It can’t be stopped.

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The next season, which starts June 1, is the Season of Story. Of course I’m thrilled and totally tickled with this and the prospect of merging paint and writing. I’ll have more details for you tomorrow or Thursday, but start thinking now about whether you might want to join Get Messy for the season of Story. Even if you don’t mess around with paint much, trying a new creative angle can be really freeing. Painting/art journaling can clear a path for your words to ruminate and have more traction when you return to your keyboard. You can only sign up for a Season of Story pass for about a week (June 1-7), then the window closes. If you know you want to try it out, here’s where you can learn more.

As always, thanks for allowing me to share my journey and my pages with you. I hope there’s something here that inspires you to try something new or take a brave step into the unknown today.

Writing, painting, and cramming everything into the last half of May

19
May

It’s a busy time of year, is it not? So much to do and the clock is ticking down the days until summer and the shift that comes along with the changing of seasons and schedules. There’s a feeling of immediacy, a flipped version of squirrels storing away nuts for winter. But it’s in the air and there’s an urgency to get things done.

Originally I called this post “Light a fire under my writing” but that sounded like I was going to set it on fire and burn it down, which is the exact opposite of what I mean, so I had to revise.

What I actually meant is that I’ve had a revelation: although I’ve been doing a lot of painting which has been my focus for a while now and which has been really great experience, I’m not done with writing. I had a moment of clarity, when the restriction of a more externally-dictated work schedule loomed and I almost wanted to cry with disappointment that I’d never accrued enough rejections or taken enough risks in pursuing more with my writing. That reaction really surprised me, and I think it revealed more of my passion.

Over the past few months, I feel like my words have returned after a long hiatus, and I want to pursue developing them, and getting them out into the world. That means submitting things to various publications and contests (scary), as well as trying to post here more often. In addition, I’ve registered to attend a local writing conference this summer where I have an appointment with someone from a literary agency (terrifying). I don’t know if it will lead anywhere, but I think I need to try.

I KNOW I need to try.

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That doesn’t mean I don’t plan to paint anymore. Not at all. I still love it; I totally enjoy the physical process, I love learning and trying different techniques, and I’ve found a wonderful online community through art journaling.

That’s a great segue to let you know there are a couple more weeks of the Get Messy season of play, and I thought I’d share a couple pics I’ve grabbed.

Dontcha just have certain color combos that make something ring inside you?

My playful superhero, spreading glitter and mischief wherever she goes. (She never gets it in the carpet though.)

This week I had a tutorial on the Get Messy website and I showed people how I made this. I used lots of stuff that wasn’t meant for paint or art. It’s surprising what you can do with the goodies in your junk drawer!

Page made using Legos, a cushioned mailing envelope, a leftover party napkin and lots more

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Because it’s been the season of play, it just felt right to put googley eyes on as many things as possible.

Oh there are more, but I’m holding back.

You’re welcome.

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On top of trying to make myself meet a specific word count, create meaningful and not entirely ugly art journal pages, stick googley eyes on everything without getting caught, and work at my work-from-home job, it’s the end of the school year. And as anybody with school-aged kids knows, this time of year is bonkers.

So here’s to trying to get all the things done, everybody! Let’s aspire to achieve all our dreams, even if some of them are delayed or if it will take a bit longer until we can put in the work to make them happen. And good luck getting to all the kids’ programs they’ve all got scheduled for the same week. Maybe if we all sign a petition they’ll quit doing that to us…but probably not.

The season of play comes naturally: a round-up of the first few weeks

28
Apr

As I’ve mentioned (I hope not too many times), this year I’m on the creative team for Get Messy Art Journal. I’m having so much fun! Right now we’re about halfway through the Season of Play, so I thought it would be a good time to share some of the spreads I’ve made.

For this season we’ve been challenged to work in an altered book. An altered book is really simple: you find a book (I’ve found good ones at used book stores or thrift shops) and create your art in that book. You might have to do a few things to make it amenable to your plans, such as removing pages or gluing pages together. I’ve done this previously and did a little documentation of the process which you can see here.

I have run into a little problem. I NEED MORE PAGES! There are so many good prompts and tutorials, on top of just loving the theme of the season, that I’ve expanded into a second book. One is a fairly short story with interesting block prints illustrations. I like keeping some of the original peeking through when I can, and these prints are interesting. The second book is a collection of Helen Oxenbury illustrated nursery rhymes and children’s stories. I’ve always loved her illustrations so when I saw it on the shelf, I snapped up that book right up.

Now for some pages!

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Don’t you just love the idea of a Saturday from your childhood? All cereal, cartoons, playing outside, using your imagination, running until your legs feel like noodles, coming home all windblown and full of stories from your adventures? Yeah, sounds pretty great.

For the next page we got to play a game. You’d roll the die and depending on what number you got, you’d consult a list and do whatever corresponded to that number, paint, scribble, write, drip, stencil, you get the idea. So what started out like this…

…ended up like this…

That game could get addictive, I tell ya! It really took the decision-making out of your hands and kept you moving. Getting tired of painting? Roll the dice for a new idea. It was also a good reminder to utilize different techniques and not always rely on what you’ve always done, shake things up a little.

For the next page I used my hands quite a bit to spread the paint around. It’s funny but there’s something really satisfying about using your hands to move paint around. I put a small paper figure on the right side and then this big lady wanted to show up on the left side, and the contrast led to the writing. Sometimes I feel like I’m too much, too loud, too opinionated, too whatever but I try to remind myself to just be who I am, let my personality or my spirit be as large as it truly is, because that’s the authentic me. Why walk around doing a dulled down imitation of yourself all the time?

If I could wear my hair like the person on this next page, I totally would.

In my mind, playing often involves movement, really movement of any kind.

You can really see the block print figures on this next page. They were under a tree, so I went ahead and used molding paste to create more leaves with a palette knife. I liked the texture and dimension they brought to the page, but it’s a little hard to see in this picture.

Since we’re in the season of play, why not have a flower-face lady? She’s an image transfer from a magazine — I didn’t even have to put the flower on her face, she came that way!

Here’s a close up of the left corner because TEXTURE!

The next page just feels swirly and calming to me. The process involved a lot of experimenting and layering — this page is heavy with paint. I haven’t used these pigment powders much because they frustrate me, but someone challenged us to learn something new or use something you already had in a new way. These little gems have been in my cupboard, so I figured it was a good time to learn how to use them.

My own contribution to the prompts involved thinking of your favorite things from childhood, putting them in some kind of representation in a balloon and then connect them to you as a child. Here’s what I ended up with when I did my own prompt. I was thinking of a very specific outfit that I LOVED as a kid, it had these great puffy sleeves and a goofy skirt. The pattern here is it’s own thing, but the color scheme isn’t too far off.

Crazy how many different results there are from the same person. I know there are themes in my pages, things I come back to, but there’s also a lot of variety. Does that mean I don’t have an artistic voice? Does it mean I’m versatile? I don’t know! Making more pages will lead me to answers, so I’ll focus on that and let it work itself out.

Thank you thank you for visiting, and I hope you’ll come back again soon!

Recap of the Season of Kindness

3
Apr

For the past eight weeks, the focus of Get Messy art community has been Kindness. Each week we receive a list of prompts around that theme, in addition to a tutorial each week. It’s been a good characteristic/value to explore, with many different aspects to consider.

This is the cover I created for the season. I’ve learned not to make these until towards the end of the season because where I am when start the journal and where the season takes me almost certainly are different places.

Here’s my video collection of the Season of Kindness. I did a quick flip through so you could see the entire journal (fyi: there’s no sound). It’s a fun design, with pages nestled inside two sections — it almost looks like I’m showing you two separate journals with the same covers, but it’s actually one journal.

Here are a few of my favorite pages from the season:

Same page as the one above it, but the page with the cup is now open.

This next spread is based off a quote that is said to come from Mother Teresa. The full original goes like this…

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find sincerity and happiness some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today will also often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

I had the opportunity to do my first tutorial for the membership portion of the Get Messy website. I was excited and nervous but it turned out pretty good! Here’s one photo from the tutorial:

The next couple months of Get Messy are the Season of Play. You know I’m gonna love that one. My goal is to post more pages here more often, instead of a big pileup at the end.

(In case you find yourself intrigued by the whole Get Messy art journaling group, you can find out more on their website.)

As always, thanks so much for letting me share my thoughts and creations with you.

Layman’s theory of convergence (or Why does life get super busy all of a sudden?)

21
Mar

Feast or famine. It’s a common enough phrase used to describe how there are times when there is an overabundance of food, and then times when there’s virtually no food.

This can relate to activity as well, how there are times when your calendar is empty, and then times when you’re totally swamped. If you ignore the fact that some things are just cyclical (schools will always try to cram as many end-of-the-year concerts, assemblies, and events as possible into what? Yes, the end of the year.) it seems like there’s more to it, like some unseen natural cyclical time force makes things work this way, similar to how gravity is a force and it makes things fall down instead of up. (Just go with it, folks. It will make more sense in a minute.)

You could say feast or famine is somewhat related to this weird coincidence, called the frequency illusion, that thing when you learn something new and then all of a sudden you see it everywhere? Yes, that’s a real thing and there are reasons for it. Nice to know you’re not making it up, right?

In another related thread, my family used to talk about what we called the theory of convergence. I’ve now learned this was really a misnomer and the true theory of convergence has to do with the development of societies. In psychology it relates to mob mentality.

We used it in a whole (wrong) different way, but you’d never have known that from us because we were so convincing in our confidence. …So basically we stole the term and changed it entirely.

…As one does.

We swapped out it’s actual meaning and redefined it as this: you can be working your tail off on projects or goals, seeming to get nowhere, and then all of a sudden you’ll have a bunch of breakthrough all at once.

…an alternate meaning was that you might be going along fine and then a bunch of things happen all at once and the only way they are related is that they happen to YOU.

For negative example in a homeownership situation, you might arrive at home to discover your garage door is stuck shut, the water softener has leaked all over the basement and your refrigerator died. No actual reason for any of these things to happen on the same day or time period, except THEORY OF CONVERGENCE.

In a positive light you might have a deadline for a big project you’ve been developing for many months at work, and that deadline just happens to coincide with a great opportunity to volunteer for a big conference when you can demonstrate art journaling to huge crowds, AND it’s all around one of your kids’ birthdays. Just as a hypothetical example.

The THEORY OF CONVERGENCE (albeit the wrong, not scientifically accurate version) — it’s a real thing.

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This is what I’ve been working with for the past month or so, this theory of convergence. It’s been great but pretty busy and you just can’t say yes to all the things, as much as you might want to. So things here had to quiet down for a bit, but I’d love to share a few photos with you about what’s been going on.

Over at Get Messy, we’re still in the season of kindness, so I’ve been creating pages semi-related to that theme.

Today I have a tutorial up on the Get Messy Art Journal website. If you want to see the whole thing, it does require a membership. Maybe you should consider joining? We have so much fun over there. Here’s a little peek at what I made:

My tutorial at Get Messy Art Journal. Join to get tutorials, prompts, community, and serious loads of fun.

I’m going to do a round-up of the Season of Kindness in a couple weeks, so check back for that!

Here are a few examples of things I’ve been working on.

Demonstrating how to art journal

Earlier this month I was invited to demonstrate art journaling at a local conference. I drastically underestimated the size of the conference, and the interest people would have in my demonstration! Holy moly people were into it! I had prepared 60 small handmade journals and at the end of the first day I only had 15 left. It was a great problem to have.

It was a great experience and I was so happy to connect with so many lovely people.

Four (lucky-duck) folks also won small mixed media pieces I had created for the event. This is one of them…

Almost too much fun

On top of all this, the kids had spring break, one of the kids had a birthday, AND there was a deadline for a huge work project. So much activity, so many good things, why must you happen all at once? Even if I have been using the wrong definition for theory of convergence, my meaning works to describe the layers upon layers of opportunity and possibility lately.

A wise man once said, “Enjoy the process”, and I’m going to try to do that in the moment, rather than being overly concerned with what develops out of it.

Hope you can do the same!

“Talking about grief can make you feel sad” and things that were probably obvious to everyone but me

21
Feb

One of my favorite words is “fun” followed closely by “come on!” and “adventure”. These roll off my tongue like so many gumballs off a conveyor belt. “That sounds fun” or “It’ll be fun” or simply ” Oh, fun!” are phrases I’ve become aware of as having inherent merit and investment value — if something’s gonna be fun then it’s almost automatically worth the effort involved.

Photo credit: Morguefile: @ameestauffer

You know what’s not fun?

Grieving.

Loss.

Sorrow.

Mourning.

Sickness.

Death.

These things suck, plain and simple. Talking about them feels like a bummer, something inherently NOT fun and thereby something to avoid. Even though that’s my first reaction, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about them. It’s just that it’s hard. It can make a person feel sad (shocker, right?).

Don’t mis-hear me though. These things also have merit and value, if only because they have to because, you know, life.

Life happens and people get sick, people lose their jobs, things fall apart, and everything does absolutely NOT go according to plan, despite all our best efforts.

I’m starting to realize (reluctantly) that grief is a natural part of life.

Sorry. I wish it wasn’t that way.

This is probably something everybody else already knew that I didn’t.

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I don’t think things are this way because we screwed up God’s plan, even though that’s what I was taught way back when and what’s still being taught in many churches today. The line of thinking goes: If only that evil snake hadn’t fooled that ambitious Eve and that dimwitted Adam hadn’t just gone along with it, everything would be different.

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I’ve started to think of grief as part of the full range of human experience, as much as that’s bad news all around. Most of the time I think it would feel nicer if this wasn’t the case.

Do a little brain exercise with me, and let’s test that theory.

Pretend that everything had gone according to God’s plan (as some people think we know it (sorry to be contrary but I can’t just agree with everyone, even if I do like people to get along, and I’m just not so sure anymore about this anymore — another result of the process of grief for me.)) and everything was perfect. There was no sickness, there was no sadness, there were no tears for God to wipe away or store in some bottle.

Pretty awesome, right? I mean, how can you find fault with sunshine, rainbows and hugs all day long? You just can’t…right?

There was a time when I would have agreed. There would be nothing better than to be perfectly happy at all times, with no sadness or loss of any kind. Sounds like a super-sweet gig. (Also sounds like what I’ve seen of people when they’re doped up, but that’s neither here nor there.)

Anyway, it sounds like a sweet gig…

Until…

Until you realize that what you’re talking about is a one-sided experience, however blissful that may be for a while. What you’re imagining as perfection is a charicature, a cardboard cut-out, and it lacks the depth of full experience that magnifies the happiness of happiness, that cultivates an appreciation for the joy it claims to understand.

You’ll never get the power of the resolution without the tension.

As hard as it is, various forms of grief are a natural part of the way things just are, and it doesn’t help (meaning it doesn’t change anything) to rage against it, although that’s part of a natural response to grief. Friends are going to decide they don’t want to hang around with you anymore, significant others are going to decide they no longer wasn’t to be significant to you, offers on a perfect house are going to fall through, job promotions will be given to someone else, people you love — or even you — are going to have a health issue that can’t be undone with as many prayers and juice diets you might perform.

I know.

It’s rotten.

Nobody tells us this as kids, unless it’s already a part of your childhood experience. but even then, most parents wouldn’t go into great detail about any specific hardship facing the child or the family. I don’t say to my child with a chronic health condition, “Here, honey, here’s a list of all the things you’re going to have to handle that other people won’t even think to think about.” Nobody does that.

Should they?

What good would that do anyone?

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Talking about grief bums me out. Being a participant in grief is not easy. It’s draining and hard. And it is sneaky, showing up in ways that are impossible to prepare for.

Talking about grief, however, allows others to comfort us. It allows others to show their care for us. And it may allow others to be less isolated in their own journey of grief.

My dad died three and a half years ago. It doesn’t feel like it could possibly have been that long. How can we still be functioning? How can we as a family ever see each other and not talk about it? How can he have missed so many moments and events and birthdays and milestones and phone calls and questions and the national crisis that is presidency of 45? How can he keep not being here?

but he is gone. that’s just the way it is. and no amount of missing him can change that.

This fall, my 36-year-old cousin suddenly passed away. No car accident, no serious underlying health issue. She just suddenly passed away and we don’t know a reason why. How do you wrap your mind around that?

Just when you think you’ve navigated the most difficult waters, another storm blows in and a rogue wave threatens to capsize your boat.

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Retreat House Podcast thoughtfulness

Talking about grief is good for us to do together. I talked to my friend at Retreat House Podcast about grief and I barely even cried. Okay, I might have cried a little in the car on the way to meeting up with her, a little during our conversation, and maybe some more in the car after I left. But don’t rub it in.

If you want to listen to our conversation, you can click this link and shoot right over to that episode of her podcast. She’s doing a whole series on grief, and as weird as it might sound to say it, hearing other people’s stories about grief is good. Maybe it’s because we hear things we can relate to, whatever type of loss it might be. Maybe it’s because it makes us realize we’re not alone. Maybe it challenges us to think about how we respond to people around us who are walking in the middle of grief. As much as it’s hard and there’s residual sadness that comes from talking about grief (who knew? Talking about sorrow can make you sad!), I hope you’ll find it weirdly encouraging.

If you are willing, I’d welcome your stories of walking though grief in your own life, if that’s not too hard for you right now. If it is, I hope you find the comfort and support you need today.