A Constantly Moving Target: Type 1 Diabetes and Blood Glucose Management

16
Nov

It’s late at night as I’m writing this.

The reason I’m up is because of Type 1 Diabetes. One of our kids has it, and we have to check her blood sugar (or blood glucose — the terms are pretty interchangeable unless you’re working to educated someone that no, there’s not granulated sugar inside someone’s veins) at a certain time tonight.

The reason we have to check it is because she has insulin in her system right now and we have to make sure that her blood glucose is at a good over-night level and won’t dip low while she’s sleeping. Having low blood glucose can be dangerous, and we want to avoid that.

The reason she has insulin in her system is because as we were getting into jammies and reading bedtime books, her blood glucose (BG for short) was not in her target range — it was too high. That required an injection (we use syringes and are just now beginning to look into the insulin pump system of delivering insulin) of fast acting insulin. That insulin stays active a certain amount of time, and we have to make sure she’s at a certain BG so she’s safe from experiencing lows overnight.

In true Give-a-mouse-a-cookie form, we’ve got reasons all over the place up there but none of them can tell us why exactly her levels were high or, for that matter, why our daughter even has T1D.

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Instagram: tclmn

Many people learn to discern when they are having a low. Some people are irritable, some feel shaky, others get super hungry or tired. These are things our daughter is learning to recognize, but it’s pretty hard to tell when you’re asleep.

The thing is, there was every indicator to believe that tonight our daughter would have a lower BG at bedtime than on some other nights since she had a bath. [‘Once a month whether you need it or not’ my dad used to joke.] Baths tend to send her low. So when we checked her and discovered she was high, it put us in a tricky spot.

Based on prior experience and information we know baths send her BG low.
She still had active insulin in her system when she had the bath. In theory, this should have sent her lower rather than higher.
Now that’s she’s high, if we give her insulin, will it hit all at once and send her low?
If we don’t give her insulin, will her BG stay at this high level or even climb higher overnight?
Can we cheat and just give her a little bit and check on her when it wears off and give her more if she needs it?

Lots of factors in that one decision.

What I’m learning is that this is the nature of the beast when it comes to T1D. We can follow the guidelines and ratios exactly two days in a row and get different results on each of those days. People’s BGs are so variable for so many reasons, many of which are unseen, that it feels like being at that tea party in the Alice in Wonderland story, constantly swapping seats and people shouting out new rules and then changing them or not following along. This doesn’t mean we’re doing anything wrong, even though it’s easy to second guess every decision you make when you’re managing someone’s T1D. The stakes feel very high. Every decision feels like it carries implications for her overall health and welfare. I already felt that pressure as a parent before our diagnosis. It’s only amplified now.

Knowing that we can do what we can do when it comes to managing Type 1 Diabetes helps release me from its grip. Knowing that we can never completely factor in stress, growth spurts, hormone changes, outdoor temperatures, excitement, activity lets me realize that I’ve placed unrealistic expectations on myself. We can keep her safe, we can be as prepared as possible, but we’re not going to stay within that target BG range constantly. That’s just the way it is with BG, with T1D. It doesn’t mean we’ve done anything wrong, or overlooked something we should have caught.

It’s just the way it is.

Food and Type 1 Diabetes

8
Nov

People need food to survive. People thrive when they have healthy food and their bodies have the capacity to process that food. Food contains important stuff in it, like calories, minerals, vitamins (do I sound like a cereal commercial yet?), proteins and carbohydrates. Yes, carbohydrates are important, just like calories are. We’re so used to the verbiage of “counting calories” or “low-carb diets” that we have negative associations around those terms.

However, for a person to function, they need calories, and they need carbs. When they don’t get enough, their body slowly begins to shut down, even consume every last thing it had stored away.

People with Type 1 Diabetes don’t produce the magical substance needed to access the carbs in their food. The carbs turn to sugars in their blood and just sit there accumulating. Meanwhile, the person with T1D isn’t getting what they need to be healthy. Prolonged high blood sugars are really really bad for you, like put you in a coma bad. The body doesn’t have a way to get rid of the excess sugars except to try and flush them out (pardon the pun) through giving the person a powerful thirst and hoping to get rid of the sugars by urinating them out.

The only thing that can get rid of the excess sugar in the blood, and allow the person to use those carbs for energy?

Insulin.

Every carb, every time.

Instagram: tclmn

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It’s not that carb-rich foods are bad. At our house, we try to use the term “free” foods vs. a food that has carbs, rather than a “good” food or a “bad” food. There really aren’t any “bad” foods, it’s just that for someone with T1D, any food that has carbs requires them to receive insulin. There are definitely foods that are “extra” foods, ones that are not required for healthy living, but we were using that term even before our diagnosis.

Type 1 Diabetes doesn’t happen because a person ate too many carbs. Early in our diagnosis, our daughter was invited to a classmate’s birthday party. I had to explain that I’d have to come along because with her having T1D, she’d need a shot before she ate. The gentleman hosting the party joked, “Too many hamburgers, huh?”

No. Not too many hamburgers, sir.

It was so surprising, I didn’t have time to be offended…until later.

No, she didn’t develop T1D because she ate too many hamburgers, or ate too many anything-elses. She just developed it. The medical community doesn’t even know exactly why it happens.

Another comment was made recently about how our daughter “didn’t do anything bad, like eating too many cupcakes.” This type of comment was mentioned more than once by this person. While I understand they were trying to affirm that my daughter did not play an active role in promoting the onset of the diabetes, I feel uncomfortable with that verbage. Eating too many cupcakes isn’t “bad” and it doesn’t make you a bad person. I think we need to be careful how we stigmatize people who develop any kind of diabetes, whether that’s a result of less-than-optimum diet and lack of exercise, heredity, being pregnant, or because their pancreas quit doing its job.

While there are differences in the control some people might have in the onset of diabetes, there are also a lot of factors at play, and one of those factors is privilege. Some communities have better access to healthy food options, and some have fewer realistic options.

I have a car and easy access to at least three different grocery stores with a wide variety of foods available to me.
I also get to decide what I spend my money on when I’m at the grocery store.
Time is also not an issue for us, because if we need to run out for something at the grocery store, my husband or I can stay with the kids while the other one does that run.
My husband and I each work one job.

Not everyone has these privileges. People are working multiple jobs, spending a long time on a bus or train, having to stretch their dollars, having little time to cook homemade meals, or not even having good grocery options available. So let’s not stigmatize anyone. Diabetes is not an easy road. *end soapbox moment*

Food doesn’t cause diabetes. Food in and of itself is neutral. We anthromophoricize (<– spelling nightmare) food, giving it feelings or motives. Food’s just food. It’s not out to get us. Those with T1D can eat anything they want, they just have to know how many carbs are in it so they can give themselves the right dose of insulin to process the carbs contained in that food.

There are few other factors at work when deciding how much insulin is needed, but we’ll talk about those another time.

Next week we’ll hear more about what it looks like to be an elementary-age child with T1D. Hope to see you back here!

Do you know anyone with any form of diabetes? What impressions have you had of their diabetes? Have you silently had some ideas about how they manage their diabetes? How can you be a support to them?

National Novel Writing Month, Week One

5
Nov

Until a few years ago, I had never heard of National Novel Writing Month, and when I did hear about it, I thought it sounded a bit like Chess Club in high school used to be, or a sort of niche activity for people who were almost too interested in one thing.

Turns out I’m also almost too interested in one thing.

The online community around National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short) is all about writing a bazillion words in one month, just cranking out an absurd word count each day and not laboring over every single syllable. There are virtual write-ins, real life write-ins, challenges to write in shorter chunks of time, and just general word generation support.

It’s really helpful.

Writing is such a solitary thing in so many ways; it’s great to be working towards a big goal while knowing others understand and are working towards a similar goal of their own.

Writing in the wee hours of the morning

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In the spirit of being brave and since ultimately the goal of writing a novel is to *ahem* get it published, I’m going to try and share excerpts from the novel I’m working on. I’ve been working on this for a couple years, pecking away at it bit by bit. I really like it, so I really want to finish it this month, like reallllly want to finish it.

You’ll have to tell me how it works to put the excerpt in italics. I’m not sure if that will make it harder to read or set it off from the rest of the post (as intended). There may be a couple typos so be gentle in your critique okay?

In this scene, we get to see our main character pull a prank with his best friend. Their target? The camp kitchen staff, and especially Pearl, the head cook.

***

Pearl was the target of Jay and Marshall’s most disruptive plan, and also the one that cemented their position in camp folklore.

On the morning they were to leave camp Pearl always scheduled a breakfast that had most of the prep work done the day before. Huge cinnamon rolls, orange slices, scrambled eggs and Malt-o-Meal. The rest of her day didn’t include the usual two additional meals, since staff would be released to have some time off before the next wave of campers arrived. She planned a lunch then, that didn’t need constant supervision, since she knew her kitchen crew would be itching to start their time off as quickly as possible. She covered their work with a large sheet dedicated to this one purpose, the protector of the advanced work.

Pearl arrived at the door to the kitchen just as her sleepwalking staff did. Most mornings, she watched them shuffle across the courtyard from her post inside. She was glad she didn’t usually arrive with them; she like having time to get things moving in the kitchen before the comatose staff got there.

They all walked through the door together and immediately a sheet fell on them from the ceiling, and tiny bits of paper fluttered all around them.

Pearl yanked the sheet off them as the girls behind her gave out gasps of surprise followed by giggles and laughter. She stormed forward through the hallway and shoved open the swinging door that led into the kitchen. The girls followed through the doors but bumped into Pearl, who had come to an abrupt stop. Before them lay a terrible mess of happy birthday balloons covering every square inch of the entire kitchen floor. There was a disco ball strung in the center of the room. Pearl flicked on all the lights and the disco ball came to life. It had been positioned just right to catch the light from a repositioned spotlight over the serving line. The girls twittered and speculated who had done it, who it was for, and quickly started running through their prospective crushes to see which one was serious enough to merit this kind of attention.

Pearl stormed across the room, balloons flying everywhere. She kicked the balloons, tried to stomp a red one, only to have it squirt out from under her foot.

“When I get my hands on whoever did this…” she said to herself.

To the girls she barked, “Turn off those light – I can’t stand that blasted sequin ball. You’re just going to have to start working and push them aside as you go. We don’t have time to clean them up.”

The girls hopped to. One hit the switches until the disco ball stopped rotating. One slide her feet along as she went to the pantry, creating a fountain of balloons as she went. The others set about their work getting dishes set up, and cereal refilled. They continued to quietly giggle about the prank and smiled as they did their work.

Pearl took a broom from its resting place on the wall and tried to sweep a path to the back hall. She kept trying to stomp balloons on her way, the end was a comical goosestepping marching band leader.

From their positions in the front of the kitchen, the crew heard a sudden, “Auggg!”

They all looked up from their jobs and as part of a mindmeld that happens when people work in the same space for long enough, they all left their posts and dashed to the back hall.

They were greeted by the sight of Pearl’s tight perm covered in glitter and confetti. She had arrived at her destination, the walk-in refrigerator, and when she opened the door, the pouch of glitter from the craft hall had stretched open and dumped its contents on Pearl’s unlucky head.

“Bring me Jay and Marshall NOW!” she bellowed.

The rest of breakfast prep was used in trying to corral the balloons out of the kitchen, but the only place for them to go that wouldn’t cause trouble was down the stairs to the Bee Hive, basically the staff’s locker room area. When all the balloons were kicked, swept and blown down the stairs they covered the smaller area of the Bee Hive floor knee high.

Needless to say, Jay and Marshall were firmly established as camp legends.

***

End scene.

That’s it. I should mention that I have worked at multiple camps for multiple years and any similarities to any persons purely coincidental. I never want people to worry that they’re going to end up in a novel because really the way it works for me is that I might get a grain of an idea from real life but then that is expanded upon so much that it doesn’t represent anything more than just that one grain by the time I get done with it. That may mean that you recognize something familiar as you read this but it’s familiar – with a twist.

So now back to you with a question: would you ever pick up a novel set at a camp? What that appeal to you? Am I surveying a potential market? Yes, yes I am.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Living life alongside Type 1 Diabetes

2
Nov

November is Diabetes Awareness month. I’ve never known this before. I didn’t know this a year ago. But 11 months ago, one of our kids was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D) and I now know things I never dreamed of knowing, such as how to give shots, how to analyze blood glucose numbers and insulin ratios, how to check for ketones, what ketones even are, and an abundance of worst-case-scenario preparedness measures.

It kind of sucks.

^^^

That’s true and it’s not.

I’m tempted to dismiss the hardness of T1D by saying it isn’t a fatal diagnosis, it isn’t some rare, exotic disease that no one knows how to treat. You can live with it, and one of the first things the ER doc said to us when we were in the initial throes of diagnosis, was that with all the advancements they’re making, it’s entirely possible it will be cured within our child’s lifetime.

That’s absolutely wonderful, encouraging information.

That doesn’t change the reality of living alongside T1D now.

Because it isn’t my diagnosis, I’m protective of sharing too much, protective of putting out there something that isn’t mine to talk about. I would never want any of our children to feel like we’d “talked out of turn” with information that was theirs. Therefore, I’m going to leave her name out of this. It’s important to me that you know I’ve talked to her about it, that I’ve asked and received her permission to talk about it, and my husband is also comfortable with me writing about it.

This month I’d like to try and share a little about what it’s like to have T1D, but I don’t have it. My child has it. So I’ll do the best I can to share what its like to support someone who has it, especially since you never grow out of T1D, the children who are diagnosed eventually become adults. And you will probably know someone with T1 at some point in your life.

This comes with us everywhere.

First off, Type 1 Diabetes means insulin dependent diabetes. It is different than Type 2 Diabetes/adult onset diabetes. An adult can have Type 1 but usually they were first diagnosed before they hit adulthood. I’m not even going to address Type 2, because I know so little about it — it’s very different from Type 1.

Type 1 is not managed by exercise or diet.

Type 1 is not caused by poor diet or lack of exercise.

Type 1 is considered an autoimmune disorder.

When you have T1D, the pancreas quits making insulin. Everybody needs insulin. It is the key to working with the glucose (also called sugar) in our blood. A person with Type 1 has a pancreas that is not producing enough insulin and will eventually stop producing it at all. Without insulin, our bodies can’t unlock many of the nutrients needed from our food. People with Type 1 require insulin to be administered before taking in carbohydrates (which turn into glucose in the blood). This means every carb needs to be counted and the insulin must match the carbs, but every body is different and we aren’t static, so the amount of insulin it takes frequently changes. It can feel like a constantly changing target.

Next Monday I’ll write more about our story, what this looks like in real life. Our daughter is healthy and well, and coping marvelously with her diagnoses, which is more than I could say for myself for quite a while. More on that next week. See you then.

Do you know anyone with Type 1 Diabetes? How did you find out they had it? Are there any misconceptions you may have had before getting to know more about T1D?

Season of Words – Final Week

31
Oct

It’s Saturday and I was supposed to post on Thursday. I didn’t post on Thursday. My week just didn’t allow for it. I’m going to have to be okay with that. I’m trying to be okay with it.

It happens quite a bit, that whole “life’s demands requiring attention” that conflicts with the way I planned to use that time. It’s a constant dance of compromise and balance. I wonder when I’ll get it figured out, or if one is always in the active process of finding the way.

One of the prompts asked us about a favorite childhood story. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read this story. Can you tell from these pages what story it is?

The quotes I chose from the story are: “It’s quite all right. He’ll often drop in. Only you mustn’t press him. He’s wild, you know. Not like a tame lion.” And another one: “Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.”

Yup, they’re from The Lion, the witch and the Wardrobe. (Just so I’m not getting more credit than I ought, the scene on the left hand side of the page was already in the book of fairy tales I am using for my altered book.)

The next batch of photos is showing how I put some extra paper in my book to build onto a page that already existed. My son came home with an example of a parfleche, or a type of Native American pouch, he’d made at school. It was the perfect way of including a different way of journaling. The drawings were part of the book, and I know the parfleche doesn’t exactly “go” with the page, but there’s so much going on already, I figured a little more wouldn’t hurt anything, and I out it in the right side because I couldn’t bear to cover up that fairy.

I found this quote and knew I had to use it. I had already put down a bunch of paint, so I simply wrote out the quote and stuck the words on the page. It seemed to round things out, even though I didn’t have the quote when I painted earlier. It’s fun to let the process take you wherever, to not resist and enjoy the unfolding.

My book is full. All the pages have been used and it’s been really fun to see it come together. For my final lage, I used a quote I saw on another Get Messy participant’s (Katie) page. I think it’s a great note to end on. Thanks for allowing me to share my pages here, and for your kind comments. For the month of November I’ll be doing National Novel Writing Month, and I’m trying to make myself share parts of my work in progress, so check back in November (or subscribe to this blog and have new posts delivered to your inbox) for a little portion of a story.

We are pieces of mosaics.

Pieces of light, love, history,

Stories glued together with magic and music and words.

~Anita Krizzan

It’s enough because it matters to You

23
Oct

There are times when I want to “make it” in a creative pursuit.

I want to get a novel published.

I want to write for magazines and websites.

I want to see on a wall in a public space paintings I’ve made.

Are you noticing the me-focus theme here?
For as lofty as these dreams are, you’d think I would have no problem putting action steps to my creative goals. However, many times when I invest time in writing, journaling, painting or trying to learn to draw something new, I hear a lot of chatter in my background.

Mostly it says I’m wasting my time and I ought to be using my energies elsewhere.

I have no problem admitting that there are many tasks I don’t enjoy, and I don’t generally get great fulfillment from crossing off things on a to-do list. But the chatter that comes up when I set aside time to make messes with paint, for example, that chatter is usually more about the unworthiness of what I’m working on. It speaks more to insecurity of not being excellent at something, or thinking I’m good at something when I’m not.

Because I haven’t published a novel or sold many paintings, it’s easy to think my creative attempts have little value.

That’s not true.

It all depends on how you define value.

If that definition is focused on external sources and validation, then until you gain affirmation from that external source, you’ll be left floundering.

If that definition is shifted, and the focus put in what I gain personally from my time spent getting my hands messy, then the whole story changes.

So here are a few art journal pages I’ve been working on this week. I hope you enjoy them, and it’s okay if you don’t. They were good for me to do.

That’s all for this week. Thanks for allowing me to share with you. It’s been good to try and post more journal pages more often, but in the next month I’ll probably shift into trying to write more. We’ll see…National Novel Writing Month is coming up in November after all…

Words, Bodies, and Fairy Magic

15
Oct

There’s a certain gratification in finding the right words to describe a situation or emotion. I’m working on finding those accurate words. Sometimes that means using the words of others (and attributing it to them, of course).

This week I’ve found some quotes I wanted to incorporate into my pages. Some of them are hard to read so I’ll try to write them beneath the page.

I don’t always want all my writing to show, so I often use flaps to conceal some of my journaling. This is the backside of a peekaboo page, so I pulled down one flap so eyes wouldn’t be exhausted after the first photo. I should have included a photo with both flaps closed, because the illustration on the backside of the pink is an active drawing of people on horses and it speaks to the struggles of the last couple years and contrasts with the word I was drawn to: resign.

Here’s the same page with the top flap open.

The next page uses a photo of one of my adorable nieces in fairy wings.

[“Funny how women are ashamed of their inner fairy whereas men are forever proudly displaying their inner cowboy or fireman.” ~Dawn French]

This is, obviously, a gross oversimplification but there are definitely bits of truth in it, primarily in regards to women not owning their inner magic, the way women tamp themselves down or “play nice” rather than speak their minds without apology.

…Which leads us to our next journal page, one that tries to examine the relationship between the feminine and God. It’s got a flap, but that’s mostly just to streamline the visual clutter.

Here’s the same page with the biggest circle flapped up.

[“Yet here we sit, with our souls tucked away in this marvelous luggage, mostly insensible to the ways in which every spiritual practice begins with the body.” ~Barbara Brown Taylor]

My own short journaling says My body is a temple — and that means ALL of my body, even the parts that make me female. I am a holy temple.

How’s that for some late-in-the-week pondering for a light mood on a Thursday? ?

That’s all for this week. There’s more but it’s not ready or not on theme right now. If you search Get Messy Art Journal you can see what other people are doing in response to some of the same prompts and challenges. They’re also on Instagram under the hashtag #getmessythursdays.

I’m taking a mini-course from Juliette Crane, which I’m loving but again, it’s not part of the Get Messy Art Journal community so I’m going to hold it for later. She’s amazing and I’m turning into a little bit of a super-fan. Here’s a preview of something inspired by one of the class lessons.

As always, thanks for being wonderful and playing along with me. We have MEA Break this week, so if you need me I’ll be outside with the kids, soaking up as much sun and fresh air as possible. Until next time!

Season of Words Week Three

8
Oct

I’m trying to post art journal pages here on Thursdays for six weeks or so. Thanks for being a supportive, positive place where I feel safe to share these, regardless of how unrefined or imperfect they might be. It’s fun to share them, even if only to know I tried to be bold and put them out in the world.

For the first page I’m sharing here, I incorporated black out poetry. Sometimes I fully black-out the words I don’t use, but I used a lighter hand here. The idea is to circle the words that jump out at you — words that shimmer — and thereby create a new poem. My new poem, from a Jane Kenyon poem called After the Hurricane read like this:

Acorns break from the oaks,

Drop,

Amber air ahead.

Snuffling water weeds,

Soft band,

A bar of sand,

Mica glinting tepid sun.

Kettles of water unused, drowsy.

The likeness of golden birch leaves

Stir away trouble.

Hemlock bough, peculiar author,

A sacrament of saying no.

For the next page we were challenged to do a peek-a-boo page (my term) by cutting a hole in a page. It could be planned or unplanned. I partially planned mine, because I wanted to leave a certain picture, but in doing so, I also ended up with a good situation on another page (that will come later).

The quote is one I found from Oscar Wilde. It says, “Yes I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

This one was just a quote I loved from Mary Oliver, who writes poetry I love, on colors I love. I don’t love my handwriting, but it’s just the way it is and I have learned to let go of that.

The final page is in response to a challenge to splatter paint in our page. No problem – I love splattering paint! I took the opportunity to use my new Dina Wakely stamps, and I love her too. Hers was the first book I ever found about art journaling and it opened up a whole new world for me. She’s amazing.

That’s the fun for this week. It’s hard to find time to respond to the prompts and challenges since we get them on Monday and I’ve started working outside the home. It’s funny though, because having a job away from home is really revealing how much I enjoy and rely on paints and mess making. It feels good when you’ve found something that is fun and important to your overall health. Do you have something like that?

Find your Breath

7
Oct

Sometimes the only thing to do is breathe.

The world is crumbling and the things you thought would hold start to wobble, their stable bases shifting just enough to set them off center.

You get through a few hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then the wobbling begins again.

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Sometimes there’s a lull, a quiet period when you start to think things are back to the way they used to be.

Part of you goes back to your routine, welcomes it.

Part of you settles back into the way your life used to be.

The roaring silence becomes part of your soundscape, the elevator music in the background of your day.

You start thinking maybe you’ve turned a corner. You start thinking things have settled into a new pattern. It’s not the pattern you’d wanted or what you’d ever imagined you’d be dealing with, but you can adjust. You can learn to deal with it. You’re strong, you’re resilient. You’ve got this.

You got this. Right?

Sure, right. You got this, until something else layers on, something new and terrible, one more spike to the system and then —

Naw, that was a blip, the exception. You get through a few more hours, things stabilize for a few moments in succession, but then it begins again.

Tip…tip…wobble…

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It’s not as simple as just praying through it. It’s not as cut and dried as just “giving it to the Lord” — remember those tactics? There was a time when those were the first things you turned to. There was a time when you’d follow the formula and even innocently twist your thinking to make the outcomes align with what was supposed to happen.

That only worked for so long.

After a point, you began to see the inconsistencies. After so many repetitions, you started to notice the things you weren’t supposed to question.

The great slow unravelling had already begun when the real life crises set in.

It wasn’t right to expect God to answer prayers, even on behalf of his most faithful of servants. We’re not supposed to treat God like a vending machine or Santa. You knew that, you tried not to approach faith that way. It made sense that a loving God wouldn’t want to have his loved ones treating him like an uncle visiting from afar, asking for bobbles and souvenirs. But the most human part of you screamed it out anyway: “Why don’t you DO SOMETHING!” Surely this wasn’t something inappropriate to ask, to beg. This was a most basic of needs. You pleaded, “Do something.”

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The old routines no longer served. You weren’t content to just go through the motions, but you weren’t content to disregard the truth of your experience, shaded as it may have been. Your beliefs were so ingrained you didn’t realize the English you spoke was a dialect unintelligible to many.

So you sought the new-to-you.

You sought the ancient.

Rhythms, air, pulses, seasons, wideness, candles, walks outdoors, grace and ritual.

When even these demanded too much energy, you returned to your breath. When the ache of loss and hardship threatened to upend you, you knew you could still breathe. The one breath you knew you could take, the one breath you could use to slow time, slow heartbeat, slow thoughts, slow it all down. That one breath would be the thing you could give yourself when nothing else seemed to help.

Just one breath.

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This doesn’t make it all better. Loss is still there, grief is still there, heartache, powerlessness, smallness, are all still there.

Getting through a moment is sometimes all you can accomplish.

Getting through one moment can be an enormous struggle.

One breath, if you can give yourself one deep, cleansing breath, you’ll find you can give yourself another. And in those breaths, you can find the strength to move forward. It’s already in you. You have to pause and breathe in order to find it.

Filling up the Altered Book

1
Oct

All week I’ve been working on preparing my first altered book. It takes some time, and some patience, and unfortunately I’m a little short on both, so it’s not perfect. But this isn’t supposed to be about “perfect” so I’m going for it anyway.

Here’s the cover of my altered book. I don’t love it, but that’s ok. It’s more about what’s inside than worrying too much about a perfect cover.
I knew I didn’t want to invest my time on the cover (my choice of book didn’t lend itself to a fancy, cloth-bound cover) so I just covered it in butcher paper like I would have covered a textbook back in high school.
Dig the quill and ink splotch? Since this season of Get Messy is “words” I thought it was appropriate.

Here is an author bio and a dedication page (it’s fun to make your own book have official stuff like bios and dedications).

The final thing I got done was to paint a whole page, then put a quote over the top. I went on auto pilot and used a different notebook to paint the page, and didn’t realize it until I was done. I had prepped a page in my layered book, so I incorporated the painted page into the book for a gigantic spread. Fun! Now it will fold out and it even worked with the colors I’d chosen at a separate time. Here’s what it looks like unfolded.

The drawing of the woman was in my book and she worked really well with my journaling. I have mixed feeling about the quote I used from Catherine of Sienna — I like it but found another I like better. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

The idea of fire tends to be a recurring theme in spirituality, but setting the world on fire sounds more like destruction than inspiration…maybe that’s just how I’m feeling tonight after thinking too much about it. I’ll just have to save that one for another time.

Thanks for letting me share here. Does it freak you out that I’m painting in a book or does that sound like fun to you?