Drawing Class (so far)
Week #2 – perspective…
Week #3 – still life with charcoal…
And I am a happy, happy girl!
Getting through the week
First it was the weariness from five days away (some of which included a fairly intense staff retreat). Then it was the scrambling energy it took to start filling a small role in response to the Haiti disaster (communicating, responding to donors & media, issuing appeals, looking for appropriate images, writing web text and ad copy, etc., etc.). Add the ups and downs of the ongoing drama of motherhood and management. Throw in two very different (mostly good) pieces of news that are potentially life-changing and that carried me into an odd introspective space. (No, I’m not prepared to talk about them here yet – maybe later.) Add a few complicated relationships. Top it all off with a major screw-up in which I totally overlooked a presentation I was supposed to give (ugh). And there you have it – the week that was.
Now you know why I was mostly silent last week and will probably continue to be much of this week. There are only so many balls a woman can keep in the air without dropping a few of the rubber ones.
But then there was last night. Last night, for a few precious moments, I managed to put all the balls away on a shelf and walk away. The house was fairly quiet, and other than the laundry that needed to be shifted from washer to dryer to folding table, and a mostly-content seven-year-old who flitted in and out for a little mommy-love now and then, I didn’t have a lot of demands on my time. So I disappeared into my little studio and soon I was lost in a drawing that had begun to emerge at last week’s class.
It’s a row of small fishing sheds lined up on a dock with a couple of fishing boats in the foreground – meant to teach about perspective. Follow the lines to the vanishing point to determine the angle of rooflines, dock edges, etc. Lots of little details and extensive use of a ruler for all those doors, roofs, windows, and wooden siding. It’s not the kind of art work I would normally be drawn into (I get a little bored with symmetry), but oh my, was it zen-like! Soon those heavy thoughts were disappearing right along with those lines on the way to the vanishing point.
Though I recognize the value of meditation, and I’ve tried it several times in various iterations, it just hasn’t been something I’ve been able to fully adopt into my life. Too many monkeys playing around in my mind, I suppose.
That was before I discovered the meditative quality of art. A paintbrush or pencil in my hand, and suddenly I’m a zen master!
Sometimes
Sometimes parenting wrenches your heart right out of your chest,
tosses it on the floor and stomps on it.
tosses it on the floor and stomps on it.
Sometimes you have to sit in the bathroom holding your daughter
and listening to her sob for half an hour
and listening to her sob for half an hour
all the while knowing you can’t do a damn thing to FIX IT.
Sometimes those beautiful children who own a big piece of your heart
bottle stuff up forever and then one day it’s released
in a sudden outburst that results in a hotdog flying across the room.
bottle stuff up forever and then one day it’s released
in a sudden outburst that results in a hotdog flying across the room.
Sometimes you have to live through the cruelties of life vicariously through your children
and sometimes that second-hand pain is almost worse
than if it were happening to you directly.
than if it were happening to you directly.
Sometimes you feel the weight of realization that you are the only safe place
where their deepest fears and troubled emotions can be unleashed.
where their deepest fears and troubled emotions can be unleashed.
And then sometimes you go to bed worrying about your beautiful daughter,
and through the basement floor you hear her humming along with her ipod,
a sure sign that the tears in the bathroom were just right for helping her carry on.
and through the basement floor you hear her humming along with her ipod,
a sure sign that the tears in the bathroom were just right for helping her carry on.
And sometimes you know that the best you can hope for is “carrying on”.
Sometimes you just have to find a tree and lean on it
It was day one of the staff retreat. The day that my team was meeting under my leadership. Staff and volunteers had come from across the country and I had to lead them, inspire them, and encourage them. The trouble was, I wasn’t feeling very inspired myself. I was just feeling…. well, kinda blah. Low energy and low motivation.
Halfway through the day we took a break. It was a beautiful day and we were close to the woods and the river, so I went for a walk. Near the Red River, in the middle of a small wooded area, I spotted the largest tree I have ever seen in this province. It would have taken about 4 people with their arms fully spread to make a circle around that tree.
I spread my arms as far as I could reach and leaned against that big solid tree, my face pressed up against the rough bark. I stayed there for a few minutes, just leaning. Borrowing energy from a tree that had stood through more than a hundred prairie winters and a myriad of floods, storms, and pestulance. Soaking up inspiration from a life-force that had born witness to endless human and animal stories. Finding encouragement in this remarkable source of oxygen, shade and beauty. All the while, thanking the Creator for this love-song shaped like a tree.
Refreshed, I returned to my meeting.
Haiti on my mind
Today, after 5 days away from my computer, I came back to an in-box packed full of inquiries about Haiti. Many wanted to know if we will be doing any food programming there (the answer is yes – feel free to support), but most wanted to know if M & J are safe.
This past summer, two of my staff resigned from their positions, and for completely different reasons, both moved to Haiti. J is working in a fairly remote area, providing administrative support for a clinic. M is doing contract work with NGOs in Port-au-Prince.
J reports that, though they felt the quake, they were not significantly impacted. They will, however, be providing some medical support from their clinic, so she will be working hard in the coming weeks.
I haven’t heard anything directly from M, but through the NGO grapevine, I’ve heard that she is safe and that her home was not destroyed.
Though I’ve never been to Haiti, I feel quite connected to it through many friends and colleagues who have lived there or are currently living there. This disaster seems so unfathomable that there really are no words to express it.
That’s about all I have to say right now, because at this time, this is one of the only things on my mind.