Drawing my way through a rough week

Bone. Pencil drawing, August 19, 2021.

For any of us who care about other parts of the world and the people who inhabit them, it's been a difficult and emotional week. I'm not going to get into any of it here. Suffice it to say that this blog wouldn't have been named what it was, back in 2003, if I hadn't foreseen much of the tragedy that would unfold as a result of American foreign policies -- though I fervently wish I'd been wrong.

Obviously we need to continue to do whatever we can to alleviate suffering and work for justice and for positive change, while caring for those closest to us as well. Our primary responsibility is to remember to take care of ourselves so that we have a chance of being able to help others. What does that mean for you? Have you ever thought about it in depth, and written it down?

The monastery garden at San Giovanni degli Eremiti, in Palermo, Sicily. August 18, 2021.

Many monastic orders follow a rule of life that not only gives structure to the day, but helps the mind find the stillness at the heart of everything. I've always been interested in this, and read a good deal about it. While I don't feel called to that degree of commitment or structure, I know from long experience that without paying attention to a personal set of basic practices, my anxiety goes up, I'm unable to concentrate or get things done, and I'm likely to experience feelings of helplessness and depression. I'm also a whole lot less pleasant to be around: cross, frustrated, impatient, and apt to blame those feelings on others. On the most basic level, I want to be a loving partner and daughter, and to keep in touch with family and friends to the extent I feel able. Now, with not only the world situation but the prospect of yet-another pandemic-restricted fall and winter, it's clear that self-care needs to be intentional.

A street corner in St-Lambert, Quebec. Fountain pen; roughly sketched on location and finished with watercolor later. August 16, 2021.

What this means for me (in no particular order) is maintaining a daily practice of drawing and/or music, so that I don't forget who I am, even if it's just fifteen minutes. It means taking care of some plants and flowers, and petting the cat: remembering that there's a lot of life that isn't human. Food is part of that category: paying attention to ingredients, and cooking meals that have some love and care put into them. Taking some time each day to read a good book, and to learn something new: for the past 18 months that's meant daily language-practice for me.  Making the bed, taking some care with my appearance, picking up the house, keeping things in relatively decent order. Getting some exercise, and trying to get enough sleep. And, both first and last each day, feeling gratitude and making a point of remembering specific things that I'm grateful for. I wish I could maintain a meditation practice but it doesn't seem to be in the cards for me right now: basic mindfulness, gratitude, and the contemplative practice of drawing, and following my breath during lulls in the day or wakeful periods in the night, seem to fill that niche.

Plants on the terrace. August 15, 2021.

Do I succeed at all of that every day? Of course not. But having a basic, thought-out framework seems really helpful in trying to keep some order, sanity and calmness in my life -- and when I forget, which of course I do, it's there to go back to.

Begonia. Pencil. August 14, 2021.

For instance, I hadn't been drawing every single day, but this week gave me a wake-up call to try to get back to it. There you have it: we can always begin again.

 

 

Comments

[Edward Yankie]

Your drawings and reflections are breath of sanity in a highly ill world. Cassandra indeed. A notoriously difficult role on the stage (O horror! O Apollo! O etc.!)and an even rougher one to play in these harrowing post-modern times. I appreciate the Cassandras of this world. A voice crying out in the wilderness. Please keep the drawings and the reflections coming.

[Vanessa]

I am so grateful for your postings each time I read one. This one feels like a personal gift in its timing. What has helped for me is writing a little each day, drawing or painting, music, cooking and gardening, some movement, connecting with others of all kinds. Do I get to all of this each day? No, alas far from it, but I notice when I do some of these things some days, there is something sustaining that on good days feels like wind in a sail perhaps. And so important the caring for ourselves as the starting point and the returning point (even if it is again and again).

I too am mourning much from afar as well as close to home which I will leave unspoken.
Reading your words today, seeing your drawings and the invitation to share (which I do not do often) all lightened things for me. Thank you, Beth.