When words fail you, make art

No words. Just art, illustrating how I feel. To stay sane.

Do you like it?

 

“Life”

Before I switch off the laptop for today, this is a little zentangl-ish drawing, which when it was done, I thought looked like “life”. So that’s what I call it. It’s a little minimalistic, but I felt like it was done.

 

Taking it easy today

Yesterday was a tough day, with all the thinking and writing about my sexual healing journey. I am okay, but I noticed I need to be careful when I ended up dissociating later in the day.

If you want a rather unusual glimpse at what can happen when I dissociate, here’s some dissociation art. I had just planned to draw a zentangle to calm down and focus, and it worked for the snail shell. Then I started with the little hearts. And kept drawing. And drawing. And drawing . . .

Pretty impressive. So today I’m going to take it easy. Focus on some good things. See if later I feel up to some journeying, but if not, I won’t and will rather wait another day. We’ll see. I really want to keep it positive and all that.

I hope you’re all having a good day today.

Tears in the Wallpaper – Zentangle

Just some art, for relaxation after the rather difficult sexual healing journey post today. I called it ‘tears in the wallpaper’ because it ended up reminding me of that.

Thanks to my Mom

For Mom

Thanks

Thanks, Mom, to you
for putting up with me another year
thanks are way overdue
you find my screws that disappear
and that’s why I love you.
(One of the reasons I hold dear
your love, at least, for sure.)

With Love,
Lola

Tough Day

After a tough night, unsurprisingly, there is a tough day. I’m trying to make the best of it, but it’s a challenge. Why is it that good days so often come with a right royal rebound? I’d like to know who invented that so I can kick them.

I tried to zentangle my way to more calm today, but it didn’t really work because I couldn’t focus long enough and got frustrated and fed up with my drawing. So here’s a zentangle from yesterday, which I did during breakfast while I waited for everyone to leave.

What temporarily distracted me was when mom turned an old blouse of mine into a vest kind of thing for little Lola. I enjoyed watching her sew and telling her where the stars go. I also enjoyed fashioning an earring of mine into a pendant for the necklace. But the distraction was only temporary and afterward I went back to feeling… weird.

Here’s little Lola displaying how I feel.

Yeah, not much up with me today. Before lunch mom shooed me outside to grab some sunlight. I bristled. We ended up sitting in the cold on the veranda. Strange day.

I feel like I have all those things going on in my head, but instead of happening in full view, all thoughts have disappeared behind frosted glass. I can press my nose against it and make out shapes and stuff, but that’s it. Maybe that’s a cue that I need to spend the day recharging rather than trying to figure out what’s going on in my head and getting frustrated over it.

Hey, but so I don’t come across as being all grumpy, I hit my 100th blog post today! This is the 101st! I don’t know why, but it feels worth mentioning. 🙂

Zentangles for Sanity

It’s the 27th and still our house is bursting with people. Minus two, okay, because the sister who’s as old as me and her husband left early today, but seriously, when there are still four additional people around it doesn’t make that much of a difference.

But . . . please add a mental drum roll . . . I’m doing okay. I realize it’s due to a joint effort, because mom makes sure she gets a hold on me before I veer off any edge, my siblings are fairly indulgent and dad puts up with grandma a lot, so mom has some time only for me every now and then – BUT, I’m actually contributing something too. It’s not ALL because of them.

I have discovered that the zentangles are only an angel’s hair short of heaven sent. All those small annoyances that have always added up and made me lose it – mom not answering me because she’s still talking to someone else, different routines, everyone’s voices in my ear, lengthy conversations about topics that make watching paint dry seem exciting – I am doing my best ignoring all those by drawing zentangles.

It gives me something neutral to focus my thoughts on, which is better than mulling over how fed up with having everyone there I am. It makes people leave me alone when they see I’m drawing. It kills quite some time, which makes waiting for more nicer parts of the day more tolerable. And it actually IS kind of relaxing and calming, of sorts.

So go figure, I’m holding myself together. Still SO much looking forward to everyone who doesn’t live here leaving tomorrow morning, but I think thanks to the zentangles and sitting down to draw more when I get annoyed, I might just be able to hold onto my sanity until then.

And here you go, today’s zentangles so far:

Zentangling

Have you ever heard of zentangling?

No?

Coolio, that makes two of us!

Which was why when my oldest sister – I could call her C, but that wouldn’t be very distinguishing, because all my siblings’ names start with C, lol, so I’ll keep calling her ‘oldest sister’ – anyway, which was why when she gave me a book called ‘Joy of Zentangle‘ for Christmas, I was all like “huh?! Uhm, okay. Whatever. Thanks.”

I have no idea why she picked that for me. It’s not like I ever indicated I even had the faintest idea what zentangling was, much less wanted to start to zentangle. But I figure she read the “drawing your way to increased creativity, focus and well-being” part of the title and the “reduce stress and increase creativity with the relaxing art of zentangle” on the back and concluded anything that enhances focus and well-being and reduces stress can only be a good idea for me. Or something. I have no idea.

Well, so I wasn’t too impressed with the present, but then, I can usually cope with weird gifts better than those that mean something in the positive or the negative way, so it was okay. And then over the course of the afternoon and evening last night I got bored with the endless family conversations about this and that and nothing interesting at all and out of desperation thought ‘heck, zentangling looks as good a waste of time as any’ and started doing it.

And what can I say? Once I got what it is about, I discovered it’s actually pretty cool. It’s basically like doodling, but with more mindfulness. (My therapist would be so pleased.) The idea is that you have a pen and paper and then focus only on the line you’re currently drawing, making patterns, creating a little abstract picture as you go. No erasing allowed, because it’s supposed to be kind of like in life: you make a mistake, you can’t just undo it, but have to make the best of it anyway. Other than that, anything goes.

Yesterday I just doodled random bits, trying out some techniques from the book. But today when everyone annoyed me during breakfast (time the family leaves again, please, because I can clearly love them better from a distance!!!) I went to get my notebook and a pen and did my first proper zentangle. And would you believe it, I actually had an easier time ignoring everyone being annoying around me while I drew and calmed down a bit. So I suppose zentangling might actually be a good idea and decided I want to keep doing it. Right now my goal is to do a zentangle a day and watch what happens, if it helps in other situations, too, and all that. We’ll see how that goes.

So here it is. My first zentangle.