warm and fuzzy tshirts

So, at an open mic the other night, my lovely friend Thea requested that another friend, Lauren, and I draw on her shirt. So we did. And then Lauren asked me to draw on her shirt. So the tree one is the one Lauren and I collaborated on and the umbrella was the one I did on my own. It was a really fun night.

home is wherever I'm with me

I painted something new. I have painted several trees before, but usually they had a bird or two to keep them company. I don't really think much about why I paint what I paint. Mostly because I'm not a professional artist and have very limited skills in this department.

I have always loved arts and crafts. I used to sit and color as a child while my brother and sister took their naps. My mom didn't force me to nap. I didn't like it or need it, and I would keep myself occupied as long as there were pages to color and crayons to choose from. (I just ended a sentence with a preposition). Anyway, so when I started painting recently it was a result of a break-up. He was and is an artist, and the trips to art stores made me wonder what I could do if I bought some paint for myself. Adding to those experiences was the growing desire for me to connect with something that my friend Emily used to love to do when she was alone.

I'm not very good at being alone. I'm a pretty independent person. I like shopping by myself and I don't really like for people to tell me how to do things. But when it comes to just sitting in my apartment when I get home from work, I get a bit lonely. I used my last relationship as a distraction to avoid dealing with this inability to accept myself as myself, outside of my identity as a "girlfriend" or "sister" or "daughter" or "friend." I think a lot of who we are is shaped by our relationships, but there is something within us that is also truly us. It's what makes us unique. In Eat, Pray, Love, Gilbert talks a bit about an experience she had in Italy where her friends had to pick a word to describe themselves. She offered "writer," to which her friend stated that it was something she did, not who she was. I find myself feeling a bit like she did. I'm not in any kind of existential crisis. I think I am actually just learning to accept myself for myself. Whether this means I am single, in a relationship, happy, sad, in love, out of love, etc., I am who I am (not to quote Popeye or anything...).

All this to say that when I painted this tree today I was tempted to add a bird or something. The tree felt a little lonely on its own. But I didn't. And the more I thought about it, the more I felt like this tree might be what I need to see in the morning when I wake up. It's strong in its isolation. It's rooted to something deeper. And it's blossoming into something beautiful. Maybe, it's just like me.

Eat, Pray, Love

So I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love right now. I had purchased this book for Emily the Christmas before she passed away. She and I often bought each other books, read them, and then exchanged them so we could discuss them together. She loved this book. She said she felt like she could identify with some of the thoughts, struggles, revelations, and experiences that Gilbert describes throughout the memoir. So when I was never able to discuss the book with Emily, I thought I would never get around to it. Then the movie came out and reminded me that I should read the book. I refused to see the movie until I had read it first. But when I was bored on Saturday and found myself staring at the Red Box screen, I decided I would watch it. I had heard that people weren't thrilled by the movie, so I had low expectations. I'm not sure if it's the emotional connection with this story that made me love it or if I just liked it for itself, but I found myself crying several times during the movie and at one point had to pause it to take a breather. The story was moving and the insight that the narrator of the movie inspired me to think about some things in my life that I'd been stuffing into the corners like dirty laundry.

Needless to say, I went and bought the book the next day and have had several opportunities to sit and read it. It's easy to read so I could blow through it, but for some reason I feel like I need to think about her story and not just treat it as if I'm reading it for entertainment value alone.

There have been several moments in the book that have caused me to stop and reread them to make sure I'm grasping the totality of her statements. Here's a quotation from the book that I underlined:

"When I get lonely these days, I think: So be lonely, Liz. Learn your way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person's body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings."

It is too easy to do just that in relationships. I think I need to be really content with being single for a while to ensure that when I am in another relationship that I am in it for the right reasons.

I'm sure there will be more to come on this book. I'm not sure anyone even reads this. I guess I write about things because I need to put them somewhere. And sometimes my journal doesn't seem like the right place.

memories and such

I recently went on a trip to visit my parents and some extended family in Oklahoma City. Well, technically we were in Yukon. It's typical Oklahoma- very flat with minimal traffic on the streets. My parents recently moved to the house they are currently living in and my mom announced "Look at the llamas!" every time we drove down the street that led to their house. She also liked to ask whether we thought they were cute when we saw them. I think they look like hairier camels and my cousin would mention that llamas spit. I'm not an expert on llamas, but I certainly do not want to be spit on, so I will keep my distance. Needless to say it was a change of scenery. My apartment is surrounded by other apartments and the only animals I see are cats and dogs (though I did see a goat in the alley a couple of months ago).

The day after Christmas my parents, brother, sister-in-law, and I all piled into the Buick for a trip to Tulsa to visit my grandma. She is currently living in a retirement community and needs quite a bit of medical assistance these days. Prior to my trip I was worried that I would not get to see her again before she passed away. When we arrived at the clinic, people were eating dinner. After perusing the cafeteria, we discovered that grandma was not feeling well. We walked down the long hallway and found her sleeping in her bed. My grandma has a host of medical issues, but emphysema seems to be the most problematic at the moment as her body will not process oxygen, causing her to have less energy and her muscles not to receive the oxygen they need to function well. The nurses explained that it's typical for this kind of issue to cause one to eventually fall asleep and not wake up again. I suppose it's not a painful way to die.

My grandma is also struggling mentally. She has dementia. I did not know what to expect when we woke her up. My mom visits her more often and explained that sometimes she is lucid and other times it is difficult to communicate with her. Grandma recognized everyone and explained she was not feeling well. She began to talk to my brother about his marriage and life and then mentioned that my grandpa had not been around for a while. My mother then interjected to explain that he passed away 15 years ago. My grandma's face froze for a moment, then she raised her eyebrows and mustered up the strength to ask "Why can't I remember that?" I had to avert my eyes because the idea of forgetting such pivotal moments in my own life is frightening to me. It's sad to think that the love of my grandma's life has been gone that long and that there are moments in the day when she wonders why he is not by her side.

I'm not sure why I am writing this right now. I do know that when I think about my future, I hope that I have the kinds of memories worth retelling to grandchildren when I am too old to stand on my own. Memories are powerful in that they provide the timeline for our lives. Looking back in my family's past, it is amazing to see how things have changed. I have never and will never live on a small farm with 14 brothers and sisters, but the stories I have heard and the pictures I see when I close my eyes make me feel like I'm not so alone in all of this. For whatever reason.