Waiting

 

The time of waiting. Advent: the arrival. 

I find that the liturgical calendar brings me to times of waiting twice a year - both times leading up to the major festivals. These times make me ponder about how we live through a season of waiting. Are we impatient? Expectant? Hopeful? Peaceful? Or all of the above? 

Sometimes these times in the waiting room are forced upon us as we wait for test results, deliveries, approvals. These times of waiting give us time to think, reflect, and grow. Or maybe to whinge, stamp our feet, and be irritable. 

How we wait can say a lot about us. 

Storms of Life - a few in the series

 

So here are some of the canvases I've been working on - Storms of Life. You can see that there are elements that turn up in all of them, even though the palettes are very different. I think I'm more or less done with them now, apart from painting the edges black and varnishing. 

Now I just need to find somewhere to exhibit...

Bend or break

 

Do you bend or break with the wind?

Our current severe weather has me thinking about how we react differently to the storms in our life. Why were some plants left whole and others were torn apart even though they were both in the path of the wind? Why do some people come through difficult times stronger and others are beaten down by it all? 

Some trees were completely torn apart, others lost a branch or two, and some were badly shaken but lost only a few leaves and twigs. The same can be said for people. Some are more resilient, whether by nature or by deliberate cultivation. We cannot prepare for every eventuality, but we can grow our resilience deliberately to better withstand the storms of life. 

Well!

 I haven't posted for a week because of this:

My painting series is going to be called 'Storms of Life' but this was a real-life storm. A mini tornado, in fact. It raged through Adelaide on Saturday November 12th, and our suburb was one of the worst hit. For fifteen minutes there was horizontal rain, the wind roared, and trees were flying. The power went out and we didn't get ours back again until Thursday afternoon, hence the lack of blogging.

We were lucky in that the branch that fell from our tree fell between our house and next door's garage, only taking the guttering off the side of the house. This is a small piece of tree compared with some of the ones we saw that had been broken off and flung around. That piece of wood in the bottom right of the picture is actually impaled in the ground. The branch that fell on the roof didn't go through so we are incredibly thankful. 

We took a walk around the neighbourhood, as did many others, just an hour later and the emergency services had already chopped up and removed several large trees from where they had fallen across the road and broken down power-lines. I couldn't believe the size of some of the trees that had been ripped up - these were well-established trees with trunks over half a metre in diameter. The really odd thing was that nothing moved on our patio, and friends have lots of potted plants that weren't touched either. They said they saw two funnels going down their road and there is a tree that was broken by twisting because you can see the way it has splintered. 

Scary. Amazing. Glad it wasn't worse.

I'll be back properly next week.

I'm fine, you're fine

 

I'm fine, you're fine... but are you really? Make it about the percentage.

A while ago a friend of ours came up with the idea of answering the question, 'How are you?' with a percentage. It happened after he spent the evening with a friend and the next day that friend took his own life. The previous day he'd been 'fine'. 

But obviously he wasn't. 

By answering the question with a percentage instead of the polite 'fine' answer, we can be honest and spark the conversation if we're not feeling over 50%. Plus the more we do this, those we speak to may take on the habit as well.

Without words

There are times when words get in the way.

I really love this page. I find the colours, shapes, and placement pleasing. I couldn't even tell you why, but it makes my heart happy. I sat with it for a while before putting words on it, and then they are words that talk about not using words. 

Sometimes we just have to sit with someone. Just being there when things are hard can be enough. There is no need for us to provide an answer, a solution, good advice, or platitudes. Presence is often the best gift we can give.

Well, that was a surprise!

 

The set of canvases I've been working on... I stacked them to one side and waited. I thought they might be finished, but then last week I felt that they weren't done yet. Yes, I liked how most of them looked, but they didn't feel like a series. There were elements of each that I liked, but they weren't cohesive and they didn't have a describable theme.

So I took a brayer to one of them and covered up lots of lovely marks. Suddenly it felt exciting. I dragged out others and covered up various parts of them. Some of the same types of marks started to turn up. They were starting to feel like they fit together.

Here is one of the reworked canvases. I'm calling my series 'The Storms of Life'. The clouds kept turning up, and the lightning marks, and circles (of course!) 

The canvases started out with lots of my favourite marks and bright colour. These were then obscured by the clouds. When the storms come in, they obscure things for a time, but you have to remember that you are still you, you are not the storm and the storm is not you. You are still complete (symbolised by the circles), and the clouds will move on. 

Personally, this is about menopause for me, but it holds for any storm of life - a bad diagnosis, grief, loss of employment, anything that knocks us back a bit.