I FORGOT...

The thing about taking on an ambitious project and doing it in front of the world is that when you fail, you fail spectacularly.  It sometimes makes picking up the pieces more difficult.

Just over 9 months ago, I began what I thought would be a fairly simple adventure... take one year of my life to explore how to add more creativity to each day...a 365 day adventure.

The funny thing about thinking of each day as including an INHALE and EXHALE activity was that somewhere along the line as our lives got more and more stressful, I wasn’t just gasping for air, I literally forgot how to breathe.

Stress makes you do funny things. 

I would wake gasping from a dream of being smothered with my heart racing and then be unable to get back to sleep.

I found myself getting lost in simple, mindless things like watching odd TV shows or playing Farmville on Facebook after a long day of substitute teaching instead of picking up a pencil to sketch or a needle to stitch.

So to those who were waiting for me to offer some guidance along the way in this adventure, I apologize for the huge gap in this blog.

I didn’t even journal through this stretch of darkness, which is really odd for me.  It was as if I wanted to have no proof of this dark time and my black thoughts anywhere.

While I went out and smiled when I was teaching, meeting with clients or doing Zoomba classes, at home I curled up, hid and just tried to keep my lungs working, even as my mother-in-law had to have a whole section of hers removed. Nick and I were each trying to comfort the other when we didn’t feel strong ourselves, hoping to keep things as normal as possible for the kids.  I am sure they saw through some of our cracks.

After a very long stretch, almost 15 weeks, my mother-in-law is home from the hospital, weak but on the mend.  Nick is wrapping up a school year that is ending with chaos and uncertainty as his school gets downsized to move students to a new school as boundaries get redrawn.  The girls are ending up their year on a high note with Erin earning a spot on Team NB for volleyball, the elite provincial team along with an academic award for Grade 9.  Bethany’s awards ceremony is this week and she is hopeful about her marks earning her some recognition as well.

As for me, I have spent enough time in the quiet to realize that INHALING CREATIVITY could never be a single year’s adventure.  It is going to take me quite a few years to put together a daily creativity adventure to follow or share.  I am starting to feel as if this is not just something to try for a year, but rather a way to live and keep breathing on a daily basis for the rest of my life.

Through all this chaos, I still found myself doodling, rummaging for wool, staring at floor tile patterns or looking for shapes in clouds.  I even found heart shapes in watermelons and bits of discarded plastic.

Maybe this isn’t anything I can turn off.  

Maybe choosing Inhalations and Exhalations was the right image after all.

It’s time to take a deep breath and begin again.

Join me tomorrow for the first new breath of this adventure.

Watching and Waiting...

The first snowstorm of the season has left our city looking like a magical postcard.  Everything is transformed into a winter wonderland where imperfections are covered up under the puffy whiteness of new beginnings.  Right now, I feel like my life could use a blanket of that snow!

The past few days have been both busy and difficult ones.  We have been preparing our house and our lives for Christmas, living with hope in our hearts and running the gauntlet of seasonal commitments... all the while knowing that the phone could ring any day to tell me that my father has lost his battle with cancer.

Every phone call has become something to treasure, even the awful, incoherent ones like this afternoon.  Hearing his voice, however tired, means that I can still reach him on the other end of a phone line.  Every chance I have to tell him that I love him is one more time that he will hear those words from my lips as well as from my heart.

Our Christmas tree is a mad celebration of homemade and purchased ornaments that stretch back all the way to the first ornament I stitched when I was a little girl who wanted to make a Mary for the tree.

I have cardinals and a banjo to remind me of my Bop and Jet, precious grandparents that I lost while still in my teens.

Talented friends have made many beautiful ornaments for me over the years... this is just the most recent one to grace this year’s tree...

or a carving from Debbie that will someday grace my daughter’s tree when she has a home of her own.

Every year I try to make a different ornament for friends and family, always keeping one for our tree, like this Santa from a few years ago.

Sometimes, like this year, Christmas can also be about preparing to say Goodbye.

This little bear graced the trees of my Childhood.  Made of Chenille pipe cleaners, “Boris” has been slowly rusting and rotting away from the inside.  Last year, I couldn’t bear to throw him out and put off the decision.  This year, the analogy between an ornament and my father’s failing body seems almost too much to bear.  (OK... that made me groan through my tears!)

We can be Creative in how we let go... as well as how we hold on to things.

INHALE: Some Inhales feel more shaky than others these days, but every moment still teaching me something when I let go and take time to feel things instead of staying numb and busy.  As I was hanging my ornaments this year, I was aware of how my best friend is starting her tree over almost from scratch after losing everything in a fire last spring.  Each one of my ornaments has a story and a legacy... but in the end, they are all just stuff.  No matter what gets broken, lost, destroyed of thrown out, nothing can take away the memories that brought us joy.  It is to that knowledge and hope that I cling to as I take each breath.

EXHALE:  Create a new piece of history for your home, buy a new ornament that speaks to you, a new tablecloth to lay out or a new story of the holidays to read to children.  Try a new cookie recipe to share with a friend.  No matter which holiday you celebrate in this darkening time of year, add something new to your life this week.  Take the time to LET GO of something else this week as well... a negative emotion or something broken that doesn’t work.  When everything felt out of control today, I sat down and sorted the pen jar near the phone and threw out 6 of the pens that really didn’t work anymore.  It felt surprisingly good.

Creativity amid more Chaos...

The thing about knowing I am living this journey is that it sustains me even when life gets so chaotic that I cannot post.  I meant to post about our Hallowe’en creativity on Friday night or Saturday, but the weekend ended up being far different that we expected when Bethany began to run a high fever on Saturday afternoon along with her cough.  We’ve kept her in isolation at home and treated her with medicine to reduce the fever which seems to be working for now as we keep a close eye on her.  GIven all the fear about the H1N1 pandemic, we are being cautious and vigilant, hoping that it is some other germ in our house.

Thursday night, Bethany had  a Hallowe’en dance at her school.  She dressed up as a rock star and spent two hours dancing or talking with her friends.

Friday was a fun but tiring day.  I was teaching at Harrison Trimble for the 4th day that week and everyone was encouraged to dress in costume.  Erin went as a fairy GOTHmother and I dressed up as  a zombie, thinning out the make-up I used for She-Hulk and using the same wig, I ripped up one of Nick’s oldest shirts and made a very scary impression on a lot of the high school kids.  Imagine coming around a corner in a hurry and running into 6’5” of zombie teacher!  For an extrovert who loves playing up on my inches, I was having a blast!

After school, we went to pick up Bethany at her school and watch the last minutes of her volleyball tryouts.  She’d had a sock hop in the afternoon and then the tryouts, so she was feeling a bit tired as we headed home to change both girls into their costumes for working up at Magnetic Hill’s fundraiser that evening.  Boo at the School meant that the entire gym of Nick’s school had been transformed into a spook walk as a fundraiser for the Grade 8 class trip at the end of the year.  There was a bake sale, a BBQ, some other sales and the spook walk.  Erin was dressed up as an old fashioned school teacher in pioneer dress teaching a class of zombie children to repeat words like disembowel.  Bethany dressed up in her Dorothy costume and played hopscotch in the “graveyard”. Nick was the Frankenstein principal asking people for their hall passes and I helped a witch greet people at the door and break them into groups. For the first 2 hours, everyone was fairly enthusiastic, but in the 3rd hour, it got a little harder to stay “fresh” at their roles.  Bethany seemed especially tired, but I chalked it up to her busy day.  I drove the girls home as soon as things were over then came back up to help Nick and the parents take everything down in the gym.  She seemed fine when she posed for this picture after stealing Dad’s headgear...

By 10:30 the next morning, we were back at the school for a volleyball match between Erin’s 15U team and the 16U team in the Roofers club she belongs to.  It was great volleyball and each team won 2 matches, but Bethany seemed really tired and whiny.  We got her some soup for lunch and pot stickers at our favourite restaurant Happy Wok and then headed home.  She fell asleep for 2 hours and when she woke up, she was flushed and burning up with a fever of almost 102! Needless to say, my thoughts of writing everything up as the blog post went out the window...

The fever comes and goes, so she will be home with me tomorrow.  No doubt my creativity will be put towards keeping a sick daughter entertained in her room.

INHALE:  In our busy, modern day world, we sometimes feel as if we are expected to keep going no matter what.  If we are sick, we take a pill or something.  If this flu season is teaching us ANYTHING, it is reminding us of the need to listen to our bodies when they get sick or tired and grant them time to heal, time to get better and time to keep our germs to ourselves.

EXHALE:  One of the ways you can enjoy a bit of tasty Creativity even when you aren’t sick is to find a warm drink that you enjoy.  There are many wonderful herbal tea blends out there to sample, cider to warm with cranberries and cinnamon or a splash of orange juice.  My stepfather, John, has been playing with ways to make his own really chocolaty cocoa drink that has less artificial ingredients than some of the powders out there.  Sniff a few herbal tea boxes in the grocery aisles or delight in the artwork and creativity of the many Celestial Seasonings blends.  Their box artwork and creative copy are almost as lovely as the teas themselves.  Tazo ’s chai flavour has been another favourite of mine for a few years, especially with a splash of skim milk.  Miso soup is another wonderful warm drink.  Some cultures swear by a crushed garlic clove in hot water to fend of germs and there is always the traditional chicken noodle soup.  Whatever you choose as your warm drink, wrap your hands around a great mug and sit quietly for a few minutes to sip some stillness along with your beverage.  The world will still be waiting when your mug is done.