Wishing and Hopeing and Dreaming

Deep Raspberry Red
Deep Purple
Med Turquoise
Lime Green

Deep Coral
Deep Blue Green
Milk Chocolate Brown
Black Accents

Above are colors that was on the US map on the weather tonight. Beautiful colors together. Next are colors Mandy used to draw an unknown object with her markers. This quilt thing is taking me over like clay did. I think about it, I dream about it, I see quilt ideas in everything I do or see. I think about Dian’s table in her den that she has covered with canvas and can spread out her fabric and cut it out. I imagine having a studio/place/den/room where I can work on my crafts. I have sliding doors like here in my apartment that are covered in cork to put all my ideas up on…one door to put up quilt blocks in progress. I dream about shelves and cabinets to put my fabric up in and my craft supplies. I search the net for equipment….a new sewing machine but they give no prices….a little hobby kiln…front loading… to go with my little top loading kiln I already have, work tables... I dream of quilts, collages, mosaics, baskets to weave, sculptures to make, paintings to paint, craft supplies, art supplies, photography to manipulate, all my old idea notebooks, technique notebooks, fabric to dye, yo yos to make, art dols to sculpt, polymer clay things to make along with detailed methods I want to try, wire wrapping, tatting and lucette cording to make, textures to explore, venetian plaster to play with, molds to make, gold leafing to play with, thermography ideas, jewelry and earrings to make, beads to buy or make, silk to paint/dye and of course, still…pots to make, color wheels to contemplate. I sit and draw quilts, plan out quilts and calculate sizes and amounts of fabrics I will need of each color. I think about quilts and crafts I’d like to make for particular people. Every time I go to the store, I see books I want to buy. I have a wish list on Amazon and folders and folders of pictures of ideas and words I want to express in art. All this just to name a few things.

More dreams in the night

What happens from one night to a morning that when you wake up you’re just in a really lousy mood? How does a depression just take hold of a person in the night time? All in one night. Is it depression or realization? You wake to realize that you’d been living in a fantasy world…a fantasy world that made it possible to put one foot in front of the other…keep on keeping on. Not one human being caring what goes on inside your head...not a hope or a dream or a feeling....not a smile... You feel total isolation. Saying to yourself that what you have or have had in your life wasn’t as bad as it could have been. Not that it is great…just not as bad as others have had. You hope for and want a pretty life with love and touch and cherishing. You wake to realize that you never had it and realize that there is no possible hope that you ever will. You buy into the universal idea that you have someone meant for you….that someday you will have the home and family and love of your dreams. A smile….a good morning dear…how was your night…a good evening…how was your day…come, sit with me and share a special moment. At different times in your life you ‘think’ a feeling is love only to realize it was either one sided or not love enough to sustain time…never enough…other things are more important…work…other women…drugs…power…you’re just not pretty enough or smart enough….or talented enough…or clean enough…or sexy enough… How do you face the rest of your life knowing you will never be touched again? Never be held? Never be cherished? Never know the look of love in someone’s eyes? How do you fill the days and nights alone? How do you convince yourself that none of this matters….that you can have a happy life without these things? You don’t. You pretend. And you hope that you can have days and months between the dreams in the night that wake you in the morning realizing that you have nothing. I've been asked recently, 'when was the last time you cried?'....how do you answer that you don't ever remember not crying?

Where do dreams come from?

Night before last, as Mandy, Megan and I were settling down in bed to sleep, Megan started telling me about a dream she had. It was so very detailed and one thing in the dream led to another. She described everything that was happening to someone she was watching and then she began being the person she was watching. I recognized my dreaming patterns. Mandy has nightmares already and has had for at least 4 of her 6 young years. Both of these shows me more that brain patterns or whatever it is happens through DNA moreso that circumstance. My daughter Rodina and their mother has the same dream pattern as well as my brother, Oren. The girls are in for quite a dreamlife!

Below is a dream I had. A very vivid dream....the kind where it feels like a very real memory. Where do these come from? Some say a previous lifetime. Some say a psychic connection to someone else. I don't have a clue...all I know is that I have them.

My dream…was SO real!:

I got deployed to Iraq…had to ‘drop and cover’….skim the ground of the grass…lay it back….lay in the dirt and cover myself with the grass….2 ½ hours….don’t move….this earns your red socks. I was deployed with the newspaper but ended up in combat. I was trusted with a set of keys to the storage and given a plastic crate….looked like a doggie carrier.

Then I watched the enemy discover a drop and cover where they slit the soldier’s throat and marked his arm with the knife with an ‘x’. The enemy missed the two others who were laying next to him under the grass.

I wasn’t allowed my watch and couldn’t smoke while deployed. I was going to have to go for 90 days starting next Monday without smoking. My friend Paul was with me and asked me if he could have a toy to bring home while I was gone….she was a young 18 year old. I told him no but he took her and danced with her anyway.

Then I had a cell phone and Rodina had sent someone she knew to pick me up and go buy the provisions I would be needing….I got some shorts and bug spray.

I got an award for marksmanship with a bow and arrow.

The Old Cowboy

A tough old cowboy counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long life, the secret was to sprinkle a pinch of gun powder on his oatmeal every morning.

The grandson did this religiously to the age of 103 when he died. He left behind 14 children, 30 grandchildren, 45 great grand children, 25 great great grandchildren and a 15 foot hole where the crematorium used to be.

Here's to new experiences

A couple of weeks ago, I had a new experience! I had to go to the fabric store to get a piece of fabric to finish my quilt and get a few other sundry items I needed/wanted. I had to go to the restroom while there. I always go to the handicapped stalls because I hate having to straddle a damned toilet to shut the door. Well…..they have this long panel heater along the wall below the toilet paper. When I went to wipe, the toilet paper was toasty warm!! How about that! My butt had a luxurious experience!

I am one!

When I was younger and in junior highschool, I had an art teacher who said either a person is born an artist or not. Because I could not reproduce paintings such as Rembrant etc, she told me that I was not an artist and never would be. This devastated me as all I ever wanted in life was to be a mother and an artist from my earliest memories. I still get angry when I think about that teacher and how she ripped my dreams and self esteem from me at an early age. It wasn't until I was in my 40s did I realize that I WAS an artist!

I recently read a posting on a blog that summed up my view of myself as an artist: My favourite artist is Rosalie Gascoigne, an Australian artist who works with found objects. When asked ‘How did you come to be an artist?’ She replied ‘I didn't ever become one, I was one. I was that sort of animal.’ I love that quote. I have always been very reticent about calling myself an artist. Even though I always felt like one, I had to be selling work to be bold enough to call myself one. I’m just starting to be able to call myself an artist now."

Sarah Plain and Tall...

Well, I'm Ruth and not Sarah. I am plain but I for sure am not tall! I saw this quote and laughed:

No matter how much I try to be plain, people don’t accept me, so I might as well be fabulous.”
- Austin Scarlett

Quilting

I've started quilting. Since I've sewn since I was 2 years old, it's been wonderful getting back to it after putting it aside for the past 20 years. I've finished my first quilt top and it looks like a blind person on drugs pieced it. I have not put a backing on it and quilted it or have it quilted. I did finish my second quilt and I'm more proud of it than almost everything I have done creatively in my life.

I have so many quilts in my head. I've watched others quilt. I've watched television shows on quilting. I've read books on quilting. Nothing prepared me for quilting. There are so many little steps from idea to the finished quilt if one wants a decent quilt as the finished product. I guess that is one of the reasons I'm loving quilting. If something is mastered quickly and easily by myself, I lose interest rapidly. Working in clay captured my interest as one can never stop learning and honing their skills working in clay. This is the same with quilting.

I did work this past couple of weeks on my quilting. I was working on quilt #1. Then, I didn’t know what fabric I was going to use for the sashings and borders plus the back. So, I thought, if I work on quilt #2 and I have some fabric left over, I could use it for quilt #1. Next, I had these neat scraps left over from quilt #2 and decided to make some potholders from the scraps. Well, when I got 4 potholder tops done (before I made them into potholders), they were SO NEAT that I decided to make a few more and make it into a quilt instead of potholders, thus quilt #3. Ok, I’m rocking along and find I need a piece of fabric 3”x6” to finish this quilt #3. Therefore I go to the fabric store to get the little piece of fabric and they have exactly what I need for quilt #1 and it’s on sale. But wait! They have a huge selection of fabric on sale! Not only at 50% off but an additional 20% off my total purchase. Ok, I came home with fabric to finish Quilts 1, 2, and 3 AND fabric for 4 more quilts!! (This does not include the fabric I purchased from an estate sale that gave me some absolutely beautiful fabric for approximately 30 or more quilts.) Thus goes the way I create. I'm still in the process of putting all three quilt tops together. I have to admit that I've been back to the fabric store 2 more times bringing home again, stacks and stacks of fabric. When I'm not working in the mornings or taking care of my granddaughters/housework in the afternoons, I'm planning out my next quilts in my head and drawing them on paper. I'm going to have some really beautiful quilts to pass down or give as gifts to my family. Since I already will have to be 92 to finish projects I've started.....I believe I will have to add some more years to finish these quilts.

Truely, among my friends, we have a saying: 'She who dies with the most craft crap wins!'

Inner workings of a creative mind

There is a crazy quilt contest that I’m thinking about entering. I’m thinking of my family here…all the mental illness that is in my family...and have one in my head named ‘Split Personality’ with one color family on the left….probably blues in crazy quilt style….a jagged or winding black sashing down the middle and then some bright colors in crazy quilt style on the right. I’m still working on the idea.

I’m also working on some door hangers to put on the door such as the ‘do not disturb’ idea….but only saying: “The Queen is in repose. Unless you wish to awaken the ire and fury of your beautiful queen, you will quietly go about your business in awe.” Well, something like that. I’m not too sure on the wording I want from the comma on to the end. I’m tired of getting woken up.

Chronic Pain

Chronic pain sure is a loose blanket for a lot of conditions. Chronic pain usually can't be seen but until a person experiences it, he/she can believe it is a bunch of bunk or at the very least, that the person who has it is faking it. When I was younger, I had a back injury. Always before, I thought others were faking it when they had a 'back injury'.

My doctor put me to bed right off when I hurt my back. Only years later did I realize that this was the worst think he could have done for me. I got 'stove up' and couldn't move....couldn't breathe normally half of the time...I would hold my breath inbetween stabs of pain. It didn't go away right away as had other illnesses I'd had in my life. It permeated my whole body....my dreams while asleep...it would wake me up in the middle of the night. I got so guarded in my movements and any activity I would attempt to 'do'.

I went to 'back injury' doctors who wanted to just give me a shot of cortizone or wanted to perform surgery. I knew people who had the cortizone shots come back on them years later with knots under their skin, usually the feet and hands that had to be cut out. I knew people who had the surgery only to either be in worse shape afterwards or had to continue more surgeries. I was going to have none of this. Therefore, I was given physical therapy. At first I thought it was torture and/or just a racket. Getting me moving was the best for me and it eventually worked.

I met all types of people taking physical therapy who admitted that they were milking the system. One of the things we were supposed to learn in this physical therapy was to 'learn to live with the pain'. In this physical therapy, a doctor I knew came and gave us a talk about chronic pain. When he described how the person with true chronic pain would actually have the pain waken them. This was a relief to know I wasn't imagining the pain. However, the one thing he did say really put things into perspective: 'When a person with chronic pain is told to learn to live with the pain, subconscously their mind is desceminating that either you live with the pain or die without pain. Having this learning to live with the pain and the pain not subsiding will throw a person into a depression thinking life with pain is hopeless.' This statement made all the difference of how I thought about my pain. I was determined to live past the pain and recover from the back injury. It took 5 years to heal but I will never forget this reasoning. For me it was true.

My back injury was when I was in my early 40s. Other than this injury, I have been lucky in my life since I had been 13 years old to lead a relatively healthy life. However, the day I turned 55 was when my body went to hell in a handbasket. Not one morning do I wake up that something doesn't hurt! One day it might be my neck. This might last for weeks or months or even just one day. Next, it would be my knee...or my foot....or an elbow....never the same place. If it did last for a long period of time, by the time I would think it was a real problem and make an appointment with my doctor, it would suddenly disappear on the day of my appointment.

This past year, along came arthritis in my life. Primarily in my left hand and wrist. Sometimes in my right hand and wrist but not to the extent is is in my left hand. Nothing in my life had begun to prepare me for this kind of deep bone permeating pain that I have. On some days I'd gladly trade this pain for childbirth. (Of course nothing prepares a person to the pain of childbirth.) I've always been a strong person, especially with my hands. Over thirty years of working in clay gave me muscles in my hands to the point that I could open any jar....grasp any task. Not with arthritis. Some days it's too painful to even hold a piece of paper. I have learned from my back injury that I must keep moving. I must keep using my hands. The pain is still here whether I keep them still or whether I continue to use my hands. I do find I limit my activities when I'm having a flareup but eventually I push on and get to moving.

My mind rejects learning to live with this pain. I want it gone! My daughter has this same arthritis and has had for over 5 years. I hope my granddaughters don't have it in their later lives. At least it will be a part of their medical history to watch out for.

Growing old just ain't for sissies!

Shattered Dreams

What do you do when your dreams have been shattered? Dream a better dream.
From the movie: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lavagirl

I'm OK, You're OK.....I think!

The statistics on sanity is that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.

Significance of a sparrow

I read that sparrows were a signal to sailors that land was near and developed into a source of hope for those who had been out to sea for a long time.

It brings to mind other quotes I've read about sparrows but I can't remember the exact words. One is something about 'the eye of the sparrow'....maybe it's the song: His Eye Is On The Sparrow?

Still...the main thought here in my mind is the message of hope...

Big Shot....little shot..

"A big shot is a little shot that kept shooting."
- Anonymous -

“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
- Robert Frost -