sick day and introverted musings

I have been under the weather all day yesterday. I suspect an intense stress and anxiety attack as the main cause. Things at work are rather stirred up at the moment and important decisions have to be made.

In the middle of all this I found myself thinking about a bit of a revamp for this blog. Maybe it's my way of coping with all the other matters that demanded for my time and attention. I am also feeling that familiar itch to lock myself up in a room for days and write my books without interruption.

It is Saturday and I will have to get some work tasks done. Then tonight I might be stepping out a bit to visit a friend whose father had just died. If events unfold as planned I might also end up telling another person how much I had been hurt by his behavior weeks ago and for which I have hardly forgiven him.

Yes, it is most likely too much anxiety and stress that is getting me all sick and tired in every sense of the words.

I am reading this book :

It is written by Sophia Dembling and it caught my attention while I was browsing in the bookstore last Thursday.  It is easy to read and very uplifting for an introvert like me.

I like the chapter that discusses friendship:

"What is a friend? We probably all have out own definitions. For me, it's someone I don't feel alone with. Who doesn't bore me. Whose life I connect with and who takes reciprocal interest in my life. It's someone I feel comfortable turning to when I need to be talked off the ledge, and for whom I am glad to return the favor."

"Once we start investing in a friendship, we start weighing what we get back. It's a make-or-break time. And for introverts, the investment can feel costly in terms of energy expended. It's the points when we start asking, 'why bother?' --- a legitimate question, as long as it's treated as a question rather than a blow off. Is this person willing to see you, and fun to be with, one-on-one? Does the conversation flow? Is it satisfying? Do you feel energized or depleted after time with this person? I love friendships where the conversation is so interesting, you can't end it even when the visit is supposed to be over."

Sometimes I feel I could use a couple more people who could be real friends. I could relate when my sister moans her lack of a girlfriend posse. We both dream of a constant group of four to five girls sharing the same values and overlapping some interests. The values are important. We could like totally different music but having the same values mean we agree on the things that matter -- in our case those would include compassion for animals and care for nature, reciprocity and responsiveness in relationships, respect for religious beliefs, just to name a few.

I am an introvert who is rather pained by the fact that I have to survive in the world of advertising. I am writing myself a whole notebook on the subject to sort it out and maybe find something that could ease me through until the time that I could fully focus on my book-writing and art-making. I don't want t spend days of my life just gritting my teeth through "shoulds" and "musts" until I could literally afford to be simply a writer and an artist.

Sometimes I feel like the effort will kill me. Pushing myself to be the kind of person everyone expects and then be the kind of person I really am. It's a tightrope walk without a net.

I promise to be brighter soon.

day of The Artist's Way

I have started on this book last month and then I had to put it aside for money work.

But today I resumed reading it after savoring the wonderful delightful feeling of completing all the day's chores by 9AM simply because I made myself wake up and get up at 6AM.

So basically I am FINALLY doing something I've been wanting to do for weeks since I put this book aside for money work. (I have also been wanting to play Skyrim for weeks. Maybe I will do that tonight after dinner. We'll see.)

I have read this book way back in the late 90s and I have forgotten most of the wisdom I have gained from it. As I travel through its pages again I could feel my spirit remembering.

"The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention." - Julia Cameron

creative roots : my mother's art

My mother comes from a family of seven children, supported by two working parents. She is the third daughter. Her family was basically lower middle class, which meant not everyone could be sent to college. Most of her sisters learned dressmaking, the youngest became a professional dancer. Her own mother, my grandmother, had a beauty salon and a gift shop where my mom helped out. Her father, my grandfather, was a painter who also worked as an illustrator in an advertising office.

My mom had a dream of being an artist. A painter, to be exact. She applied for a long-distance course at Famous Artists Schools in Connecticut.

She actually passed the screening exam and got a good grade.

Here are some pages from the Talent Test displaying her natural skills.

Unfortunately though, my grandparents could not afford the tuition fee. My mom went to a regular college taking up a regular course in accountancy (I think) but she never finished. She became instead as my grandma's right hand at home, in charge of most of the housekeeping and cooking, until she married when she was 24 years old.

I will be featuring the pieces she had done in those early years of her life and for starters here are some self-portraits she had made:

I'd love to be able to draw even half as well as these!