Today and Tomorrow

As we age, we have a great deal of time on our hands.  We retire and, at first, we have so much we wanted to do and we do most of it.  Then time creeps up on you and, suddenly, you become aware that you have nothing to do.  We putter, we paint, we post stuff on Facebook, but we feel a sense of needing something, not realizing it is something to fill our time.

We have to work to get a sense of joy in our life.  It is easy to slump into doing nothing, feeling nothing.  We sit like a lump on a log wishing we still had people around us to stimulate us.  We want that, but we do not want to make the effort to get out and get going.  Life can get pretty mundane and we get more and more set in our ways.  We can become introspective and that is not always a good thing, for sure. 
My day planner stays pretty empty but I make sure and do something Monday and Tuesday nights where I get social interaction.  Going to the grocery store gets difficult because...well, because...there are people there.  I do not enjoy crowds any more so I am choosy about what I do and where I go.  We become sure that Joy has escaped us, but some of us may have abandoned it ourselves.  

I enjoy my Monday and Tuesday nights.  It is not healthy for some of us to spend 24/7 rattling around a house with our partner.  Sometimes we do not talk to anyone for hours because it is like we forget each other is there.  We forget to pay attention and get more and more tunnel-focused.  I created this small circle of friends that I have here.  We now get together with our partners more often through this long winter we are having.  With them, there is laughter and friendship and connectedness.  I am grateful that I developed these friendships here.

I know that my art, every morning, fulfills me, and fulfills a great within me.  But, after a day or two, I start to feel antsy and want to go out, even for groceries.  I might even go down town and get a coffee just to get out, as well.  It becomes work to dram up things to do.

At this time of life, we become more aware of how our body is wearing out.  Our parts clink and squeak and refuse our commands without having us groan or sigh.  It is work to revive ourselves if we sit more than an hour.  Sometimes getting into the vehicle and doing something just takes so much energy that we do not and then we begin to rock and rattle more because the brain needs the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual interactions with others in order to keep this old machine well oiled and cared for.

I do not make good commitments.  They are only good for about two weeks and then all my new intentions fizzle out and I am back to a frog on a log.  I try but so many things I lose interest in.  They only thing that is a given for me is to do my art in the mornings until around ten am, then get food prepped for evening, then dishes, then dusting and a quick vacuum or mopping, then some art, then a nap, then dinner, then an evening of searching Netflix for something new to interest me.  Sometimes I find a block of time to read. Sometimes I spend half an hour sorting 'my stuff' because I live with a fear...a fear of something happening to my partner and me having to grab my stuff to move wherever.  See, that is what happens when I do not keep myself busy.  It gives me time to worry and I refuse that.  I have done enough worrying in my life and I can dream up stuff to worry about that even I cannot make sense of.  I am one who has to have intellectual stimulation and I have to make sure I do that in some way every day.

I recognize that my moods swing slow but swing nonetheless.  Someone chewing, someone shuffling, someone breathing, someone's voice, can set off a swing in me.  I do not act on that feeling, but I feel it inside and then I know I have to focus on something else.  I have to remind myself to be grateful for what I can do, what I can learn, what I can feel and what I can find to hope, wish for, and feel a sense of filling.  Sometimes the gratitude is hard to pin down so I might only add a small thing, like a ray of sunshine caught on the metal roof of our work shop.  The other day it was the sight of two wolves loping slowly across a field towards the forest as we were driving on the highway.  

I seek things that stir my soul.  I do not watch scary or negative movies or read unsettling books.  I tend to read/watch National Geographic, psychology books and magazines, soul-food movies and books.  I have had enough negativity in my life to keep that rolling around in my heart and head.  I need positive feeds into my thoughts.  It is very easy to feel negative without feeding that with other things.

Aging means finding new ways to do old things.  I can no longer vacuum and mop the whole house like a whirlwind.  Now I have moved from room to room throughout a day until now, when I do part of a floor and rest and then do another part until I get one room done and then wait until the next day to do more.  I have had to give up driving at night.  I know I am not safe and neither is anyone else with those BRIGHT LIGHTS, Bright lights.  I examine my thoughts and wonder where the key trigger is/was and examine why I think the things I do.  I refuse to put my own self down.  I acknowledge my feelings and do something about them.  I am, of course, in control, not my ego or Evil Inner Witch.  I suffer the consequences  through every aspect of who I am.  I am continually an overcome.   

We have to remember to take more particular care of body, mind, heart and soul.  We have to remember to get out of our own way and to get out of situations that take us to thoughts of fear and doubt.  Somehow we need to empower ourselves.  As we become more and more isolated due to age, we need to make sure we can stand ourselves.  Do that, do what you CAN do while you CAN do.

As I considered what these thoughts brought me to, I have a sense of things closing in on me and how some things are closing me in more and more all the time.  I decided to use my watercolor felt pens to get a face shape started.

Once I did that, then I began working on background. I collaged bits and pieces of torn doilies left over from the doily challenge. then, rather than make the piece all dark and foreboding, I chose to use yellows and pinks and madder rose  acrylics, using circular motions to blend and wiping back with paper toweling to get some show of the texture underneath the background color.

I turned back to the face and began a mixture of the colors I had on my palette to keep things tied together, and added some cream color to soften edges and make highlights. I, also, added butterfly ephemera around the edges.  (I realize that there are only four, rather than an odd number, but I felt like there were 7 focal points;  four butterflies, the mouth, the nose, the eyes.

I brightened up the portrait by using Mother of Pearl structure gel to brighten things up.

I fell into this painting and spent only around an hour on her, total.  She became herself and I realize that I do not have to work so hard, perhaps, to become who I am today and tomorrow.

©Carol Desjarlais 2.21.20