Tag Archives: Thoughts

Change Of Season

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The sun is shining through my window, there’s a storm outside and I can see the trees swing from side to side. Still holding on to their already turning leaves, but it won’t last much longer I’m afraid… The day will come where shades of red, yellow and brown will colour the ground. The season is changing, I’m lucky to catch this ray of sunshine on what would usually be a typical English grey day. It’s probably one of the last attempts so I’m a sponge absorbing the nurturing ingredients of sunlight making me dreamy while I prepare myself for a day of creativity.

Yesterday and the day before I decided to stay away from my computer for a while because I felt the urge to be quiet and think. I’m good at reorganising my thoughts while I’m cleaning up at the same time. Throwing out all the things that ‘you think you need‘ gives me the freedom of detaching so I can let go and therefore it creates the much needed space in my head to deal with things that might be bothering me. A declutter session is like spending an hour with a shrink, and after, you feel relieved and determined to deal with what needs to be dealt with.

So because of those sessions, today, I enjoy the sunshine warming up and lighten the now empty corners of my mind while I focus on things that need to be done. Stuff that I might have postponed for another day or worse; try not to deal with them at all. I have a perfectly clean slate, a nice crisp page in my Moleskine sketchbook, a leadholder impatiently waiting to jot down thoughts accompanied by sketches and the in-between-thoughts doodles that will cause laughter days later when I go through my sketchbook in search of another unspoilt page.

I will use the wonderful skills that I was given, the creative knowledge that I’ve studied for and gathered over many years of experience to create business cards for a garden designer and a website for my friend. She is a [wedding] photographer and asked me a few days ago if I was interested in this project. I designed her logo, stationery, business cards and compliment slip using her beautiful pictures. She needs an online portfolio to show her clients, I’ll use the same design as I used for her stationery: stylish, classy and most of all professional looking.

It’s a website that will be so much fun to design, I’ll do this in the ‘quiet moments’ as a treat to myself when I’m allowed a break from the gloves website which is just one of those things that needs to be done… Getting paid for sitting in the sun and being creative… ain’t it fun? *kidding*

[Note: an hour later it pisses down with rain *LOL* but I’m happy I could enjoy enough sunshine to brighten my morning. And two hours later the sun is there again smiling at me for the rest of the day!]

My notes, thoughts, doodles and/or sketches…

My notes, thoughts, doodles and/or sketches…

My notes, thoughts, doodles and/or sketches…

Juggling Words

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A while ago, I think it’s about two years, I registered with a Lowland version of something similar to Friends Reunited here in the UK. It’s a website to find childhood friends again, I registered just out of curiosity and to see who was on there. Quite a few people contacted me through email ever since, wondering what has become of me. At times it might be nice to hear from people from the past and it’s even nicer to hear what kind of impression you seem to have left or what memories. All of them seem to remember me sketching and drawing during lessons and breaks and some even kept my drawings all those years which is quite flattering. But I have to say I have doubts about the whole thing lately because I started to fail to see the point of all this when I discovered a pattern.

Let me explain: you’ll get an email in at some point, just a short one with an introduction about the sender and ending with the usual questions: how are you, what are you doing these days, where do you live, are you married, do you have children etc. And then you’ll end up replying to their email, carefully juggling the words trying to keep the balance between past and present. They usually ask me how my parents are, especially my dad; all my friends loved him because he was always interested in them and would ask questions or tell them one of his many stories. So I end up writing them that he passed away and tell them that I’m fine about it since most people don’t understand that, to me, death isn’t something final. It’s a transition which I celebrate, but how can you explain what took me years in a few lines?

Then there is a next email in which they proudly show a few pictures -followed by a request for yours- of their husband and/or wife and the children, because that’s how life is supposed to be to most: settle down and have a family. Of course I end up juggling with words again since I’ve always been an exception to the rule and my lifestyle is regarded as being at least a bit odd, but since I’m a creative person, even an artist to some, it’s accepted that I don’t have children and I’m not married *yet*, so I’m told. If I’m ‘lucky‘ I will get a follow-up email and then it usually stops there. Why you wonder? Well because I have nothing to tell them except for bringing up some memories and that’s where it stops. How can I relate to someone that has missed about 20 years of my life? How can I explain how I became the person that I am today?

One other thing that bothers me is the fact that some of them still have connections with my family somehow. I’m not afraid of telling them certain things, but I know I’ll take a risk by doing so and some things are better left unsaid. I really don’t care what they think of me, the truth will come out some day anyway but it doesn’t mean I should add fuel to the fire: they don’t need to hear from me, so it’s better to keep my distance, literally… After all, I moved here for a reason. I also believe in fate, if it was meant to be, these people would’ve stayed in my life for some reason, but they didn’t and I don’t feel much for bringing back ghost from the past just to satisfy their curiosity and hunger for a tiny snippet of information. I really don’t feel like keeping some channels open for correspondence…

There is enough going on in my life already without having the urge for expanding and getting involved in more time-consuming activities, I simply don’t want to. I would love to give my time to those who are actually part of my life, this life, here and now and not something that ‘has been‘… So I guess it might be best to put the profile on inactive. People end up having different walks of life, they choose different directions and paths which is only normal, but trying to keep something alive that is no longer there is simply a waste of time… I’d rather spend it in a more useful and far more enjoyable way: I met up with Ismoyo last Tuesday and had a wonderful time showing her around parts of London. She was over from NY for a few days to work on her project, a craft book which will be published and released in the US this year.

If you’d like to read more I suggest you’ll go over and visit her wonderful blog!

Only 6 days ago it was still a tiny root…