04 January 2015

Your Choice (collage on nujabi paper, fabrics, rice and specialty papers)

 On this slushy, cold and damp Sunday afternoon, I find myself moping around, moving from one unfinished project to another.  I touch papers and canvases, fiddle with the oils and pastels, picking up, putting down, shifting side to side.

Ho, hum . . . this is not good.  Usually I go charging ahead in the new year, filled with goals and promises.  But not this one.  

This year it's more like a total pull-back.  For so long, I've dashed about, becoming a jack of all trades, master at none -- except at my work.  Over 25 years in the world of libraries and information research.  Nothing to sneeze at . . . and yet --

Feeling anxious, tired of the same-old, same-old.  Of course, as soon as you say that, watch out.  Life throws a whammie your way, and you instantly regret those thoughts.

Like the small work above, I suppose it's a choice of whether to continue moping and sighing, or just to get on with it. In a bit I'll light the fire, pull some crochet (my "gargantuan" granny afghan) onto my lap along with a mystery book and settle in for the duration.

So, hold tight, listen for the bird calls, find the tiny footprints in the snow -- the little things of life -- simplicity, a time for a general hunkering down and drawing inward.  Just like the natural world.  

I think I just convinced myself that this ennui is part of the seasonal process.  Soon the gardening and seed catalogs will start arriving in the mail, a sure sign that spring is on the way.  

*   *   *

“I prefer winter . . . when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - 
the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter. Something waits beneath it, 
the whole story doesn't show.”

Andrew Wyeth 

 


3 comments:

layers said...

It can be hard to start a new year... I wonder if we make too much of the new year... comparing it to the old year when it really is just one day following another day... we all move forward at our own pace when we are ready.
I like the Wyeth quote.

Kelly M. said...

Yes, perhaps we do make too much of it, a false sense of beginnings. Good to hear from you, Donna!

Shona Cole said...

Kelly, Lovely textured work! I just added your blog to the Collage Making directory.