Another use for duct tape

Dr. Sheldon Cooper, from THE BIG BANG THEORY, model for all sorts of extreme behavior and poster child for control issues. As we arrived late for the series, we are catching up with reruns six evenings a week. A few nights ago, I saw the episode with perhaps the definitive Sheldon line as he tried to find new friends who would do things his way. Abandoning them and rushing to be included in whatever his old pals were doing, he explained, of the new bunch, "They were having fun wrong."

At times I wonder if there is anything other than our own attitude that is within our control, for so little else seems to be. Ah, but the years I tried to have it be different. The enormity of our appropriate inability to control much of anything was reinforced this morning as I learned of a dear family member who is facing additional treatment for a disease thought cured. A previous version of myself would have retreated into worry and blame. Today, I chose, for which I am beyond grateful, action and belief in a good outcome. That is all that is within my power.

This morning I also realized - are those solar flares and their radiation bombarding our thought patterns as well as the guidance systems for airliners? - that it was no longer, as though it had been since about 1985, my task to fret about my son's sending or not sending of thank-you notes for gifts received. It was while actively involved in 12-step programs, the ones dealing with co-dependency, that I imagined wearing a thick roll of duct tape as a bracelet, ripping off strips when necessary and slapping them across my mouth. A fine teaching tool to learn the art of butting out. Somewhere, we must be accruing points for what we've managed not to say.

Back to my search for devices to quantify the unquantifiable, the meter that can gauge just how detrimental it is to our own health, those surges of adrenalin and what-not that come from trying to have it our way. My former husband used to tell me I couldn't like some of the things I liked, because they weren't good. I was having fun wrong.

I won't pretend that I no longer fret or that my fingers don't twitch to see some wrongs put right. However, I have learned a bit about about choosing my battles. Acceptance and surrender take up more real estate in my thoughts and vocabulary than they once did. I remember Leon Russell was once referred to, or called himself, the master of space, time and infinity. Whatever that means, exactly. I aspire to be the master or at least the journeyman of growing really still and awaiting internal guidance, duct tape at the ready, surrender to what is beyond my control always at the top of the list.

*hcit* (or, How Cool Is That?) - thanks, Michelle

Recent re-dedication to mail art has me thinking of words to heighten an envelope's visual appeal. One source for a unique take on phrases is Michelle Ward's Green Pepper Press, home to her sheets of unmounted rubber stamps. The collection encompasses architecture, celestial, nature, alphabets, geometric and other themes. The site also provides information on how to mount unmounted stamps. On her blog, Michelle frequently demystifies journal techniques, such as stencilling, and offers monthly challenges for readers to link examples of their art through her Street Team.

Copyright Michelle Ward,  VERBAGE collection from Green Pepper Press, item #GPP-042.

small

Your comments to my previous post churned up further thoughts and feelings about feelings, how sometimes I've come to be turned around like the blindfolded, spinning portion of Pin The Tail on the Donkey.

I have, at moments throughout my life, become small with myself: small in spirit, in forgiveness, in compassion. I have been mean and miserly yet also aware that such treatment of one's self might lead to being small with others, an intolerable notion.

We are here, I believe, to enrich, beautify and ease each others' lives by whatever means we can access. (As I write this, it feels familiar, as though I have said it before. I must need to be reminded.) To do so requires that we find our larger (or as a friend describes it, our BIG "S") selves, regardless of how unfamiliar that aspect may be. There is no place for small or narrow.

On this date in history, objects and events of large and expanded natures have been noted. In 1613, it is said that Gallileo may have unknowingly viewed the undiscovered planet Neptune. I choose to count that. Then in 1887 in Fort Keogh, Montana, the world's largest snowflakes were reported, being 15 inches wide and 8 inches thick. That definitely registers on the not-small-o-meter.

Here's to more, bigger, kinder, softer; to patient, attentive, indulgent, gentle; to the wider view, the higher road. We do deserve it.

Deservingness

We each, I suspect, have familiar inner bullies, personal quicksand, toxic enemies that sap our will and brave attempts at self esteem. In the past few days, my adversary was unmasked: the sense of not deserving (pick a word) happiness, comfort, joy, convenience or the peace that comes from order.

The circumstance that illuminated this ancient belief was the offer of a gift, something generous, unexpected, by my definition extravagant yet wanted but I found I was unable or unwilling to say, simply, yes. Thank you. It became another round of demon rassling, with the difference being this time I could look the demon in the eye and begin to wonder if it was as powerful as I'd once thought.

At any moment, I have a mental dossier of my shortcomings, evidence, that stretches back practically to quill pens. It certainly pre-dates electric typewriters and the Thermofax. No pages have been misplaced, and if they were, I'm sure there are carbon copies, smudged but legible. A part of me has clung stubbornly to the fiction of lives perfectly led - by others. It is a belief that keeps me tethered and dense, Earth-bound rather than lifting with no small grace like a wired actor in Chinese martial arts movies, Jackie Chan excepted. To soar means escaping our own gravity, those pockets full of rocks and rigid ways of relating to our souls.

I am fortunate to have the counsel, when I need it, of my son, who brings youth and, I can but hope, less baggage to a situation than I. I told him of the offer, I told him of my resistance. He found the right words: you work hard, you deserve it. To my eyes this hard work looks an awful lot like avoidance, farting around, procrastination and sloth. He helped me own that there IS hard work in the process of simply living with some measure of joy, of aspiring to evolve, of reaching out, of stillness and contemplation, of being present. He helped me say yes.

By saying yes, thank you, to the gift, I noticed that certain narrow thinking had widened. I have struggled with disorder much of my adult life. It may have begun as I spent too long in situations which felt helpless and helplessnss has clung to me though the circumstances changed. It doesn't seem as important to know those details as it does to acknowledge that impossible-seeming things became less so. I could envision a gradual step-by-step process to finding order, letting go of things and mistaken beliefs with one gesture. I could feel peace inching toward me, settling in, becoming real.

Whoever does not see life as a process is not paying attention. Sometimes the increments are so slight as to be nearly undetectable. Nearly. Then we turn and look over our shoulders at the discernible signs indicating something permanent has begun to shift. Contrary to all our assumptions, we are becoming.

Why I heart Stamp Your Heart Out

ATC samples by Michele Daly

My warmest thanks to Michele Daly, one of the staff artists at Stamp Your Heart Out in Claremont, CA, for her Saturday demo of Artist Trading Cards using images from my new Rubbermoon collection. SYHO has been my home store since it opened in 1989. It is where I began teaching paper arts. Owner Joan Bunte, the talented staff and all whom I've met through my years of involvement are unfailing sources of support for my varied endeavors.

You might enjoy signing up for their weekly newsletter at the website, where you will also find contact information, should you have a question about stamping and scrapbooking products, or wish to place a telephone order. If you live nearby or visit the area, please stop in and tell them I said, "Hey."

EVERY day

On Rubbermoon's Facebook page, owner Debra Valoff has been, for the past couple days, showing samples of shipping tag art which feature stamps from the new lines. I wanted to play. It feels as though many of my moving parts are rusty, even with new stamps, new inks, newly-arranged pencils. Whatever we love, we are the better for working at it, even just a bit, every day. Without that, stasis may develop, reduced creative flow, stagnation, rust.

In the journaling community, there is, and has been, a movement advocating journaling every day. On-line groups offer support to one another, provide a venue to share photos of each day's accomplishments. I've visited other sites where bloggers post about taking challenges for things like "30 paintings in 30 days." Year before last I signed up for NaNoWriMo, committing to daily writing for the month of November with a minimum number of words produced by month end. I set myself a daily word count quota as well. No novel resulted from the exercise but a lot of showing up did and the awareness that showing up, sitting down and typing something every day, before doing anything else, produces its own satisfaction.

On the evening of February 7, it will be 18 years since I received the call that catapulted me from rubber stamp amateur to professional. There was no union to join but earning money doing what we love is vastly appealing. Regaining the edge I once had matters, for I intend to keep doing this until I really am too inflexible to manipulate the tools. Plus, as Woody Allen said in another context, it's the most fun I've had without laughing.

They left out the preparation, practice and hard work

As Pogo used to say,