A visit, some art, and decent days!

I have been so much more resilient lately.   Some bad days for sure, but overall better than usual.  Most of the late summers and early falls since I've been ill have been my best, healthiest time of year.

Why?  Well I've pondered and pondered this to ad nauseum.  Now, I just accept and enjoy it.  On the other hand, unlike my first 5 years ill, I don't think it means I'm getting better.  For more than a few years, every autumn I'd think, wow, I'm getting better, this is it!  I would get my hopes up about getting my life back, only to have them dashed to bits when I'd relapse or slide into worsening health again.

I had planned to visit family this summer.  My parents are aging and their health is not great.  On the other hand, I am at the borderline of being able to travel anywhere very far without major repercussions.  But I have done it and managed before.  I try to get down here once a year if I can.   Travelling to my parents involves a 1 1/2 hr. flight followed by an hour drive.  Door to door the trip took 5 hours this time which is a lot for me.  I always get a window seat so I can at least rest against the wall of the plane.  This time, I also 'preboarded' to avoid any extra standing in line.  Honestly, I'm NEVER going back.  Why put myself through standing and being dizzy when I don't have too?

So anyways, I am now down visiting (which at the moment means laying in bed here instead of at home).  So far I'm exhausted and a little fluey, but not much worse than usual which is great.

The week or two before I left I worked on implementing my leave from the PhD for the fall and also plugging away at a piece of moon art.  It took 3 drafts of this art to get something I liked.  It has definite good and bad points to it, but overall I like it.  (Especially the water with the moon's reflection). While I really enjoy having the art to think about and work on when I'm up to it, I'm by no means a gifted artist.

I was born into a family of 5 (I'm number 4), and two of my brothers are extremely gifted artistically.  Partly because of this, I was always intimidated by art growing up.  It's a long story, but in high school I took an art class and had an amazing teacher who helped me appreciate that I could enjoy and feel successful creating art.  I toyed a bit here and there over the years with it, but only really took it up again when I got ill.

I got sick in 2002 and in the fall of 2003 I bought a "learn watercolour painting" book and went through the lessons as I could.  I set up a little table by my bed and any time I felt up to sitting up, I would work though a lesson.

A few years later in 2006, some friends and I got a local artist to give us a clinic on printmaking and that's when I started playing with it as a medium.  It was hard to do in long spurts, I remember both times getting together with friends to print and being brought to tears because I couldn't manage to sit up long enough or do as much as I'd hoped.  I remember carving and my arms feeling super weak and shaky, or standing at the press and feeling dizzy.

These days I'm set up at home so I can work in spurts.  I have a little home press and I do all my design and sketching in bed.

Art has been one of the few gifts of my life with chronic illness.  It's a way for me to create something and feel productive.  It's a distraction from a life that feels 'failed', and a body that's always sick and complaining.  It also allows me to express my love and passion for the wild places where I've traveled....but can rarely visit any longer.