Daze Seventeen December

Another week over! How has that happened? Despite the chill I have recovered from the dreaded lurgy. It seemed to diminish slowly and now has all but gone from my system- touch wood! And so to the prompt from reverb10..

Lesson learned. 

What was the best thing you learned about yourself this past year? And how will you apply that lesson going forward?

Yet again I can't narrow it down to one thing so here goes..
Lesson 1: Just because Maddy (my step-mother) had a view on something doesn't mean it was right. 

For example she made me feel that I was not very "artistic" - although she acknowledged that I have the capacity to view the world in a different way from her -like trying to capture and being fascinated by the light at different times of day (see yesterday's photo) and this year I have felt much more confident about my capacity for some forms of art- photography and more particularly the idiosyncratic nature of art journaling.  I am learning to let go of this feeling of being unworthy or un-artistic- it's about time really given that I am clinging on to the view of someone who once came to see me in a play of The Metamorphosis and when talking to me the next day said "It was interesting Celia, but amateur theatre is such a wank!" That one went down in the annals of family stories I can tell you.
Applying this lesson learned  will involve me making the most of my "space" for art journaling and scrapbooking and generally getting on with mucking about with paint and paper. I just like the photo below it has nothing to do with feeling as those the pigeons of NYC are cr**ping all over me!

Lesson 2 : I am more my (step) mother's daughter every year. 
 My response to sudden changes in plans for meals and being left alone, and the need to clean and tidy are all a legacy of my childhood with Maddy. She and I both know/knew that I am a product of our life together so much so that The Grey Scrubber is a family name for me. .. an excerpt from Mervyn Peake's wonderful book Gormenghast to gain an understanding of my role in the family.


The walls of the vast room, which were streaming with calid moisture, were built with grey slabs of stone and were the personal concern of a company of eighteen men known as the "Grey Scrubbers." It had been their privilege on reaching adolescence to discover that, being the sons of their fathers, their careers had been arranged for them and that stretching ahead of them lay their identical lives consisting of an unimaginative if praiseworthy duty. This was to restore, each morning, to the great grey floor and the lofty walls of the kitchen a stainless complexion. On every day of the year from three hours before daybreak until about eleven o'clock, when the scaffolding and ladders became a hindrance to the cooks, the Grey Scrubbers fulfilled their hereditary calling. Through the character of their trade, their arms had become unusually powerful, and when they let their huge hands hang loosely at their sides, there was more than an echo of the simian. Coarse as these men appeared, they were an integral part of the Great Kitchen. Without the Grey Scrubbers something very earthy, very heavy, very real would be missing to any sociologist searching in that steaming room, for the completion of a circle of temperaments, a gamut of the lower human values.

To move forward from this lesson I feel I can relax more about things while continuing to plan for days and meals as planning is one of my greater strengths.


Lesson Three: If I want to do something I can organize to do it.

   Just loved the double meaning of this!

The trip to Vegas and the scrapbooking retreat is a case in point. And I had a fantastic time- I loved spending that time with those fabulous women. I got lots of things done and it was all such fun. It didn't matter that I missed some things to do with work- they (work) didn't mind.
So I plan to try to get to some other retreats or events like that and really keep living the moment(s).

Lesson Four: Friends are there for you.This year in particular my friends have been a great support- listening to me; sharing; visiting; taking long journeys to be with me; enjoying my company; changing plans to spend time together.

And so my plan is to build on these friendships and maintain them through email and phone calls and skype- watch out folks!