Merry scribbler. Monsters rescued; knights slain.

Month: January 2021

A stylized picture of an owl's face.

I started playing with Adobe Illustrator and working through the tutorials this evening. I’m filing this learning under “broadening my horizons” and “I like owls.” I know it’s not much of a thing, but I learned some new skills doing it, so I think it’s a win.

Pictured: a field split between green and purple with a knight in the lower left corner and a dragon in the upper right corner. Between them are the words "We're our own dragons and our own Heroes, and we have to rescue ourselves from ourselves. Tom Robbins."

Playing with the horizon line within the square. The quote is one of my favorites. It reminds me that I’m my own worst enemy, but I’m also my best protector. I burn myself and my work down more effectively than anyone else can, but I can take control of my thoughts and actions to build myself up, too.

Horizon 7

Pictured: knitting in garter stitch fading from grays to greens in the background.

I call this project Vector to Halloween. I started with the Vector pattern by Tanis LavallĂ©e, but I’m striping it every two rows with yarn from Stitch Together Studio‘s 2020 Halloween advent calendar. Laying it on the table and photographing it this way, turned the stripes into a horizon of its own.

I threw my back out on Thursday badly enough that I went to the clinic on Friday morning to get checked out. A prescription and some instructions for physical therapy later, and my schedule for creativity has been slightly derailed.

I’m still working, just more slowly.

Pictured: Cerulean sky over suburban neighborhood back yards on the horizon with a smaller spruce in shadows to the left of the foreground and a stand of deciduous trees painted in hoarfrost to the right.
Another view of yesterday’s hoarfrost and intense cerulean sky.

One of the things suggested in the creativity and productivity articles I’ve been reading is to create a word for the year and then monthly themes that are guided by the overarching word of the year.

The idea behind this is to provide parameters instead of leaving the horizon wide open. Sometimes too many choices can lead to analysis paralysis and inaction, but constraints can free the mind from the choice of where to begin and let it work on novel solutions within the field defined.

I think I’ve mentioned that my word for the year is “creativity.” With that in the back of my mind, I picked the following themes for each month of the year.

  1. January – Word of the year (Creativity)
  2. February – Self-Care
  3. March – Roam
  4. April – Money
  5. May – Plant
  6. June – Adventure
  7. July – Freedom
  8. August – Love
  9. September – Learn
  10. October – Remembrance
  11. November – Gratitude
  12. December – Plan

I had these themes in mind when I picked my books out yesterday, in addition to the other constraints I put on myself (Books I already own, either on Kindle or in hard copy, or books I can get through my Kindle Unlimited subscription.)

Pictured: an azure sky with thin wisps of clouds and broken trees painted thickly with hoarfrost.
The azure sky and the hoarfrost take my breath away.

While I looked at this, I put together my book list for this year. These aren’t the only books I’ll be reading this year, but they are books that I’ve put on my “make sure to read this year” list. Some books fit monthly themes throughout the year, some are from my “I bought this. I should read this” list, and some are “I have Kindle Unlimited, therefore I should use it” books.

  1. The Accidental Creative, Todd Henry
  2. A Year of Creative Writing Prompts, Love in Ink
  3. The Witch’s Book of Self-Care, Arin Murphy-Hiscock
  4. An African American and Latinx History of the United States, Paul Ortiz
  5. Balancing on Blue, Keith Foskett
  6. H is for Hawk, Helen MacDonald
  7. How to Stop Living Paycheck to Paycheck (2nd Ed), Avery Breyer
  8. The Miniaturist: A Novel, Jessie Burton
  9. Greenhouse Gardening: How to build and sustain a greenhouse garden, Emma Brooks,
  10. Becoming, Michelle Obama
  11. If I Live Until Morning: A True Story of Adventure, Tragedy, and Transformation, Jean Muenchrath
  12. Tomboyland: Essays, Melissa Faliveno
  13. The Power of Zero Expectations, Francis Ku
  14. A Promised Land, Barack Obama
  15. Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out, and Lonely, Lysa TerKeurst
  16. Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath
  17. The Story Works Guide to Writing Character: How to create memorable characters your readers can’t help but love–or love to hate, Alida Winternheimer
  18. Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI, David Gran
  19. Love, Lucy, Lucille Ball
  20. The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, R. A. Dick
  21. Flip the Gratitude Switch, Kevin Clayson
  22. A Drop of Midnight: A Memoir, Jason Diakité
  23. 10 Day Outline: A Writer’s Guide to Planning, Lewis Jorstad
  24. The Practice, Seth Godin

I do plan to read other books this year: Bookclub books, Spontaneous reading, TBR backlog, etc. These just represent books that I want to make sure to read.

MAJ: Wow. Our backyard looks creepy.
Me: Yes. Yes, it does.

This is what my back horizon looks like now. Without the leaves, it’s easier to see the sheer devastation.

I know the city has sent people to evaluate cleaning up the debris in the flood plain, but other areas have higher priority.

If nothing else, it’s good for giving me decidedly creepy inspiration.

Pictured: a gray-green sky past a distroyed railing, several wind damaged garden structures, and dozens of downed trees within and past the fence line and the text: The cloud never comes from the quarter of the horizon from which we watch for it. Elizabeth Gaskell.

I’d been expecting that Covid-19 would be the thing that waylaid our home and changed my horizon in 2020. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I had 15 minutes of warning before the derecho hit Cedar Rapids, Iowa on August 10, 2020, just enough time to call the dog-walker and let her know: bring the doggo home and go get hunkered down yourself.

I took this from my back deck as the winds were dying down. The branch showing in the foreground on the right of the picture came from the 40+-year-old ash tree, the trunk of which should have been blocking my view from that angle.

I still cringe when the winds start to howl, can still hear the crack of its rootball breaking, sharp and clear like a bat against the horsehide of a softball you didn’t expect to hit.

My roof was finally fixed in November. The deck repairs have to wait until the spring. Too many other people needed new roofs. There simply weren’t hands available

I can see all the way across the wooded area behind my house now, a green space defined by where Dry Creek flooded in 2008 on its 1000 year flood plain and a safety margin beyond where no one may build. I can see apartments I knew were there but were hidden by trees. My horizon has been expanded at the cost of the trees and I’m not comfortable with the view.

I’m learning to live with discomfort for the sake of expanding my horizons.

Pictured: stormy skies over the ocean on a black lava beach that goes nearly to the horizon line with the text: No matter how far a person can go, the horizon is still way beyond you. Zora Neale Hurston

I took this picture in Hawaii, on our first and last trip of the year. It was March and the first news of Covid-19, the novel coronavirus, was still sketchy at best. My gut said “stay home,” but as a group, we decided to go with whatever the travel recommendations were from the CDC.

I was the one tasked with doing the checking because I was the one most concerned. When I checked the CDC website, there weren’t any travel restrictions or recommendations unless travelers were heading to China. Those restrictions started coming the day after we landed.

We spent the whole trip with our planned activities either closing on the say we planned to do them, or the site planning to close the day after we visited — like it was chasing us. Only being with good friends made any of it tolerable. The things we didn’t know then.

The rest of the year felt the same way: Like we just needed to get over the horizon and we’d be safe. Just get back to the hotel. Just get through LAX. Just get home. Once we’re there, everything will be fine and then we could go back to normal.

That’s not what happened, though. By the time we got home, new challenges were navigating a world with masks, social distancing, essential workers, and Zoom meetings, to add to the challenges that already existed (some of which I had the privilege of never having to experience personally, like systemic racism, but other familiar ones, too, like our fractious society in general.)

Last year, it became evidently clear that the horizon is a moving target. By the time you’re to the point where you thought the horizon was, your perspective has changed. The next mark is set, but the goal of going “beyond” can never be attained.

Nothing can wait until we get around the next bend or over the horizon. The best anyone can do is adapt, keep moving, and make time for the things we want right now, however doing them in this present moment looks.

Horizon 1

A picture of the Grand Canyon cloaked in morning fog, with the text "If you are depressed, you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. You find peace when you live in the present. - unknown"

The Creative Every Day challenge theme for January is “Horizon.” I’m starting small, working from my collection of travel photos. This one is from my first trip to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I think about the view from there often.

The quote got me through 2020 when little else worked. I missed being able to go places and do things with friends, but I’ve put the time into useful introspection about how I want to shape what I put into the world going forward.

Whatever else 2021 brings, I hope it brings physical, mental, and societal healing.

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