What I Choose To Remember

BumberShootStudio Paintings

I memory journal using a Travelers Notebook type system, with leather cover and standard size inserts.  Journaling is another way to get your creative juices flowing and anyone can do it. I use a lot of pictures, old vintage book pages and paper collage, painting and even some fabric.  You can be basic and simple or as elaborate as you wish, with no one judging, because it's only meant for you.

The beginning of my year always starts with Spring Festival because I live in China and everything evolves around Chinese New Year.

If you've read any of my writing you will know that I love it here.  It is a beautiful country and they are wonderful people.  When I share, I try to express unique differences in culture and give you a small glimpse of what life is like.  Sometimes we deal with things that are just downright goofy, but other times it's more then surreal.   Like this years Spring Festival drama that took the whole world by surprise.

And right now, we all feel like we are in a 'dreamlike' state, COVID 19 has turned the nations upside down and it's not unlike a scene from the Twilight Zone.  And though it may seem like the end is near...trust me when I say, this too shall pass.  With that said,  I want to be sure to remember and document these moments, and what I choose to take away from all this chaos, quarantine, and isolation is an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

I am reminded to be thankful for the simplest things in life that on a regular basis are taken for granted.  Walks with a neighbor, social gatherings, sports events, church services, eating out, birthday parties, family gatherings, picnics, fellowships, concerts, shopping, working, and the list goes on...

You get the point, but notice that all these things require other people, in order to even exist!  We really do need one another.  Here in China, we have had to officially keep away from each other since January 24th, and this was not a suggestion.  Thankfully, things are starting to get better, but do the math...it's been a long time and we are all missing each other.
Life is not just about me, because without you, what kind of 'life' would it even be.

The Evanescence Of Time

BumberShootStudio Paintings

Grabbing the branch and lifting my feet off the ground, I attempt to swing my legs up and onto the tree, only to find myself completely loosing grip while all strength evaporates from my arms. Lying on the ground, I realize that I was tricked by my mind to believe that I could still do this. Seasons have come and gone as the calendar pages turn, and physically I've enter a stage in my life called 'middle age'. But mentally it doesn't feel like anything has changed...what does middle age supposed to feel like in our mind anyhow?

My brain does not think in the realm of younger or older, but it does process experiences and makes calculations accordingly. I believe this is why it's so important to not always choose to sit on the side lines, but actually be in the game to benefit the most insight from it...of course, we can gain knowledge from others, but we really learn to do things by doing them.

Regardless of the logistics, or how I imagine our brain works, bottom line...my mind does not 'think' it is the same age as my body. So much so, that I would not know that I was a woman of middle age if it wasn't for the mirrors constant reminder of it. I feel like, I just barely started painting this picture and now the paper is showing age spots!

Last year I began using a bullet journal, and to start this year off, I filled January up with mindful quotes about 'time' and its reminder of the evanescence of all things connected to this world. Evanescence means to gradually disappear and vanish from sight. More then ever, I want to be investing in the areas of my life that will transcend, rise above and go beyond the limits of time.

In time, my painting will evanish...but the joy and impact that it hopefully made in peoples lives will not dissipate. The areas of my life that will remain, are the areas I invested in others. The awareness of being 'middle age' can make us turn inward, become self absorbed,  and keep a tight grip on what we have - that's exactly what I don't want...I don't have to be scared of my life fading away if I am already giving it away.

As far as my little episode with the tree goes...falling down only makes me want to climb it all the more. Call it stubborn, call it foolish, call it vanity if you want, but my mind says 'I can' and I've learned, from doing it before, that I can. I just have to work a little harder for it now,
and avoid mirrors at all costs ;)

A Pigs Life

BumberShootStudio Paintings
Copyright 2019
Gift Card Sets coming soon

The music playing in the taxi is totally foreign, can't understand a word of it...yet it sounds completely normal to me.
I also can't read anything, nothing here is in English...but the truth is, I don't notice it anymore.
I go about daily life surrounded by people, hundreds of people, and there is not a single conversation around me that I can apprehend. I hear everything and understand nothing...yet I somehow know what's going on as if it's always been this way. It's the weirdest thing, but none of it phases me anymore.

If you were to rewind the tape of my life back to the first time I lived here in China, twenty six years ago...all this was incomprehensible. My very existence here seemed erroneous, like a letter in the wrong place of the alphabet. It felt like someone else was living in my body and I was watching everything play out from a very somber, remote distance.

In my last post I mentioned how I take comfort in things that I know, truth is, we all take comfort in things that are familiar - that which is easy to recognize; because of being felt, seen, met, heard and yes, even smelt 'before'.

I've thought about the irony of it all, something can not become familiar without that 'before' part (that incomprehensible place). The uncomfortable stage that comes prior to it being familiar.

Really, this is our whole life, from the time we are born until the time we no longer are willing to leave our comfort zone. But it is in these uncomfortable, and I would dare say, painful stages of life that we expand our self-definition.

Here in China, living in your comfort zone is what they call 'living the life of a pig'.

I hope 2019 (till now), which is the 'Year Of The Pig', was not a literal mantra for most of us. But if it was...
The New Lunar Year is once again here and it's time to say good buy to 'a pigs life'. Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) symbolizes a fresh beginning.

So take that class you were interested in, but didn't think you had the time. Learn that new instrument you've always wanted too, but have been afraid because of your age. Write the book that you've been talking about, but can't find the motivation to commit. Delve into a new language that fascinates you and release that cat who has your tongue.

Take the risk...and experience life.