The Dragon Finds Her Voice Again...

Every now and then, milestones happen in your life that cause you to radically change the way you think, act or look at the world.

Our visit to Japan to watch 2010 become 2011 and the Year of the Rabbit begin was one of those moments.

It was an incredible journey that took our whole family halfway around the world to visit my sister and brother-in-law in Tokyo for 9 wonderful, amazing days.

We welcomed in the new year at the temple closest to their house...

We listened to the Emperor give his New Year’s Speech at the Imperial Palace...

We crossed at Shibuya...

We visited Shinjuku and Senso-ji...

Nick posed in front of the crowds at Harajuku to show how much we stood out...

We tried new foods, made new friends and fell in love with the country and the culture.  I came home, however,  profoundly changed by the public and consumeristic nature of our North American culture.  Until you get away from it, you often don’t realize how “in your face” it can be.  We tend to share everything without a filter.  We upload, download, youtube, blog, Facebook and tweet almost anything instantly.

I needed time to wrestle with that and how it affects my life, especially when I’ve been doing so much self-discovery and recovery in the past year.  Marking the 1 year anniversary of my father’s passing was more difficult that I anticipated.  Juggling 3 careers at once is a bit overwhelming sometimes and began to wonder if the private angstings of my soul had any place in a blog instead of in my own journal.  I admired the public privacy and inner stillness that so many of the people I met in Japan seemed to carry with them, even though I knew that I couldn’t suddenly transform my outgoing, talkative, extrovert self... nor did I really want to.  I am still working on finding the right balance between the private and public persona I need to maintain as an artist, but it isn’t easy.

I’m not even sure this explanation makes sense, but many of you were wondering where the dragon was and if I was OK.

The answer is a profound and joyful... YES!

Sometimes bigger things happen to put everything in perspective and give you a jolt.

Waking up on March 11th to the news of the Earthquake and Tsunami in Japan was one of the scariest moments that I’ve experienced in years!  My sister sent off an e-mail to family and friends as soon as she could so that we’d know she and Yoshi were OK...but watching the news and seeing scenes of buildings where we’d been swaying in the quake was astounding.  Watching the destruction of parts of a country we’d just visited 9 weeks earlier made our hearts ache right now for what that proud nation is going through!  Listening to the North American media sensationalize some details and cause more panic than was needed made me angry!  We aren’t seeing most of the heroic and uplifting stories... only the scary ones!

If you want to see just one astounding example of how diligent, hardworking and determined the Japanese people are,  check out the photos in this car blog.  

If you want a cartoon explanation of what is going on with the nuclear power plants, you can check out this subtitled clip on youtube.  It doesn't deny the seriousness of the event, but it does to explain it and put it in perspective...

If any nation knows how to deal with the effects of radiation, it is the country that survived having 2 nuclear bombs dropped on them, but they need our help to rebuild in the areas that are hardest hit by all these disasters.

On my Dragon Dreams website, you will find a special Dragon of Compassion to stitch up.  If you enjoy this design, I implore you make some kind of donation... even a small one... to the Red Cross in your country for Japan Relief.

Our planet has become too small for us to just ignore the cries from around the world for help.  The price of gas and groceries remind us on a daily basis that we are all interconnected and that each of us can make a difference in changing our world for the better.

While I will continue to explore some of these musings in public, I’ve also decided that some of my journey in the next few years has to be a private one.  I’d rather not muse so deeply in public anymore.  I need my blogs to be uplifting or informative rather than depressing because we can see enough of that in any media.

Dragons sometimes take a long time to think things through, so thank you for your patience.  I think now that the snow is finally melting here, it is time to crawl out of my cozy cave!

Back To MUSING Out Loud!

A year ago, I hugged my father goodbye for what ended up being the last time.  His huge frame that had seemed so strong and invincible to me as a child, felt so fragile in my arms that night. 

We’ve had almost a full year of feeling fragile as a family...

From parents being sick to daughters getting injured or bullied, from braces to wisdom teeth that need to come out, from friends going through challenges to changes in all of our lives.

It has been interesting to say the least.

Most of it was just too personal to blog about.  I’ve discovered that I am a much more private extrovert that I’d ever dreamed, at least about the inner things.

Learning to let go to some things while holding on to others was an important part of my healing and my decision to narrow my blogs down to just 2.

I ask your understanding for all the silences and posts than ended up in my own journals than out here for all to read.  I needed to glue a few things back together, get a few things straightened up and out and decide what needed to be done.

This has meant a wee bit of a deadline crunch as school started back and the phone began to ring for substitute teaching work.  I’ve taught all but  4 days so far with the many overcrowded classrooms around town.  I’ve gone from Kindergarten to Grade 12 in 48 hours, taught in both languages at 5 different schools and enjoyed every minute of it.  I’ve come home to check charts for the classes I am teaching in Toronto next week, snip floss or draw the final illustrations for Emily Finds A Dragon which we are trying to get to the printers by the end of the month.

Sleep has been a slightly scarce commodity, but I am loving every minute of each of the things I am doing.

I kept thinking of all these long entries to write and post... but then would run out of energy before I had time to post them!  Now I realize that it’s not about how much you write or how often, it’s just about sharing when you can.

Welcome Back to the Dragon’s Musings. 

Father’s Day 2010

It is an odd sort of day for me... the first one I’ve ever been through were I couldn’t pick up the phone and call him.  If I am honest with myself, his death affected me far more profoundly than I’d expected, especially when Nick and I realized that our mothers and stepfathers were growing older too. It is a strange and scary thing to be hit in the face with the thought of being the “end of your line” when you still feel so young at heart inside.  Maybe that is why I hid from being out here in cyberspace for a while... 

This year it was more important than ever for both of us to thank the other Dads in our lives, the stepfathers who have been there through thick and thin, especially over the past few months.  They are more precious to Nick and I than we can sometimes put into words or find the right card for, but we really tried this year to let those wonderful men know that they were the fathers of our hearts!

There are many men in our lives who play important roles as nurturers, role models, guides along our path in life, teachers, protectors, providers and comforters.  If this is a day when we celebrate those attributes and those special people in our lives, it should also be a day where we choose to celebrate our own inner strengths as well.

Nick has been away since early Thursday morning chaperoning the grade 8 trip for his school with some other brave teachers and parents.  I have kept in touch with him by phone, but I have been the only adult in the house for 4 days now and I miss him very much.  I have had to do quite a few things out of my comfort zone from BBQ meat to check the tire pressure and inflate a tire.  Showing my girls how to pump gas or put the hubcaps back on teaches them that they can find their inner strengths too when they have to, as well as appreciate the men who so often handle those tasks.

Whether Father’s Day is a special one of joy or a sad marking of what is missing in your lives, I hope that you take the time to honour those in your life, regardless of gender, who made a difference and inspired you to greater things.  

When we remember to tell the people who matter to us most how special they are, it is always a special day.

Acceptance and Blessing...

Don’t you just love it when something you read excites you, makes you think or totally challenges your intellect for the day? For two days in a row, I’ve had mental meat to chew on when I am stuck in bank lineups or waiting for something to download because of the words that I read first thing in the morning.

Yesterday’s passage was all about acceptance. That instead of being in denial or wishing things were different and getting caught in that stress and anxiety, we have to learn to accept the reality of the day before we can truly begin to change it. We have to accept what the scale is really telling us before we can commit to making it change for the better. We have to accept the demands of our job or the balance of our chequebooks or the state of a relationship before we can truly decide if something needs to change.

Reading this right after spending Monday surrounded by brown envelopes and receipts as I got the last of the information ready for a new person to do my corporate taxes was very humbling and liberating. I was able to look and see how much income from cross stitch had dropped with the loss of the chain store orders, how income from different sources was up or down and see where and what had paid off. When you are just tucking receipts into the proper files and waiting until a set time to look at all the information, it is easier not to see the big picture. Acceptance of a situation or problem is the first step towards changing it.

Today’s meditation is the one I am finding a bit harder to chew on. It talks about moving from acceptance of a situation to being able to bless it. I can think back on many moments or events in my life that I don’t really feel like blessing, but maybe in hindsight, since they helped to form who I am today, that makes sense... but I am still working on the blessing bit. I like a challenge.

I also was reminded today of why I love keeping a journal. Bethany wanted to know exactly when she broke her arm last January, so I pulled out the journal that I just finished filling to the brim on New Year’s Eve and looked up the entry where I’d written about that. I also stumbled across the very tearstained entry that I’d written exactly 365 days ago during a 2 am “pity party” of angst, self-doubt and sadness. The words and the blotches are there permanently anchored in time to those pages, but then I am also able to read how things changed... or see where I am a year later.

‘Here I am at 40, still too afraid to chase that dream of illustrating children’s books- still finding new ways of getting caught up in daily tasks like getting ready for Nashville, Austin and Toronto!’

At 41, I accomplished that dream and worked through the fear and self-doubt while working on the project. It never vanished... I just got stubborn and did it anyway.

‘My life feels as cluttered and as messy as my office. I just feel as if pieces of me are scattered everywhere and I can’t put them back together!’

My office floor has been clear for almost 2 weeks now and most of my desk. I have thrown out an incredible amount of “Stuff” in the past 3 weeks that really wasn’t necessary or essential to my existence. I am also learning to get things put back where they belong as soon as possible instead of just letting them pile up and spill over. I can still see my carpet... it is such a nice blue colour when it isn’t buried under piles of junk and paperwork or projects!

‘Like something precious that gets dropped and shatters- sometimes you just can’t put those pieces back together as if nothing happened. Sometimes you just have to leave them behind or melt them down and forge something new. Maybe I need to stop clinging to the shards of things that might have been... I just wish I knew how to scoop up all of these itty, bitty fragments and pour them into God’s hands without slicing my palms to shreds...’

I am learning that my life is not about a whole or pieces. It is about patterns. Like a kaleidoscope where the pieces keep shifting to make something beautiful and new each time change comes and the tube turns again. It is all about how the pattern changes into something new. We humans have an incredible capacity for change, redemption, courage and transformation. It’s just easy to forget that sometimes in the day to day chaos. One day at a time, one action, one page in a journal, one blog entry, one hug, one kind word, one dream, one moment of courage to take the next step in a journey. That’s how the adventure moves forward. Sometimes I can only truly appreciate that when I look back at where I have already traveled to see how far I have come.