5 things make a post

[feldman]

~*~ Nothing like new glasses to show you the clutter and crap that had faded into the background of your environment.
"Cute frames!"
Pauses in shoveling, "Thanks!" Sets desk on fire to start fresh.

~*~ I have been meaning to get serious about practicing drawing for literally years, but I haven't figured out how to go about it. When I was taught cursive, we spent a couple weeks just making circles and curves and loops before we worked on letters and words, to build the muscle memory in our fingers to make the shapes without thinking. There's got to be a way to practice some kind of fundamentals even when I'm too intimidated to tackle an actual picture? Gah.

~*~ Each time I take out a library book and then bring it back on time, I prove that I am no longer the person who didn't take back five books for eight years due to the spiral of shame. I'm the person who figured out how to break that spiral. Next task: figure out how not to get into those spirals in the first place.

~*~ I started writing this post because I was at loose ends staring at the thing I want to write, so I thought I'd warm up, and continue posting more often. I'm realizing now that one reason I'm scattered and uneasy is the headache I've been ignoring. Because body awareness is the check engine light I've stuck a post-it note over.

~*~ Maybe I should try story boarding the thing I want to work on instead, practice my stick figures as I hammer out the scenes that are giving me fits and dread.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

yhlee has been doing a lot of reviews of drawing books and in particular comics drawing books if you wanted to check some out.

[feldman]

Thank you for the tip!

[st_aurafina]

Pretty sure there's some good tutes on youtube for starting up with drawing?

(I'm open to tips on breaking that shame spiral, fwiw...)

[feldman]

For me, it's helped to realize that what starts it is often a brown out of executive function. Trying to see it as a bandwidth issue, and accepting that it's not a moral failing or that I need to make a grand gesture to compensate (that just raises the stakes), or make it a big project to clear it out (baby steps count! chipping away at something counts!).

Self-compassion is really fucking difficult, and sometimes I have to get there the long way (I wouldn't judge a friend or a stranger or even most enemies this harshly, so knock it off).

Sometimes it's about control--I feel bad for reasons I can't control, but if I also disappoint myself and blow that up into a big anxious problem, then I can point to that problem as the reason I feel bad.

Breaking out of it takes mental bandwidth, it takes sitting with the bad feeling without ignoring it or wallowing in it. Asking for help. Being okay with nibbling at the problem over time and cheering yourself on for even the smallest progress forward (or cheering yourself for stopping digging deeper).

[kernezelda]

New glasses, excellent--mental and physical clutter, ack!

[feldman]

Sometimes you've got to bail out the boat : )

[kernezelda]

Something that invigorates me spiritually, if not physically, is mowing my yard. I feel so free and purposeful when I'm doing work with a visible result, out in the open air with the wind rushing past. It's satisfying and fulfilling. I had my mower in the shop for repairs, and Spring sprang in that short couple of weeks, it felt like. When I got home Wednesday and found the mower dropped off, I only took the time to feed the animals/change clothes before I jumped aboard and mowed the whole north side in one ride.

Yesterday, I finished the south side, and the front and upper back middle, and started on the lower back (the road down past the overgrown pasture and collapsed barn. A blue-sky day, straw-yellow grass taller than me, ten-year trees and scrub on one side, fence and red-berried yaupon on the other. Even though I come into the house covered with dust and bits of debris in my hair, usually scratched up one side and down the other--I feel cleansed and at peace.

I did a bit of stuff in the house, too--the roommate is moving out in two weeks, so I pulled out all the boxes I've been collecting, and ran the emergency generator, and switched the broken AC window unit from my bedroom for the unbroken one from the store room. I'll take the broken one in for repair, and save it for summer, to place in the living room.

Today, I'm reading, editing a friend's chapter, and holding cats.

*hugs you*

[lunabee34]

Good for you! Those little victories are so satisfying.

[feldman]

A part of me is still dubious about the proposition that I deserve not to have shit like that weighing on me, so it's both a relief and also feels weirdly imposter syndrome-ywhen I clear something like this off my plate.

[lunabee34]

*hugs hugs hugs*