Meet My Mom
Well, you’ll just have to take my word for it: my mom is a beautiful lady…chic, fit, creative, active and oh so lovely with her pearly hair! You might not catch that from these sketches made from more photos of that day in September last year. I really did enjoy working on these drawings…the foreshortening in this one was great fun! Trying to get the expression and “attitude” of the next one was a challenge, but I think I got it.
If you thought my dad was talented…you’ve gotta get to know my mom. She taught me ALL the craft arts I now enjoy…knitting, crocheting, sewing, embroidery, to name a few. When I was a little girl, I was often wearing dresses, jumpers, and even knickers that she had made for me. She made quilts from the leftover fabrics, knitted and crocheted afghans & sweaters for us, sewed Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy for me and my brother, made our Christmas stockings, all the curtains around the house, decoupaged, appliqued and all manner of other craft and fine craft wares that she and her crafty friends would sell at markets and craft shows. I do NOT know how she did all that, but I’m so glad she did…I grew up thinking all this was quite normal. And since I loved making things too, I just soaked it all up.
But when my mom hit the very young age of 40 (or very soon after), tragedy hit. Unspeakable events which included metasticized melanoma threatened to end her life as wife, mother, full-time Samaritan’s Purse worker, and creative person. Through the painful events and hospital trips, my mom began to paint. Should you ever have a chance to hear the full story, you would be incredibly enriched. I will not go into it all here except to say that she is a walking miracle. Through all that occurred in her early 40′s and even through a later bout with ovarian cancer, she has grown into, not only someone with a new outlook on life, but a very fine artist and painter. Do take the time to check out her work which is represented by Blowing Rock Frameworks & Gallery and by Artsource in Raleigh.
My mom describes herself as being shy when she was a young girl. Though I think she has shed most of the shyness now, perhaps the desire NOT to be photographed stems from this youthful bashfulness. Perhaps she’s just being cantankerous:) Whatever the reason, it’s always fun to try to snap mom’s picture at family events. These final sketches are drawn from pictures we took a few years back. They are only a few of a handful of photos we have of her face…albeit asleep on the couch with her mouth wide open! This is a typical Pat Pilkington pose from about 9 pm til she rouses herself enough to make it to her room to sleep for the night. We have all affectionately teased her throughout the years about this! And now, as the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, my own family finds ME in the evening, with my head lolling back and forth, eventually ending up snoring on the couch with my mouth wide open. Genetics are strong, people! And I know this well: what goes around, comes around…:)
Nesting Birds
Here they are! Cute little birds for you to make! It was so much fun trying to make ‘em as cute as the ones that visit our deck. I’m not sure if I achieved it, but I do love the shape and colors. I actually began the design by drawing them…coming up with a realistic bird shape that was simple to make. Sketching it out first was the only way I could visualize how to go about making them. After a try or two with my hook, it worked! I hope you like.
The whole time I was creating them, I kept thinking of another favorite children’s book we have read to all three of our kids: The Best Nest by P.D. Eastman. Our kids have LOVED this book and Maddie still loves to read it. When our oldest daughter was little, my husband and I made up a tune that goes with the above song the birds sing in the book. Click here to listen to Maddie, our youngest, singing it!
“I love my house, I love my nest,
In all the world my nest is best.”
So, once again, pairing a children’s book with a crocheted stuffed animal…love, love, LOVE that! They would make wonderful gifts for bird lovers too! And who doesn’t love birds???? (Pattern includes instructions for the bird AND the nest pictured below! To purchase the downloadable pdf pattern, click here!)
These Family Sketches…fyi
I thought you might like to know how I’m going about these little drawings/paintings of my family from September of last year. I pulled out a sketchbook I found on sale at that great art store in Boone I mentioned in the last post. The sketchbook is a long rectangle shape. I really don’t like that shape. I like squares. So, I drew 5 1/2″ x 5 1/2″ squares on every page. The paper must be 6″ x 9″. It’s also a rather slick paper…great for drawing, not great for watercolor unless you love the look of watercolor on Yupo. It doesn’t matter to me, I just wanted to use the book to make a series of these drawings/paintings of this day with my family.
For these drawings, I’ve started out in pencil. I don’t typically draw with a pencil…I like pen. I like being locked in to whatever line my hand makes. I like seeing the restatements. I like mistakes. But for these I wanted to be able to get the drawing JUST SO, and then proceed with what I had in mind for the line work and the color. I’ve used gel pens or markers for some of the lines along with Neo Color watersoluble crayons and watercolor paints. This sketch is almost entirely done with watercolor. There are a few dashes of crayon here and there as final touches. Some of the other sketches are done entirely in crayon. I choose what I think works best for each drawing.
This little painting is of the stream (or “crik” as I called it in a previous post) that ran by our picnic table at Julian Price Park. All the kids loved playing in the stream! (all 11 of them! That is, except for the 2 “teens” and the wee tiny baby:) Wading, peering, collecting, catching, splashing…oh, the wonders at a creekside! The wildflowers growing along the creek were a beautiful back drop to one of my nieces drawn here. The funky gold and brown shapes are rocks in the creek bed…in case you were wondering:)
I’m taking such pleasure in making this little book of sketches…there are so many more to come: my mom, my siblings, my sister-in-law, and the unbelievable cuties who are my nieces and nephews. Oh, and the teenagers! Yes, the teenagers were there too…not frolicking in the crik, but there. You’ll get to meet them all…eventually!
My Bucket
This is the coolest painter’s/crafter’s/knitter’s/crocheters gadget ever!! I just love mine! I saw them at an art store up in Boone (yes, you guessed it…Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff) and thought of all the ways I could use one of these. Currently I’m using it as my portable knitter/crocheter studio…complete with stitch holders, needles, crochet hooks, markers, pens, tape measure, and scissors. Peeking out the top is the first sock of a pair of socks! Yes, socks. For some inexplicable reason, I have a bee-in-my-bonnet to make socks. I have often said to knitting friends that anything size 7 needles and above is fair game! No size 3 needles for me! But the “bee” must have its way right now, and so I’m using size 2 needles with wonderful self-striping sock yarn. And I’m even thinking that for my NEXT pair, I might need to try size ONE needles to see if I can get a more dense stitch. Ha! We’ll see how long this “bee” hangs around.
Just imagine your sketching supplies popping out of all the wonderful pockets…pens, pencils, markers, crayons, brushes and water brushes. The inside is roomy enough for one of those Winsor-Newton Cotman compact watercolor thingys and even a small sketchbook…moleskine or otherwise. I do sound like an advertisement here. I don’t mean to, just sharing a terrific, portable, grab & go fun gadget!
BTW…both the bucket AND the sock yarn were gifts from my mom a while ago…THANKS MOM! A post about her and sketches of her are coming soon!
Meet My Dad
Ed Pilkington. Husband. Father of 3. Grandfather of 11. Retired career professor of theater at Appalachian State University. Professional equity actor (Blowing Rock Stage Company, Triad Stage Company, Temple Theater to name a few). 25 + years as Director of outdoor drama Horn in the West. Playright. Poet. Wonderful to all he meets. Doesn’t know a stranger.
That’s the public face of my father. These sketches reveal a more personal face: He loves his grandkids! Dearly he does. Every single one of them has enjoyed the pleasure of sitting atop his shoulders and riding around while he trots and sings a song…just like he did with each of us, his three kids, of which I am the oldest. Pictured here is the “baby” of the family…my little sister with HER littlest.
My dad loves hats. Did I say, he LOVES hats? Well, he does. Has every kind of hat imaginable! This is one of his favorites. I’m actually quite amazed there isn’t a “fly” (you know the kind you make for “fly fishing”?) in the furry brim…perhaps there’s one on the other side of the hat. I have fond memories of sitting and tying flies with my dad at the kitchen table when I was a kid.
My dad loves his fat-free cookies! Well, I’m sure if he had the choice, he would choose a fat-full one over the free kind…but alas, quadruple heart bypass surgery and a genetic propensity to high cholesterol and heart disease keeps him on his toes, minding his p’s and q’s when it comes to fat consumption and exercise. Exercise…that brings me to the next thing about him:
My dad loves cycling! The mug in his hand says RIDE…share the journey. A lifelong, avid cyclist, dad has owned just about every kind of bicycle you could think of…perhaps even every brand offered:) I think he loves to tinker with them just as much as he loves riding them: Cannondale, Trek, Schwinn, folding bikes, touring bikes, and his current one–a recumbent bike! My dad has helped many a person get their bike road ready, my husband being one of them! This was before I even knew my husband existed! Go figure that one! I think of my father as a sort of Cycling Evangelist…spend just a bit of time with him and you’ll be wanting to go out on your bike touring the countryside!
There is SO much more I could say about my dad. This will suffice for now. I wish you ALL could meet him.
A New Set!
I’ve assembled a new set of notecards in honor of the arrival of Spring! Hopefully there’s something here for everyone…cupcakes, a tractor, flowers, and a leaping gal! You may recognize these drawings/paintings from previous blog posts (click on the highlighted words to see the original posts). Here are some particulars about the notecards you might like to know. I’m not sure I did a very good job of this with the other set (which is still available as well!):
The notecards are 4 1/4″ x 5 1/2″ on glossy paper. There are 2 cards of each image as well as 8 envelopes, of course! They are packaged nicely for protection and for giving as a gift. The set sells for $16.00 plus shipping and tax for NC folks. I have changed the shipping possibilities for you so as to make purchasing them the most economically possible. If you want just one set of cards, the shipping is only $2.50. For purchasing 2-4 sets, the shipping cost is only $4.95 and then all the variations above that are calculated for you as well. I have several sets waiting to go out, and can print more at a moments notice.
I am also donating 10% of all the yarnworks purchases to my local chapter of JDRF…Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. It is a wonderful group of people here locally (Winston-Salem area) who work hard to raise money for researching a cure for diabetes, new insulins and better ways to manage the disease. Our daughter Maddie reaps the benefits of much of this research each and every day…so we want to do our part in helping others and contributing to the discovery of a cure! You can be a part of this too when you purchase cards or patterns from me. Thank you in advance!
Click HERE to purchase the new set…or HERE to purchase the first set. However, if you don’t purchase through this blog post, you can always click on the images at right to take you right to the yarnworks site to purchase them.
****And now to offer a FREE set of these new notecards…place a comment on THIS blog post anytime between now and March 31st. On April 1st (April Fool’s Day) I’ll pick a winner and announce who gets the free set! So Fun! I sincerely hope each of you wins…but there’s only one up for grabs! On your mark, get set…GO!
Angelica from Hawaii
Before Spring had sprung, our family had a visitor…she came down the stairs dressed in her bathing suit with shorts and tee shirt over that, and a light yellow jacket on top. She wore a pink tinkerbell visor with sun glasses and flip flops. She introduced herself as a friend of Maddie’s from Hawaii! She even had a little accent, a lispy sort of accent, but was very chatty telling us all about her life in Hawaii and how she met Maddie. She hung out with us as we got dinner ready. She showed us all the things that were in her small brown “luggage case”. When dinner was just about on the table, we asked if she knew where Maddie was. As she nodded her head yes, we asked if she would go tell Maddie that dinner was ready and she needed to do her routine (our word for the diabetes shots routine) and come eat. She said she would let her know, said goodbye, we wished her a “bon voyage” and a few minutes later, Maddie came downstairs dressed in what she had been wearing that day, which were long pants, a long sleeved shirt with a sweater, socks and shoes. Good way to dress for the frigid temps we had been having.
As we got Maddie ready for dinner, we talked about her friend from Hawaii. She asked if we got to meet her and if we liked her. Maddie explained that her friend was a bit cold since she had dressed in her Hawaii clothes. She also told us that her friend, Angelica is her name, does not have diabetes, so she (that is, Maddie) has to explain everything to her. It was all quite fun and we kept it lighthearted and played along.
Yet my heart couldn’t help but ache a bit. Whether Maddie realizes it or not, I wondered if the play acting is actually how she is working out things that she longs for: warm weather and no diabetes. I don’t exactly know how a child’s mind works, but it seems pretty evident that she would at least on some level want sunshine and warmth (me too!) and to be free of diabetes (i want that for her too!) Maybe she even wants to travel (i could go for that as well!). How wonderful that children have a healthy way of dealing with these longings…playacting is so much better than temper tantrums, pity parties, and the like. As an adult, I tend toward the latter…perhaps I’d do better to get on my shorts and tee and flip flops…
…maybe even GO to Hawaii!!:)
Tweet! Tweet!
I’ve been revelling in the chirping and tweeting going on every morning outside! Spring has definitely sprung around here, and the birds seem as happy as I am to see it arrive! Our deck is surrounded by birdfeeders which are visited regularly by every kind of feathered friend you can think of…finches, sparrows, robins, cardinals, tufted tit-mouses, yellow-rumped warblers, morning doves, bluebirds, bluejays, chickadees, red-throated woodpeckers, etc. We’ve even seen an owl out there perched on the deck rail along with non-feathered friends such as squirrels and chipmunks. We think they like our deck for socializing, eating, singing, congregating…and then they love to take a bath in our mini pond on one side of the yard, and then the bird bath on the other side. We have a family of bluebirds in our bluebird house, and other houses set around the yard waiting for occupants. They are the best “pets” anyone could have:)
I often sit out on our deck to draw. This sketch is from over a year ago when a baby woodpecker visited while I was drawing. The sketch turned out a bit like a little cartoon showing how he had to “check things out” before feasting on the suet. So cute!
Recently I’ve been inspired not just to draw them, but to crochet them…I’ve come up with a pattern for making these sweet little birds with nests. Check back in a few days and I’ll show you. I’ll also have the pattern ready for you as well. In the meantime, enjoy the feathery friends that visit your neck of the woods!
Family Fun
I’ve begun a series of little drawings/paintings of my parents, siblings, and cousins…all from a wonderful day spent last September up in the High Country (where my people are from:) I believe it was a Saturday, celebrating my dad’s birthday. Everyone except for me and my kids, had camped out in the rain the night before. They were all tired, waterlogged, perhaps a bit grumpy…but the sunshine was clearing all that away. The kids were having a lovely time playing in the “crik” there at Price Park where we were having a picnic lunch. The drawing of my dad makes him seem a bit severe…but it’s only because the sun was in his eyes. He’s holding my sister’s fourth child whose not yet old enough for frolicking in the crik.
This is about as good as we will get from my mom:) Hee Hee. She’s never been keen on having her picture taken, but she says even more so now, because she will end up in a blog post!! Right you are, mommy! There will be more to come, more to show you, more to explore and play around with color and line. And yes, more of my mom.
Living with Loose Ends
A few days ago, I walked by one of my kids curled up under this blanket (The Babette Blanket, from Spring Interweave Crochet 2007?). I said loudly to the walls, the wind, and any who might hear, “Couldn’t the person who made this weave in all the ends??!!” Well, you would think!
And as I turned, it hit me. Right there is a picture of my life! Lots and lots of loose ends! It seems that very little of what I do in life (and really for all of us, I think) is actually something to cross off a list for good. Laundry, once washed and folded, has a way of piling up again. Meals cooked and cleaned up only pave the way to the next meal that needs to be prepared. Straightening the house only makes room for more stuff. Lesson plans created and taught, must be created and taught once again as a new week/month approaches. Money made has a way of disappearing and needing to be worked for again and again. Drawings and paintings wind up half-finished. Knit and crochet projects don’t even make it to the loose end stage…the once exciting project ends up stashed in a closet somewhere for who-knows-when. And before I completely pull you down into an Ecclesiastes state of mind, crying “Meaningless, meaningless!”…there IS hope here, I know there is.
It’s the OTHER SIDE! Turning my blanket over, the loose ends disappear! (Well, almost all of them:) The “other side” is lovely, colorful, a finished work. When I first finished crocheting the squares together (two years ago), I was so excited about using it I just didn’t have the patience to weave in all those ends. Two years (and much use) later, the ends haven’t woven themselves in, and I think I shall just leave them there to remind me that on THIS side of life, THERE WILL BE LOOSE ENDS. It won’t be ’til I’ve reached the other side, that I’ll finally have all loose ends woven in, and I’ll get to see the beauty. To be sure, there’s beauty to be seen here on the unfinished side!! I just don’t want to miss it whilst fretting about all those loose ends!
P.S. h/t to my husband for the title of this post. He was standing within earshot of my loud declaration and said, “That’s a blog post!”
P.P.S. Here‘s what my blanket looks like on the other side.
More Lessons from Drawing…
Ok, ok, I know I keep going on about this kind of stuff…how art influences life and how life influences art…and what I can learn about my life through art, etc. You just have to bear with me in this…I LOVE it, when something about the act of making art teaches me something I need for my everyday life. So, once again…
…I’m just sitting in various spots drawing things, some random, totally inconsequential things…the corners of my bedroom and the mess in my closet…and I realize that my line flows fairly freely in the straight and open places. But when things get complicated, like the yarns down in a basket, or the jumble of shoes on the floor, or the books stacked on the shelf…I SLOW DOWN. Isn’t that cool?
You may not think so, but it is JUST what I need to remember in my life: when things get complicated… SLOW DOWN! Do whatever you need to do to slow down the pace and really settle into the contours of what’s going on. Flying through it only leaves a messy trail that makes no sense and leaves you exhausted! But slowing down, breathing a bit in between all the curves thrown your way, allows you to move ahead with a little bit more thought, presence, and peace.
Ahh, me…I love this life…love being an artist…love seeing and learning to see…the beauty that is all around me.
Even in my closet!
A Most Clever Idea
So my 15 year old daughter comes to me with a cut-up Starbucks bag, and some notebook paper she has made into about 12 or so signatures. She asks,”Mom, show me how you made your book last year…I want to make this into a little book.”
At first, I’m not altogether sure what she’s talking about. But slowly it dawns on me, that she has this OH SO COOL idea to recycle a Starbucks bag into her very own journal/sketchbook complete with handles! How cool is that!??
So I proceed to tell her that the “technical” way to sew all these signatures together is using waxed thread with a needle and awl, and oh, you need a pattern to show you where to punch the holes, and well, it is a bit tedious going, the sewing and everything, then you glue this here and that there and…
Her eyes are glazing over. I know my daughter. At least what I know is this: she is amazingly creative, makes things and crochets fabulous stuff without any patterns, has incredible ideas but not quite as much patience or endurance, being 15 and all:). So I admit to her, that I myself (who also doesn’t have a huge store of patience for tedious projects, being 44 and all:) found the sewing to be a bit taxing on my stick2itiveness last year when I made a small book filled with watercolor paper. I suggest to her to find an alternative way. We toss around a few ideas, toss out a few others, and then she disappears.
When she returns to the kitchen table (aka. The Making Table which is always piled with crayons, markers, papers for drawing, cutting, making stuff, scissors, glue etc. Drives my hubby NUTS!) she has a stapler in tow and begins to assemble The Book. I marveled as it progressed. I do so wish I had taken pictures of the entire process, since I’m sure someone out there will want to make one of these cool things. But here’s what she did:
Each signature of regular notebook paper was stapled to a piece of the Starbucks bag she cut in the shape of a “spine”, with about an inch or so extra on each side of the spine. She stapled these signatures to the “spine” along the middle fold line inside each signature. She did say this was a bit tedious since she was using a regular length stapler and had to curl under a portion of the notebook paper in order to staple them to the spine. She stapled each signature side-by-side to the “spine” as closely as she possibly could. A long-armed stapler would have made this much easier! Then she made the front and back covers from the parts of the bag that had the handle because she wanted a “carrying journal” (totally cool!) She used a bit of posterboard glued to the front and back parts to make it more sturdy. She then glued the front and back onto the extra inch on either side of the “spine”. After this dried, she then lined the inside of each cover and lined the outside of the “spine” to cover up the staples. She even made a bookmark to go with it.
Is this not a really clever idea????
Or am I just a proud mom?
Those who Make what you’ve Designed
I really can’t tell you how giddy it makes me to see what others have made from my patterns. Part of it is that I’m SO relieved that the pattern was actually readable, understandable, and included all the steps they needed to be successful with the project. The other part is that I’m truly delighted the design/pattern gave them enjoyment, hopefully in the process of making AND in the final results. I wanted to share a few of them with you:
The above pic is from Tracy of Alberta, Canada who made the Owl Mania purses for each of her daughters and a stuffed one for her craft/sewing room. She has just recently learned to crochet (November to be exact!) and I marvel at how well she worked these owls! I also LOVE how she “thought outside the box” with her piece of felt for the nose to cover a magnetic clasp securing the nose to the purse!! Super idea! The color combos and the photograph are perfect!
Ann, a fellow EDM artist, living and painting in the mountains of NC, just completed her Everything But the Kitchen Sink Bag, and isn’t it a beauty? Her color choices are lovely…just like the colors in her gorgeous artwork. She even said my pattern taught her some new techniques in crochet! Yay!
And last, but certainly not least is Ellen’s pumpkin version of Simply Woven Scarf. Ellen, (aka. friend, pattern tester, law professor, wife to Steve) lives in nearby Winston-Salem crocheting, quilting, sewing all manner of lovely things in between all the other stuff she has going on. It amazes me what she can accomplish. This scarf was, I think, a Christmas gift to a friend, not the stuffed version, but a friend-friend:)
As Lucy of Attic 24 would say, it “makes me heart skippy-happy” to see what folks have made from my designs…it’s thrilling and humbling all at the same time.
Tractor Love
Did you know I love tractors? Yep, love their shapes and colors. But the old ones hold more charm. Old, worn, rusted a bit, with hints of their original color are the best kind. New, shiny ones are cool too, but they don’t hold quite the magic of the old ones. My favorite part of the Dixie Classic Fair each fall is Yesteryear Village with all the old barns, buildings, blacksmithing, wood-carving, and yes, the tractors! I think some of the allure for me, lies in a way of life that is quickly disappearing…a connection to the land, a dependence on it, and wresting one’s life and sustenance from it. I know, I KNOW… I idealize it all…having never experienced the actual life of a farmer. Growing up in Boone, NC did give me an appreciation of the hard-working pioneer sorts who lived much closer to the land, extracting their living from it.
I’ve seen this tractor from afar on my walks in and around the neighborhood. It’s usually parked in a field near an old tobacco barn (ooh, I love old barns as much as the tractors!), but recently it had been pulled up into the cul-de-sac located near the barn but at the end of a newly built neighborhood. Usually I just gaze at the barn and tractor off in the field as I near the end of the street, then I turn around and head home. But this day, I feasted my eyes on the up close tractor, worn from years-of-use-gone-by (or are they still using it?), then walked quickly home to grab my camera. If it hadn’t been so cold, I would have brought out my drawing supplies and made sketches on site, but it was just too frigid for sitting and drawing. Perhaps if it’s still there come spring and warmer temperatures, I’ll make some plein aire sketches. But for now, I have some good resource photos. I’m playing with different mediums…you just can’t make only one picture with all the different media at our disposal…pens, watercolor, crayons, markers, etc. Perhaps I’ll make a series of these little tractor pictures. Too much fun!
P.S. In case you want to know: The first sketch is made with a non-waterproof pen (Bic Z4+ 0.5 my current favorite for continuous line drawings) and watercolor in an Aquabee 9 x 9 sketchbook (a favorite because it takes so many different media). The line drawing is made with that Bic pen in a square photo album. I love the papers these photo albums have in them…very smooth, but thick paper…feels nice.) The last sketch is made with gel pens, watercolor, and watersoluble crayons (in the same photo album)…way too much fun!!
The Glad Game
Maddie and I have just finished reading Pollyanna together. She received the book for her birthday in January from a friend. It has been the perfect story as we are in the beginning stages of the diabetes journey. I was surprised and delighted as each chapter unfolded; and couldn’t wait for the ending! I really did not expect to like it so much.
When I was a young girl Maddie’s age, I got the distinct impression from others that “Pollyanna” was a bad word. At least, the way they talked about it was in a very negative light: such things as, “You don’t want to be a pollyanna!” or “She is such a pollyanna!” I was never quite sure what the problem was, and now that I’ve read the book, I’m still not sure.
I AM pretty sure that being a “pollyanna” has to do with playing “The Glad Game”. This is a game that young Pollyanna learned to play from her pastor-father when life dealt less-than-desirable events, such as receiving crutches in the missionary barrel, when she had longed for a doll. Finding something in the situation to be GLAD about was the game…to see if one COULD find something to be glad about and then allowing oneself to actually BE glad in the midst of the disappointment or tragedy, whatever it might be. Pollyanna and her father found that the fact Pollyanna did not need crutches (at the time), was certainly a reason to be glad indeed. Pollyanna would go on to experience far more distressing events than not receiving a doll: the death of her father and an auto accident leaving her paralyzed; to name the worst of them. Pollyanna becomes a bright light in a dark town, bringing the game into the homes and hearts of so many people when she goes to live with her Aunt Polly Harrington after her father dies. The story is compelling, heartwarming, and has a wonderful touch of mystery and romance too.
I s’pose what is so repelling to those who frown on this way of looking at life, is that it appears to be a way of merely passing over or denying a very real disappointment or heartache. Nothing could be farther from the truth, IF one reads the book! I have personally gone through hard times when some well-intentioned folks tried to “cheer me” by playing “the glad game” for me…but in most cases, their efforts fell flat because I had no sense that they themselves had ever been through anything remotely as disappointing or heart-wrenching as I had experienced. Yet when others, whom I knew to be survivors of suffering, came alongside me and played the glad game (not in so many words), I could hear it and I was buoyed by their perspective…challenged to see even some measure of light in the darkness of my circumstances. I now feel pretty certain that this “glad game” is really NOT for the faint of heart…it requires a strength of character to play it, to even entertain that there might be a glimmer of hope in the midst of horrid circumstances.
Of course, it often takes a while…for the game to have it’s sway in one’s heart. This is certainly born out in the character’s lives as they struggle to understand the game and play it along with Pollyanna. Indeed, Pollyanna herself struggles greatly with playing the glad game when her legs “won’t go” after the automobile accident. She just can’t seem to find anything to be glad about that. And we can fully understand! But in time, her eyes are opened to the “good in the bad” (as someone said to me just the other day as we talked of our daughter’s diagnoses) and Pollyanna is able to embrace the glad game. It is NOT denial, or some way of putting on rose coloured glasses. No indeed. It is the hugest, most difficult thing our hearts will ever do: find joy in the midst of suffering.
It is gut wrenching, yet lovely, to realize how my own dear little one is playing the glad game with more fortitude and openness than I am. She has in many ways, a greater strength of character and a stronger willingness to see the good-in-the-bad than I have. On more than one evening as we finished our chapter just before tuck-in, she would say, “So, playing the glad game with having diabetes means…” and then she would say something she thought was good about her having diabetes that would catch my heart and bring a teary smile. The book has even brought her a deeper sensitivity to the physical challenges that others face…seeing someone in a wheelchair, or someone who has a pump, or a limp. The really cool thing is that the family that gave her this wonderful book, are indeed survivors of suffering (actually they endure it each and every day); and to know their story makes the gift of this book all the more powerful!
One of the most difficult things for me in watching my daughter deal with diabetes is the numerous finger sticks she has to do in a day. Anywhere from 5 to 8 times a day, she bravely jabs the lancet into one of her precious, beautiful, 8 year old fingers to give a drop of blood for testing her blood sugar level. I asked her recently (genuinely wanting to know her thoughts on this), if she was able to play the glad game with the finger pricks….and this was her response: “I’m glad I have a way to know what my sugars are so I won’t faint and so I can get my insulin.” I gulp. I grin. I’m grateful. Honestly, people, I wonder if I would have such strength of character.
Peek #1 and Thoughts on Becoming
I told you I’d give you peeks at what my Happy Little Squares are becoming. Here’s the first: 9 squares becoming one bigger square! Woo Hoo! And another set is not quite 9 yet. There will be more of them, these little squares. And then things will take a turn…rows and rows of colors…and there will be solids here and there as well! Hee! Hee! Every step is fun, fun, fun! I’m sure you think me crazy!
I do think about becoming…that whole process from beginning to end. Nothing becoming something. An idea becoming a sketch, becoming the first step, becoming the second, then the third and so on…until the thing has become what it was intended to be. Sometimes, the idea doesn’t become exactly what it started out to be. Sometimes it becomes something a little different. Sometimes it becomes something COMPLETELY different. This is the problem here with showing you peeks as I go along…my original idea might not work out! My first sketches may become something entirely different. We’ll have to see. At this point, it all looks good. Looks like it might work. So I’m motivated to keep going. Every idea is a series of tiny little steps. My job is just to take the next step. Then I’ll have the information I need to take the following step, whether that is to adjust the original idea or to keep going. I’ll keep you posted.
