I can do that!

It’s 8:30 AM. And I had this idea that started last night. I was doing something yesterday. I forget what it is right now – oh I know what it was. I was looking at my artwork from last night and I was looking at the example and I was thinking where did I wanna start making this? So I figured, OK, you know what I’m gonna do? I’m gonna start drawing out this pod first, so I’ll start with the outer shape so drew the first line around and then I did the stem part. And then I had to erase and erase and erase, and you can see all of the erasing that I had to do, but then I finally got some direction. I noticed that when I was trying to draw the first line on the outer line of the pod, I kept like, undercover telling myself that “I’m gonna mess this up…I’m gonna mess this up… I’m gonna mess this up…I can never get these lines right.” And then I’m just like, “Oh no shut up! I CAN do that.” And that you know, since I’ve got lyrics for everything, I start singing I can do that from A Chorus Line! 🎶 “I’m watching Sis go pitter pat, said I could do that, I can do that. 👣 Knew every step right off the bat, said I could do that, I can do that…… One morning Sis won’t go to daance claaassss,  I grab her shoes and tights and all but my foot’s too small…!” 🎶 👣 😂😂😂 

Then I started thinking, wait a minute - I’m gonna make that an affirmation post. Because before I was able to catch my thinking in process, I would pick up the pencil or the pen or the chalk or the charcoal and I would start getting nervous right then and keep telling myself stuff like I was saying earlier, “I’m not gonna be able to do this. My lines never go right. I don’t have an eye for perspective” etc., etc. and I really beat myself up over it. And so no, it didn’t turn out perfect the first four or five times that I did it and it didn’t turn out perfect in the end either. But I was able to get what it was I was looking for. And so each time when I tried like when I went to do the other side my brain started again. I just started saying ‘I can do that.’ not even in a exaggerated tone. I was just like, “You know what, I keep telling myself what I can’t do, but this isn’t rocket science. Why am I making this such a big fucking deal?” So then I finished it which is great. I feel really good about that particular drawing because I was able to talk myself through the insecurities.

And then this morning, I was doing my singing practice and you know I had my spearmint tea warm and ready to go. Did my breathing exercises because I’m congested or whatever it is with the pollen and whatever is floating around in the air. I felt like I wasn’t able to sing as clearly as I wanted to, so I was gonna punk out and do some really easy songs and be done with it and then I said, “No, I’m gonna go ahead and do these show tunes!” And so I was singing them and I was getting nervous and starting to run out of breath and I was just like, “I can do this! I know I can do this. It doesn’t have to sound great. I just have to do it. I have it in me to do it. I’ve done it before!” And then I started to do it. It wasn’t easy cause I still had my congestion and stuff that I was truly dealing with. But it was a lot more easy and actually was a little fun to see that I was able to be more comfortable than I thought I was gonna be. So that little affirmation really worked in the moment you know it’s one thing you just walk around saying I can do it. Yeah, you can do it, but you gotta be able to plug that thing in there when you catch yourself in the process of telling yourself all the reasons why you can’t. Anyway, that’s what I’ve worked out this morning. 

The Family - Five of Cups

The Five of Cups in a reading generally speaks to grief, disappointment, despair, and all of the feelings that come with Loss. Perhaps someone has moved on from a relationship after giving it all they had. Maybe someone has lost a job, an animal friend, or perhaps even just hope in general. The card can point to a heavy depression, a state of hopelessness to the point where the person feels unable to see any silver lining or future where things get better.

The card stands out for me recently because of a very complicated situation with my own family. My immediate family involves five people. So the card has an extra emotional aspect to it for me because each one of those cups represents a member of my family. Each one of those relationships has been deeply damaged. I’m at a loss for how we got here and how to move forward.

Things started to become evident to me after I woke up out of the delirium I experienced in 2023. Shortly after becoming fully conscious and understanding what was going on around me, I noticed my family was behaving very differently towards me. It was a surprise to me because I was laying in bed, unable to even sit up in the bed without having to be propped up, and I was starting to feel that my family didn’t take the situation as serious as it really was. There were a lot of dismissive comments made. The vibes I got seemed so out of place considering what I had been through. Visits became more difficult. So difficult to the point that I finally just asked to be left alone.

Of course this didn’t sit well with certain members of the family, but I was tired of explaining the same thing over and over again. It was causing me a lot of stress. The visits were always a lot of emotional work for me and given what I had been through and what I would have to do in order to get better, to rehabilitate, I just couldn’t afford to keep trying to justify the way I felt. I needed to focus on me. My entire life before the medical crisis, I was old faithful to every one of them, at some point of their lives. And when the time came when I needed someone to depend on, someone to see the mountain ahead of me and not be afraid to be a cheerleader or be a support, I was abandoned. I was literally abandoned by some, and emotionally abandoned by all. It seemed they didn’t understand how sick I really was.

There are a lot of questions about why I had gotten sick in the first place. Even more questions about my treatment and maltreatment while I was in the hospital. Why didn’t my family fight for me? Why did they let me lay there and let my hair and skin deteriorate the way it did? Why did I wake up and have to spend three years trying to rehabilitate my very damaged skin while folks would gather around my bed and talk about my looks, my condition and my weight but not lift a single solitary hand to help remedy the situation. It was clear the facility wasn’t going to do it, so why didn’t my family step in?

I found myself getting more and more agitated and aggravated by visits that seemed to focus on trying to make me feel like the whole thing was exaggerated, and I was just being dramatic. When I look back on my medical records, I mean, it was dramatic!  My systems were failing. A particular family member actually said “I just don’t understand why you’re not up and walking around by now, they should be able to give you a couple pills and you be good to go.”  This was said maybe four months into this hospitalization. There were several comments made that seemed to question whether I was “actually” as sick as I was saying. I just couldn’t understand why everyone had been so dismissive. There seemed to be a lack of concern for my condition, and it was rarely talked about as the terrifying ordeal that it really was.

It was a devastating decision to tell my family not to come and visit me anymore. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly, but it was necessary one. Yesterday when I was doing my daily card for reflection, I received the Thoth Five of Cups - Disappointment. And because I don’t use this deck a lot, I was really struck by the word disappointment. Of course, there are a spectrum of meanings for each card, but when I sat to reflect with it yesterday, I realized that at the bottom of all of the complicated feelings and all the questions I have about why they acted the way they did, there was just plain old disappointment. It’s deep disappointment, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just like, “Wow, how could you guys just leave me out there like that?” I’m not a tit for tat, scorekeeper type of person, but after a while, sitting up here alone, I started to think you know, at some point in all of their lives I had been somebody that was there for them in a way no one else had been. I had made myself available, I could be counted on to care.

I don’t know where things go from here. I just know that I’m not going to continue to expose myself to the type of dismissive disregard that was eating up these visits. I understand that for some, they won’t feel that bridges can be rebuilt. I’m prepared for that eventuality. But what I know for sure is that when I needed their support, it wasn’t available. So I’m not really concerned about needing anything in the future. I was shown very clearly that my life held no real emotional value for them. When it came down to it, all their cups were empty of any kind of care or concern for me, and I was left to figure it out alone.

This Old Raggedy Cross and Other OT Activities

I’ve had conflictual feelings about the crucifix for as long as I can remember. And although I do understand the symbolism, and why people choose to carry the crucifix, it’s always been uncomfortable for me personally. And yet I have never felt that just the plain cross was the answer either. Every couple of years I start thinking about it, and thinking about what it is that’s causing me to be so hesitant about the crucifix. I think the biggest problem for me is that I know that although the sacrifice is symbolized on the crucifix, that wasn’t the completed work. It was the completed ritual, the Lamb had been slain for our sins. The behind the scenes work had just begun at that moment of death. We recognize the Resurrected Christ as the completion, it was at that point that the apostles and those who were in the area were able to see that he had overcome the world. So I don’t want to diminish the importance of the work on the cross, but it seems to stand for a moment of the work, not the full working. Today I was thinking about that and I had a vision of a white cross with the red scarf or sash folded around it. I’ve seen this imagery before, and I thought to myself I think that’s the in-between place that works for me as Symbol, as the reminder to meditate on the work Christ did on the cross. 

So with my hands, crippled with neuropathy, I decided to try and draw what I saw in my head. I mean, you can understand what it is, it’s not terrible lol but it’s definitely not the vision I have in my head. And I think I’m gonna use this as a long time practice. I’m gonna keep revisiting it until I get it where I feel I see it in my head. The cross can still remain empty because He’s no longer on it, and the red banner/sash reminds me of the blood that was shed. 

That was my homework for tonight. I generally try to do at least one OT type project 4 to 5 times a week. Usually I’m trying to draw cartoon characters or work on my plants or on a craft project. This past month I got a chance to do all of those things. In addition to my sketchbook and my attempts at different cartoon characters, I got a hold of some really beautiful contact paper! I had these Amazon Boxes and I started thinking you know I need storage for some of my crafts to keep it accessible for me. Trying to dig down into drawers and moving a whole bunch of stuff around just to get a sketchpad or my colored pencils takes up a lot of energy that I need to save for the actual activity. So I had a big re-organizing thing that I was doing in my room. And I said you know some of these boxes that come from Amazon are real keepers! And so I decided to decorate them and use them as storage for myself. I gotta tell you, about the time I was done with these three boxes, I was also done with contact paper in general! 😖😖😖

First of all, like I said, I have severe nerve damage in my hands and so my gross motor skills have gotten much better, but my fine motor skills are I’d say around three-year-olds. And with the lack of sensation it’s difficult to judge where something is being held and depending on the object sometimes I can’t feel it at all. I can only maneuver it if I’m looking at it. Also, my hands get tired pretty quickly using them in a certain way. Like right now it is super painful to color. I would love to do because it’s a really calming activity, but it’s so painful trying to hold the crayons, the gel pens or the colored pencils. Look I’ve tried all of them and if I have to color in a large space, it’s extremely painful. So anyway, imagine trying to use this contact paper! It was a mess and as you can see on the pictures, I did a lot of cut and paste, LOL!  But for what I’m using them for, it’ll do. At least it doesn’t have the big ass Amazon logo on the side. You know, it has a little bit of style!

Speaking of plants, I adopted a new baby! One of the patients families brought a plant for the staff to thank them for the care of their loved one. So one morning when I was on my way to get my water pitcher filled up, I saw the plant out the hallway and I was just like oh that’s so pretty! And my social worker said “I’m glad you like it. Take it! No one is gonna take care of it around here.” So then I ended up with a Baby Rubber Plant! 

She’s really healthy and I’ve had her for about two weeks now as she’s got even more babies than from when I first got her here. She seems to be happy in this southwest corner so we’ll keep our fingers crossed that she does well!

For the nerds: 🤓

- She is properly known as Peperomia obtusifolia

- Her nickname is the “Radiator Plant” : The name comes from the Greek words peperi (pepper) and homoios (resembling), because they are closely related To the black pepper plant you use in the kitchen!

- This plant is native to the rainforest of South America, where it loves to grow tucked into the mossy bark of trees.

- She’s a champion air purifier! A well known NASA clean air study actually highlighted Peperomia obtusifolia for its excellent ability to filter out indoor toxins like formaldehyde.

Me and the Devil

 

Recovering the use of my hands has been incredibly eye opening as well as frustrating. You never really really understand how much you use your hands until you can’t use them for any number reasons. Part of my personal program for recovery involves handwriting and sketching. And because handwriting and sketching aren’t things that I need to be able to do every day, it’s a skill that I’ve taken my time to practice. I don’t prioritize it because there’s really no need for me to have to write anything down. The one thing that I did do was make sure I was able to do my signature as close to how I was doing it before this medical crisis.

So I will attempt to sketch and to write things down by hand here and there just to see how far I’m recovering. In a blog post that I did, Recovering The Use Of My Hands, I shared with you the samples of my handwriting from a month after I was hospitalized and then some more recent samples. It’s no exaggeration when I say that I lost all muscle strength. And the first picture shows how much effort it took just to write what I was writing and it’s barely legible. The only reason I know what it says is because I remember struggling to try to write it. It was absolute heartbreak when I wasn’t able to communicate clearly what I was trying to say. Especially since I’ve been a writer all my life, from the time I could put pencil to paper and write words.

Drawing is another thing though. I had a lot of messages that I told myself I wasn’t able to draw well. And there’s no reason why I have this particular bully in my head! Like nobody’s ever told me that I wasn’t able to do it. But for some reason, I developed this idea that I’m not able to do it. Even though I’ve spent considerable time attempting different art styles and sketches. I actually was in a program, while in college, where I had to keep a sketch book for a whole semester to be part of the final grade. Like I’ve done this before, but yet every time I put pencil to paper to try and draw something, up jumps the devil. 

Now I have the additional issue confronting me -  the bully/devil in my own brain and the physical limitations due to disability. Today I was attempting to draw my sippy cup and came face-to-face with that old devil, but he had new ammunition! ‘Not only can’t you draw this because you’re not talented enough, you can barely hold this charcoal! You can’t do this! You’re just not talented enough to figure it out! You can’t even hold a pencil right, let alone figure out how to use it to draw something! You’re still using a spoon to feed yourself for Christ’s sake, what makes you think you’re gonna be able to draw anything?’ I mean it was full on assault. 

I experienced this almost fearful hesitation to even put the charcoal to the paper. And I’m thinking to myself, ‘how ridiculous is this?’ I’m sitting here intimidated by an old, crusty devil. A devil I first encountered my freshman year in high school, during an art class I was super excited to be taking with an incredible art teacher. I got started, and I felt defeated almost immediately. I think the biggest problem for me at that point and now is perfectionism. I want it to look excellent. I want it to look perfect, and I want it to look perfect the first time. And when your drawing things by hand, after those hands become severely disabled, it can feel like defeat before you even start.

MySpace Memories

 

Cool AI exercise for ChatGPT users! 😎 

Mood: feeling nostalgic 🥰

Anyone who knows me knows that me know how much I used to love #MySpace. I still think it was the best social media site we’ve ever had! I met some of the coolest people there, people that I’m still in touch with on various social media sites to this day! So this was such a fun project! 

Here’s the prompt: 

“Create a pixel-perfect screenshot mockup of a classic MySpace profile page (circa 2005–2008) for a person named [name]. Layout: the classic two-column MySpace layout — profile photo and details on the left, ‘About Me,’ blurbs, and comments on the right. Include: Profile photo: [use attached image]; Display name: ‘[screen name]’; Mood: [e.g., ‘high 🫩’]; Top 8 friends: 8 small profile thumbnails with names underneath (mix of friends, celebrities and bands); Now Playing: An embedded music player widget showing ‘[song] by [artist]’; About Me section: A short, dramatic, deeply 2006 bio written in alternating caps or with excessive ellipses; Background: [choose: colors, patterns, tile, etc.,]; Style: authentic 2000s MySpace UI.”

Baby, We Were Born To Run

 

In the day we sweat it out on the streets
Of a runaway American dream
At night we ride through the mansions of glory
In suicide machines
Sprung from cages on Highway 9
Chrome wheeled, fuel injected, and steppin' out over the line
Oh, baby this town rips the bones from your back
It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap
We gotta get out while we're young
'Cause tramps like us, baby, we were born to run
Yes, girl, we were

Wendy, let me in, I wanna be your friend
I wanna guard your dreams and visions
Just wrap your legs 'round these velvet rims
And strap your hands 'cross my engines
Together we could break this trap
We'll run 'til we drop, baby, we'll never go back
Oh, will you walk with me out on the wire?
'Cause, baby, I'm just a scared and lonely rider
But I gotta know how it feels
I want to know if love is wild
Babe, I want to know if love is real
Oh, can you show me

Beyond the Palace, hemi-powered drones
Scream down the boulevard
Girls comb their hair in rearview mirrors
And the boys try to look so hard
The amusement park rises bold and stark
Kids are huddled on the beach in the mist
I wanna die with you, Wendy, on the street tonight
In an everlasting kiss

The highway's jammed with broken heroes
On a last chance power drive
Everybody's out on the run tonight
But there's no place left to hide
Together, Wendy, we can live with the sadness
I'll love you with all the madness in my soul
Oh, someday, girl, I don't know when
We're gonna get to that place
Where we really wanna go and we'll walk in the sun
But 'til then, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run

Oh honey, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run
Come on with me, tramps like us
Baby, we were born to run

Our Mascot has arrived!

Our beautiful mascot has arrived, and I couldn’t be more excited! And what better anchor post for my art journal blog.

I was inspired by some of the different AI art challenges people put out there. This one was a challenge to Tell ChatGPT to turn you into a Disney princess and a Disney villain! And the exercise was so fun! And being that they made my wheelchair a part of the mythology made it even more cool! I think I’ll be moving into my Villain era shortly!

These turned out beautifully! But I started thinking if I’m gonna go full, Disney… how can I use the wheelchair as another fantasy element 🤔 So then I said you know what, since my legs don’t function normally now, maybe I’m a Disney Princess Secret Undercover Mermaid Agent, and the wheelchair functions as a cover to maintain my secret! So then I asked the generator to make an adjustment to the image and show me revealing my mermaid fin like a little secret! And I just adore the results! 🥰