Halloweenies

Meandering Avoiders Anonymous

Hello my name is E, and I am a meandering avoider. (credit to Mr. C. H. for the term)

And this poor blog has become yet another thing to avoid as I meander.

Hallo Blog. I am sorry. It's not you. It's me. Seriously, you're great. I'm just not that into the whole self examination thing right now. Have you seen it outside? It's insanely beautiful. It's gorgeous. Best fall evah -a riot of colour, bright sun-filled days, crisp air, azure sky. I'm busy and grateful and stressed out and happy, and the days are over in a breath and a heartbeat.

Plus I have no art for you, and that makes me feel guilty. I hate to feel guilty, so I avoid, and the circle spirals down. The truth is dear Blog, my energy and interest have been going elsewhere. I wouldn't call it cheating per se, but I confess, I have been seeing another blog, my trip blog. Don't worry, it's only a temporary fascination, you are still my first love! But until this trip is over, I'm afraid I'm not going to have as much time for you as I should.

In the meantime, here are some pictures from Hobbit day. I know it isn't art, and I didn't even remember to get pics of the food, but it was a wonderful day! I made fresh bread and apple butter, sausages, mushrooms, cheese, herbs and salad, and honey cake with blackberry sauce and cream for dessert. We raised a glass of the Old Winyards, and Frodo and Bilbo sent us each a present in honour of their birthday (how they got it from the Undying Lands to here, I'll never know!). We went on a long hobbit walk through the forest, and then spent the whole weekend after playing a Tolkein themed DnD adventure set in the Shire. Twas an excellent time.

And I'll be ready for making art again soon, I can feel it in my bones. The old creative beast stirs, and rubs it's sleep-filled eyes, but meandering avoiders are slow, and slowly the beast awakens.

So my dear Blog, that I do love so much, hang tight. I'm still here, and I don't want to break up. I just need a lot of space right now.

Hobbits in the Woody End.
Note: exactly 3 days after this the leaves changed. It was incredible, one day green and the next all golden, crimson and copper .

The Close of Summer

Long, lazy days. Busy being unbusy. Me & muh boys -swimming, gaming, reading, playing, arguing, talking, cooking, laughing. Another summer slips past. This one thoroughly golden -so much sunshine and yellow-haired boys with sun-bronzed skin, and blue, blue eyes.

The boys have grown up so much. A good foot taller, with feet bigger than mine. E sometimes makes me tea in the mornings. L knows how to vacuum. They are in turn both LOUD and taciturn. They are intense. They need explanations and reasons for everything. Nothing Mom says goes unquestioned. Emotions are quick. Lightening strikes of anger cleaving to despair, but then joy bubbling up the next moment, and over again. The pace is dizzying. Misunderstandings run rampant. There is no easy going. There is herculean effort, on my part and especially on theirs -effort to understand, to be patient, to do and say the right thing at the right time (damn those social skills are hard!), and to act with love and strength of spirit.

There is a deep ache of  pride and loss as I watch them grow. Love them hard and let them go, that's the only option.

I'm ready to be back. Ready to blog and share. Can't wait to read and catch up. I feel open again.

This summer was so good for me. I feel a strong return to self. I feel excited about life again, and I am hoping that I have stockpiled enough sunshine to last through the long winter.

There is so much to look forward to this fall! I am ready for the boys to go back to school. My patience banks are a leetle depleted at this point. I could use the break from the intensity of the triad relationship between boys & mom that school provides, and we could all use the structure. So back to school is this coming Thursday, and I am looking forward to getting back to some art. I signed up for Julie & Chris' Layer Love 2.0, but haven't even had a chance to take a look yet. I am eager to get going on that, and I am burgeoning with my own ideas. I am ready.

There are so many things coming up:
-Sept 4th (tomorrow!) kicks off the Lord of the Rings Book Club with my sons & sisters (the elder two)
-Sept 22nd is Bilbo & Frodo's birthday! We're going on a hobbit walk, and having a hobbit-style feast!
-early October we're going to my parents for Canadian Thanksgiving & the whole fam will be there
-Halloween= pumpkin carving & trick or treating with the boys
-End of November is The Very Big Trip. 12 days jam packed with fambly fun in Orlando. I am still obsessing over the trip, although over the summer it has receded to a dull roar. I'm sure I will be full blown consumed again as we get closer. My illustrious friend Mr. Ch suggested I start a trip blog as an outlet (which I think may have been code for "shaddap about Disney World already!"), and so I did. I decided not to blog here, because a lot of it will be details about theme parks and how to tackle them with a slew of special needs, and I didn't want to spam this blog with such. I also have the new blog set to private for now. I want to be able to post lots of pictures without infringing on my family's privacy. So if anyone would like to follow along, let me know in comments and include an email address, and I'll send you an invitation. I will continue to blog here, or rather resume blogging here, especially when I actually have some new artworks to show.

Anyway I am really looking forward to the coming months, and am happy to be "back".

Summer Gratitude and Magic Trees

There is nothing like sunshine and freedom to break through the grey. We are on our first week of summer vacation, and the weather is fine. Long hot days, blue skies, happy kids, and very few chores that can't wait until after -after swimming, after reading, after making something insanely yummy to eat, after a trip to the zoo or a walk in The Forest.

The Forest is the place we go for Hobbit walks. It is right in the city, and close to our neighbourhood. A piece of land left mostly as it ever was, with towering elms and maples and a lazy river running through it. It is a place full of old magic, you can feel it, and we love it there. Local carvers have been at work there too, carving Spirit Trees.

The boys and I have been talking about doing some sort of art that we can leave there too to make our own contribution to the enchantment.

When You Don't Have Anything Nice to Say...

...sometimes you should keep talking anyway.

12cm x 12cm , mixed media on watercolour paper

I've been depressed. I haven't wanted to admit it. Haven't wanted to look it in the face, much less talk about it. I've been hoping it would fade away if I ignored it, like the seasonal slump I get almost every year dissipates when the sun finally comes out again after the long winter. But the season changed and the sun came out and I still felt like my insides were made of wood or tin or nothing...hollow and dull. Still felt like I was listening to the world from a thousand miles away, with water and cotton and mud in my ears, and my brain.

Nothing happened. I am not bummed or scared or stressed about any particular thing (perhaps an accumulation of stresses). Just taking no interest in the things that usually bring me joy (art, friends, books, cooking), and feeling numb and exhausted with every effortful step.

So finally I realized it was going nowhere, and admitted the "d" word to myself, and spoke it out loud to the people I love, and made a plan to actively work towards feeling better.

I am happy to report the plan is working.

The joy is beginning to seep back in, slowly, up through the roots, and the leaves begin to unfurl one at a time.

Hello Again

How exactly did a leetle break become 2 months? Wow. The passage of time never fails to surprise me.

We skipped spring here, and went directly to summer. Lawnmower drone, sunshine, bright skies, all encompassing green...not the tremulous, bursting green of Spring, but a sedate, self assured, expansive green -Summer green. It feels so good. I am grateful for every bit of warmth and ease. The ease of not having to haul on snow boots and shiver in a sub zero car! The ease of being able to stride down  the road, head erect,  instead of picking my way slipping on patches of ice and snow! The juxtaposition between seasons makes each little warm weather pleasure keenly felt.

I have started...slowly, tentatively...making art again. It is pretty raw and very personal, not ready to be shared, but the wheels are beginning to turn.

My major obsession for the last two months, Florida. Specifically a family vacation to Orlando being planned for December. I am obsessing hard. Completely Aspie immersed. It has taken over the larger portion of my brain like some virulent vine. I've been reading nothing but guidebooks, and spending every spare moment on the computer researching.  I ought to be getting an honorary degree summa cum laude from the Disney university any day now, or a key to the city, or at the very least an "I heart Florida" trucker cap! At first it was a mixture of practicality and fun, things I needed to know and things I wanted to know, but it has long since descended into the realms of  wheel spinning perseveration. The truth is that I am hella anxious about making it all work, and arming myself with information is a time honoured tradition when I am  full of fears.

We are not an easy family. We are a complicated intertwining mesh of needs. There is no such thing as "flying by the seat of our pants". No such thing as relaxing and enjoying come what may. We have to know things, like exactly what we will eat, where it will come from, how and where it will be prepared, and how it will be served. We need to have a plan in place for balancing sensory needs. We have to carefully calculate energy vs. activity ratios. We have to find creative ways of retaining as much of our regular routine as possible while still making room for new experiences. We have to consider how hot, how crowded, how loud, how bright, and we have to have back up plans, escape clauses and emergency protocols for every situation. We have to carefully, deftly manage everyone's expectations and anxiety, with schedules, plans, videos, role playing, and lots and lots of information.

It is a lot of work and the stakes are high...the stakes are thousands of dollars spent to hide in a darkened hotel room with ear defenders on, or a child that feels a crushing sense of failure and disappointment because we asked too much and pushed too far, or life vs death in an emergency room because we weren't scrupulously careful about every morsel of food.

Or the type of memories and sense of mastery that can only come from pushing into new territory and being OK there...even having fun there.

This is a picture of me in Disneyland in 2008. We're on Jungle Cruise. It was our first ride on our first day, and the moment when I realized that all the obsessive research and planning was going to pay off.

We were there thanks to a generous gift from their grandparents, and I was even more anxious than I am about the Florida trip. We had led two paper-pale, quaking boys into the park that morning. I cried as we walked down Main Street. The disparity between the other laughing, excited children and mine (demeanour as if we were headed to the guillotine rather than Adventureland) hit me like a smack to the face. Would the "happiest place on earth" be anything but miserable for us? And then we started doing Disney our way, just like we'd planned. From the moment L saw the crocs on Jungle Cruise (one of his special interests at the time), his whole body relaxed and his face opened and brightened. Can you see the flood of relief in my face above? We only lasted 2 half days and a very short stint one evening at Disney that trip (we went on to do Legoland and Seaworld after), and there were meltdowns and a couple of tense moments, but that's not what the boys remember. They remember us riding on everything and seeing everything, and how they got to eat in restaurants (Disney has the best and safest allergy policies anywhere), and how AWESOME it was.

2nd morning. Excitement overtakes anxiety.

This time the trip is even more complicated. My whole family is coming -parents, the DQ, sisters, BiL, the whole nine yards. That's even more needs and personalities to balance, but you know how I love a project, and I know that we can make it work. I have 6 more months to anxiously, fanatically go over and over every detail...hopefully though with a little less single minded intensity? I'd like to make room in my brain for a few other things as well.

Waiting for the Melt

A sad neglected blog, this. The blog owner just doesn't have much to say these days. I find I am as dull as the persistently grey sky outside, and willing myself to be creative has been about as effective as swimming through tar. No can do right now. I am on the ebb part of ebb and flow. So I am just going with it. Spring will come eventually, even here down in the Northern trenches of mud and snow, and with it I am hoping comes a spark and renewal.

In the meantime, I am here with my boys, and I am content...just quiet.

Finis

Tense

~

I'll likely continue work on this journal page at some point. It could use more collage and paint, but for now I am done.

Having a hard time getting my ass in gear today. I've wasted more time than I'd care to admit. I'm going to regret it later when all the undone things collapse onto my head, but I just can't seem to stick to anything. ADD-ish to the max. Only halfway here. Many things contributing to this I am sure, but one main one. One of my boys is away on a school field trip. Usually myself or the Dh can volunteer to accompany him, but today that did not work out. He doesn't have his own EA, just one young and moderately overwhelmed teacher. I am sure he will do well in coping with the sensory/social/executive function/rigidity type stuff. I feel he's ready. He feels he's ready. But there will be food involved as well. Food? Big deal, right? Very big deal if you have multiple anaphylactic food allergies. Very, big, fat hairy deal if one teeny, little mistake can land you in the hospital or worse.

So today finds me at a loose end, losing my train of thought, wandering away halfway through a job, unable to really settle to anything or accomplish much. He'll be OK. I know he is ready for this part of it too.

But am I?

Can't wait until the moment when I see him stumping through the snow across the schoolyard, backpack on his back, scowl on his face, weaving to and fro to avoid any possible contact with the other kids as he makes his way to the car (yup, that's muh boy). Safe and sound.

Back to Basics

~

Enjoying my art journal right now. Simple, intuitive pages. Playing with colours and shapes. Taking a snapshot of how I feel in that moment. This page is clearly about the DH. 100% internal.  Circle upon circle upon circle, layers and layers of love and complexity reverberating into the void.

My thoughts and prayers go out to Japan today.

Looking Out

~

Yesterday we had external. How about inside looking outward today? I am really digging the texture in the "frame" on this one.

Getting Ugly

~

The ass end of winter, if you'll pardon my colourful terminology. That's where we are at. Still cold. Bloody, mofo, chill you to the bone cold. Bedraggled banks of snow, covered in dirt and sand, embedded with pieces of garbage that blew away on 4 months worth of recycling days. 5 foot tall banks of dirty snow lining every road, higher than that in some places...6 foot, seven foot, taller than a man, taller than my car. It's ugly. There's no two ways around that. No romanticising it. Butt ugly, ass end, grime and muck and hard grey snow. This is the point where it feels that Spring will never come. The point where it gets hard to imagine that we won't just go on like this in the cold, getting grimier and grimier forever.

And that's my external inspiration for today.

For some Spring hope, go to visit my friend Mel's wonderful, wonderful blog. Her magical photos are helping me to believe in a Spring that seems about as close and likely as Rivendell and Sandy Claus.

Ridiculous and Many Splendored

So much for my food blogging, eh?

It came down to a choice between being fully present in the moment, or taking time out to document the moment as it passed. I opted for just being there.

I am full of things to say. Things about love and humanity. Things about the deep good it does those of us who view ourselves as strong and able, to take the time to care for those who may not be. I want to talk about humility and service, celebration, bodies, food and the cooking of it, sore necks, bathroom accidents, anxiety, excitement, making friends with cats (and bunnies), openness, quiet pleasures, old books, new books, hours in the bookstore with too many choices on our hands, the Doctor, all things strange like standing by the highway with a half naked girl in the snow and the arbitrary unfairness of report cards and the forging of connections on paths as tangled and pitted and crossed with roots as those in the oldest, densest forest you have been to...paths difficult but not impassable, mysterious and full of their own odd magnificence.

Vulnerability. I am awash with the beauty of it and It Itself. I could crawl into bed and cry for a week.

What a world. What a world. And how to help and what to teach in such a world as this?

But I am not all maudlin. I could cry for a week, but I could laugh for at least an hour or two. Did I mention standing on the side of the highway with a half naked girl in the snow? I can't give details out of respect and privacy, but suffice it to say that the sheer slapstick absurdity of that moment may have been unmatched since the Three Stooges graced the big screen, and there was a blissfully complete and utter lack of embarrassment on the part of the girl in question. Ah Life, I tell ya, you are a ridiculous and many splendored thing.

So full of things to say that I can't really even say them. Thank goodness for my art journal, but first cleaning, appointments and getting organized for the week, so I will leave you with one of the sister journal pages that was completed last weekend. The theme, fittingly enough, was connections.

On the Clock

I have exactly 38 minutes to write this post and catch up on as much of blogland as I can.
("Make haste! Make haste!" as Mr. Collins would say when his noble patroness was not to be kept waiting.)


The Party

The Party was wonderful. The calvary arrived on Friday night in the form of 3 of my sisters, 2 to help mightily with the party prep and one, the DQ, to be full of love and enthusiasm and keep everyone's spirits high, and the party went off without a hitch. 3 and a half hours of video games, junk food and uproarious fun. There is simply no word in the English language to describe the wildly pitched cacophony that 14 pre pubescent boys can make when they get together. Ears still ringing. But fun. BIG fun. Worth every minute of work. Below is the cake, with a quarter for scale.

We sent home very tired, but satisfied boys, and heard a resounding chorus of "best party ever!". Woo hoo! Whatever I can do to grease those social wheels for my boys is so worth it.

The More DQ

She is staying for a little more than a week. I am thrilled! At Christmas she was ill, and unable to really participate or connect much, and it feels like a long while since we've had quality sister time. Right now she is on the other computer playing games where she decorates cakes and cooks stuff. Food is really her biggest passion right now, so we elected this as Kitchen Goddess week. She has chosen a different dish for us to make every day, so expect some food blogging this week (hasty food blogging, because between her needs and the boys I will be kept on my toes!).

The DQ measuring fish sauce for last night's Vietnamese Chicken & Green Beans.

OK I am off. Time's up.