To and fro my footsteps roam, upon the miles of white, fluorescent aisle – vast, void, verigated, vexing wanderings. Where to next? Weaving textiles. Fiber miles spin, spun into nothingness. A paywall of digital footprint. Add to cart.
Day breaks upon your expectant face, and the birds sing for you.
A cup of coffee and a table set.
Sunrises, newspapers, the melody of your voice.
I’m lost without your light.
Shadow, little, shy.
They tell me to keep going. Chin up, grow up but I still feel small.
Morning is not as bright. The bird’s song is hollow.
What is coffee if you’re not making it?
Little, shy. Goodbye.
—
And just like that, 4 years pass by?
My go-to inspiration in high school was this daily calendar my mom had in her office. Each day featured a photograph from a scene in Ireland, and each day, at the end of the day, my mom would bring the paper home and give me the photograph to draw from. Before the days of Pinterest and Instagram, it was a bit tricky to find beautiful images to practice with. There were magazines of course and books, not to mention literally the world around you, but this was a game changer to get daily inspiration. In the 2000s, it was before the supremacy of the touchscreen smartphone with apps galore and fantastic cameras to snap photos in that you could carry around in your pocket. If you took photos for inspiration, you had to print them and it was not cheap. Printing even on printer paper was not cheap and trust me, parents did not like us wasting ink.
This is a taste of what the images featured via a modern source – Unsplash.
What is special to me about the framed image above is that I didn’t frame it. My grandparents did. It was a piece that I guess spoke to them and they framed it and hung it in their bedroom. Something I didn’t appreciate at the time, as a moody teenager I was embarrassed by it. Now in 2024, it hangs in the hallway outside my bedroom and when I see it hanging there proudly in its frame I remember how much they believed in my art, my writing, my fashion sense. I wish I could show them all that I am doing now. I think they would be proud.
What strategies do you use to cope with negative feelings?
It’s taken a while for me to find healthy coping mechanisms when negative feelings wash over me. Before I used to push the feelings down and grow numb, I’d clam up, or I’d get angry and stay angry. I’d shop for the heck of it or engage in self-destructive behavior like drinking or fighting with people I cared about until they didn’t want to talk to me anymore. I’d punish my body with exercise or restrictive eating. After a certain point the negative feelings and my destructive solutions, came to run my life and the anxiety and depression I had been allowing to take root in my life were in the driver’s seat and I was not even a passenger looking out the windshield, but was all the way in the backseat and had no concept of where the car was going.
Three years ago, I decided to take charge of my responses to stress and negative feelings. I stopped using alcohol as a crutch when I was overwhelmed by stressful and painful life situations and decided to look my pain in the eye and face it down. Now, I’m not doing this alone, when I made this decision I surrendered it to God, and chose to let Him be my driver of the car instead of myself or my anxiety and depression. It wasn’t any easy choice. It was scary but also an unknown to be explored. It was a new beginning.
Prayer became the immediate lifeline between me and the negative emotions in my mind in combination with spending time in God’s word. Consciously shifting my perspective from, I’m alone and I’m scared to I’m scared but I’m never alone truly helped me feel sure footed when negative emotions clouded over my mind. Was it an instantaneous fix? Yes sometimes and other times it was a slow burn, it’s been a process of sanctification.
Focusing on God can pull me out of panic attacks and remind me that I am loved when dysfunctional people in my life make me question that. But I’ve found that when I’m really dialed into my relationship with God that is where I see the most results because prayer is about preparation. Being consistent so when those big, scary emotions come I can remember God’s promises. Being present keeps my eyes fixed on Him and helps me feel His presence even though I cannot see Him in front of me.
Has it taken away the negative emotions completely? No, they still happen and I still get anxious and depressed but I don’t remain there. Like a rain storm there is a clear sky on the other side, the morning always follows the night.
I started writing poetry again back in December after a long hiatus, like maybe five years of turning away from it because of a friendship that I didn’t want to have creative competition in. That was a mistake because poetry, like journaling is an incredible way to walk your mind through your negative thoughts and process them through creating a work of art in words. Whenever my head feels too full with emotions and negative thoughts I pour them on to the page. I have specific notebook for this purpose and I say what I am feeling to my notebook.
I’ve done this as a way to get out of a loop of insomnia I was stuck in because of grief and it helped me digest the pain that was hovering in my mind so that I could move to the other side and back to a more balanced mind. Some poems I share and some are just kept for my own creative expression. It’s like Dumbledore’s Pensieve in Harry Potter. The memories, emotions, and negative thoughts are extracted on to the page where they can live and my mind can have some rest. Which is oh so nice for an over thinker like myself, who will continue to think until the wee hours of the night on problems there is no clear answer to.
Since I received my iPod nano in 2008, I have been a music escapist. I need my headphones and my music at the ready for trips, errands, social situations, etc. I crave that escape when the world feels like too much. I need music to carry me through what I’m feeling and get my emotions out.
I usually run to music when I’m feeling angry, fed up, or in pain. I will play it loud and let the beat and the bass overwhelm me in its world until the anger feels less explosive. I’ll run to music when I’m feeling scared and uncomfortable to distract and get my mind out of the loop its in. Music is motivating. My favorite go to songs when I feel like I’m going to explode from all the emotion inside and I’m feeling anger rise in me are LALALALA Rock Version by Stray Kids, Cover Me by Stray Kids, Bouncy (K-Hot Chili Peppers) by Ateez, Guerilla by Ateez, Haegeum by Suga, Kill this Love by Blackpink, or Drama by Aespa.
The other day I felt some unsolvable pain due to an increasingly dysfunctional relationship I have with a parent and I wanted to give into the temptation of destructive behavior. I wanted to drain my bank account with a shopping spree and get very drunk because I felt so helpless from this relationship ever getting better here on Earth. I was frustrated and wanted to feel pain because I was feeling angry and numb. Instead of doing something destructive, I decided to work out, and push my body though exercise to embrace the burn to feel something instead of hurting myself and my future. It worked!
I was motivated to lift weights longer, hold wall sits and planks longer, to push my leg muscles, my core, and my arms to higher reps. It was awesome and constructive instead of destructive but with the release of anger in a healthy way. I remember my Papa telling me that he would channel all the anger he had from his own dysfunctional parents on the football field and get the emotions out through the physicality of the game. It truly made a difference and I was able to no longer feel explosive after my workout because although the pain and negative thoughts were still hovering in the background, I felt like I was no longer trapped in my mind.
When I don’t know what to do with my mind, I make art. I get creative and let myself escape into a world of my own creation in order to get out of my own head and my swirling negative thoughts. Getting creative reminds me of what my purpose is and my calling and helps me to remember that there is more to life than the bad times. There is so much beauty beyond what I am currently stuck in, when I’m feeling low, that I need to carry on and make something beautiful. Get out of my own head and remember that I have worth, I have the ability to create beauty in this world, and I can do better than those around me who hurt me. Art is uplifting. Creating is nourishing. It channels the pain into something more than it started as, it becomes a touch point of connection with others and the world around us.
My favorite way to escape into art is to draw landscapes, flowers, animals, and the sky in the majesty of a sunset.
I was inspired to explore my feelings about this dream and nightmare from a YouTube video I watched by Electra Dashwood. You should check it out!
This Fashion Polly-esque playset-looking trunk may look cute and fantastical, but in my dream, it was full of pure nightmares. This dream sequence was so vivid I woke feeling like my life was falling apart, all because of this Pandora’s box. Definitely the effect of some stressful personal situations I had in my life at the time. I’ve been feeling waves of anxiety lately. Although I deeply disliked this trunk in my dream, in art form I wish I had this little gem to store my fabric because it is delightfully bright and vivid. This was drawn in chalk pastel in February 2024.
This was another odd dream, with my dad, whom I don’t often dream about because I honestly don’t have that many memories with him. After a big boundary breakthrough, I had this dream in which my dad would only communicate with me through watercolor clouds expressing his emotions about what I shared. This was such a cool dream because usually all my dad and I do if we have an emotional conversation, it is in anger and yelling. But this dream was delicate and uplifting. We communicated, and I wish this dream had been real life. The clouds were recreated in chalk pastel in December 2023.
A jolt of life. A bright, warm, hope!
Vast blue sky, a wash of cerulean lifts above my head.
All worries, fade. Care melts from my shoulders.
A hope for tomorrow! Truth breaks through the lies.
Darkness lasts for a moment but life springs forth
to sunshine’s embrace. A welcome friend.
You comfort my soul and invigorate my mind!
Welcome home, welcome back, bright, blue sky.
Rosy, golden haze breaks through the greige. Dark, lifeless sky.
I miss the sun on my pale, blue eyes.
The sun on my face? A vampire’s disgrace!
Winter is finally getting to me.
The wind has whipped, into the ether
and clouds slip, like a blip, and slide away into gray nothing monotone before I can comprehend.
I dream of snow. I dream of the sun. The crunch of cool.
November rain, December shadows, January freeze, this nightmare will not end.
Skipping stitches, a court of witches has taken my needle by storm.
Stretch knit slips. Stretch knit slips!?
Another scarred and tattered hem.
Gremlins in the machine? I think I’m going to steam!
From my face, the anger boiling in my heart…
Was this project doomed from the start?
When my husband and I first met, I claimed I hated Valentine’s Day and to be honest, I think it was more annoyance at the emptiness of this day. Valentine’s Day as a commercial commodity sucks. The heart-shaped everything, the push to have the perfect romantic moment, the jewelry ads, the lace, and beyond, it’s a lot. It seems fake.
As a teenager and into college, I was hoping for that perfect K-drama boyfriend to sweep me off my feet. A Mr. Darcy moment with all the intensity of a look or a hand flex. I liked being single until this day, like everyone else, and let societal traditions determine my worth on this day. Which honestly was quite dumb because I had better examples than this.
As a kid, living with my grandparents, I knew every Valentine’s Day morning Papa would wake up before us all and put cards on each of our breakfast plates – one for Grandma, one for my Mom, and one for me. This was important for me to see, I realize now, with my Dad out of the picture, it was wonderful to see how pure this expression of love was. He wanted all of us to feel loved and appreciated, and no one left out. Because his actions were driven by affection, each one of us was special to him in different ways, and by including all of us it made the day about love, in the fullest sense.
The tradition continued even after we moved out on our own, and eventually, as our extended family grew to become a whole family tradition where Grandma and Papa put together little gift bags for every person – all 18 of us! These little heartfoil bags had homemade cookies, homemade fudge, chocolate-covered pretzels, etc. It was adorable, even as a moody teenager, this little goody bag brought me a smile. It reminded me that even though I felt like a weirdo on Feb 14 for not having a boyfriend, as soon as I stepped foot in their house, it didn’t matter. That wasn’t the point of this day. I was loved, just as I was, and was special.
Elizabeth was wrong and Darcy was right, poetry is the food love. Especially if its origins are authentic and well-founded. Like my new tradition with my husband, a handmade card, and a bit of poetry. Now, I requested a handmade card when he asked me last year what I wanted for Valentine’s Day because he is an excellent handmade card maker. He has an intricate eye for stamping and paper crafting. What I didn’t expect but was pleasantly surprised by was his poem.
My husband doesn’t like to write poetry, I do. He has claimed he doesn’t understand it but he does, because he has a wonderful appreciation for song lyrics which to be honest are just another form of poetry.
Darcy: “I have been used to consider poetry as the food of love,”
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Elizabeth: “Of a fine, stout, healthy love it may. Everything nourishes what is strong already. But if it be only a slight, thin sort of inclination, I am convinced that one good sonnet will starve it entirely away.”
So when he surprised me last year with an original poem in my card, it gave me butterflies because it was a brilliant series of verses, tailored to our inside jokes. Of course, I asked for a sequel this year! And did he deliver! For my birthday, he dipped his toes in with an original haiku inspired by a tradition to close episodes of a certain show we adore – James May: Our Man in Japan.
The haiku was incredible in my opinion, it perfectly captured the essence of a moment which I believe is what haiku is about. I’m not talented with haikus, the syllable work has never meshed with my creative process, but my husband’s eye for detail shined in this form. Inside this year’s handmade gem of a card were four haikus! He truly outdid himself and in such a heartwarming way this new tradition reminds me of those delightful little valentines we used to exchange in elementary school.
According to C.S. Lewis in his book The Four Loves, there are four distinct types of love to express – Storge, Philia, Eros, and Agape.
When I first studied these in college, these four terms were not what I quite expected but they changed the way I see relationships, maturely and more healthily. Actually, learning about Philia helped me realize a crush I was stuck on wasn’t my love, he wasn’t even my friend, he was nothing. But a certain new guy, a new friend (my future husband) I already had philia with after a few months and eros was brewing.
What is my point in sharing this? Well, this day about love is quite narrow-minded in our culture, and my whole life I think the wiser people in my life have been trying to show me this. Now in my romantic relationship, I’m getting the opportunity to express many versions of the four loves. Ironic isn’t it?
This day of love should be more than just a day focused on eros, it has the foundation to build upon to be a day about extending agape love to others. What if this day was not about commercialism but supplying needs, filling the void of loneliness with random acts of kindness, and to the best of our ability expressing unconditional love to our friends and family? This could become a new favorite holiday for many of us!
Toss and turn.
Crash and hiss.
Waves break upon my mind’s own sigh.
I see distortion, of water in senseless motion.
I want to find an oasis,
the peace of pillow and sheets.
To rest and not wander.
Wondering whether I meant anything to you?
It’s rising in my mind.
Will I find a break in the tide?
Pondering my queue of regret, does 1:30’s Captain sail forward or back?
History wakes so I can’t sleep. Missing you.
The idea of you,
seems bigger than my eye shut.
But I’m a princess when you’re a pirate.
My sword, my cuts, sink our hope of steady winds.
Will I find a break from this tide?
I see distortion when words don’t take motion.
It’s bigger than the wind in the sails.
Hair in my eyes, hiding my hunger, my hunger to cut lines.
1:30’s Captain by the water of senseless fortune
I want an oasis!
The peace of pillow and sheets.
I miss you.
One Rabbit Riot 