Little Wonders

from Unearthedcomics.com

Those who have chronic illnesses probably understand quite well when I say that one lives it 24/7.  It becomes an obsession, how one feels.  You monitor every little symptom and if something new comes along, you immediately think that something is terribly wrong.  The internet doesn't help - you can Google every symptom and find a host of causes, a lot of them terrifying.  And naturally you pick the absolute worse cause.

I'm no different, and of course it drives me nuts (well, I'm already nuts - it just pushes me further along).

When I'm feeling particularly out of sorts, as I have been recently, I try, I really try, to think about life's little pleasures, the things that feed me, that make me laugh.  (Yeah, this is going to be one of those 'uplifting' kinds of posts so feel free to exit now) 

I suppose the most constant source of amusement for me would be the feline contingent.  Junior and Maggie, even at their most annoying, are funny little creatures that constantly amaze me.  I have a large fan that sits on the floor of my parlor and Junior and I discovered during the summer that he can sit behind the fan and grab at Da Bird and pull it through an opening under the fan.  It's been several months and he still hasn't tired of the game.  And I don't dare put the fan away even though it's October.

Michele at a flea market we went to

Will, Cathy (seated),
Jan and I (red sweater)

Friends and family, as few as I have of them, keep me going.  They listen to me whine, they push me through barriers, and rejoice with me at small and large triumphs.  And I'm totally grateful for them - my brother & sister-in-law Will & Cathy, cousin Jan, and my friends Michele & Adam, Krista, Ricky, Lisa, Cynthia & Kay, Maude, Mama in Law Lucille and others - Thank You.

I am continually awed by the sunsets I see from my sixth floor window.  I don't see sunrises - I'm not usually up early enough.  I spent years in apartments surrounded by buildings that blocked full views of sunsets - now I revel in them.  My photos aren't that great but who cares?  They still make me smile.

Music is one of the things I don't think I could really live without.  Whether it's Beethoven, which I'm listening to right now, or the 2014 80's Rewind Festival I saw earlier on VH1, or Cajun, bluegrass, Arabic, Pink Floyd, and so on and so on, my tastes are wide ranging.  

Buckingham Palace scene in
"A Scandal in Belgravia", "Sherlock"

I'm also getting some joy out of current TV obsessions, whether it's slowly getting through full seasons of "Midsomer Murders" on Netflix (an English series), "Nova" or "Secrets of the Dead" on PBS, or something I became obsessed with this summer - "Sherlock."  Yes indeed.  Sherlock.  I admit it - if I need to calm down after a particularly difficult day I will watch a scene from "Sherlock" on Youtube.  




Then there's the flowers - those who read this blog regularly have seen me post about the flowers I see when I'm walking.  And trees.  Especially a tree on the Butler Hospital campus in Providence that looks to me like two trees intertwined.  




And, oh, the silly things.  Art by Ricky Gagnon, cartoons by Greg Stones, and bright pink minivans in the parking lot of a local supermarket.  Cross-dressing lumberjacks and silly walks.  Puns and nerdy jokes.  Wacky posts about animals from Cynthia, Ricky, and others on FB. Funny magnets from an Etsy shop called Beanforest.  Stupid memes shared on Facebook.

  I could go on for hours but that would be boring, I'm sure.  

And I haven't even gotten to the thing that gets me through most days - making art.  When I've talked to others who also deal with severe mental illness, most are surprised that even in the midst of severe episodes I'm able to make art.  After all, they say, "I can't even get out of bed when I'm bad."  

There are times when that's really where I want to be--in bed, or somewhere else, hiding from the world.  And it truly is often a struggle to stay out of bed or stay off the couch watching TV just to occupy time. Making art, or preparing things for pieces (such as cutting out images, making backgrounds, sorting papers), gives me a reason to keep going these days, as it has since I lost my job because of my illness 4 1/2 years ago.

I'm sure that it's one of the major reasons I'm still alive, quite frankly.

I try to maintain as positive an attitude as I can, which lately has been quite difficult.  That's one of the reasons I decided to pull together an "uplifting," "saccharinely sweet," "inspirational" blog post.  Perhaps numbering the good things in my life instead of obsessing over the bad might help for a little while.

We'll see.

later,
lin