I Know It Sounds Crazy (Or: It Only Sounds Crazy Because It Is)

I didn't write on Friday or Saturday because on Friday night Dave and I drove up to Chama to meet up with my mom and aunt. And very early Saturday morning, we drove back from Chama because I wasn't feeling well.

We were supposed to have taken the Cumbres-Toltec train on Saturday, but didn't. (They did, but only half-way because my little cousin got sick, too.)

I came home, made a few calls, then got into bed and slept for a long time.  I got up and had an Itsa combo for lunch, then lay back down. In the evening, Dave and I went out to the craft store and picked up some new sketch books, a pack of gelatos, some stencils, and a bottle of Glossy Accents. Mostly, I just needed some new sketchbooks since my old one (which I use as a sketchbook and journal) ran out about a week and a half ago.

On the way home, we stopped at Whole Foods and loaded up on proteinaceous foods and snacks. And chips. And chocolate. We probably shouldn't shop when we're hungry, but we do anyway.

When we got home, we put everything away then I sat on the bed and wrote for a long time and drew, too. It's something I need to do; It's like being without my hands when I'm not making something. Why have hands if you're not using them to create?

When I was in the throws of my worst depressions in the past, one of the things I feared doing was cutting off my own fingers. I mean, I literally feared that I would not be able to stop myself from using garden shears and removing my own fingers. At the time, it was a very real thing. I couldn't see the symbolism behind it, couldn't see that I was trying to tell myself that the real harm was that I wasn't using my fingers to make or create anything. It was worse than being mute. I was actively harming myself by not creating. (This is why doing any kind of creative thing--making pottery, making jewelry, drawing, painting--will pull me out of a depression.) So when I go even a week and a half without using my hands in that way, it's deadening.

After writing for awhile I got online and ordered a book, The Hungry Thing by Jan Slepian, that I used to love when I was a child. I haven't laid eyes on it since I was about six years old and I can't wait to meet up with this old friend again.

It was very late before I had dinner. For my dinner, I had a couple of cube steaks cooked medium rare and some leftover stir-fried vegetables, mostly broccoli and cauliflower. Dave had some watermelon and then made himself some Quorn nuggets and maybe some veggies? I don't know. I was already back in bed by the time he had his dinner.

I slept for a few more hours, then woke up around 4:45. I read for a bit in bed before getting up to take my morning meds. While I waited the requisite hour until I could have breakfast, I hauled out my crayons and one of my coloring books and colored.

Lynda Barry, my all-time favorite cartoonist, is teaching a class at UW Madison (has for several years) and one of the homework assignments she gives to her class is to color. They bring crayons and she gives them pages from kids coloring books and asks them to spend at least an hour coloring each page, laying down the crayon as thick as they can. (The results are amazing.) This year, she asked them to color each page in a different place, one in public, one in private while listening to music or the TV, one with friends. Then she asks them to write about each experience.  This morning, I just sat on the bed and colored and talked with one of the many little girls that I carry around inside me. Turns out that we like a lot of the same things.