I’ve been busy again ….

I am humbly aware that my blogging posts have become ever rarer in recent weeks. Suffice it to say that life has been one crisis after another, and I shall consider writing about some of the stuff that has been going on when I feel like sharing.

Once upon a time, in the days pre-meltdown, before all this incredibly confusing, mood swinging, personality changing, psych tip-toeing, multi-agency lip serving bullcrap succeeded in pounding my mind into mush … I used to sit with my son as he lay in bed, and made up stories about Bert, an itchy-footed Penguin that travelled about the earth living one crazy adventure after another.  Since I went off work on sick leave, I vowed to immortalise Bert in the written form, and have made sporadic efforts to do so. I’ve even signed up for NaNoWriMo (the challenge to write 50,000 words in 30 days) twice. But I struggle so much with the written word lately (as this blog lays testament). I want to get the words down, but something stands in their way: apathy, irritation, fatigue, sadness, who knows what?

In the absence of literary distractions, I have had to find some other way to redirect my mind when all else seems to be falling apart around me. During an attempt to clean out the junkyard of a storeroom in my cellar, I came across a veritable treasure trove of materials hoarded over several years. Perhaps it’s the nature of this illness, but I have a history of ebbing and flowing with creative ideas. Every now and then I develop an overwhelming desire to do something creative, accompanied by an equally overwhelming need to go out and buy all the materials needed for the task. Then, as a general standard, the wind changes and I fall out of the creative mood as quickly as I fell into it, and the stuff never gets touched. As a result, my storeroom is bulging with boxes and boxes of old crockery bought as job lots from auctions, bargain barrels of tiles, grout, adhesive, tile nippers, tools. Hundreds of cross stitching magazines. Three black dustbin bags full of patterned cloths. Another bag full of knitting wools. Paints, papers, and pallets. You name it, it’s down there.

Last week – finally – I found the energy to actually start making a mosaic. A large tree stump slice had been standing up against the wall in my garden for years. In an effort to recycle a few more bits in the garden, I attempted to make it into a “table” but I wasn’t happy with the natural look. So I got out the hammer and some old tiles, and just began smashing and sticking. The shape of the wood and the way it had been cut lent itself to a sweeping type of pattern – and it was just natural to do the whole rainbow thing.

Personally, I’m pretty pleased with the final product – but more than that, I’m pleased I completed something.

© Alice through the Macro Lens [2012]