My State of Mind




Each morning my goal is to have a beautiful day.  I remind myself that I am the one that makes my day a good one.  Most of the time I am successful. 

This past month my ‘having a beautiful day’ system had a stress test.  A good friend died and in supporting his wife (also a good friend) a lot of memories surfaced from 14 years ago when my husband, my best friend, died and I worked through the grief.   

A few years later I met Peter who became my ‘significant other’ (surely there is a better term!).  We’ve been together for 11 years.  I was surprised when I started feeling depressed following my friend’s death.  I expected to be sad – not depressed.   Staying positive, happy and focused on the good around me became difficult.  It took a few days for me to understand why I felt the way I did.   I needed to remind myself of a piece I wrote 5 years after my husband died.  It is still true for me.

My Multi-Faceted Box
By Linda Britt
It’s there-all the time.  This multi-sided box, tumbling in my mind, sometimes invisible and sometimes so large that there is nothing else.  It is sensitive to any temperature with clear panels that change size and color and opacity with an ever-revolving code that I cannot find and cannot control.  Pictures appear and trigger memories – some welcomed and some not, some long forgotten and some very sacred-never to be lost – that feel like they are slipping away.  And yet, I know they are captured.   But can I find the ones I want when I want them?
After five years of becoming very familiar with this multi-sided container of mine, I know that it will never go away.  I will continue living as I learn to accept the places it occupies.  My box holds fragments of living and dying and it is mine.  I cannot give it away.  I cannot run far enough to lose it.  I learn to look at it, experience it, put it away and know that without warning it will pop up to surprise me, annoy me, sadden me, and bring me joy.  It is now part of me just like my ability to continue to love and greet each day.
This week I’m focusing outward rather than inward, trying new techniques in clay, walking up and down hills, working out in the gym, paying attention to the ones I love and when the sadness starts to creep in I reach for happy memories and keep busy. 

The point of sharing this is to acknowledge that grieving is not a valve that can be turn off after a certain amount of time.  Each of us grieves differently and it can last a long time.  Accepting my process while moving forward takes some strength.

Next week I’ll share some new jewelry pieces that came from this process and be back to my ‘normal’ self with some new creations!  
Labels:
Location: Prescott, AZ, USA

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I began to really understand the technique of viking knit.  Loo
Read more

Spring Do-Over Challenge

Image
Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pair of earrings.  One pair could be part of
Read more

The Draw of the Mojave Desert or Why I Started Designing Jewelry

Image
When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He
Read more