Looking back at our shadow selves ...

Today's post is a page from the Time Traveler book I contributed to the Sketchbook Project back in 2012. I was thinking the other day about how long an idea can stay with you before it finally surfaces in the form of art and/or writing.

The first time I thought about shadow selves was about 30 years ago ... my 22-year-old self was having lunch with a group of friends in a hotel restaurant in the town I grew up in, but where I hadn't lived since I was 12. We'd driven 125 miles, from the town we all currently lived in, to consider renting a house together in this new location, and I hadn't told anyone that I'd once lived here.

Through the restaurant window I could see the elementary school my 8-year-old self had attended. Since it was lunch time, the school field was alive with active, noisy children playing games that probably hadn't changed much since I'd been out on that field myself. It was like looking back in time, and what came to mind was a particular sports day when (not being athletic) my 8-year-old self volunteered to help the teachers organizing and handing out ribbons and water and bandaids. I remembered the day very well, and at lunch time on that day, I'd been sitting at a table putting ribbons in order, facing the very restaurant my 22-year-old self would someday be sitting in.

And if that wasn't odd enough, my 12-year-old self had taken music lessons in one of the hotel meeting rooms, so now there were three of my shadow selves, all within easy reach of each other. Even at 22, my awareness of this overlapping of shadow selves made an impression on me.

The second time I thought about shadow selves was while traveling in New Brunswick in my mid-30's. I'd made a trip back east to meet my parents' families, and at one point was traveling by bus from one small town to another. I was dropped off at the pickup point (a gas station) to wait for a bus that might be along in anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. It was a pleasant sunny day, and the gas station had provided a comfy, sheltered bench outside for waiting passengers. I did what I always do in times like these ~ I took out my journal. I started writing about the people and places I'd seen so far, and a half hour later the bus came and I got on board. If there's one thing I learned 'back east', it's that hurry is not in the vocabulary. The bus was not in a hurry to get on the road ~ we were there for at least another half hour. In that time, other people arrived and boarded, and I continued writing. From my seat in the bus I could see the bench I'd been waiting on, and I saw myself there, on the bench writing, and I was now, on the bus writing. I was thinking how unlikely it was that I was there at all (so far from home in BC) about how insubstantial all these past selves are, and since I was writing, I wrote about it, mentioning not only that current experience, but looking back on my 22-year-old awareness of it as well.

Fast forward another 20 years, and in my journal I'm making page after page of notes for the Time Traveler project, realizing we all travel in time, we just do it one day at a time. And in every second we leave ghost imprints of ourselves wherever we go. I was thinking about this: where are we most solid and what does this tell us about ourselves? What can we learn from where my shadow selves have been? Can we go back there and relive our experiences in other times? Of course we can ...

True dat ...

Just back from another creative weekend with some of my favourite people on the planet ~ my art journalling group. We've been meeting a couple of times a year for about 4 years now, and when we began I struggled with the art journal form. Sure I love books, love making them, love writing in them, and can't help arting up the pages, but it seemed to me that everyone else's journals were so much more art journally than mine. I longed to be able to see the colour, pattern and texture of the images I was using without feeling bound to use the image for what it was, a boat as a boat, for instance, instead of upside down and turned into a person's leg. On this trip I edged closer to having that experience, but obviously not on the journal page above.

"Time is the thing you can't get back" has been running through my head for weeks now, and it came together on this page with some nice 1950/60's-ish images from a magazine and a school textbook. This page is from La Musee d'une Vie Inventee (Museum of an Invented Life), a journal I made at another of our retreats, as I posted here. It sat empty for quite a long time until I figured out how to tell the story of an invented life.

It isn't my life exactly, but since my life is the only one I know intimately, then it's probably closer to mine than anybody else I know. Each page reveals something about an unspecified woman ... where she lives, how she sees things, bits and pieces of her memory and the experiences that made her who she is. Like me, but not exactly me, which turns out to be a comfortable balance point somewhere between fact and fiction. At a Q&A after a book interview I heard Margaret Atwood say proclaiming your book to be 'non-fiction' brings out the obsessive fact-checkers. She said every true story contains some fiction, and every made-up story contains some fact, and it's more interesting to have people think you've cleverly hid some truth of yourself in your fiction than having them distracted from the story by the search for false facts.

Time is indeed the thing you can't get back, not only that we can't get back to childhood, but also that wasted time is wasted time, and can't be bought or bargained back at any price, so it's important to use the time we have wisely. True dat fo real.

Back in the saddle ...

You may (or may not) have noticed I haven't blogged in awhile. Not sure why ... just got busy with life ... and it was sort of a "last thing in, first thing out" kinda deal and blogging was the thing that got neglected. I didn't stop making art or anything ... I just didn't blog about it. But recently I've been feeling the itch to share what I've been up to, so thought I'd start today while it's snowing outside (what? how did *that* happen?).

So I won't talk much and I'll just get on with sharing artwork I've made in the last 6 months. Yep ... it really  was six months ... in the words of Pink Floyd .. is there anybody out there?

Today's collage was something from a little retreat I attended last October. We had a short amount of time, limited materials, and a specific writing exercise which preceded making the collage. Which obviously worked for me since this little gem emerged very intuitively. It's way simpler than my usual collages - funny how putting a limit on time and materials can force you to be creative in new and rewarding ways. This one was made with only 3 items: a sheet of 70's stationery (aqua ovals), a page from a magazine (girl + title) and a postcard of Italian doorknockers. I used the symmetry of the photograph as my cue for the composition, and also balanced the ovals in the stationery on the top with the ovalness of the doorknockers on the bottom. But I think my favourite bit is the single golden doorknocker which forms a halo over her head.

I enjoy writing exercises but lack the self-discipline to make myself do them on my own, which is why I love  art retreats, collaborating with others, taking art classes and joining time-limited projects where I expect myself to produce something worth sharing at the end. Whether it's a brief time of contemplation, writing and collage (as this one was) or multiple months with the Sketchbook Project, give me an external deadline, a direction to head into and I *will* create something I wouldn't have created on my own, and probably surprise myself with some kind of useful insight to boot.

I Think I'll Go As a Dysfunctional Childhood ...

Hallowe'en is nearly upon us. For me it's perfectly fitting that the holiday season begins with a fright-based event, because as near as I can tell, from now till New Year's Day western civilization takes collective leave of its senses and I get more and more bewildered/annoyed by it every year.

Lest you think I'm just some ordinary run-of-the-mill Grinch, I should explain that I grew up without holidays (my parents' religion forbade them). And I'm an oldest child. And we were poor. So there I am in the weird three-way overlap of this particular Venn diagram where the collective effect has been to put me out-of-step with the forces behind every holiday from here till Christmas.

I *try* to like them. I mean, who can't get on board with a little cutting loose (Hallowe'en), a little giving and receiving (Christmas) and whatever it is we're supposed to feel on Remembrance Day (every person I ask has a different answer to this one). I suppose I'll continue to struggle with how to fit into these events as life goes on, but over the years I've pretty much come to terms with being baseline out-of-sorts till January 1st.

Each holiday affects me slightly differently, depending on what's expected of the participants.

Hallowe'en, for example, encourages people to misbehave, to let their inner goblins out, and (depending on your age), also to a) take candy from strangers, b) scare the crap out of your friends, c) get drunk while you think you're *actually* superman (or the devil, or giant dice, or whatever you've decided to be for the night). The thing is, I'm all for creativity and intellectually I understand the need for ritual, rule-breaking and not being yourself from time to time. But the oldest child in me just wants to look deeply into everyone's eyes as they go out the door, hold them firmly by the shoulders and say something like: "You be careful out there." In my head I'm also adding: " ... and I'll just stay home with the lights off till the night is over."

What I actually *do* at Hallowe'en is volunteer at the little railway, where for 3 hours we give miniature train rides to over 1000 (mostly little) people in (hopefully) warm, waterproof costumes. My job consists of hanging out in the clubhouse with all the other *ladies* handing out free cookies and desperately needed hot chocolate as the trains unload their very cold and/or waterlogged passengers. So it's not like I'm hiding at home - I am out there! Confronting my fears! But also, like the good sensible oldest child I am, I am staying warm and dry and looking deeply into their eyes while I hand them their hot chocolate and thinking: See? That wasn't so bad, was it?.

So, in the spirit of Hallowe'en and dyfunctional childhoods everywhere, the lovely cartoon above is by Lynda Barry AKA the Near-Sighted Monkey, who has taught me in the most wonderful way, that it's possible to have your heart broken and healed at the same time.

Wherein a dog will steal your heart ...

Recently I've been enthralled by my friend Holly's story about finding a stray dog. Her story reminded me of George, a best-loved dog from my own childhood. I don't even know if I own a picture of George, but he looked very much like this ~ right down to the knowing eyes.

George came to our family in a most unusual way. At the time we lived in the back of beyond, a remote house on a remote road, without running water or electricity. My Dad had gone out to buy us a wood-burning cookstove. I was never clear where he bought it ~ he knew a man who knew a man who had a stove for sale, that sort of thing.

When it arrived, it was sadly in need of a cleaning and had probably been stored outdoors. While it was still on the back of the truck, my Dad opened up the oven and out popped a very frightened puppy ~ who skedaddled right off the truck and headed for the hills. What I recall of that day was my family wandering along the road and through the bush calling "Puppy! Puppy!" until it got too dark to see and we were in danger of getting lost ourselves. That night, as we talked and read around the kerosene lamps, we were all pretty solemn, thinking of that little puppy ~ cold, frightened and hungry ~ and knowing there wasn't even the remotest chance that anyone else would find him, and worse: that he might wind up as a bear's dinner.

But - happy day! The next morning on our way out to the woodpile, there he was ~ shivering with cold and hunger, still very frightened but having found his way back to us, willing to give us the very slimmest benefit of a doubt that we were better than the wild wild woods.

The first order of business was a name. My Mom said call him whatever we wanted, as long as it was anything but George. None of us could come up with anything that seemed to suit him, and for the first few days we called him Anything But George. Eventually (of course!) it just got shortened to George (sorry, Mom). Wherever he came from, he'd obviously been treated very badly. He crept along the walls in the house and whenever my Mom picked up the broom to sweep the floor he'd pee in fright. Making Jiffypop popcorn would drive him into a frenzy of fear, and he'd have to be put in a "safe" room. But, being a puppy, and surrounded by four kids who were like *so thrilled* to have a puppy, we gradually won him over.

Nobody really knew what sort of dog he was. From the knees up, he looked very much like a Border Collie, but his legs were so impossibly short that it's hard to imagine him herding anything but mice. With such short legs he couldn't run, so he "bounced". And I don't mean that figuratively ~ he actually moved like a springbok ~ he could bounce at least three times his own height. I remember he used to meet us at the school bus in the winter by bouncing OVER the snowbanks. The other kids would all gather on one side of the bus just to watch this crazy dog come to meet us. He also had an unusually large plume of a tail that cleared off the coffee table if he happened to walk past it while wagging happily.

If anything in my young life taught me how deep devotion can go, it was George. He followed us everywhere and was possibly the sweetest animal I've even known. He did this weird verbalization thing ~ sort of yawning and gurgling and nodding ~ like a baby might before it has words. Late one night after attending a concert, my brother and I were trying to sneak quietly into the house so as not wake anyone ~ but no dice, there was George at the top of the stairs, loudly "saying" how happy he was that we were home, and the more we giggled and told him to stop, the more happy, verbal and loud he got. Since mostly we lived in remote places, he'd grown up without other dogs to show him how to be a dog, so I think he thought he was one of us. He sat on the couch like we did (back straight, feet out), and got pretty miffed if he was left out of a treat that all the *other kids* were getting.

We always thought he was incapable of barking until we moved into a little neighbourhood that had three (count'em THREE houses!) and each house had a dog. One night at dinner we could hear a dog barking. It wasn't the deep voice of the German Shepherd in the house west of us, and it wasn't the soft yap of the little dog east of us ~ it was our very own George, who'd finally found his doggie voice ~ we all ran outside to see if he was okay, and he seemed as surprised as we were to find him barking. I was so darn proud of him in that moment, and even though we'd had him for years and loved away all the memories of how badly his life started, I felt like this was the moment he'd finally become "his own dog".

George was an important part of our family, but eventually I did what all children do ~ left home and started a life of my own. George was always happy to see me when I visited, and the other *kids* too, as they moved on. At the end of his life, he was quite infirm, and eventually in great pain. My parents sadly did the decent thing even though it broke their hearts, I'm sure. He lived a grand old life, adored by all of us, and he was, as far as I'm concerned, irreplaceable.