Creative Every Day

Ding Dong Bell, Fell Down the Well

May 23rd, 2007

I was inspired by one of the Inspire me Thursday exercises from last Thursday to play in my art journal with the idea of dreams. I took a nightmare I had last night and pieced parts of it together here across two pages of the journal. Dreams are sometimes hard to remember in terms of sequence, partly because they're rarely logical and can freely skip around in the plot without worry about some film critic tearing it to shreds. So, here's the basics of the dream, which was very vivid: It took place in my childhood home (which we no longer own), but in present time. My sister was missing. She'd gone to get some water (I think the power was out because of a storm) and didn't come back. My mother and step-father went to look for her in a helicopter, so they could look into the forests around our home. I was on the street, running and yelling her name. I ran into the forest down a winding path and went to the water plant, (an imagined place) where I told the men there about my missing sister. And in one of the filter systems we found her baseball cap. I started crying, just bawling my eyes out. Flashes of calling my father, a funeral, feeling very angry and upset. But wait! She had rung the bell. Hadn't these men heard it? Perhaps she was still there! In the basement of our neighbor's home, the well had a bell attached to let people know if they fell down it. And she was barely holding on to the rope, helping to keep her above water, but alive. And I was so relieved. In the moments when I thought she was gone, I felt like I hadn't been as loving to her as I could have been and felt terribly. The dream ended happily anyways. My dreams are pretty wacky. I think that's why I'm tired a lot. I'm dreaming instead of really resting. I can't really shut it off though and sometimes my dreams have messages in them, sometimes bits of intuitive information, and sometimes inspiration for art. The fun thing about creating in an art journal, is the freedom to totally play without worry about needing it to serve some purpose. It's just for me. Play is so important. Go now, go play! Or keep reading a bit and then go play. Hehe.

Pink lotuses continue to show up everywhere, even in an ad for a fuel company. Ha! Perhaps they should appear in some art soon? I sketched last night for fun, all sorts of silly kitties. I've got a real silly kitty in my lap at the moment. Last night, I noticed that my kitty Emma has one claw that has curled and stuck into her paw. Poor baby! I couldn't get it out. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to be hurting her, but I was hoping to take her in to the vet today and noone is picking up the phone there. Garr. Not looking forward to that visit. She already hates the vet with a burning passion. He's such a nice vet too. He only sees cats and really cares about them, but my sweet, quiet, gentle Emma, who never made a fuss at any other vet, turns into a menace at this vet's office with howls and growls. Oy. This probably won't help things.

In other news here at the zoo, our anemone has reproduced by splitting itself in two! The fiansor was all freaked out about it at first, thinking something was wrong, but I had read about it before and explained that this is a natural process. So, now we have one anemone for each clown! Our little Nemo somehow made it into the filter again this morning (oy!), but I'm getting more skilled at retreiving him and it only took a couple minutes. I guess my temporary barrier has failed. Hopefully, in time he'll get too big for these escape acts.

Ok, you can go play now. Shoo!