Sometimes when answers can’t be found – questioning is a good alternative … like why is a BOy suppose to have all the answers anyway? Who’s a BOy to turn to when he’s not sure what to do or where to go? How’s a BOy suppose to live up to all these BIG expectations? What if a BOy can’t? Doesn’t want to? Doesn’t think he can? Doesn’t believe he’s good enough? And what if he doesn’t want to be like all the other BOys? If he doesn’t fit in – then where’s a BOy belong? And if a BOy can’t stop the trees from falling and the ice from melting- what then? What if a BOy doesn’t have answers to these questions – doesn’t that mean he’s not as alone as he thinks he is?
(BOy Series, Clunk & Jam book, 2019)
Butterfly Tears .
She imagined her tears as butterflies on strings, knowing that to truly transform the sad, she had to rise up on her own steam and snip them forever free. Not that they went away forever. Just so they could gently move and hover – not spin and crush.
(Reposted from 2011. Find her in Clunk & Jam book, 2019.)
Forever waiting.
Every time she thought she’d nearly got there, down came disappointment. All this waiting and wanting was getting her nowhere. So she decided to break the chains of waiting with a fierce determination to be a more grown up, independently mobile, self directed and time saving type.
(Reposted from 2011. Find her in Clunk & Jam book, 2019.)
Sometimes things aren’t as hard as you think.
(Picture 2, from book ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ by Jonathan Swift, 1726. Lithograph by Edward Bawd. )
(Clunk & Jam book.)
Am I not pretty enough?
Ring-a-ring-a-Rosie found herself, yet again, in another ‘plonk’. So she wrote herself a small consoling note and tucked it into her not so frilly sock. With this minor act of strange defiance, she farewelled the want for endless trouble free relationships and confirming admiration. And although she didn’t know it yet, it would be her greatest step towards an ever after, not entirely based on happiness but of creating for herself a solid sense of place. And one that suited her socially shy and solitary self.
(Reposted from 2011. Find her in Clunk & Jam book.)
A Stitch In Time .
I’m all broken – they can’t see. So I must save myself from me. I cross my heart, dry my eyes and swear I’ll never wish to die.
Bad things taught her that suffering would stop the hurt from hurting so much. And so a tug of war of hurts began. The more she hurt, the more she hurt herself. Until one day, in the long loss of her own battle, she beat herself so hard she lost her own battle – she surrendered. It was in the surrender that she discovered personal victory came, not from beating the hurting, but from mending her neglected SELF.
Footnote: Looking at this ink holding her doll by the hair, you can’t but feel the want to put a loving arm around her shoulder and ‘take her in’. Take better care of her. The doll could also suggest the importance of separating the ‘wrongs’ from ourselves – particularly the wrongs done to us by others. We must endeavor to be the keepers and minders of our selves. As tough and daunting a responsibility that can be, winning your own battle is ultimately the most liberating.
(Reposted from 2009. Originally in ‘Rock The Boat’ handmade book. Now in Clunk & Jam, 2019 book)
