Selfie of the Prairie Life

Someone asked me last week if I were a patron saint of something, what would it be? If I was a goddess, what would my domain of power be?

To me theses are separate questions entirely. I used to really admire Saint Theresa, my middle name sake, the saint of little things, of household tasks. I once did a huge pencil and acrylic art piece of St. Theresa in modern times, asleep on the floor, with yellow latex gloves, mid floor scrub. The judge in the art review paused in front of it for quite a long time, just looking at it. Whispered, "Interesting." and that was it. It didn't win, but to me as an artist, the pause, the moment that stopped the viewer? That was what it is all about to me.

That is how I feel with my writing as well. When someone reads a poem or a blog post and it stays with them, they think about it, they feel something. That is enough. That is art. That feeling. That feeling is why I keep coming back to the page and lens trying to capture it when I feel it, trying to keep the darkness from eating me up.

And today, a lovely amazing woman I know posted a challenge to us all to take more selfies, not less. Take more pictures of the mundane moments in our life, not less. It is not self centred. It is not narcissism. It is trying to capture and share who we are, our own histories, our own beautiful imperfect lives. This is a challenge I live every single day. Or I try to.

It is true that often I leave out the hardest or the ugliest parts of my own life and relationships, but when I can, I post the real moments, the raw ones. It is always a balance to tell our stories while respecting the relationships that dwell inside them. I can only tell my own narrative point of view. This means leaving out the conversations I have with my 10 year old about private struggles she is having about growing up, leaving out conflicts I have with family members over personal choices I make when sharing them would show them in a bad light. Because I love them. I am not a saint of anything, but I try really hard to respect relationships in our everyday lives. I let friends go gently when they ask to be released, I respect the silences that grow from conflict, I nurture the spark of understanding, and I try really hard to be my authentic self the whole time and not hold back who I am even if it makes people uncomfortable sometimes. We all have our own struggles and issues. I get that. When I can accept my own self, I can accept yours.

I am a prairie dweller now. An artist and a caretaker of the land.

And this is rambling. I suspect that forcing daily posts will sometimes produce more and more ramblings than I like, but there you are. This is my mind.

This is how I spent my Sunday afternoon:

 Paper dolls, angry birds, and frying up "circle eggs" for Isaac.

Holly decided to cut out and glue together her own name. It was actually too huge and fell apart, so she joined Lily on the couch to learn about volcanoes and octopus bio-camouflage.

Lily actually is still pretty weak from her bout of the flu in December. She was the first to fall with body aches, migraine, and fever. Then Chad and me. The two littlest had Influenza A in 2011 and so when they got sick, they had some natural immunity and they only fevered and coughed for about 2 days with no asthma incidents. Thank goodness.

Chad and I though? I was so very sick for a long time. Week three now and I still have lingering symptoms. I feel like I am on the mend though. I shall send out Christmas cards soon, maybe. Ha.

Sunday was also our anniversary. We had "not really" tacos. I went to bed really early with a headache.

When I woke up this morning though, I was thinking about the selfie and the domain power questions. Right now, my calling is to document our everyday histories. To share my story. These questions intertwine. I am the goddess of the mundane and the quiet moments, of beauty in the everyday and small things.

What is your calling? What will you be remembered for or what will you want to remember a year from now?