Quarantine

I assume you all know what this word means, but because I like to begin blog posts with a dictionary definition, I'll give you one:

Quarantine: a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have arrived from elsewhere or been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed.

Yep yep. If you've been exposed to an infectious disease you spend some time in isolation. At this point we're assuming we all have been exposed so we're all isolating. But look at the word again: Quarantine.

What does the word mean? Where does it come from? Well, it's an Italian word and it literally means forty days.

We all know that a quarantine can last more or less time than that, but I think it's interesting that the word literally means 40 days.

And I don't know about you, but when I hear 40 days my mind jumps immediately to the Lord's time in the wilderness.

That by "forty days and nights" is signified the duration of temptation, is plainly evident from the Word of the Lord. That "forty" signifies the duration of temptation, comes from the fact that the Lord suffered Himself to be tempted for forty days (as is stated in Matthew 4:1, 2; Luke 4:2; Mark 1:13). (Arcana Coelestia 730)

The new testament doesn't actually tell us that much about the Lord's time in the wilderness, other than the few verses about the devil tempting him, but we know much more about the Lord's trials throughout the whole old testament.

That while He was in the world the Lord endured such temptations, is only briefly described in the Gospels, but at great length in the prophets, and especially in the Psalms of David. In the Gospels it is only said that He was led into the wilderness, and was afterward tempted by the devil, and that He was there forty days, and was with the beasts (Mark 1:12, 13; Matt. 4:1)

And of course there are other times the Word mentions 40 days or even years! Here are just a few:

Moses was upon Mount Sinai forty days and forty nights, during which he ate no bread and drank no water (Exod. 24:18; 34:28; Deut. 9:9, 11, 18, 25).

Jehovah bare them in the wilderness as a man beareth his son, in the way, even unto this place (Deut. 1:31).

Jehovah hath known thy walking through the great wilderness these forty years, Jehovah thy God hath been with thee that thou lackedst nothing (Deut. 2:7).

And thou shalt remember all of the way in which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, in order to afflict thee, and to tempt thee, to know what was in thy heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or not. And He afflicted thee, and caused thee to hunger, and caused thee to eat the manna, which thou knewest not, and thy fathers knew not; so that He might make thee to know that | man does not live on bread alone, but on all that goes out of the mouth of Jehovah does man live. (Deuteronomy 8:2-3)

 He fed thee with manna; to afflict thee, to tempt thee, and to do thee good at the last (Deut. 8:16).

It's rough for sure, but there is beauty in it. You gotta admit that the Lord's got this. At times it doesn't feel like it, but He's dealt with this before. He's dealt with everything before. We're wandering in the wilderness, but He will bring us out of it, as He does time and time again.

And God led the people about, by the way of the wilderness. That this signifies that under the Divine auspices they were brought to confirm the truths and goods of faith through temptations, is evident from the signification of "God led," as being Providence (AC 8098)

I'd also like to point out that a lot of these instances mention fasting. I don't think we need to give up food, but the infrequent grocery store trips, and un-stocked shelves can lead to shortages, and I think we can take those times as a kind of fasting, rather than being frustrated by the lack.

I think we all gave up a lot more than we intended to for Lent this year. But we can use that to our advantage. Make it a choice rather than being victimized by our circumstances. I know it's hard. But I also know that we can get through this, especially together, and most importantly because the Lord is on our side.

Continual victory is signified by its being said that after the temptations, "angels came and ministered unto Him" (Matt. 4:11; Mark 1:13).

The Lord from His earliest childhood up to the last hour of His life in the world, was assaulted by all the hells, against which He continually fought, and subjugated and overcame them, and this solely from love toward the whole human race. (AC 1690:3)

Done = Art

I am hiding. Hiding from ideas. Hiding from writing. You might see me posting daily paintings and that might look like I'm doing something and not being afraid. But I am still just as afraid as I was yesterday. But when I decide to do something, I do it. If I say that I'm going to post a painting a day, I'll post a painting a day, even if I hate the painting. I should probably have a blog month too, where I have to post every day even if it's terrible.

Everything feels terrible. That's not even the slightest bit true. I actually love life so much right now. It is cold and rainy. Positivity weather for me. I love it! I have a new job. It's an adjustment to my life but I love that too. Everything is pretty fantastic so why did I say it feels terrible?

Because no matter how much I am loving life I still think that my writing and painting is no good. Which is just ridiculous. Because guess what, I am painting and I wasn't before. That is good. I am writing. I wasn't before. That is good. My paintings today are not Monet or van Gogh. But they are mine and they are better than they were a year ago. And they are better than nothing.

The paintings are mine and I take great joy and pride in my paintings. Let me tell you something, I love paint! I love the way it feels when I get it on my hands. I love watching something fluid go smoothly on and how it layers and dries.

But I hide from all of these joys because I am not yet da Vinci. It is scary to share mediocre work and pretend that it is good. But I have to remember that it is not pretending. Of course it's not master work. But it is work. And I love it. I care a lot that other people like it too, but I am trying to not value my paintings on the amount of likes they get. I am allowed to love a painting that got 3 likes even if another got 53. I am allowed to love my work and that is not vanity.

People talk about artists gifts. They call certain artists "gifted."

But I have another secret for you, it is true that some things come more naturally to some than to others, but sometimes to call what someone does "a gift" negates the hours of work they put in to get to that level. The artists true gift is the gift of perseverance. Not giving up even when they feel blocked and uninspired.

And that is the gift that I am struggling with. I may not be a gifted writer or a gifted painter, but the Lord gave me perseverance and dedication. I can be pretty bad at motivating myself, but if I set myself a task I will do it. Which is why I often set myself small tasks, because they are attainable. I can't set myself a task that I might not be able to achieve, not because I'm a perfectionist but because I have to believe it is doable. Setting a goal of a painting a day is achievable because I can put a splat of paint on a canvas and call it done. Done = Art.

But if I set myself the goal of becoming something, or achieving some level of skill then I don't know that I can do that and I will stop before I begin. Art is attainable. Writing is attainable. It doesn't have to be good; it has to be done.

"I will take care of the quantity; He will take care of the quality." - Julia Cameron

Something Is Missing

I feel like my poetic writing is dead. I used to be able to wax poetic about my surroundings and the smell of the air and... I'm stuck looking around for the right word but nothing follows that 'and'.

It is like the words have gone away. There are no words to grasp. They have run away from me and then won't let themselves be captured by my pen. The words are free. But not freely flowing on to my paper. Free to run away. Free to roam the world, not confined to the page anymore. But because of this flight my pages remain blank and unloved.

What remains is an empty sorrow. It is hollow and alone. Colors. Colors might still present themselves to me in a vivid array of madness.

The words contain no order. No sense rests within them unless it be a sense of unease.

Something is missing. It's not just the words that have run away. Something is missing.

Do you hear the silence? Birds are chirping, the wind is stirring the trees, a mechanical whirring sound. But the silence is profound. Months of death. The words aren't escaping into their ownness. They are dying. They are dying from their lack. They have no where to go and no one to walk beside. They sit in the land of no use awaiting the return. But they sit in solitude not knowing their neighbors. Not knowing what to do, because a word alone can't make sense without the other pieces around it. It might have the best location of all but with no neighbors to love, it lives a meaningless life of solitude. But alone it sits. Waiting for the life to breathe into it.

Waiting for the breath of lives.

How To Deal With A Difficult Nalison: a useless instruction manual.

Sometimes I'm afraid of admitting a solution to something for fear that someone will throw it in my face when all I want to do is complain.

I probably complain too much, but sometimes you gotta vent. And I when I want to vent I'm not looking for solutions. I'm not looking for advice, I just want to be acknowledged. I want someone to realize that I'm having a tough time.

I have a lot of nieces, so you won't know who I'm talking about. But recently one of my nieces was worrying about her alarm not going off, not waking up in time, not being ready and she was concerned.

It was obvious to any adult that these were not as life threatening as she thought them. An adult can recognize that she was tired and just needed to go to sleep and everything would be better. Said child was reassured that it was going to be okay. They would wake her up. She wouldn't miss anything. Nothing that awful was going to happen. But she was sure the world was ending.

But you know what? I so relate. I am a little older than my niece. While others might recognize sooner than I what my problem is, I often recognize it too. But I don't want to admit it.

I start feeling sullen and upset and I realize that I didn't eat breakfast, or lunch. I am hangry. Someone else might realize this, but a wise person would not suggest "Hey, Alison, when was the last time you ate something?" because they might get their fingers bitten off.

I was sick for the second half of December until nowish. Still recovering. Been so exhausted and had no energy to do anything. Not moving, not doing anything is a perfect recipe for feeling like utter crap. Physically and emotionally.

A smart person might realize that I need to get out on a walk, or listen to music, or any number of things. A wise person would not suggest this for fear of getting yelled at.

So, if a Nalison is being difficult, what IS the proper procedure?

Well, if I told you, you'd probably suggest it to me when I was upset and then I'd be furious at you and then I'd just feel worse for being mad and for snapping at you.

Sometimes I need food, sometimes I need music, sometimes I need walks and dancing, and I always need hugs. I want to feel heard. I want my feelings listened to, not dismissed.


This blog post has probably come across as a whiny self-serving post, and it probably isn't even serving me that well. Cause you know what? When you friend is being a jerk you DO just want to say "Shut up and get over yourself!" When your child is crying over spilled milk, or faulty alarm clocks, you are fairly justified in telling them that they don't get to whine about it. I'm not criticizing the parent who tells their kid to get over something trivial.

I think that my point is that even if you can see that something is trivial, it doesn't feel trivial in the moment, to the child or to the thirty year old woman.

You Say Tomato

You say tomayto. I say tomaHto.

I don't know the origin of this phrase nor do I care to look it up.

But I was thinking about it in church this morning. No, it really didn't have anything to do with the sermon, but nevertheless this is what was on my mind.

In this world we seem to emphasize the differences. I don't want to get into politics, but it seems that parties seem to spend all their energy talking about how much better and different they are from the other side and we become more and more polarized.

This spreads to so many areas of life. I find myself guilty of this too. Sometimes I want to be contrary. And sometimes it's not a desire to be contrary, but a desire to stand up for something I care about and so I want to express it differently than someone else.

Because I didn't look up the origins I also don't know why people use the "tomato/tomahto" phrase. But when I hear it, it sounds to me like a "I'm right and you're wrong" sorta thing. Not a "Hey, that's cool that you say this differently!"

People want to be right. So if anyone says something differently or had a different opinion we want them to be wrong.

I want to get better at hearing tomato and rather than hearing the weird pronunciation of that middle "A", I want to say "Hey! It's cool that we both end with that "toe" sound. That's the same, and that's really cool!"

Too often I am jarred by the differences instead of seeing the sameness.

I'm not talking about tomatoes.

Sleep and Avoiding Things

"Dudette, feelings are allowed."

What? This is news to me. Ok, I know I sound like I'm being sarcastic, but in some ways I really am being serious.

I write about feelings a lot. And yet I definitely don't understand them or know if they're useful or should be listened to or felt.

But one thing I do know: They are real.

That doesn't mean they're valid, but I've already written about that.

But sometimes feeling are felt, and sometimes I try not to feel them because they don't seem useful, and sometimes I feel bad for feeling things so sometimes it feels better to just avoid them altogether.

Avoid them altogether. That's what facebook is for, right? Scroll, scroll, scroll. Avoid, avoid, avoid. I don't want to be left alone with my thoughts and feelings. Nope. I'll swipe open this little box I'm holding to find things to distract me from having to feel things. Oh, I see a sad thing and it makes me sad, but at least I'm reacting to the sad thing on facebook and not facing my own feelings about anything. Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Now it's time for sleep. But I don't want to turn the light off or close my computer, because that means I have to let my brain takeover, and heaven forbid I do that! That would mean I'd have to think about the things in my mind. Or feel the feels in my feelings. AVOID!

Ah, my audiobook. Excellent. Now I can just tune into that, and tune out of my world.

Ok, the above is kinda bleak. Don't get me wrong, escaping into a book can be great. I really don't have a problem with that. Sometimes I cry when I'm watching a tv show because it hits home and there's a realness to it that I can relate to. That's all well and good. I don't think books or movies are bad things.

But I know that I can get into a rut of thinking that I need my audiobook to sleep. And sometimes I do. Sometimes I cannot get my mind to slow down unless I give it a familiar enough book that it's not worried it's gonna miss anything if it falls asleep. Sometimes I do need my audiobook to sleep so that I don't get my mind tangled in knots of worry. Sometimes I do need to distract myself.

When something is true it's a lot easier for it to get warped into something false. I can justify an action by pointing to some truth as proof. But I think everyone knows that there's such a thing as too much of a good thing. Kombucha is good for you. But you shouldn't drink it all day every day.

Sometimes I just don't want to deal with my feelings, and "Sometimes" can turn into "never".

I never want to deal with my feelings. I want someone else to deal with them. Can someone else please deal with my feelings? Fold them and put them away? No? Okay, then I'll just continue to avoid them.

"Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much...."

The burden of joy.

I think I'm a better writer when I'm sitting in a little bit of angst. When something gets under my skin the way to get it out is to write it out.

It's not always true, but I'm noticing a pattern. In fiction and in journaling when things are well I'm like "The sun is shining. October is beautiful. Life is great!" which there's nothing wrong with. I like being happy! But I just don't churn out words the same way.

When I'm processing some minor or large hurt I think my writing develops a bit of crunch to it that allows me to delve a little deeper into my soul.

And that isn't to say that hard things are deeper than happier things, but they do seem to be easier to write about.

Random thought: are hard things more vulnerable than happy things? Or are the really, truly happy things so locked up behind my vulnerability barrier that they never get written about?

It can definitely be hard to write or talk about a lovely hope, for fear of jinxing it, or someone bursting that bubble.

So maybe the bestest, truest happies are far more vulnerable than the sads. I don't know.

Today I am happy, so my writing is more relaxed and undefined.

Like, I want to write about how heavy my heart feels. Not a burdened heavy, but a solid fullness in my heart that is weighing in a good way. I can't describe it. It's easier for me to write about something weighing me down than the burden of joy. I can't describe it.

Suffice it to say that God is good.

Turn and Live

You know when you accidentally hurt someone? Like this past summer at the shore, I asked my nephew to ring the supper bell. This bright eyed, chipper little boy had excitement in his eyes as his high pitched voice lisped out "Otay!" and he went skipping away.

My father picked up the child so that the little one could reach the bell. But before he could ring it I turned and slammed the swinging door full into the nephew's head.

I watched the look on his face. He felt betrayed. His little face got pinker and more wrinkled before he let out the wail of pain.

My heart split. I had caused this sweet little nephew pain. I had JUST told him to ring the bell, and two seconds later I had forgotten and thoughtlessly swung the door right into him (I hate swinging doors!)

Luckily my dad was holding the distraught child and was able to comfort him and return him to his mother, but I followed apologizing profusely and feeling horrible.

If it had merely been an accident, and I hadn't known he was there, I'm sure I would have felt pretty bad about it, but I had set him up to be hurt, and one second more of thought would have prevented it from happening in the first place.

So there are two ways I want to go with this story. One: just spending a second more thinking before speaking or acting would save me so many blunders. Why must I be in such a hurry that I don't pay attention?

And 2: I felt horrible. Obviously the following would not occur with a two year old child, but what if I had followed the injured party looking for forgiveness for my blunder and instead of giving him the comfort and apology, he had had to turn around and assure me repeatedly that he was okay and that I shouldn't feel bad and that it wasn't that big a deal and not to worry, and he had spent the next ten minutes comforting me instead of the other way around?

So when I say something thoughtless to a friend, at least two things happen. I wish that I had taken the time to consider before speaking, and I end up needing lots of reassurance that it wasn't so bad and I shouldn't feel guilty about it.

I definitely overthink and overanalyze which is why I wonder if blogging is even healthy for me. I should stop thinking and just spew thoughts on to my blog without thinking. Wait! That's what gets me in to trouble, not thinking before speaking.

So I get caught in this vicious cycle of wishing that I would think before acting, overanalyzing bad choices, wishing I didn't think so much, wishing I was more thoughtful, and on and on it goes.

It's right back to my previous post about turning everything to me. You have a problem? Let me make this about me. "What I do?" "Your pain is making me hurt." Every. Single. Thing. I can make it about me.

I need repentance. But then I need to get out of this dark hole and stop dwelling in sin. The Lord wants us to repent of our evils, but he doesn't want us to live in crippling regrets about our past evils or even mistakes. He wants us to have new hearts and to live!

"Cast from you all your transgressions, whereby you have transgressed, and make you a new heart and a new spirit; for why will you die, O house of Israel? For I have no delight in the death of him who dies, says the Lord Jehovih; wherefore turn back, and live ye." Ezekiel 18:31-32

Reflections on painting

Sometimes I tell myself to wait. Like today, I wanted to make some reflections about painting. I'm two paintings away from being done my month long commitment to paint. I should wait for two more days to reflect on this. But I should never stop myself from writing on the rare occasions when I feel inspired to write before I even begin.

So I'm reflecting on painting, two days before the end.

I just went through my album and looked at each of my paintings. Some I didn't want to look at for very long, and others I lingered on for a few moments before clicking to the next. And you know what? I like my paintings. And I can see improvement. When I take the time to paint something, it turns out well!

I was worried that switching back to watercolors after 24 days of oils would be a challenge, but challenges are good. My watercolors are fine, and I miss oils, but even over 4 days of watercolors I am improving that skill again! I painted watercolors every day two years ago, and very sporadically since. I have only done 4 watercolors this September. The first two are okay, but I really like the most recent two. There are always things I could improve, but that's a dumb thing to observe. I'm gonna focus on the fun techniques and skills I'm learning and just linger on the good feelings of actually being good at something!

Yesterday's watercolor!

You know Ron Weasley? You know how when he looks in the Mirror of Erised he sees himself as Quidditch captain and head boy? He's only an 11 year old boy longing for some recognition. He feels overshadowed by his 5 older brothers.

I hate to say that I feel overshadowed by my siblings because I love them and never felt a lack of love or recognition because there were many of us. If anything, I got more love from having such a large family.

Ron definitely loves his family too and there's no lack in the Weasley household, but he does long for something of his own, and then of course (spoiler alert) he goes on to help save the wizarding world from the evilest wizard ever. I think he succeeded in doing something original.

Where was I going with this? Ah, yes. I still strive for some sort of originality, something that makes me unique from others. I already wrote a blog post about wanting to be unique in my writing and realizing that I only need to tell the truth to write well. Is it the same for painting? Do I tell truths with my paint brush?

I don't know. A thought just struck me so I'm gonna write it and see if it rings true: Write truths, paint loves. I dunno, you clearly need truth and love to write and love and truth to paint. So whatever. It was just a thought.

I don't need to stand out to be worth something. I don't need to save the wizarding world or even my world. I just need to keep moving along, writing the best that I can, painting the best that I can, and being okay on the days when my writing sucks and my paintings aren't working. I'm still good at these things, even when I'm bad at them.