Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective

Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective
2/2/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen.

This is the image that came to my mind while reading chapter four for the book club in the 12 secrets of creative women. This chapter is Surrendering to Creative Cycles.

I've been working for the last few years on what I call, "riding the wave." Life goes up, life goes down, but you can ride that force and get far. Sometimes it feels like you've been overwhelmed by the tsunami, sometimes it feels like you have been pulled under and you don't know which way is up.

I've had occasional depression a few times in my life, and finally found my way out of it. A lot of it had to do with being productive, getting out and spending time with people, taking slow and steady steps to go where I want to go and writing and painting. but when I had my kids, I was hit with something that made it impossible to do my old routines for getting out of the funk.

I was in Post Partum Depression, feeling like somebody foreign to myself, someone who couldn't even write in her journal, and I couldn't get out. That made me feel even worse about myself. When I stopped nursing at a year, the PPD lifted and all of a sudden I could see that it had been there.

And in the year since then, I have worked slowly to ride that wave of my life, embracing the lows where the riptide pulls at my ankles, learning that those are the times when you need to swim parallel to shore and not struggle to make the strides you long for. And also, I have struggled with understanding that the highs, with their light and speed and joy are also only temporary. All is transitory and all gets you in the direction your life is going, if you don't struggle against it.

Another realization I made, while I painted this picture was a surprise, but fit right along with my riding the wave concept.

As I painted it, I realized that if you simply turn the painting over, she is no longer being overwhelmed by that wave and tossed about in the sea, but in fact, taking flight.

Flying Girl and The Seventh Wave, or Perspective (reversed)
2/2/09
Golden Fluid Acrylic, white gel pen.

And that too has been a lesson I have learned in the last year and more. Those lows can be really low, but if you focus on the lessons to be learned, or the small joys to be had, or the faith that there will be a dawn, instead of how hard it all is, then you can see that the very life that was drowning you a moment ago is in fact propelling you to your own fulfillment.

Pardon me for saying, but my painting blew me away.