Show and Tell - Pegge Hopper print

Way back in the day, when I was a swinging single living in the city, I painted my bedroom Caribbean blue and my living room dusty pink. Oh, yeah, "Miami Vice" colours. And I sponged the opposite walls. Good grief. I didn't have a lot of money but I did want some art on my walls.

There was an art store downtown that I passed a lot and I used to go in and browse. I wanted something that depicted who I wanted to be or wanted to feel. There was rarely any art that depicted black women, so I fell in love with some Pegge Hopper prints. Dark enough, I guess, they were Hawaiian women. Sometimes they had them already framed and sometimes they just had the posters. She looked so confident, so laid back. At ease with herself. Like she had just had the best sex in her life and was now just laying back in post coital bliss. Confident. I had spent all of my 20s trying to acquire this feeling of feminine power. If I did ever have it, I certainly didn't wield it. It was unconscious, untapped.

Now I knew that acquiring prints was not particularly expensive, but to me, it was, so I really did treasure each purchase. When I got together with my husband, he found them too feminine and the frames were too pastel for his taste. Unfortunately, we never could agree on what to hang on our walls, his tastes are more of the photographic and water and lighthouse sort. So she just sat on the floor forgotten. But when we moved, I dug her up, determined to put up my treasured art once again.

This has been modified somewhat - it had the name of the art gallery where it shown, Kapalua I think but when I had it reframed (the old one was dusty pink), I had it cut off and framed in a simple (read: affordable) copper frame. I still want to be here. I believe I've had my moments. So carefree. So laidback. Independent and strong. Savoring quiet moments when being me was good enough.

Show and Tell - "Teddy"

Okay, this is a little embarrassing. This is my ole' pal Teddy. This is my very first teddy bear. He's a little worse for the wear, but I've done my best over the years to keep him together. My young hands had to do a little surgery every now and then to sew on a eye or repair a shoulder joint. His nose is quite worn. I've been told he's ugly and pathetic looking, but I never thought so. Just well loved. I don't really know his lineage, there are no tags or anything. He is stuffed with sawdust, believe it or not. I've been told that someone gave this to me when I was born in London, England a gazillion years ago.

In honour of my everlasting love for Teddy, I used to collect all things teddy bear; friends would give me Gund bears and teddy bear cards and such. I'm still a sucker for bears but I don't keep them on my bed anymore. (I did buy myself some Winnie the Pooh flannels which are my absolute favourite things to wear when I'm ailing.) I have to stop myself from buying anymore but my girlish self is still attracted to them. Frankly, I don't know if I could pass him down to a child of mine with all these new, talking, singing dolls and such, don't know if he would appeal to anyone but the child inside me.

Show and Tell - In the Palm of the Buddha

This is a frangipani flower in the palm of wooden Buddha in Thailand. I saw this picture last year when I was waiting at the ferry terminal in Sechelt. It reminded me of the flowers I saw in Bali. aAnd yes you can see them quite a lot in Hawaii, Malaysia and Australia. They were in my wedding bouquet as well. I thought it would be perfect for a nursery. And yes, I bought it for my adopted child because that was the same weekend I started my blog. I had stopped waiting for BFPs and just relax miracle pregnancies. I just wanted something to look forward to and be excited about. This was before the home study, the subsequent fallout, all my "processing", blah di blah.

A frangipani symbol means "Shelter". It's meaning is that "I will protect you from anything evil." That's a good sentiment. don't you think?

Show and Tell - The Golden Box

I missed the NaCoLeavMo because I was quite busy directing my show, etc, so I will do the Show and Tell thing. Of course, I will still comment as much as I can. (We closed last night. The show was great, the actors were terrific, well received, blah, blah, blah. ) This is my Golden Box. Not really remarkable. When we got married, I received a lovely present from a girl who was the girlfriend of a Buddhist buddy who was the emcee at our wedding. She is a pastry chef, and ensconced within was an ice cream scooper and a container of heavenly, homemade, chocolate fudge sauce. The sauce is long gone, but the box remains. I thought I would put a gift it in sometime and pass it along, but for some reason, I never did. I thought I could keep cards or keepsakes in it, but that never happened either. Instead, I put my grief in it. My disappointments, my humiliations, my despair. Just the worst stuff. The stuff I couldn't handle at the moment.

During my grief counselling, I was asked to put certain overwhelming emotions away until I could face them. She asked me if I had a place where I could put them. I had this empty golden box in my closet. So I put them there. I took it down, dusted it off and took a picture of it and then put it back. I like knowing that it's there. The fact that I put my nightmares in there meant that I didn't have to carry them with me. It could wait until I had some calm, some perspective. There's no real substance to them, it's just scary, hyperventilating emotions that serve no purpose other than to convince me that I'm weak, or stupid or incapable of being good enough.

I think everyone should have a box like this.