for the love of lists

And the lists go on...

There are a lot of things I need to say no to. But maybe, just maybe, these are the biggies. Well, at least for today...

 

And my happy places are filed under a top secret, sealed for secrecy. The problem is... I don't remember where they are now...

I had a hard time with this one because honestly, it was a rough day for yours truly. But I suppose that makes it the perfect time to sit and reflect on what is good in my life right now...

It's a vague, ambiguous list. Just the way I like it: Mysterious! Well, ok, not all mysterious. And I should add to the list a disclaimer. Paul downloaded the Gotye album for me and it's about a 50/50 hit/miss for me. I love the famous song, like others, and not so much the rest. So yeah. Glowing recommendations and all...

Best thing about this prompt: I learned to draw a cape. But not a superhero one, more like a Vlad the Vampire one. But they, that used to be my thing years ago, which brings me to the last list for this post:

There are many things that I was doing 10 years ago, but these were the things I was going through at that exact moment in time. I was 25, trying to figure shit out, still, and struggling to build a life in Montreal at the time.

paper and paint

 

 
For years I have been immersed in the world of words.  My bookworm soul dominated my being with its love of literature and took over my life to such an extent that I forgot that I once upon a time, I was a lover of all arts. Don’t get me wrong, I love books and always will. One day, I would like to see my name in print, author of the novels that are floating about in my cranium. But the thing is, life in academia had taken over my entire world—I work in education, I read all of the time, I love theory (hello, just call me a theory junkie), and think that there are few nobler professions than education (don’t give me any of that “those who can’t, teach” b.s.). But academia took over my world to the point that I felt dull and tired, uninspired and without anything new to offer. For all that theory and ideas, books and art inspire me to think up new ideas, plan new activities, or dream bigger dreams; they don’t lead me to action. So despite all of my great learning and ideas, I feel like I lost my spark somewhere in the midst of my beloved bookshelves.

 

Here’s the thing: I only recently came to a rather profound self-realization. I need creativity in my life, every day, in whatever way.  I need to create, whether it’s bad or good, in order to feel fulfilled, in order to feel capable of realizing my dreams and better self.  Oh sure, I knew that I needed balance before and all that, but I didn’t realize to what extent my lack of creativity was stifling my entire being until I fully re-immersed myself into the world of being crafty.
  

 

 

So my newfound love of scrapbooking is spilling over into other areas of my life… Now I’m trying art journaling too.

It’s fun! I like it. Of course, I’m no artist (in that I can’t really draw or at least, it’s not a skill I’ve maintained or developed… I used to be able to draw as a kid – so maybe the skill is in there somewhere… latent but there…).

 

Anyways, what this all boils down to is that if lately you’ve noticed that I’m not around much I’m either packing (we move this Saturday) or playing with paper and paint!

in search of creative, crafty culture…

 

Lately, I have to admit, that I’ve been feeling somewhat distant from my good friends. There’s no one particular reason for this, nothing has happened to cause this distance, but I feel it nonetheless.

 

I love my friends. I do. I’ve been blessed in life to have several amazing ladies in my life, new and old, who have traveled down my various paths with me. But right now I sort of feel like I’m on the path alone. That most of my friends and I are in very different places.

 

I don’t have children, nor am I single. We’re not ready for children and I don’t fit into the baby club. I have a career and am no longer a student, I’m not really interested in clubbing anymore, nor do I want to watch my friends pick up (not that I ever did really, to be honest… though I loved dancing). But the point is, I’m not looking for love or validation or a one night stand.  Most of the time I would rather stay home and do crafts or have a small dinner party with drinks and board games. I have Nia 2x a week and would like to get back into yoga. I’m enjoying living a life that nurtures me and my awakening creativity.

 

And that’s the crux of it really. Because I don’t feel like I’m looking for all those other things anymore (work, love, home, etc), I feel like my focus has started to turn inwards and that I’m once again working on the things that I always wanted in life: creativity, spirituality, balance. And as much as I love my friends, I’m starting to realize that most of them aren’t currently searching for those things…. not that they don’t care about those things, but that they are busy working on other things. So I don’t feel like I have much to say anymore because on the surface I suspect my life looks pretty mundane and boring but yet, I feel like I’m rediscovering the artist within me. And I love that feeling. I love who and what it is revealing about me.

 

So when I talk to my friends, well I fill the space with the various updates, I’m fine, Paul’s fine, my brother is fine. Or vents, I’m not sure if my job is long term, Paul’s family (in-laws), my brother still isn’t working…  But the thing is, at the end of the day, all of the surface things that are happening aren’t really what I want to be talking about.

 

I want to talk about what it means to be creating a book of memories, journaling a history for that child I may have one day in the not so distant future, what new skills I’m learning, what I want to do with them and the visions I have for my new craft room and home, how can I take art journaling off the page and bring it into my home and can I build something more out of it? Do I need to take art and sell it or can I find a balance between creating and storing/using said items? I want to think about artistic retreats and down time to write out a draft of the story(ies) in my head. I want to talk about how Nia started out as exercise but is slowly transforming into something more.

 

But those aren’t really stories I can share with my nearest and dearest because they’re not the stories they are interested in right now. Oh, they’d listen, but they wouldn’t really have anything to offer back and what I’m craving most right now is a dialogue about those things, not partying or poop….

beginnings

Welcome to Lotus Tree Crafts, Asian inspired goodies created for your home.

This site is still unfolding, but is meant to chronicle and showcase my creative projects as they are developped. If you want to know more about me, please head over to my personal blog: http://www.thelotustree.blogspot.com/.

Autumn 2009 marks the launch of my holiday origami ornaments on Etsy: http://www.etsy.com/shop/LotusTreeCrafts. Given the popularity of the site and the fact that I only launched my origami crane ornaments on Nov 3rd, I am thrilled to have made 4 sales and sent off 8 cranes in the month that my business has gone live.

Now that the holiday rush has started to die down, I'm looking forward to turning my focus inwards and letting my creative crafty juices flow. From my humble beginnings I hope to be able to shape a line of crafts inspired by my love of asian art and culture (from India to Japan).