Saturday, 28 April 2012

Healing through art.

Drawing and writing are two of the most important things in
my life (refer first and third words of blog title). Well, they're
supposed to be. Writing is hard:  not the words or grammar or
even the typing - no, it's hard because it's painful and scary
to let my words out for anyone to see. Because what they see
is what's inside me.

Writing is perhaps the scariest thing I do. Drawing, on the other
hand, is easy. Just sit down and scribble. Perhaps people see
what's inside of me through my doodles and sketches, I don't
know .. but also, I don't care. I can hide things in pictures, that
in words just leap out. Sometimes I think it's easier because
the person I'm hiding them from is me.

These two most important things .. how is it that I put them
at the bottom of my list? There is ALWAYS something else
that seems to matter more. I suppose my problem is that the things
that matter to me never seem to be as important as the things
that matter to everyone else.

So naturally, here I am with stress-induced uveitic relapses
(sounds impressive but what it really means is an eye infection
that keeps coming back because I don't take care of myself), and
it's only when my niece points out that drawing might be
therapeutic and stress-relieving do I give it further thought.

Tonight I decided, no more delays, no more excuses, and I took out
a sketch pad and a bunch of pencils. I didn't know what I was
going to draw, but I kept telling myself that whatever it was,
it would be healing. The TV was on in the background - Criminal
Minds, an episode about a child molester. I'm not a person who
allows myself to feel the rage and outrage of my childhood very
often, and as I drew, the lines got darker, the marks got deeper,
and it struck me that art IS healing. But maybe only because
I can't bring myself to use my pencils in any other way.






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