A to Z Challenge: Day 23 - W

WAIT by Michelle Kemp

Life is busy and stressful. Even during this time of lock down when we are forced to sit at home all day, we remain busy. 

Personally, I find it very hard to do nothing. Often, I will be doing at least two tasks, even when binge watching a series. I think this is true for many of us. Gone are the days of standing in a line, doing nothing except possibly striking up a conversation with a stranger.

Now we are constantly entertained and kept busy; millions of activities at our fingertips. This is not to say that it is a bad thing,  we just do not know how to be still. We are living in a world of instants; we demand gratification at the click of a button; we cannot stand to be bored.

The very act of being so busy and stressed is prized; the black circles under our jumpy eyes are seen as some sort of twisted trophy that says we are successful. In this period of uncertainty and our rush to digitise in order to remain productive, I feel we are missing a vital message. WAIT.

The world is telling us to stop for a moment and breathe. This message is clear that we need to un-busy ourselves and try to capture the time we are losing to our so-called productivity. Wait, while the Earth recovers. Wait, while we look around and appreciate the silence that has descended. Wait and then wait a moment more.

The world is literally forcing us to take a breath, to reset and to reconsider what we are actually achieving. We need to reassess our priorities: is that email really so urgent that you miss the sunset, the work call more important than listening to your child sing, no matter how terrible they are. We are being called to WAIT.

We are too afraid to do nothing, to be alone with ourselves and our own thoughts. How terrible that we have been using the constant stream of busy noise to muffle our quiet inner voices. If we could just take this time, as it is, and wait.

Wait and see if that little voice actually has some vital things to say. Wait and listen to the silence until it feels comfortable. Wait and just be, be with ourselves and learn to the love the people we are, not the polished products we show the world.

Wait, until waiting becomes a state of being, a place where we can thrive instead of fear.

Wait, just wait.

Reflections on life during #LockdownSAExtended

Linzé's Sunday Thoughts and Things

I have been taking stock of life during lockdown. For me it has been busy with working, drawing, painting, supporting some friends, and issuing creative challenges to some of the ladies in my writers group.

Then last weekend the lab I work with, received permission to start working again. So we did this past Wednesday. At first it was weird driving on one of the busiest highways in the country without traffic. Sure there were other vehicles with me on the road, but the only things I had to focus on were staying in my lane, keeping to the speed limit, and generally just driving. I can tell you this though: it never felt so far to the lab than it did on Wednesday.

Coming back was just the same, except that I had a traffic police officer drive behind me for a while before going past me as I made my way to my off-ramp to go home. Not an unusual occurrence for them to do that, but for some reason it was more nerve-wrecking than normal.

What did I manage to achieve?

I had to ask myself that because 30 days (and counting) is a long time to be living a life outside of the norm.

I decided to make a list (yes, the engineering brain cannot get away from those):

1. I did at least one drawing every day. Some days I did more than one, and sometimes I did a painting with gouache. I am busy with another one today.
2. I managed to write 20,000 words for Camp NaNoWriMo. I was not happy with what I wrote, so don't hold your breath that those words will ever see the light of publication. No joke, sorry.
3. I sometimes managed to walk more than 7000 steps, but definitely not every day. I am not a fan of exercising, so there is nothing more to report.
4. Did I read? Yes, I got caught up on three issues of a magazine I subscribe to electronically now, In the Moment. Definitely worth looking into if you are on a personal journey of growth.

   

   One of my Inktober52 drawings

   I am also reading a non-fiction book, but it is slow going so it might take several more weeks for me to finish it. It is fascinating reading, I just don't spend much time with it though.
5. Did I gain weight as many of my online and face-to-face friends are complaining about more and more? No. That was the biggest surprise of this whole situation: I managed to lose 4kg. No diet. No exercise (see point 3 above).

I just didn't have time to snack so much as I normally would. In fact, last week Tuesday afternoon at 3 pm, was the first time since lockdown started that I wondered what to do with myself. It was odd, but the feeling didn't last long when I spotted my (still) unfinished cross-stitch project that I started 10 years ago.

I am not finished yet, but there is progress and I guess it will not be too long before it is finished.

But lockdown is not over. Here in SA we are on a 5 stage lockdown strategy. Right now, until 30 April, the whole country is at stage 5. From 1 May we go to stage 4, but thereafter the level will not be the same for the whole country. Different provinces, and even communities, may go to different levels going forward depending on the rate of infection from the virus.

Where I live we have a well organised community service (mostly to fight crime) but it also functions as a communications channel between our local councillor, the police and other government agencies when required.

So the weeks ahead will definitely be interesting.

Until next time - stay safe and be responsible to yourself, your families and your communities at large.

💜Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 22 - V

VIOLET by Linzé

Violet is one of my all time favourite colours. For the letter V I decided to play with pencils that I have that do not belong to a set. Most of them are purple or violet - no surprise! 😂

I found two Faber-Castell Albrecht Durer pencils and one Caran D'Ache Supracolor II in my pencil cabinet and decided to use them. The CD pencil was still in its plastic package. Mixing colour pencils from different manufacturers are usually not a good idea since the pigmentation and lightfastness will not be the same.

This time I just played a bit to see how they would look when activated with water especially since I don't have any more of them to do a multicolour drawing. I found a stencil in my collection and used that instead of drawing from scratch. I think the end result looks rather nice.

I used Monte Marte Premium watercolour paper, and a Monte Marte 16/0 brush to activate the pigments since my watercolour brushes are too big for the fine detail in the ropes.

A to Z Challenge: Day 21 - U

UMBRELLA by Linzé

I did this all ink umbrella frame for a miniature art exhibition last year. It is a card 7 x 7 cm made from fine art paper with its own envelope.

A to Z Challenge: Day 20 - T

TIME by Linzé

My next art journal entry in my Stoicism series this year of #JournalArt2020. It was done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils and a Faber-Castell PITT marker for the text. The size of the leaf is 100% since I picked up the leaf and then traced it directly on the journal's pages before colouring it.

A to Z Challenge: Day 19 - S

Shilpa Suraj on Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters

(a guest post)

‘Divorced,’ ‘Ice Queen,’ ‘Snob,’ ‘Homewrecker,’ ‘Damaged’ – These are just some of the labels applied to Alisha, the heroine of Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters. Whether they are deserved, true or even just required, labels are less about who the person truly is and more about how people wish to slot them.

When I was growing up, relatives would often tell my parents to stop giving me ‘ideas.’ Because a girl having actual ideas would be the worst thing in the world, wouldn’t it? And my parents telling me that I could study as much as I want and grow up to be whoever and whatever I want were the worst possible ideas they could give me.

What society called giving me ideas, my parents called allowing me to dream. To reach higher, to aim further and to aspire for the world, if that’s what I wanted. No matter how far fetched my goal, their answer to every ambition I espoused was ‘Why not?’ 

And so, I grew up without worrying about societal prejudices and familial judgements. Unfortunately, I also grew up. And when you step out of the comfortable cocoon of your childhood and your parents home, you realise just how difficult it is to escape, to ignore or to deny the rest of the world’s opinion on you and how you should live your life. 

Difficult but not impossible. And that’s why I faced the world with the same bravado that Alisha does in Love, Marriage, and Other Disasters. For when your loved ones have your back, it’s easy to face forward with confidence. 

When my protagonist, Alisha, walks out on an abusive relationship, she doesn’t feel the need to justify her decisions to the world. And for that, she is labeled arrogant, snooty and in the eyes of men ‘available.’ 

Labels – Not true, not required, not deserved. 

If only, we could learn to be humans first, to view others as humans first. People often say, “Children are a blank slate. It’s what the world writes on them that then defines who they become.”

I think it’s true of each one of us. We are a blank slate. And we should write our own stories. Not the stories that the others would like us to script. 

Just like Alisha eventually did. It’s only then that we truly own our happy-ever-afters.

Book Links:  Goodreads * Amazon

Follow the author:  Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram

A to Z Challenge: Day 18 - R

Red by Linzé

My first colour drawing for the Intober52 challenge was a bit of a fluke - I didn't want to draw something similar that I have been drawing since the start of the challenge in January. In April the prompts are colours because of a sponsor of the event, and the illuminated letters were born. I have always loved old books and these really old books were copied and decorated by hand.
   So I have continued with the theme of the illuminated letters for both RED and BLUE. They are both featured here today for the letter R in the #AtoZChallenge.

A to Z Challenge: Day 17 - Q

QUIRKY bird by Linzé

I did an online Sketchbook Workshop while in isolation and one of the lessons was this quirky bird. The artist/presenter of this lesson was Tamara Laporte (https://www.willowing.org). I loved the concept and shared it with the artists in my writers' group who also made their own quirky birds. But here is mine. Enjoy! 💜

PS: Thank you for visiting my blog today. I love reading your comments, but I am still having difficulties replying. I do apologise and hope I can get this sorted out very soon. 💜 Linzé

A to Z Challenge: Day 16 - P

POT by Linzé

One day I was itching to draw something a little more challenging, so I decided to compose a still life. I photographed the greyish pot standing on a draped piece of black fabric I found in Francois' studio. I used my phone to capture the still life.

It was done with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils on black paper.

A to Z Challenge: Day 15 - O

Oryx by Linzé

A drawing I did a while back - white pencil on black paper. The photograph was taken by an ex-colleague who kindly gave his permission for me to use it.

A to Z Challenge: Day 14 - N

Charlene Namdhari's A STRANGER'S AFFECTION

** a book feature **

e-Book

“There is nothing stronger than a broken woman who has rebuilt herself.” – Hannah Gadsby

Revenge is a deadly weapon. But it takes a special kind of vengeance to make a woman kill without remorse, to laugh without mirth, to challenge without thought. Kidnapped at seventeen, held captive and then forced into the world of crime, Nishani Scott Callahan defines fearless.

Back with her family eleven years later and ready for normalcy, fate strikes another blow. Abducted on her honeymoon, she’s severely assaulted. Fierce determination sees her escaping straight into the headlamps of a stranger's vehicle.

Billionaire Colton Black is hardcore. A man who treads a fine line between good and bad. He's got no time for love, until a rough pearl with dark hair and deep blue eyes lands in his lap, badly beaten and missing a chunk of her memory. Saving her means risking his guarded privacy, but her feistiness when she awakens catches him completely off-guard.

Equally unprepared, Nishani can’t fathom this ferociously controlled man who appears to reach past her scars to touch her fractured soul.

Will he be her salvation or her ruin?

AMAZON Kindle

About the Author

  Born and raised in the coastal city of Durban, South Africa, she now lives in the City of Gold, Johannesburg. Charlene’s days are an energetic mixture of a full time job, a wife and mom to two beautiful teenagers and four dogs.

  She holds a law degree and is a passionate events manager. 

  Charlene enjoys travelling, a Mediterranean cruise being her most recent venture. She hopes to retire to a beautiful seaside cottage where she can spend lazy days on the beach drinking cocktails and focus all her energy on writing. She is of the firm opinion that one should not give up on a dream but rather make every attempt to get there no matter how long it takes. 

  Her love for writing stemmed from an avid interest in English at School, more so Literature and enjoyed writing short stories. She attempted her first full length novel fifteen years ago and although she loved the finish product decided she’d write mainly as a hobby and only recently sought publishing.

Believing writing is the wings to holistic escapism, she makes the time in her busy schedule giving life to her dreams of bringing together passion filled heroes and heroines in a happily ever after.

A to Z Challenge: Day 13 - M

Memories of Moments by Andrea Vermaak

I have a small magnetic white board on the side of my fridge. When I first moved into my own place, I wrote, 

“The small, seemingly meaningless moments make the most extraordinary memories.” 

This quote (my own) is still there on that tiny white board because it’s so true in my life.

I’ve had the privilege of meeting many people and travelling a bit, but it’s not visiting Edinburgh Castle or London Tower, or meeting Just Jinger or The Parlotones that stand out in my mind as some of my fondest memories, nor could I say that they lie hidden in my heart as something sacred.

Edinburgh Royal Mile - photo by Andrea

Some of my fondest memories are those from my university days when we’d sit on the grass outside of the Humanities building. We’d “invent” coding for a virus that would ruin students’ assignments when they printed them from a Word document and laugh at our own ridiculousness. We’d come up with theories about why there were so many random mounds on campus. We’d almost believe that there really were invisible trees that we keep on walking into, which would explain any previously inexplicable headaches.

I will never forget how utterly happy I felt on the way back from an all-day rock show with my friends. The stadium’s catering plan fell short, so we were all parched, starving and exhausted. But I was lying in the backseat of a best friend’s mini on our way to Uncle Fouzi’s in Hatfield for a midnight feast and I couldn’t have been happier. I could lie and say that I was happy because the day was rather epic despite adequate sustenance, but honestly, I was happy because I was with two of my great friends, whom I love dearly, and I wouldn’t have wanted to be anywhere else in the world at that moment.

One memory I hold very closely to my heart is indeed one of when I was on a working-holiday in Edinburgh, but it almost definitely is not what you’d expect. A small group of us who were temporarily staying in a backpackers’ hostel decided to go out one evening. It was close to sunset. I can’t for the life of me remember where we were going, but I remember that we decided to walk down one of the many narrow closes that run off of The Royal Mile. Once we reached the end of the close, we suddenly stopped. No one said anything. We just stood side by side and watched as the last rays of the sun touched the buildings of New Town far below us. No photograph could ever capture the golden colours and quiet reverence of that moment. You could only feel it. You had to be there.

Photo by Andrea

You cannot possibly recreate any of these moments without losing something fundamental in the very fabric of their existence. They may seem frivolous and worthy of forgetting to most, but they seem to cling to my heart and mind. That is why the quote on the Winnie the Pooh magnet on my very same fridge rings true to me regarding the seemingly insignificant moments: “Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”