Reflection

Row,row,row your boat, gently down the stream.
Merrily,merrily,merrily,merrily,life is but a dream.




These words fit these images and oddly this post!
I googled the lyric. Often simply sung to children, it is, apparently, a metaphor for the difficult choices in life. Referencing the self as boat and questionably suggesting just one direction.
There are many of us who paddle upstream out of necessity or perversity.




With the shortening days and the incoming cold 'tis time to reflect and reconsider direction, paddling technique.....and the creative impulse and where it has led this year.
My year's paddling has raked some weed from the riverbed.




One huge reedy, weedy patch has been the question of just what it is that I do and why do I do it? Arty, crafty-making-wise.

I had an epiphany.

Months ago.

Trying to draw a still life that I had set up and struggling to make my drawing look like the collection of loved objects artfully arranged I was immobilised by the pointlessness of my endeavour.
What I wanted was to dance some kind of flirty tango with the lines, the spaces,the colour in order to find something out, answer an unasked question, make something of my inner life visible.
Such an ego driven activity.
And the impulse to share it even more so.
This has been my year of sharing. Getting giggy with social media; etsy,Facebook, twitter, pinterest, etc.
Which brings me to the next patch of weed.
In some of the e-courses and forums I have been engaged in I have found an old feeling from school days resurface. The feeling of being out of step with my peers. Not being part of the in crowd. And before anyone says 'self pitying cow!' let me add that I am sure this has far more to do with my perception of the facts than the facts themselves.




That too has led me to understand that I put myself out there, showing my stuff and blogging my blurb, in order to discover those with whom I am in step.
To be continued around the next bend in the river.........