Memories

I've decided that December can be my month of trying to think of alternative creative ideas seeing as art has taken a backseat in the run-up to Christmas. Today was my day for creating order out of chaos. The photo is taken just before it was all properly sorted! For the past couple of weeks I've had some boxes sitting in my room waiting to be gone through and squashed into a smaller box so that we can free up some storage space. It was like hunting for treasure, and finding it! In the picture you can see a dress I had as a baby, my favourite skirt when I was about 8 years old, my green mouse with it's nose chewed off when I was a baby, as well as a card made years ago by my children for Mother's Day, and a school project. There are also cards from friends, letters and old bus passes. I keep everything! It's so interesting re-visiting my childhood, school and university days. As I've said before, I'm building up a long list of memory based art, and exploring old memories draws me to books I haven't read for ages, or places I haven't visited in an age - armchair travel!

I said yesterday that I'd read about Carmarthen in a UK magazine, (this is the part when I am drawn to re-visiting places from my past), which wrote a little about Dylan Thomas and his home town which provided so much inspiration for his books. I've never read 'Under Milkwood' but knew I had a copy somewhere and I found it today, only it's called 'Unter dem Milchwald' because it's in German. It's a beautiful old and yellowed second hand book I bought as a student when at university in Wales, where I studied German. I read a few lines today and have forgotten a fair bit, but I think I'll understand a lot more than if it were written in Welsh! It's been a delightful journey down Memory Lane. In art therapy one of the tools used is to look at a picture and think of the first word that comes into your head, and then see where that word takes you and so on - a kind of visual word association I suppose. And that is the process that's happened here - I read a magazine about an old haunt, went to find a book I remembered by an author in the article, remembered my love of the sound of the German language from the book. It's great to remember your past and be happy with what you see. With depression it's the opposite, hard to appreciate the past, and impossible to be hopeful about the future. I'm so grateful for the journey I've had today.

Talking about journeys, I'm off on another 'Bush Art Meditation' tomorrow. Think I'll make it a regular exercise, as it's so therapeutic. Looks like I will get some art done tomorrow after all. Can't wait! Look out for the post ...