Saturday, May 2, 2020

Being Brave, being me. Always.

Sorry it's been a while since I have written to my blog. I know I should be doing that. I guess all kinds of other things get in the way. Largely, writing, editing, creating the cover work for all those books I have been self-publishing with Amazon (KDP and Createspace) over the years. And the first three with AuthorHouse.

Not to mention harassment from some really not nice people after my choice to kick out an ex-boyfriend in 2018. The harassment got worse after kicking him out, and that's all I will state in this blog, because I need privacy in my life. At least on some level. Well, there is the fact I do want to someday be a famous writer, artist, photographer, knitter, crafter and so on. 

I guess perhaps people have been trying to get me to toughen up. But, the thing is, there is a time and place when it's okay to give advice and a time and place when not everything about my life is meant to be like an open book to others.

Famous people also need their privacy. It's called respect of personal space. That becomes a horrible act of inhumanity when exploitation becomes the norm. Really? It shouldn't.

However, here we are in the time of the Corona Virus. It's so sad to hear about how since end of March towards very early April it came to be in effect. I hate hearing about it, but I do need to be aware. I have grown children to worry about, friends and family and of course myself. I need to protect myself as hard as I can, because I am the mother of my kids and they need me. I need me. Always.

I am true to me. I think something I have been noticing since I kicked out that boyfriend, is that people are so inclined to role play or relate about someone right in front of their face. Have any of you noticed that? It's a really horrible act of injustice and that needs to stop. I guess what people don't seem to realize and I pray to God they smarten up around this town I live in that they should stop role playing me to my face, because it's highly hurtful and not cool. But, people will do that. I am aware. It needs to stop.

Another thing. If they think they can do that to me? What if there's a domino effect and it happens to a lot of other people. Whoever thinks it's funny to do that to me, who has no mental issue at all. And they decided to bully, gang up. Doctors also made horrible mistakes. I am praying to God there is a miracle that can rectify what they did to me.

Anyway, I have been focusing on my art, photography and getting back to Ceramics, because it had been a while since I had worked with Ceramics. I am learning that more than I used to. No kiln yet, so I did a bit of research as how to bake some in my oven. In a safe manner. It seems to work pretty well, but I am not sure they are baked all the way. I can tell some are making a clinking noise when I tap a few gently next to each other. I think I will do this with some of the other pieces also, so they won't break as easily if I get to move in a bit. That is up in the air at the moment.

My kids are home with their father and their step-mother now. My oldest is out west and being careful as well to be safe and healthy during this awful virus. I've been staying at home working on my creative work. Some of my artwork seems to be leaning towards a more sophisticated level than some of my artwork used to be.

Don't get me wrong, I still love a lot of the previous artwork I have done also, but the new work I've been taking my time more. I cringed recently upon seeing a few of my older drawings. I think they had just been starts and were more like some of my paper dolls. I changed one of them, to look a lot better than it was. I mean, the face did look kind of geeky, and I really wanted it to look better.

That comes with age, practice and gaining wisdom. I've been naive in the past. I guess people in my life kind of knew that, said nothing and just watched and waited without telling me some things I should have been clued in on. Jeeze, small world. It really is when you think of it. It's funny sometimes and other times, it's like, "Well, why didn't you tell me you knew so and so? I would have acted a lot differently." It's humiliating.

Well, I guess "Do a stupid thing with enthusiasm." really rules the day sometimes. At least people can learn to laugh it off. But, some things are really horrible in the moment and people really shouldn't bully (throw word stones) all the time. It hurts the brain. In more ways than one. Stress does hurt. It does physical damage.

I wore my mask today to retrieve my mail. An incident with a neighbor got me peeved and it caused me to be distracted enough to not think to wear my mask to go do one of my errands. Basic errands like getting groceries, people need to do. I wear my mask when I go to the park across the street to do some photography.

I have learned to use the manual setting so much better with my larger digital camera. It's so exciting to take pictures. I think I am always going to be fascinated with images. The composition.

My youngest daughter can hardly wait to get back to work and both of my girls will be graduating high school in June. They want to go to college. They still like art, which is nice. My oldest daughter, likes to write short stories sometimes. I think that is really great. She's a good writer and I am so proud of her.

My younger daughter, Julia, has been taking an interest in jewelry, like me. I started carving into jewelry wax. I haven't figured out too much with that yet, but I am hoping I can learn how to do that better in the future.

My oldest son, Sean, is loving working with Indian artifacts, out west. Archaeology. I think that's another reason for me to love working in Ceramics. I sometimes think of Indian pottery of the Southwest and I can feel a connection to my son by working in ceramics.  I miss him. I miss all four of my kids.

Hopefully, this Corona Virus gets nipped in the butt soon, because people want their lives back to normal. And I seriously want my life back to normal too. I pray to God for a solution, because this is the year something needs to happen so I can earn a decent living from my creative work. I'm in the second half of my life, 52 years and as much as I am grateful for the struggle, I really hope to do a lot better financially in that.

And, someone's been showing me, I guess I can be funny too. There's comedians in the family. My kids are comedians too. My ex-husband used to make me laugh sometimes too, with his imitations of some famous people.

Something I have really been wanting for years and years is more kindness being done to me. It hasn't been given to me, and I am praying to God for that to change. I have been praying for that for a long time. People become so relentless, ruthless.

I am going to write more fiction books about witches some day. People will either like it or they won't. But, I do love writing, just as much as I love art and all the rest of creating. I LOVE MY KIDS.

Pranks are not okay. Granted, there's April Fools, but that comes once a year. Maybe adults should learn to be careful playing horrible pranks on someone, no matter if you are rich or poor. I guarantee that if it doesn't stop, someone could get seriously hurt. And I don't want to see people hurt. I don't want to see me hurt either. I love my beautiful life, even though there have been some horrible things done to me.

Fodder is fodder though, and it turns into fiction when a writer goes to write. I haven't been able to write as much after kicking out that boyfriend. I got harassed, and that's made me feel quite uncomfortable to write a lot to my fiction right now. I have been handwriting my poetry though, on some days. I do keep up at that and occasionally work at the new fiction novels in progress. They are all mine. I don't pay an editor to do the editing for me.

I want to write a science fiction novel too. I started one close to a few years ago and got halted on that.

I've been cooking and baking a lot, for working on my newest cookbook I would like to self-publish later. Yesterday, was a Kraft boxed macaroni and Cheese kind of day. Ha. It's almost 1am. I almost typed in today. Funny. Lunch after midnight, would not be a cool thing. Don't they say that later in the evening when you eat something, that adds pounds?

I lost weight, but there's that perpetual abdomen where my four kids lived in my womb for nine months. And two miscarriages in between my kids. And of course their father's kids. It takes two people obviously, but I'm writing this blog and I have every right to say my. Some people maybe get peeved when people stress the word MY. Well, in the English language and especially when writing, there are times when "My" is going to be the correct word to use, when the word, "Our" is not. And other times, that works. I say "Our kids" or "the kids" when I am texting my ex-husband (their father).

Have a nice rest of the weekend. Be healthy, Stay safe. My heart goes out to the families who have lost loved ones to the Corona Virus. It really isn't funny at all. It's scary as hell.

Earth is supposed to be a beautiful place and it seems that people love to show me how the world is horrible. I want quite a bit less of that, like this month would be great for that. Please God. I will say thank-you when I really see a great change and not have to worry so much about the future. I get that from my Nana. She was a worrier. I worry about my four kids too. That's the great mother in me, worrying that nobody will hurt them.

I think every parent who loves their children feels that primal need to worry. I have tried not to worry so much. I think concentrating on my writing, the art and all that has really helped me to focus. Well being is important. I try hard to ignore petty jealousy when I can tell some people are peeved with me for any reason. Not everything is everyone's business.

There is a limitation to boundaries. Kindness counts.

Here is a quote from my Grammy Wagnis:

The hand that rocks the cradle, rules the world.

Now, think about how many times that any one of good people, young and old, have rocked the cradle with a child inside, sleeping contently, or crying and needs to be picked up. That child needs to be loved. Mothers birth the babies. Fathers also rock the cradle. It takes two to tango. Russian Roulette.

Funny. I learned within this last year, about clay rollers being called "Roulettes". That's kind of funny as well as interesting. I'm a waiting for some tools and they're not here quite yet. I'm patient though and will wait and then enjoy using them when they arrive in the mail.

Artists need tools to do their jobs effectively.


Sincerely,

Jennifer Jo. Fay

Copyrighted May 3, 2020



Photography by Jennifer Jo. Fay