Dark Day

6x6 inches, collage with found and altered papers, stamp

The past couple weeks I've basically ignored Christmas, with the exception of addressing and writing notes in several dozen cards.  No duplicated letter this year, probably because I have slowly come to realize that people who are close to me already know what we've been up to - which is the same as last year - and nobody else is fascinated by hearing about our lives.  Or worse yet they think that I'm bragging about our travels, and that we have altogether too much time on our hands, with all the miles my husband has put on his bicycle, or the art work I have finished. I'm not imagining this; variations have fallen from the lips of friends and relatives more than once. And absolutely nobody is interested in my plantar fasciitis or recent costly dental work.  So I have settled on writing a couple lines wishing the recipients happiness and health.

There probably are reasons for my annual winter funks.  Christmas is one. We do not have children, so obviously we also do not have grandchildren, and children are the focus of most Christmas events around here.  We don't have little ones wanting to see Santa, begging to put up trees or make cookies. No school programs. Our parents are gone, so no gifts bought or visits planned, and neither of us needs or wants much by way of gifts for ourselves.  If we need anything, we go out and get it - usually second hand.  We're not church goers, for all sorts of personal reasons, so are not involved in those sorts of activities and programs.  I find myself occasionally feeling wistful about missing the old excitement of the season, and not even heading out to the holiday light show at the local botanical garden, watching lighthearted television and movies, or dropping off a donation at a fine local charity does much to lighten my mood. Our lack of snow and dark wet days don't help much either. Television news is simply one catastrophe after another, each one worse than the previous.

Light deprivation is possibly a contributing factor in my gloominess; I should go outside more, though there is little sun to be found out there. I bought my winter bottle of vitamin D rich fish oil last week, and have been sitting at my work table with the fill spectrum light - am still waiting for those benefits to kick in.

So, for now I'm listening to  my winter playlist, and collaging away like mad.   Some days I go back into my stash of papers and saved images and reorganize, or weed out things that don't speak to me any more, or I paint tissue paper in colors I want to use.  Other days I just settle down to cut and paste, and wait for the light to return.

These are the sorts of things I've been working on recently.

6x6 inches

6x6 inches