I sketched that first panel on my birthday in March. It took several months to really get the image right. I'm so happy with it.
I am trying now to draw things that seem too hard -- like the bike and the witches shoes in the bookcase drawing. The results set me a bit on edge, but I've decided that imperfection will pave the way to growth. Look for more bikes and shoes in future posts.
26 comments:
This is a beautiful post, Caroline. I especially liked the "bicycle" picture, and the dazzlingly intense one of your friend burning the diaries...the quote from Ming Fu is so true. It reminds me of another which has stayed in my mind: "We can outgrow our roles, including the sad ones."
Happy belated 50th birthday!!! I so look forward to your posts each and every Monday!
I love the hour glass--glad to see the level of sand left atop is substantial.
Inanimate things don't scare me nearly as much as trying to capture animals and (especially) people. I hope I'm willing to stretch and grow when 50 comes my way in another year and a half. Happy belated birthday!
You are a brave woman to burn your diaries! Please never burn your drawings. They always bring me so much joy, especially since I too just turned 50.
You burnt your diaries :-(
I turn fifty in nine months. I plan on leaving the country to celebrate. But I'm scared.
I can't get rid of any more stuff. I'm finally nesting after 49 years of periodically purging.
Love your drawings.
i love this post. I love the fact that your friend burned your diaries. I was wondering what to do with my childhood diaries... filled with pain. I think I will ask a friend to burn them :)
ps- HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!! WOOT WOOT
A belated welcome to the 50s and happy birthday! I've enjoyed my first two years here, and look forward to finding out who I really am, rather than playing society's roles, for the rest of my life.
I wish you many, many years of happiness and good health and whatever your heart desires.
:0)
Angela
Some birthdays do fill us with a desire to emotionally and spiritually cleanse ourselves. I am still in the process of doing that as a result of my last birthday where I turned 44. I hadn't realised how much I cling to the past.
Wishing you a very HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY. The drawing of you in the hourglass is fantastic.
Happy birthday. What a great idea to think about what to let go of!
50 ist great, it's the wisdom age, after 7x7 years of living.
I burnt my diaries too, when I was 28, because I feel I never want to read the whole stuff again.
But the stuff of my last 15 years is interesting and I will always keep it.
By the way: wonderful drawings, I like them so much!
As my 45th birdday approaches, this post really speaks to me.
Happy birdday. Enjoy the letting-go; it leaves you room for new things to embrace.
Happy happy happy happy Birthday!!!
Hope your 50 is Beautiful!
I am someone who believes in keeping journals...even if you give them away. It just seems so sacred...a life documented, even if it is full of yesterdays, they can still hold truths and lessons for the reader. I love reading old journals...even from strangers.
Oh, you burned your diaries. How I wish that I had kept diaries in my life.I love your drawings...hope your birthday was grand.
I hope your birthday was everything you hoped (or needed) it to be. As others have mentioned, the hourglass drawing is wonderful. Have you ever considered publishing a book of drawings from this blog? I'd buy it! :)
Wow, I LOVE these! Thank you for your visit to my blog, and I'm glad to have a chance to explore here. Like Margaret, I liked the bicycle picture and the burning diaries best. This question of letting go is something I'm working on, and it can be really difficult!
Happy belated birthday & many more! Congrats on challenging yourself, artistically. I wish I had your kind of stamina (& I'm 41!)
It gets better from here :)
Echoing the belated Happy Birthday Wishes
Thanks for the inspiration - very much needed today as I take on some things that have been seeming too difficult
Belated happy birthday Caroline...
I admire you for your resolve to burn your diaries...
I used to wrote prose and poems when I was younger, and I still keep them... Can't seem to let them go...
And thank you for visitng my blog...
-- Mark
Happy belated birthday. I'm glad to know you and to call you my friend.
I'm a little over a year from 50 myself.
Several years ago, when I found my childhood diaries, I wondered who wrote them. Sometimes I read what I wrote a month ago and wonder the same thing.
PS: I'm so delighted with your blog (I've added you to my list).
Happy Birthday -- we've just survived my husband's 50th, so I've observed the phenomenon and it's been interesting to watch. Luckily I still have a few years to stew about mine.
I loved every drawing in this post, Caroline -- they just keep getting better! And I was terribly impressed by the bicycle.
I hope they weren't illustrated diaries . . . . ?!
Hello Crayon,
I am happy to discover your blog.
Your drawings are alive, you should visit the blog of my sister loved it: SELON MTA
I'll add to my list of blogs.
A bientôt.
I just got home from a weekend of riding and discovered your visit to my blog. Welcome! Then I visited yours and read that upon turning 50 your burned 30 years of journals. OMG!!!!! When I turned 40 I burned 25 years of journals. That night I had brilliant (colorful) dreams which I no longer remember. Here's to letting go!
Cherie
Dear Caroline,
Oh, oh, oh. I love what you have done with "50". Four years ago, I would have struggled, like you did, to say it right. Your words are perfect and your hourglass sketch...wow.
What will I take on, and what will I release? I'm still working on it :o)
Bring on the bikes and shoes.
Mary
Happy belated birthday! Fifty is just another year but it was a big one for me. Its the half-century mark and I wanted to make sure I made the most of the second half. Looks like you are making a great start but wow, burning 30 years of diaries. That's tough. But hey, on to the new. I do hope you are keeping all these stories you work so hard on.
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