I have to admit, a friend's comment elsewhere caught my attention and kind of sums up how I feel right now. Like there are storm clouds looming on the horizon, and I'm bracing for the gust front to swirl through the yard, tossing leaves high into the air... Doom is falling. It just hasn't landed yet.
Which is exactly why I'm planning for the future. When I was a younger woman, a storm wasn't 'batten down the hatches' it was 'dance in the rain.' And so I have, more than once. I can remember being old enough to know better, dancing through puddles, then stopping to look up and watching the tornado bounce from one hilltop to the other, right over the holler we were standing in. I'm crazy, I know. Storms can be lethal. Often are. Storms can also be times of rejoicing that we're alive, against all odds, and where there is life, there is hope.
Which is why I'm planning for the future. Whatever comes, it will be. Best I can do is get things in order. I can't predict everything that will happen. Eighteen months ago I was begging for calm, and instead a storm of panic struck the world, and the whole dam' globe lost it's collective mind. Not that it was ever going to be good. No. But now? Both sides are lunatic in their frenzy to hand off blame to someone, anyone else. It's a virus. Technically, it's not even alive, let alone self-aware. It's not out to get anyone. Humans, though... power-seeking takes any chance it can get, and boy, is it taking.
So here we are. And what am I going to do through the storm, as the wind starts to tug at the edges of my world? I'm going to make art.
Yep, you heard me.
October is coming. That means thirty-one days of art, a piece every single day. Following the route I've taken the last couple of years, I'll be doing N'inktober. No ink. Just art.
Why art? Well, why not? Civilization is lost, indeed, when we can no longer appreciate beauty, or at least the attempt through another's eyes. I refuse to focus on the bleak, the dark, the despair. I'd rather imagine what an opalescent kilt looks like, and then render that somehow.
The list of prompts is, as always generated through the kindness of friends. Members of my art groups on Facebook and MeWe contributed single word prompts, and I created a doubled column of them, then randomized. What you see is the result, and it is going to be a fun month to illustrate. I mean, right off the bat, therapeutic calliope? Man, this is going to be a blast!
This is what keeps us all going. There's a future. We might not know what it's going to look like. We might have no inkling of what lies around the corner. All we can do is make plans, and hold hope dear. Humanity is resilient. We've been through worse. A hundred years from now, there will still be babies smiling, and art being made. I promise you.
In the meantime? Join me for a creative month of art, or writing, or whatever tickles your fancy. If you've been stagnant? Prompts are here! Let go of the fear, and the clouds in your mind, and join me dancing in the puddles. We will see the rainbow on the other side together.