I am thankful....

Carmen, Clemencia, Cristina, Mom, Alvaro Abuelito, Abuelita

As the snow falls outside my windows I meditate on all that I am thankful for. I return to my favorite place, my memories, and smile, cry, and laugh at each and everyone. I am thankful to have such a wonderful family that loves me and held me and raised me. So many amazing women that each made me who I am today. My mom, who taught me to be strong, persistant, artistic, and caring. My Tia Clemencia gave me discipline, faith, an examplary mother and wife. My tia Cristina taught me to be forgiving, carefree, happy, joyful. My tia Carmen taught me to be myself, straight forward, bold, energetic, pensive. My tia Ma. Claudia, who gave me comfort when I really needed it. My Abuelita, who continues to be the majestic matron of the family, taught me patience, the magical quality of soft spoken words, music, liveliness.

The men in the family are all too important to not thank.

My tio Alvaro, my Abuelito, my tio Gabriel, my tio Juancho have all been my father, my friend. They have given me strength, compassion, and thousands of lessons f life, and how can I forget the uncontrolable laughter that they have all given me. Like when my Tio Gabriel got lost in the Disney parking lot. Or My tio Alvaro's famous "Yes or no Yes." Or Tio Juancho's new variation of the letter "if".

I have no way of thanking them all, except living my life they way they taught me. They are all the reason I smile.
Gracias a todos.

The Sun is gone

The view this morning at 10 am.....

I have not seen the sun in several days. Maybe I would go as far to say over a week. I was afraid of this happening. Since I have lived in Germany, the winter season has always been a difficult season for me. The only two highlights are Christmas, which in this house is a whole month long, And the mister and son's birthday in February. However, the winter does not end nor begin there. So in order to compensate for the lack of color and light, I have been working on the Advent Calender and my son's Christmas stocking, which is almost done, both of them.

 My Son decided it would be fun to see if he could mix the colors together by twirling the advent calender.

And if that weren't enough, I am not forced to finally finish the baby quit I had started over a year ago. It is not an easy task, because I seem to undo and redo and add and it seems to be a never ending process... How I am going to be able to finish it all in a month baffles me.

Tis the season to be busy.

High in the sky, as free as a bird

With the clouds hovering, 

and rain drops falling

I found a man dangling in the sky.

 And as usual I became bored and uneasy. I needed to do something that would bring in the color, and lighten up such a dull day. So we looked around and found by surprise a nice little gift from Oma and Opa. 

There were two big planes, a firetruck, a train, and a colorful cement truck too.

 And as we glued them on his bare closet doors his Christmas stocking stood still. It is almsot done, but still lacking a lot of little half cross stitches in blue.

 Basti gazed up at his new collection of automobiles, and sang them all a little tune. 

This is what happens on a grey dull day, while a man dangles in the sky in the afternoon.

playing around

I have encountered Tumblr and am still not sure what I think of it. I don't know I seem to have entered the winter apathy.....I see things as being all the same just painted in a different light. Hopefully this funk will leave me soon.
How is your day today?

I believe we shall venture outside. There are blue skies today and a high of 46 degrees. I enjoy the cool wind for a while. So maybe a nice walk is in order.

Grey skies, uneasy hands.

As my breath freezes in mid air, my desire for Christmas begins to grow. The smell of pine, the warmth of a fire, hot chocolate steam tickling my nose, and the smiling familiar faces are just a few things that come to mind. With all these delicious thoughts swirling and bubbling I begin to materialize my Advent calender. Two frosty but welcoming eyes gaze back at me as I color in the wrinkles of joy and wisdom.


I remember one Christmas, the same Christmas I play over and over again in my head, when I was about 6 years old. It was the year we all spent Christmas at the Cabin, my grandpa and ma, dad, aunt and uncle, and my three cousins and I. There was laughter, fights, tears, and unity. And my imagination grew when my grandpa played the role of Old St. Nick. He ate the cookies and left a few crumbs. He took my note and left footprints in the snow. He was a good man. A man that I barely knew, but left such a mark. A World War two veteran, a hard working mechanic that loved old cars. My memories of him are his dirty fingernails after working on cars all day, his strong arms, his playful spirit, his cheese eggs, and his love and admiration for my grandma.

How wonderful memories are.

the images of a dream

To dream a dream of paper and pen
a dream with smudges and lines
is a sweet dream for me.

 and at morning break
when my eyes are pierced by the sun rays
the pages remain stacked behind my eyelids
the charcoal remains untouched
and the lines kept straight

 but once the night comes again the artist returns to her stool
she lets the lines dance once again
leaving their mark in this world of hers

creating stillness with movement
creating life without breath
with smudges on her hands
 and with ease of mind.

To dream a dream of paper and pen
a dream with smudges and lines
is a sweet dream for me.

breathe in, breathe out, and release

I feel blocked. I have in a while. Every time I have the urge to create something I sit down, prepare my self, loosen my hands, and then something inside me stops me. I can feel the thought, urge,idea, craving fighting back, pushing it´s self against the wall, but it remains trapped. So I ask why do I block myself from being myself? How can I unblock it? Release it? I used to be a dreamer, running around a vast city imagening games, stories. I wanted to cover the streets with art and magic. I would create without a care. Speak without fear, and now I have lost that part of me. The part of me that promised her 5th grade teacher she would never grow up.

However, I feel it inside, floating around the dull me screaming, begging to be free. I feel troubled, so troubled that I cannot seem to feel comfortable with being my own me and stop being this socially accepted me. This Christine is polite, quiet, friendly, reserved, introvertive, a wall flower. But the real me, the me that comes out when no one is looking,  is one that talks to herself, dances as if she were on a stage, believes in more than 4 dimesions, questions reality, and always wants to retreat to her imaginary world of color, rhythm, and beauty.

As my son drew with passion I wondered how to retrieve my own. It is a long jurney...I only hope that this luster that is burried deep within the dried soil that is my being can still be found.

I begin to dig, and with each mouthful of dirt sorrows and pains and forgotten dreads are unearthed. Is it a journey to self destruction or a voyage to my own Beatrice, the Wooni that has a faint pulse...
With the beasts guiding me we shall see whatelse the earth fosters...

Preparing for winter

Lately I have had the urge to take pencil to paper and prepare for the upcoming winter. I have always loved the frosty season, and have plans to create an advent calender. This the Wooni-ish St. Nicholas. He has a woody feel. I wanted his beard and forehead to appear like wood, a suggestion of age and wisdom.On top I believe there will be a banner saying "Merry Christmas".  But before any of this can start to happen I have to finish Basti's Christmas stocking....which I started while I was pregnant... This year it has to be done.

This little elf, known as Ben is another winter inspiration. I am not sure what I will do with him, but he seems to beg to become softer to the touch.

Even though I have a wonderful little bamboo so that I can draw on the computer, I have a certain aversion to it. There is just something magical about paper, the texture of it underneath my palm, the smudges, the effect of the eraser, and so on.  I have always had an obsessions with textures, like Amelie, I love sinking my hand into barrels or bags of beans, legumes, sand, flour. I could caress stitches for hours, and I always catch myself stroking the cloth whenever it lays before me. I even have dreams of textures. First they start out as rough static textures that make me feel uneasy and slowly they turn into smooth surfaces that sooth me and make me feel that everything is alright.

I wonder what they mean...