Category: Art

adding fuel to the flame…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Have I forgotten what fire feels like? I mean, not real flames of fire, but the heart kind… the inside. The sort of fire attached to cliche sentiments like “pursue what sets your soul on fire”. That sort of fire, not to be confused with the harsh moments of life which feel as though they’ve burned my inner core to the ground.

What does set my soul on fire? For so long it was writing, and I think in comfortable ways it still is. Writing is that thing I need to always remain tethered to, or I simply cease to function well. Do you know what else impairs my ability to function well? Not being creative. The less I’m trying to be artistic (and listen, try as I might, I don’t do well, but I simply don’t care about that. It is the doing that is healing and life-giving, not the perfection!) the less I want to tackle the nurturing, daily bits of life…

the things that encourage me to

  • wash my face every evening.
  • go to bed when my body and mind tell me it’s time.
  • pick up a book to read instead of a remote to watch.
  • stop doom scrolling.

Attempting creativity on a regular basis corrects all of this. It insures that when I do want to listen to music or watch something, it is of a higher quality and less fast-food, mass-made consumption.

It all seems like a no-brainer sort of problem, doesn’t it? And yet… And yet I struggle.

I’m trying, in this new month and second half of an otherwise difficult year, to do better–be better. I’m also trying to release expectations because I am a chronically ill person who struggles with occasional depression. I am forever planning things that old-me could do, and then being reminded IN THE ACTUAL MOMENT that mistakes were made and I’m not that girl anymore. It makes it hard, and to be honest I am feeling a stupid amount of anxiety over my trip home next month, paired with my book launch. There’s so much pressure, especially since I haven’t been there for three years and I am just so different now.

I want to harness the fire I once felt, the flames that fueled the making and doing… the fire that motivated that girl. In truth, I’m tired. Most of us are. These past few years have not been kind to us, and yet they’ve taught us to take note of the little moments that keep life beautiful. These thirty-eight months have educated me on the vitality of being more intentional and prioritizing connection, community, and kindness.

Perhaps the flames are still there, it’s just that now they are the slow, steady burn of a well-connected and creative life.

shelved…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay1 Comment

In March of 2020, having oodles of newfound time on my hands, I approached my 44th birthday in a far different headspace than I had before. I had resolved, as we entered the new decade, that the year was going to be an extraordinary one for me. I sought out all sorts of symbolic things in the numbers (2s and 4s) and where specific dates fell in relation to the calendar.

While the year WAS extraordinarily significant for me, it was NOTHING like I had imagined.

Because I was celebrating my birthday by canceling a trip to NYC to see a musical I love, which was set to be in previews, I decided to focus on creativity. Specifically, why I had stopped being super creative, and how could I use the endless lock-down time to get it back. I created an ambitious list, which became a journey itself.

For one, some of those things– penned out of the pre-covid mindset– would no longer be things I’d want to do, and that’s ok.

As someone who fell in love with interior design and making spaces cozy and beautiful, at a very young age, I was sad to see that I’d reached a point where I just didn’t care about that anymore. Well, that’s not true… It wasn’t that I didn’t CARE as much as I was deeply homesick, operating on the BRINK of overwhelm/stress, and was often so frustrated with our tiny cottage and the lack of inspiration it seemed to hold. In an effort to combat that, one of the goals on my list became to redecorate the gallery ledges in our living room, every month for a year. The rules were that it had to be an intentional, low-cost change.

I never expected this idea to grow the way it did. Not only am I still doing the ledges over two years later, but this simple thing inspired lots of people to take space in their homes to do the same. It also fed my creativity, lessened my overwhelm, and I began to do small things here and there all over our home. Eventually, this led to us relandscaping our very jungly yard, and now the idea and project list are unending–which I personally love.

I created the Shelf Series (in my Etsy shop) as a fun and low-cost way to help others in this journey. One of my favorite things about this now habitual act is that it created an opportunity for me to connect with and support other print artists.

The journey over these past two+ years has been a rollercoaster one. So much division, so much hatred, so much tragedy… but out of this time has also come so much incredible creativity and so much growth. Wherever your life falls, in that spectrum, I hope that you’re able to find intentional and small ways to bring magic, healing, and creativity into your space.

XOXO,

M

What if…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

So many years ago, (it’s hard to believe how many at this point) I was introduced to this growingly popular YA novel called Twilight. I wish that I’d heard it was about vampires and thought “yeah, that’s not for me” but the truth would have been (and still is) that vampires will always be up my alley. The super bizarre thing for me was honestly picking up a book to read at all, even when I had no clue what it was about. I hadn’t read for fun in years. I was testing non-fiction books for Harper Collins and blogging full-time. I was so far removed from the literary world that I had no idea what sort of fiction books existed beyond mysteries and Harlequin romance–neither of which had ever appealed to me.

After some intrigue at a few bloggers I followed raving about Twilight, I grabbed a copy. I didn’t sleep, or do much of anything, for two days. I couldn’t put it down. After reluctantly packing our family for vacation, I ran to the bookstore to purchase the second book of the (then) trilogy. While I hadn’t been much of a reader, at that point in my life, it is also important to note I had always suffered from car sickness. Even so, I read the second book, New Moon, as we drove throughout the mountainous Pacific Northwest. The Twilight world had sucked me in and I was unable to think of anything else. You’d think my family would have been annoyed, but they thought it was funny. They especially got a chuckle out of us having to detour our trip through Portland so that I could grab my copy of the newly released third book Eclipse.

It was somewhere into the first chapters of Eclipse that I found myself a passenger in a car with friends, as we navigated a mountainous road that was thick with heavy trees, at actual twilight. My mind began to wander at what was watching us, waiting, in the black line of those trees? I thought about the Quileute wolf legends existing in a heavily forested region with one of the highest “big foot” sightings… could it be?

Around this mountain side we traveled as the shadows chased the irrational wanderings of my mind.

~

Several years before, my first Christmas eve as an adoptive mom found me staring at our daughter as she slept sweetly. The magic of Christmas suddenly meant something completely new, and then out of nowhere panic plunged my insides toward the ground… What if Santa is real? What if this strange, magical being exists and comes sneaking through our home while we sleep?

What if?

What if…

Over the weekend my husband and I were inspired to have a Twilight movie marathon. It was so fun, and I was once again swept up in the memory of these life changing books… life changing because they inspired me to fall in love with reading again, and in doing so they inspired me to think deeper than the surface level I’d been handed–deeper than the very one-dimensional level I’d been writing at in my professional life.

The revisit, though thoroughly nostalgic and entertaining also made me think about that mountain drive, and that first Christmas eve. My mind began to think about fear. Then this morning I came across a news story about an asteroid sailing past earth and another report about the dangerous weather expected to kill many and render areas of the world disaster zones this summer. In even skimming each headline I felt that same fear pop its head in for a minute.

Fear.

We are living in a weird time when so many fear-motivated tragedies are happening on a daily basis. Instead of vampires and Christmas elves though, these fears are based in viruses, vaccinations, political powers, religion, sexuality, gender identity, skin tones, and on and on and on… any difference that divides us is connected to a fear-motivated tragedy that has taken place in recent days. The biggest difference between these fears and the fictional ones is it might just be a bit harder to call them irrational when the things we fear are really here. They aren’t possibly hiding in the shadows, but instead they are everywhere. Also everywhere are the printed and spoken stories about why we should fear them.

At the end of the day they are still stories. Whether it’s a fear of whats in the shadows, or a fear of something real in the world that you’ve been told is scary, we still have the opportunity to surrender to the boogeyman and let that fear control us. What if we didn’t?

What if we pushed past the fear and listened to someone outside of our normal scary-story-circle?

What if we tried to connect with someone else, something else?

What if we pushed past the usual sense of nausea we get from being a passenger in the car, and immersed ourselves in an experience so different than our normal, every day one?

What if?

education and re-education…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

Oh, the brutality of April… I’ve chatted with enough people who also found April especially tough this year that I know I wasn’t alone… that being said, if you’re reading this post and thinking to yourself not me–this month was amazing, then know that I am so happy! It’s you who gives the rest of us hope.

I like to use my wrap days, at the end of each month, to reflect back on what life taught me over these past few weeks. To be honest, a lot of times I learn and relearn the same stuff. I guess someday it may stick!

  • This month I reconnected with what it was like to lose myself in a good novel. I actually did it twice, and both books were much bigger than my normal “page count” restrictions, so that was a lot of fun!
  • I learned that there is some speculation Lewis Carroll (Author of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland) was a pedophile. This one really caught me off guard, and I had to sit in my feelings for a while. I love his writing and the Alice stories so deeply. The more I researched and read, the more I realized that it was all opinions from today projected upon life back then. Sometimes we get into trouble doing that because there are so many aspects we consider common sense, ethical, or human decency today that weren’t long ago. I made the decision to still love these things because they resonate so deeply, and in the end, we just don’t really know.
  • I learned of a pretty well-known challenge to eat 30 different plants a week. Most people do it for a week but we’ve been trying to reset this every Sunday and do it through every week. We haven’t made it yet, but my chart is usually at 27 or 28 so I’m not going to consider it a loss. (The best thing I learned about this process was initially when I realized our normal weekly diet averaged between 20 and 25. What an awesome feeling that was!)
  • I’m learning how to use watercolors. The biggest reality I’ve had to adjust to is that it will be a process and take time to learn, but I do really love it!
  • I’m learning about creative dating! On the 2nd Chw and I celebrated our 28th anniversary and made the commitment to try A-Z dating over the next year, meaning intentionally creative dates must start with a letter, and we check them off when done–sort of like a bucket list. We aren’t going in order because logistically that seemed unlikely. We did do A, with the Alice Experience–an underground hidden immersive experience. It was so much fun and the perfect way to kick off this A-Z adventure!
  • I learned, (in a very unfortunate way), about Haglund’s Deformity. BOO!
  • I learned my husband and I would both be happy living a life where we only ate tacos and cookies. (Also, because we really diversify the types of each of those foods, we could still manage our PLANT challenge… It’s the perfect lifestyle, don’t you think????)
  • I’ve learned the right romper can be very flattering, and I’ll be honest–this one shocked me the most!
  • and finally, that going to a paint night with Chw will undoubtedly mean his painting will be far better than mine… but oh, was it fun!

It’s been a pretty quiet month really. Unstable weather, stress, heavy workloads, wrapping up edits and revisions on my memoir… The biggest lesson I’ve learned where that is concerned is that the writing of the book is actually the part requiring the least amount of work. I’m staying centered and grounded, working on not allowing myself to slip into a state of overwhelm.

My every-month take away remains, most importantly, to continue chasing beauty, adventure, and magic as authentically and intentionally as this life will allow.

the adam project…

Published on by Mae @ Rainydayinmay

I had the privilege of seeing an early premiere of The Adam Project earlier this month. I have so many things to say about this movie… As a details girl, I was not disappointed!

As a dreamer of possibilities, the idea that this could (in any way, shape, or form) be a sequel to 13 Going on 30 made this movie even more fun to watch. (Matty & Jenna FOREVER!)

This movie is fun! In the vein of Explorers, Flight of the Navigator, and other similar themed films, it is filled with enjoyable adrenaline and fun! Beyond that though, this film is filled with heart. It touches on grief and loss from so many angles, causing each character (past, present, or future) to challenge their own feelings and empathize with others. There is simply so much depth within the frames of this movie showing us so much healing. While the premise of the film may be science-fiction, the truth is we all navigate our own burdens of grief and loss. Though the primary plot may be completely unrelatable, the soul of it may likely mirror struggles and moments of our own journeys.

From a technical perspective, the movie is well-paced with believable special effects. Casting in this film may be credited to Carmen Cuba but I fully believe some sort of time travel magic was involved, and you can fight me on this if you want, but Walker Scobell as a young Ryan Reynolds was eery perfection. I’m weeks out since the viewing and my mind still struggles to comprehend how these two people are not cut of the same human being. If you love Ryan Reynolds then this aspect alone is with the watch.

Just be forewarned, you’ll probably really love it.

Bravo to Netflix, the entire cast and crew… Brilliantly done film–the sort of escape, enjoyment, and heart we need right now!