friday's fablious 5

art making can be a fragile thing. because when we make art - like all methods of telling our stories - we are putting a little bit of our souls onto a canvas. and when we put our art "out there" we are cracking our souls open and saying to the world, "hey, check me out." and that is scary. because art isn't always pretty. and no matter what joy you receive from the artmaking process, or how therapeutic it is, or how many people love the finished product, there will always be someone who doesn't.

i once had an artist friend say to me that she didn't mind negative responses to her (beautiful) sandstone sculptures. she felt a negative response was far superior to no response - she just wanted to elicit emotion. one way or the other. brave girl. me? i'm not a huge fan of the negative response...

but a potentially negative response, or the demons in our head telling us that we're not enough, shouldn't frighten us away. because we are enough. and art is a process - not a destination, remember??

which brings me to the first of this weeks fablious five...

1. finger painting. i love love love it. i've been having lots of fun painting with my fingers lately. most of the stuff i make has paint applied to it using my fingers at one point or another, but these last few days i've been making stuff using only my fingers and a stick. oh, and i've used bubble wrap a bit too - i did a bubble wrap painting with my kids and the effect was too cool to not use in my own artmaking!! i've been working on "henry boodle bamby" (the next book) which uses lots of fingerpainting in the backgrounds, and am feeling good about the progress... and working alot on some new paintings that were inspired by my students - and i've finished some this week. and it's been fun fun fun.

2. big blue skies. the last of the leaves are clinging to skeletal limbs for dear life, and the first snow has come and gone... winter is on the way, and it's not coming slowly. i've started taking my little baby blanky with me everyday to throw over my lap on the subway, and we've put another thick snuggly blanket on the bed. we're looking forward to doing some skiing here in the next month before heading to australia - and are REALLY looking forward to breaking up the winter with some summer down under... but though its been cold cold COLD, this week the skies have been soooo blue. and there's really nothing like a big bright blue sky to put a smile on your face, right?

3. tea lattes. yum. m and i both experienced our first ever black tea lattes on saturday and were bowled over by their excellence. as my coffee lady doesn't do black tea lattes i've taken to replacing my morning coffee with a green tea latte and i'm basically addicted already. they. are. so. good.

4. story telling. in all it's shapes and forms. for me, the story is sometimes written and sometimes splashed on a canvas all hodgepodge and layered - which i love, because isn't that what stories are like? rarely do they start at the beginning and end at the end. but that's not the only story telling that is fablious this week... my darling kiddos are starting to read books like they're reading them to an audience. they hold them up, pages facing out, babble some nonsense, turn the page. and it makes me melt. melt melt melt. oh, and i went to BIK (the British International Kindergarted) here in seoul today for story telling and read my book. and it was fablious.

5. the lady in the park outside oksu station. she's there everyday. i mean EVERY day. once i saw her in the rain. she wasn't really getting wet because the canpoy of trees was keeping most of the rain of her. and she was all wrapped up in her raincoat and hood. and she was sitting there. quietly rocking. she looked so so peaceful. and yesterday, she was there in the cold. like, freeeeezing cold. again, she was all rugged up in a nice warm coat. sitting there quietly swaying. just breathing in that cool cool air like there was no where else she'd rather be. fablious.

a year on

it has been just over a year since m got back from iraq. has a whole year passed already? only a year? time, i think, became meaningless to me when he went away... hours melting into days, into weeks, months, a year... more... one foor after the other, breath in, breath out. the experience, undoubtedly, being far more real to him...

i've been reflecting a lot lately on that time. about a month ago, the day that m left for his most recent field exercise, my friend's hubby left for iraq. and though i've been there and done that, i don't know how to help her. i want to say the right thing. anything. something to help her get through this. but there's nothing. nothing to say. nothing to do. you just have to get through the day, and then you've got to get through the next one.

and that's not easy. i know how hard it is to breath when you hardly feel like you exist at all. and i've been wondering how people do it. how do they make their lives and their marriages work when deployments are a regular thing?? and i suppose the answer is, you just do. you just do it. whatever it takes. right?? i had the question put to me many times while m was gone... how do you do it? or a variation of. and my answer was always the same. a shrug. i just do. because the alternative, of not doing it, is far worse.

hump-day heart

todays heart comes to you from oksu subway station - there are hearts all over korea, but until i came across urban love daily i was only looking for accidental hearts (rocks, spills, stains, water marks, leaves etc.). now i'm finding them all over the place...

for more hearts, go here.

rollin on the river...

this little spot, on the hantangang river, not too far from where we live, came to us by accident really. i suppose m discovered it while driving out to a field exercise, but neither of us really knew what to expect when we went to explore a bit more thoroughly. the 'resort' consists of side by side trailer-like cabins (cabin-like trailers???) and a campground. for m and i, camping consists of driving to the middle of nowhere and finding a quiet and secluded spot by the water, under the trees. just us and the stars. for koreans, it seems, camping is somewhat different. they had tents pitched side by side in a parking lot sized space. to one side of the 'camp-ground' was the road. to the other side was a footpath/ bike path. throughout the park were speakers that seemed to be playing a mix of michael jackson, mariah carey, toni braxton and michael bolton. ahhh, the serenity. it was, to say the least, an interesting set up.

but really quite a lovely location, and playful atmosphere. there were kids on skates with butterful nets, families on bikes, boats on the water... a really pretty spot. so when brent and josh came to visit we decided to head back there...

the original plan was to take a hike at soyosan. but we were told we weren't allowed to enter the park with our dogs. so, we took a stroll around the bottom, snapped a few pics, then made our way back to the river... we do love to find a good beach for the pooches to run around and somewhere for them to swim...

i ate rabbit and danced in the snow

chungju: gateway to chungju dam, and woroksan national park. embarkation point for the reportedly stunning 2 hour ferry ride to danyang. and only a couple of hours drive from seoul making it a perfect location for a weekend getaway. but when m and i rolled in there on saturday afternoon it seemed like just another city, and we weren't really drawn to it. now, if we were "city people" then i don't doubt we could have kept ourselves amused by exploring - but we're not really city people. and were hoping for something a bit quieter. a bit more "us". so we kept driving to suanbo, a hot springs town nestled in the mountains. and suanbo was just lovely...

(woraksan nat. park - somewhere between chungju and suanbo)

m and i both fell in love with woraksan part when we visited danyang. it became our favourite mountain range (so far) in korea. and suanbo is surrounded, in all directions, by it's ridgy peaks. so, so pretty. though the little resort town didn't call to us in the same way danyang, or even gangcheon did, the weekend was thoroughly refreshing. with it's touristy atmosphere and festive lights strung from end to end, it actually reminded us both alot of gatlinburg, in the smokies, where we had a weekend getaway this time last year.

(suanbo)

we didn't do too much in suanbo, which was a bit slack of us given all the options. we didn't hike in the glorious mountains. we didn't enjoy the hot springs. but we DID eat. A LOT.

the area is known for it's rabbit, duck and pheasant. and we dicided that we most certainly should sample the local cuisine. so on saturday night we gave the rabbit a go. it came to us in a brothy vegetable soup. it. was. so. good. the rabbit (my first time eating it) tasted like chicken (really!!) and the soup was the perfect accompaniment to a briskly cold night in a quiet mountain town. we left the restaurant feeling fat and happy.

(the snow from our hotel room window)

after sharing a bottle of wine we decided to brave the cold and take a stroll through the lights. this is when the litle moutnain town really turned it on for us, dusting us with the first snow fall of the season. it was the first time m and i have experienced the first snow together, and this made me estatically happy (i'm quite sure i've never been so thrilled with snow before. ever!)

(me being happy in the snow - this will not last all winter!)

before heading out on saturday we decided to experience the famed pheasant shabu shabu. oh my wow. what a feast. we could have shared that lunch with 17 people and still had food left over. they brought us pheasant kebabs and a whack of yummy side dishes (oh korea, how i love thee!!). then a HUGE plate of the bird and veggies to BBQ. i was expecting this to be it - it was quite a meal - but they continued to bring out pheasant prepared in every way you can imagine... mandu,

meatball,

raw (yes - i didn't eat it but m said it tasted like fish),

and finally we finished with pheasant shabu shabu style.
needless to say we were both completely stuffed and wishing we hadn't checked out of our hotel room so we could have a little nap before embarking on the drive home...


i adore these weekends away. sometimes it's nice to have NOTHING to do except eat and dance in the snow...

friday's fablious five

i feel somewhat like i've lost my groove lately. the mojo is just.... gone. m was gone for almost a month - that may have had something to do with it. i was sick for weeks - that probably didn't help. it could be that i've been slowly coming down from the incredible high i've had in relation to everything surrounding my book. what goes up, must come down? it's always been true of my emotions... whatever it is, the wind is gone from my sails. after a particularly deflating feeling i experienced on wednesday night, i decided that what i needed to do was take a nice long walk, just me, and remember and reclaim everything that i love about my life everyday. so, yesterday, after my classes, i made the most of the glorious blue skies and i took a stroll. and, sure enough, it didn't take me long to rediscover fabliousness...


1. yellow. ask me what my favourite colour is and i won't say yellow. mostly because i consider a favourite colour one that you love to wear. and i don't, wouldn't, couldn't wear yellow. but i do adore yellow. it's sunny. a happy sunny colour. and the street that my school is on is lined with yellow right now. i fell in love with autumn in america - all the reds and oranges. and i love the autumn up in the mountains where we live now - the same colours as TN with the leaves looking like light is shining straight out of them. but here in hannam-dong, it's all yellow. and it reminds me of autumn at home in armidale. and it feels good.


2. blankies. yes, blankies. i love them. expecially my nan's crocheted blankies. and now that it's getting cool, it's nice to snuggle into one. but yesterday i noticed that the pancake cafe down the road has blankets hanging over the backs or sides of all their patio chairs. can you imagine anything more glorious than sitting on the patio under the yellow leaves, eating pancakes with a blanky over your lap?? it sounds divine...


3. prince. it's true. i've never considered myself to be a big fan. i've never bought or owned a CD of his. but once, in TN, one of his songs came on the radio when i was in the car on the way back to work after my lunch break and it was just what i needed. wow. it psyched me up so much for the afternoon - i was seriously smiling on the inside and feeling good and strong and happy for the rest of the day. don't you love it when a song does that to you?? i do. anyway, of course i went home that afternoon and added a few prince numbers to my itunes. and then, yesterday, when i was out a-walkin, one of those songs came on and almost had me dancing in the street.... wahoooo.


4. hot chocolate. i'm not a big drinker of hot chocolate - but doesn't the very thought of it make you feel comforted? we don't drink it much at home - even when we have it we forget we have it. but we usually buy it to take with us if we go camping, or go to a cabin in the mountains for the weekend. and it reminds me of winters at home, heading insinde after a morning of skiing for a hot milo... mmmmm.... milo..... anyway. yesterday after my walk, coming in from the brisk air - well, it seemed like a hot chocolate would just about do it, and sure enough.... perfect...


5. my kids. things have been so busy and hectic for the past few weeks that my job has felt like hard hard work. and, i'm ashamed to say it, but i think i may even have forgotten that i love it - just for a moment. this week, i've really been reconnecting with the kids. they're at the stage where things are solidifying. they recognise the difference between a statement and a question. they anwer me when i ask them a question - even if it's with "i don't know". they ask me questions and if they ask me in korean and i tell them to ask me in english they think about it and usually can. it feels good. and they show so much love. they light up when i walk in the room. they call to me. they show me things and talk to me and give me cuddles. it's pretty easy, really. isn't it.

"the man sitting across from me is wearing head to toe camoflage. you know, the hunting camoflage. he actually has a hook in his cap. i don't believe i've ever seen anything like it..."

that was all i wrote. for the entire day i sat in the hospital waiting room, and that was all.

the day the m. had his shoulder surgery was one of the worst of my life. before the procedure the surgeon was unsure of exactly what he was going to do. his pec needed to be reattached to his humerous - we knew that - but the surgeon likened stitching muscle to stitching wet cabbage, and that didn't sound too promising. complicating things was the fact that m's superiors wouldn't let him see a specialist while they were in iraq so his injury remained untended until he got home, leaving the surgeon with 4 or so months worth of scar tissue to contend with. he didn't know if he would be able to even stretch the muscle enough to anchor it in place, or whether he would have to use a cadaver. basically, we just had to wait until he could get inside and take a look.

the surgery took longer than anticipated and i became quite uneasy for not having heard anything. when the surgeon finally came out to see me i was relieved to hear that the surgery had gone well, with the best case scenario of m's own muscle having been re-attached. the surgeon told me that he had been taken to recovery and that a nurse would be out to take me to him in about 15 minutes. but no-one came.

i waited for another hour in that waiting room before a nervous and pale faced nurse came to collect me. she told me that it was her first day in surgery. that they had neartly lost him. that when they took him to recovery he had stopped breathing. he was as blue as her scrubs she told me. then i paled too. when i first saw m he was green and purple. his mouth was swollen and mashed up from where they'd shoved the mask down onto his face to breath for him. i couldn't believe that after being in iraq for over year - after surviving through all of that - that he nearly didn't come home from the hospital with me that day.



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m went back to the hospital for more x-rays and another mri recently. though his recovery was better than anticipated and he has regained more strength that was expected, he still gets pain. the simplest things - drinking a glass of water - can hurt him. and in january he will go in for more surgery. this time on the bone. and i'm terrified. i know that it needs to happen. but i'm terrified. i know that a man who's enjoyment of life comes from it's physicality should not be restricted by pain from lifting a glass to his lips. but i'm terrified. i know that it's him whose going under the knife and not me, but yes, i'm terrified.


it feels like he's going away all over again...