Calming Crafting

I sometimes wonder why others don't take up pursuits that would bring them relief from anxiety or sorrow and gift them with diligence, curiosity, utilization of imaginative powers, relaxation, focus, and best of all something tangible to show for it at the end of it all.

The above afghan took me a while. One of those projects I started and shelved and moved on from and moved back to. I'm one who can't sit down and do nothing while gawping vacantly at a screen. I enjoy DVD sets of various top-notch shows, admittedly much later than everyone else who have cable service and derive a "buzz" that is engendered around a successful series during its original broadcast. But I also don't suffer the barrages of advertisements they endure either.

I finished this afghan, pictured above, while watching the second series of "Homeland" one of those truly great shows.

Whenever I see one of my creations in someone's home, I often reflect on what I was doing when making it, what TV series or movies I watched with it, what marathon phone calls attended its making, what gorgeous sunny strand was I banjed off on or what beloved family members' conversations took place around it or what trips and visits it made with me.

This one will be gifted tomorrow, appropriately enough on Canadian Thanksgiving. I have I-corded (a form of 3-dimensional embroidery I kind of invented) the initials of the couple on each end. They've been married 45 years (from their teen years) and are one of those couples that engender warmth, respect and love around each other and those who are lucky enough to be in their circle.

Like me.

Elder Project

Now and again I forget I'm an elder. Well actually, most of the time. I truly do. I was discussing my elder project with Grandgirl recently and commiserating with her on some of the truly sad stories I have heard from old people when she said: "Grandma but you are an old person!"

"Well so I am!" I replied, in shock and a kind of awe.

Don't get me wrong.

I truly enjoy being an old person. I'm so very fortunate I have my health in reasonably good array. I don't put all my energies, as so many do, into fighting off the signs, the dyeing of the hair, the belly lifts, the chin tucks, the eye-lifts, the $100 anti-aging creams. Not my style - but Namaste if it is yours. Age must be embraced I feel and not denied. Perhaps all this denial is a fear of death. But it will come, botoxed or not, right? I'd rather you saw the ravages of age on my own deceased corpse. Truly.

"There she goes," you might say, "But hats (purple, please) off to her, she lived every bloody minute of it, didn't she? She's all worn out and not rusted out."

Which brings me to this project I've been given due to the play I wrote which covered the same topic. Elder abuse. I won't be talking to elders about this but to schools and other venues around the province in order to shed more light on this pervasive and heart-wrenching subject.

I've been doing the index card thingie to make sure I cover all aspects of this rampant problem in our society. There are far too many index cards. Physical abuse is the least of it.

And as I was jotting down the aspects of emotional abuse(one of the very worst forms in my opinion) on one of these cards, I realized that I, too, have been a victim of this subtle and insidious form of abuse. Some who were very close to me have withdrawn their affection from me. Without rhyme or reason. And it hurts. Badly. The most recent form being when I reached out yet again and was rebuffed, basically, with if I had behaved myself better they might have phoned me but now they wouldn't.

And I only realized this was abuse when I was preparing the workshop.

I think one of the major problems in elder abuse recognition is either the trauma not being recognised at all, or a mindset of such denial for it is deemed far too appalling to contemplate.

I've just proved my own case.

And I don't like it.

Not one bit.