Monday, September 5, 2022

Mandala #70 / Beyond my wildest childhood dreams


Dawn Wind, by Rosemary Sutcliff, was first published in 1961 when I was 11 years old.  The Redwood City Public Library had a copy which I read during the summer of 1961.  The black and white drawings of the two main characters, a 14-year-old boy and a girl of about the same age, made a deep impression on me.  I wished that I could draw like the illustrator, Charles Keeping.  In the following years, the memory of those drawings stayed with me.  When I was a volunteer shelf-reader in the children's section of our local public library, I found the book and looked at the drawings again.  They were just as I remembered them, just as stirring to my imagination.  The drawings brought the story to life for me.  I remembered how it felt to identify closely with the lives of the boy and the girl who lived long ago where my ancestors on my mother's side had lived.

Here's what the book jacket says about the story which takes place in Sixth Century Southern Britain:


The boy lay in the silence of the great battlefield, gazing at his own hand spread on the ground beside him.  The hand moved and he realized, with something like surprise , that he was not dead ...

.... It seemed to Owain that nobody but himself had been left alive, until the lean shape of Dog slid towards him from the shadows and licked his hand ....

... The story covers the twelve years that followed Aquae Sulis; for Owain they were hard and difficult years, many of them spent in thrall to a Saxon farmer.  Yet he found kindness and happiness where he least expected it; he found Regina, hidden and half-starved among the ruins of Viroconium ...


A few weeks ago, I went online looking for a used copy and was able to buy one that had been in one of the Croydon Public Libraries in South London.  My desire was to see what would happen if I tried to copy the drawings into the form of a mandala with my non-dominant left hand.


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Early this morning, way before dawn, I sat down at my drawing table for the first time since June and picked up my 6B pencil with my non-dominant left hand and began to copy the first illustration (besides the cover), which appeared on the title page.  Five illustrations later, I had finished the mandala, all the while listening to Bob Dylan's "Rough and Rowdy Ways" CD.

Once again, I am astounded at my ability to draw with my non-dominant left hand.  The drawing comes easily, much more easily than drawing with my right hand.

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Early morning crow



11 comments:

NewRobin13 said...

I love this drawing and what inspired you. The history of it in your life is a very touching story. How wonderful it must have been to read that inspiring book again.
I am so glad you are drawing again, am.

Joared said...

Your mandala looks most impressive. I find your experience drawing with your non-dominant hand interesting. I recall attending a workshop on that activity years ago. I've never drawn much and didn't continue doing so as my life seemed to get in the way.

Sabine said...

I admire your excellent skills drawing with your non-dominant hand.

Pixie said...

Please don't think that my husband and I have things all worked out. Although I do love him, he is consumed with an anger at his family that is destroying both him and us. I'm not sure what to do at this point. I can't write about it on my blog because he would lose his shit. He holds everything inside himself and pushes everyone away, even me. He needs to get past this anger but he refuses to. He's like Gollum, holding onto the ring while it destroys him. I don't know if we'll survive this to be honest, not without a lot of work by both of us.

am said...

Pixie -- Thank you for your honesty about what is going on in your marriage. You've helped me to understand that what I project into a photo may not be the whole story. I do see love in your photo. Your love for your husband and his love for you.

It is possible that I may be something like your husband in that I am a recovering alcoholic (35 years sober) and my feelings about my family of origin resulted in me being consumed with anger/rage, until I joined an international Zoom meeting of Adult Children of Alcoholics and Other Dysfunctional Families in December 2020. If someone had suggested that I go to those meetings, I wouldn't have gone, but when things became painful enough, something prompted me to choose to go to the meetings. It took a while to find a meeting that I felt comfortable in, but now I go to that meeting regularly on Zoom and hear people from all over the world who are seeking peace for themselves, regardless of what the people around them are doing. I find their literature to be a good resource when I don't know what to do. Sometimes I don't need to do anything. Sometimes I do need to do something.

Underneath my anger/rage was profound grief over the abandonment and shaming I experienced in my family of origin I've been given useful tools for fully experiencing that grief and for going on with my life. It's not easy going through this gradually lightening period of grief and mourning, but I feel a new freedom and a new happiness despite the many challenges in my life. I wish the best for you, Pixie, in whatever form that might take.

Pixie said...

Thank you for the understanding. My husband is an alcoholic too but has been sober for 8.5 years. His anger rages on, destroying everything in its path. He has a lot of grief that he seems to be unaware of and I can't make him do anything, only take care of myself. I do love him but I'm not going to carry his anger and grief, I didn't that with my last husband and it damn near killed me. Can I pick em or what?

I'm so glad you were able to move forward and you seem to be in a very good place.

Colette said...

I'm so impressed with the non-dominant drawings you challenge yourself by doing.

dritanje said...

Beautiful drawing, amazing too that it was easier than drawing with your right hand

ellen abbott said...

You drawing with your non-dominant hand, Linda Sue drawing with her eyes closed. I would never attempt either.

Anonymous said...

37paddington: I think you should have a gallery show, with your past paintings and drawings, and your new. Many people need to see your beautiful work!

am said...

37Paddington -- Thank you so much for your kind words of encouragement about my art work. I've shown my art work in galleries in the past and found the experience unsettling. I don't have the physical or emotional energy required. Showing them here on the blog and showing them to friends and family brings me joy. I've donated many of my drawings and paintings to local fundraising efforts so that they can be enjoyed by people in my community and then the proceeds from the sales can go back into the community.