Tsk, tsk, tsk...

Well, this is just unacceptable, this sort of time passing without a post. Purleez pardon me, everyone. What with relocations across the country and rather irksome readjustments, I promise to get it together shortly and post something even vaguely interesting around here.

Cash and Conscience

Walk the Line
(An unassuming commentary on the movie by a woman who hardly expected to be this moved by it)

Had a friend not suggested this movie to me and lent me his DVD, I would have missed this blessing. Walk the Line touched me profoundly. It’s a rarity for movies to have this effect on me and I reckon it has a lot to do with where you’re at in your life, like Fight Club did with me during my “rebellion years”.

Johnny Cash’s name was distantly familiar to me and since I’m not a country music fan (although Cash did dabble with various music genres), I would hardly have paid much attention to his music. Ironically, I frequently heard Nine Inch Nails'"Hurt" with no idea that he'd covered this song. It’s not as much his work that’s stirred me as his complex character and melancholic moods, his faith, his battle with addiction and his absolute adoration of someone he couldn’t have for many years.

In many ways, Cash reminds me of my biological father. Someone I never knew and,in retrospect, am glad I never met. An alcoholic, drug-addicted adulterer, my father strayed back and forth between God and the devil, much like Johnny Cash was described as having done. My father broke my mother’s heart and his death is still hardly discussed in my family. Apparently as a result of a heart attack, but there were definitely alcoholic and drug influences in that mix. He passed away the night before he was to be committed to a facility that dealt with mental instability issues, according to my mother.

That’s just one level where I relate to Cash and the people in his life. His addiction is another. I watched Joaquin Phoenix portray the emotional instability and frustration Cash experienced regarding June Carter, the woman he was smitten with from the moment he met her. I was drawn to him immediately because I’ve been there. I fell in love with a drug addict the moment I met him and spent almost a decade of my life fluctuating between varying conditions of a shattered heart, sheer frustration with his bad choices and my own drug addiction, with an overriding state of longing for him to commit to me. Years later I thank God he never did. I would have been divorced without a doubt. Friends tell me to this day I was nothing short of obsessed with him. The truth was I felt weak and alone and he felt like my rock. Now I look at him and wonder at the power of God that stopped me going completely off the rails with that man. People we know still describe us as having been inseparable back then. When he was drunk enough he called me his “picket fences” girl. I believed him.

Although June Carter was no drug addict, I get what Johnny felt. He couldn’t have her. She pushed him away. Then she drew him back. And had to reject him again. The man I was convinced I would marry and whose children I would bear did the same to me. His own pending issues poisoned his decisions and distanced his affections. He missed it. I lost it. And had to leave. June Carter was trying to be sensible, but Cash couldn’t deal with it, either. He resorted to his “painkillers”. So did I. Watching Phoenix sweat through withdrawal and the misery and panic associated with your anguish numbing substance suddenly being absent dredged up some dark memories for me.

Then there were Johnny’s black times. He seems to me the ultimate melancholic. The proverbial poster boy for the lingering dark night of the soul. He was described as being haunted. Mixed up. Anti-authority. Mostly typical of the creative soul. Functional and focused, yet disquieted and brooding. His musical outlet for his battle with rejection, frustrations, hurts, haunts, faith, maddening thoughts, conflicts and pain moved me as I reflected on my own erstwhile creative outpourings. Mostly graphic, sometimes in the form of disturbing tattoos and dark designs, which softened over the years as I did.

Lastly, his faith. Torn between the darkness and the delight. Publicly. As my previous article would indicate, I can absolutely empathize with Johnny on the continued conflict between flesh and faith. It had a radical influence on his music and his relationships and he battled the riots of his flesh while clutching at the steadfastness he had been familiar with since boyhood. Christ. Though not always apparent and seemingly disguised by his dark clothing and unstable conduct, his covenant with God couldn't be broken and is, without question, the reason he remained on this earth for the time he did, despite his attempts to embrace death before his time was up.

I watched with tears in my eyes as his sister described his reply to her question to him a week before his death. She asked him if he were walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee and Jesus approached him, what did he think He would say to him? And Johnny answered immediately, eyes swelling with tears, “Oh, that’s easy, baby. He would say to me, “Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.” That's what He would say to me." (Matthew 11v28-30)
One of my favourite verses of God’s Word.

I love that generation of men who were called “men of God” even though they failed dismally, often, as we all do. They are dying out now, actually, those icons of faith born in the 30’s and 40’s. My stepfather seems to be one of the last who I can still speak to where integrity and conviction of faith, hope, honour and truth are still apparent in his voice when he talks to me and others about Jesus Christ. Like Billy Graham does. And David Wilkerson. I had no idea that Johnny Cash performed at some of Billy Graham’s gatherings. What an unexpectedly pleasant testimony as to where his heart was.

A profound man with surprising facets and influences whose life has touched my own in a remarkable and almost serendipitous fashion through this movie, I look forward to meeting Mr Cash someday.

Bad Choices and the People Who Forgive Them

God help you when you botch it…because a surprising amount of your friends won’t. I remember when my mother, a battling alcoholic, would phone me drunk sometimes and I’d cut her off and tell her to phone me back when she was sober. And then I’d put the phone down in her ear. I imagine that hurt her deeply, but I was determined not to tolerate her bad behavior and add to her delinquency by allegedly condoning it.

My ex, that heroin addict I mentioned last article, used to come home from three-day drug binges and clutch at me to help him through the repercussions of seventy-two hours of mainlining and drinking. I’d lie on the bed and read a book and shove him off my ankles and treat him like he wasn’t there.
When my friends would insist they were going to give up drinking, I’d be delighted with their decision. Being an ex-alcoholic who stayed sober for six years, I encouraged them heartily to pursue their choice and offered my support if they were struggling.
And when my friends messed up and made bad choices, I was disappointed with them. I couldn’t believe they’d let that happen. I’d be horrified at such pathetic decisions on their part.

But when I botched it myself recently, I guess I was hardly surprised at the anger that boiled up from a couple of my friends. Not that I’ve told that many people, but I’m amazed at how the fact that I slid off the proverbial wagon has made people who I could phone at 3am with a broken heart or toothache suddenly so angry at me. I got the bitter taste of what I have no right to give.

I have a friend who gets really angry whenever I’m ill. I don’t take it personally. It’s just his way of dealing with the fact that I’m sick. Maybe that’s it regarding my slide back into addiction. Worry about me manifesting itself as anger at me. I’d like to believe that.

My theory from experience in a ministry with addicts still stands…the people you want to talk to when you’re trying to scratch your way back up the slope to sobriety beyond the hideous withdrawal that keeps clawing at you to come back down? They are the ones who’ve been there. The ones who get it. The ones who don’t judge you. The people with the patience to talk you through it, make you laugh, tough love you, make you think about something else, whatever it takes. Those are the people you can still pick up the phone to. Granted, being one of those people myself, that tolerance count has its limits. But you can discern the people who mean business. The ones who’ll come right, who might mess up again in the future, but their hearts are in it. It’s a battle of the flesh and no one wins. Only with Jesus Christ can we overcome. He gets it. He knows we are fragile dust.

Who listened to me this time?
My “spiritual” dad, a man who has battled weakness with pornography. He gets it.
My “spiritual” mom, a woman who has overcome her own battles with drinking and smoking and people issues.
A good friend of mine who, the moment I fessed up, begged me to stop. And kept at me until I did.
And a childhood friend, one of my oldest friends in the world. A deeply analytical, sometimes suicidal melancholic just like me. We grew up together and watched each other struggle through the drug and alcohol years, which most times overlapped. He’s the guy who talked me through last night’s battle through withdrawal, using up his last airtime to do it. Because he’s been there. And with a few words of knowledge from his own experience, I felt better already. He even had me laughing my way out of the foetal position. No judgement. No sarcasm. No awkward silence.

The hard thing about people being angry with you times like these is that lead weight feeling you bear that you have no right to be angry back at them. Like a disobedient animal, you feel obligated to keep a low profile and give them the time they need to trust you again. And you have to trust them to take you back and remember you might do it again.

Otherwise, I can only surmise that every time I slip up, I’m going to have less and less friends. I’ve got some work cut out for me there in that case. Because it’s not the first time I lost it. And as sure as God brings addicts out of the pit, it won’t be the last time I probably try and crawl back into it.

A Courtin'

Have I missed something here? I know things have changed. I was brought up with the good old verse that said that if you trained a child in the right way, he would come back to it. I wandered off that track, sure. I ventured into the forbidden fruit zone. I moved in with a heroin addict not even a month after I met him. And I thought I loved him unconditionally for eight years, even through rehab. Repetitively. Despite the sex, drugs and clichéd rock ‘n roll, I did come back. It took me twelve long years. All twelve of which I know my parents prayed fervently for the return of their prodigal daughter.
And one of the things I returned to? Being treated like a princess. Because the King (that’s Jesus Christ I’m talking about) is enthralled with my beauty. No matter what plumb line the modeling agencies and tabloids set for me, no matter whether I should break the 70kg plateau or not, wear red on my lips or dye my hair black, adopt the Goth or au natural façade, it’s just me. I guess, in my late 30’s, I couldn’t really care less.
But something confuses me. That blurred line between boys and girls called friendship these days. See…here’s what I was brought up to believe. If a man took you out to a movie, just the two of you, he was keen on you. If he invited you to coffee or dinner, he was a little of what you’d call in the ol’ days “sweet on you”. And none of that happened the way it does now. A man met your father before he took you out. There was no pressure to “put out” if he paid for dinner. There was no question of who was paying for the meal.
I fell for it recently. I blurred the lines. I liked someone and he took me out to movies and dinner and coffee and somewhere along those fuzzy boundaries (some of which, admittedly, I fuzzed), I thought I might have been his princess.
But I was wrong. Turns out he had lots of princesses already. Some of whose tiaras he’d already taken.
Thank God the King warned me. Before I gave up my crown to someone who could never have seen the sparkle on it the way a Godly man would have.

Tennis Treat

I don't often do caricatures because I don't enjoy them much, but I decided to treat a friend of mine to a humorous take on himself.

Old Favourites...

After weeks of slacking off...in the spirit of updates, I hauled out this old alphabet favourite, published in Creative Reflections magazine back in 2005. Finally getting to updating my website! Honestly, I dunno how I bring in business around here with that old, tired stuff I've had on for years.

Day of the Duck

Sis! I know it's been too long again...but here's a toon I did on the inside of a diary I gave to a friend as a birthday present. We'd spent some time at Zoo Lake, one of our favourite haunts, and were ambushed by a crowd of geese the moment we arrived. Frisky little feathered fiends, those chaps. Somehow, Mark ended up calling it the day of the duck! Crikey, in a tangle of hissing feathers, it's hard to tell the difference! Eeek!

Coupla Faces

Some rather bland caricatures I did for a client. Someone in her office is leaving, so they're doing the big farewell lunch bash with signed card of all the staff. 18 of them in all! Interesting how some people are just screaming to be caricatured and their characteristics are so easy to accentuate...and then you get the others. Groan. They get all cross because some of their features just ain't gonna turn out the way they thought. 'Tis why I prefer to avoid caricature, really. And I'm not that great at it...

Happy Africa!

Whipped out this old one from a coupla years back...I was practicing caricature on my maid at the time. She laughed while she was doing the ironing and I sketched. Heppy Mama!

Bee Bee

Cough! Ack! Ptooey! Sorry about the cobwebs on site here. Been far too long, huh? So, to try and make up for it, here's a little painting I did for an old friend of mine's little girl called Brenna for her 4th birthday recently. She loved it! It's proudly displayed on her bedroom wall. Miss Princess Pink...

Marce's Chop Shop

My friend asked me to draw a tattoo on his arm and, since I used to design them, I sketched this one up quickly on him. His nickname for me is "Maam". Nice because you can read it backwards when you check it out in the mirror!

Smitten

In remembrance of old tattoo designs I miss doing, here's one for my favourite person...the one who has all of my heart. Who gave it wings to fly free from past darkness and misery.

Least Likely to Play Tennis

I scribbled this guy up quickly one afternoon just before a tennis lesson last year. The week before I'd been late for my lesson and my coach was very understanding...phew! So I drew this guy for her to say sorry.

Rambunctious

I deserve to be shot at with stinky fish by this cat after a month of missing in action on my blog here! Shocking stuff. This is Rambo, a friend of mine's maincoon that was killed by the family daschunds, so I rustled up this caricature for him in memory of his faithful companion over 13 years.

Dips and Devastation

Here’s a little take on Christians and depression I felt led to type up today. Contrary to popular teachings (probably from the same evangelists who punt the health, wealth and prosperity doctrine that God takes no responsibility for), the oxymoron “depressed Christian” is very much a reality. Elijah could fill you in on that one. We just want to find a juniper tree and die beneath it, really.

The thing with depression is that it’s not just feeling miserable and “snapping” out of it, as the perky personality types would suggest. The overall consensus in the mind of the melancholic is that there’s no escaping here. Nothing heralds joy. Your cogs and machinery slide to a weighty halt. And stop there for days at a time sometimes.

What are the triggers? Too much stress, for starters. Those are my perils right now. An uncomfortable living arrangement, feeling financially not only hopeless but trapped here for life (both in this house and with a pile of debt collection papers) and two ways to keep my mind occupied pragmatically. I can work. Or I can sleep. Neither really works that effectively and when I’m unable to do either, I’m lost and restless and start to panic.

The obvious is spending time with God. In His Word. Seeking His heart and mind on my matters. Praying constantly. Any suicidal depressant knows this is virtually impossible on any given day of zero coping mechanism. Thankfully, I can leave it to God and ask for the grace to plod through it. Still, the emotional strain is easier levelled with a Xanor some days. I’ll admit to that. That edge that rips at your headspace like a razor blade is so much nicer when a chemical turns it to cotton wool. That ought to stir up the fundamentalists who have no empathy for the darkened, serotonin craving mind, but unless you’ve been there, the depressant will always be distanced as the leper.

I should point out the difference between the manic and the suicidal. The manic leans towards extremes and is alternatively referred to as bipolar. I know several. I’d rather be in the suicidal division, actually. You know what to expect and you know what to avoid. And it’s pretty much one route...down. What you have to do is focus on making your way back up. At the very least to a functioning level.

What are the remedies? Doctors recommend less stress. In an ideal world, we would have tapped into that one years back. It’s not an option. But we can assess the load we can carry. And learn to say no. We can prioritise the important versus the allegedly urgent. We can’t afford to speculate on the big picture some days. Minutes at a time are much easier.

With regards to the depressed Christian, God gets it. Staying there for too long is not His ideal, but He gets it. He feeds us through it and tells us to rest up. It’s all good. And another contradiction in terms of the fundamentalists who believe science is evil is that medicine is good. Abusing it won’t resolve anything, but thank God He created science. I wouldn’t be a living diabetic if it weren’t for insulin and I wouldn’t be a reasonably functioning melancholic if it weren’t for anti-depressants.

Politics Den

Busy with my first political toon for a kids' history book. Big, bad Britain oppressing little Swaziland here. Haven't finished SZ chick yet since I'm still to find out whether I can use the abbreviation on the chick. I mean, Swaziland is a big word to fit on one small chick here!

Skater Boithdays

Birthday presents and cards all into one for skaterboys special day. Just a quick 20 min toon to keep the fingers flowing and the style loose. And yes, he loved it!

IF - Mango Island

You just can't take me anywhere, really. I totally missed today's Illustration Friday theme, which was "island". But I guess I can still slap it up on my blog, and I have been a slacker lately with the ol' blog entries, huh? Been so busy with book illies - just finished a grade 6 English book and start two Swaziland readers next week, due in full colour by month end. Eek!
This little island scene was a book cover for Heinemann Publishers for a story about a cat and a rat that lived on an island and just ate mangoes to survive. Would do any girl a world of good to drop weight, but so unthinkably not healthy after all!

Sunglassed, Spiked and Smilin'

Hauled out this old woman's magazine filler. I've always found cacti are just screaming to be cartooned.

The Butcher, the Baker, the Handyguy...

Hauled out this recent bit of storyboarding and character design for an advertising agency. They loved him, so my work here is done, I guess...