It’s been 5 months since my last blog (sounds like a confession…) and I’m trying to understand why that is. When I started this ‘living without beethoven’ journey, now almost 16 months ago, I planned to diligently blog at least every couple of weeks. I was going to delve into the complexities of living in a relationship but apart for an extended period of time. I did just that, for the first couple of blogs but then there were rumblings that maybe some things were a bit personal, or wasn’t this going to be more of a travel diary? They weren’t serious rumblings or criticisms, just friends or family posing curious questions. Fair enough. But as a first time blogger, I felt increasingly insecure and worried about what others thought of my thoughts. How many people liked my blog on Facebook? Did anyone share it? Who commented? Suddenly my blogging became a chore – this wasn’t because someone had asked a 
question, it was because of my own insecurities and my need for approval.
During this time I also discovered watercolour. As you know from previous blogs, I have studied some art, and I always loved to draw. Arthritis in my hands made drawing painful, but watercolour was the perfect medium for me and it changed my world. I found peace in painting…but then I started to share. Suddenly, I was painting to please. Once again, I tapped into those insecurities and spoiled my own moment, creating blocks for myself – nothing that anyone did or said, caused this. I did it all myself thanks to my years of experience. Through an online group called ‘The World Watercolor Group’ I did find a supportive and safe environment in which to experiment and grow. It also gave me some time to reflect on why I continually obstruct my own path.
For Marco and I, this past 16 months have given us an opportunity that we’ll cherish forever. It’s given us each the distance to be able to really see what’s important. We were forced to stop long enough to take a good look at what we have and at who we are. I shouldn’t speak for him, but I’m pretty confident he would agree with me. I have been learning things that I have forever said to our own children (not very convincingly, I’m afraid, as I know they both likely saw through me) – it doesn’t matter what others think, believe in yourself, be confident in your abilities. Life is short, do what you love…and on and on…it’s not about the money. Be passionate, be compassionate. I’ve always believed what I told them, I just never managed to put those ideals into practice.
Last week I turned 58. Wow. I looked up, suddenly my kids were successful and beautiful adult human beings. How did we get here? Why can’t I remember every
precious moment? I swear there are major gaps and not only during those teen years when I had my eyes closed. Time is the only unknown, really. How much time do I have? It could be up five minutes from now, I could have 40 years. The great unknown. The equalizer. We spend our lives wanting things to hurry up and be here, then we want things to slow down. Most of us, if we add up the minutes, are almost never content, never in the moment. Always wanting to backwards go or forwards. That’s the most difficult thing for me NOT to do. I realize it’s a very ‘in’ topic now, and there are a zillion podcasts, books and retreats that say they can help me, but I’m not convinced. I need to just do it. Stop worrying about what I said yesterday, what I did yesterday…stop worrying about the ‘what ifs’ of tomorrow. I went back and read my very first blog called ‘Hummingbird Dreams’ and I heard myself struggling with the same questions when I started this journey.
Marco and I talk about time quite often. It’s a fascinating topic, really. The one thing we know is it’s moving fast and we need to do everything we can, to savor it. To slow down and just be. Yes, we’re excited about Marco living at home again, 8 months from now. But we also don’t want it to go too fast, because that’s just time lost – it’s not retrievable. It’s just gone. While we don’t know how much we have, we do know that it is finite.
In the words of Dr. Seuss…“How did it get so late so soon?”
Since my last blog, life has continued to happen. Casimir got engaged to Larissa at the base of Mount Doom in New Zealand – he’s heading off to play music with various bands around the country; Marieke is heading to Australia for a month before going off to do her Masters in Art History armed with some very nice scholarships and funding opportunities (location to be formally announced soon). I went back to Australia with a good friend, Natasha, in February and had an absolutely wonderful visit – I’m heading back again at the end of June. Our plans are to visit Tasmania for a few days in July, then in October we’ll have a final trip to New Zealand before Marco comes home for Christmas and who knows after that? Til next time.
painting. I wrote in my last blog about how it calmed my mind. What I realize is that it also gives me an outlet for expressing myself, something I have been trying to achieve with my blog posts. Sometimes, however, words actually get in the way of what I’m feeling. It’s hard to explain, but a friend of mine who paints, talks about her watercolours sometimes getting ‘muddy’. I think I know what she means – you work and work the painting until you’ve lost it. The colours may become less transparent, the work gets muddled and you wish you’d known when to stop. Words are like that too, I think. When I write, I try to search for the ‘essence’ of what I’m feeling, but sometimes I clutter that up with too much detail, too many words.
Through painting, I’m feeling less of a need to write my feelings down. So far, my paintings are mostly of birds, so I’m not exactly painting what I’m feeling in the moment. However, when I play with the colours and watch them meld together, it gives me what I call my ‘hummingbird calm’ – that feeling I wrote about in my very first blog. The feeling that carried me through the death of my Father last fall, and the departure of Marco in January. The feeling that I tried so hard to replicate in the months after Marco left. I found it in the most unlikely of places – standing at the kitchen counter of Marco’s tiny apartment one day, playing with paint. Somehow I discovered strength and peace in the simple process of adding water to colour.
When I wrote my blog last week, I was, as I often am, struggling with what I call ‘ the noise in my head’. I’ve often described the inside of my mind as a ‘quidditch’ match. Thoughts tearing around like a tasmanian devil up there. I enjoy my active mind, but sometimes I just wish it would be a calm and restful place. Especially while I’m on vacation. How was I to achieve that? Well, I know there are dozens of books about ‘quieting the mind’, but it has to come from within and there are no books that can help with that part of it. I’ve tried mediation, tai chi, reading calming books – they all help a bit, but for a very short time.
s, my pencils always needed sharpening, my charcoal usually snapped. I loved it! In those moments or hours, I was oblivious to what was going on around me. My cheeks would get flushed, my heart would race…my drawings were often big and there were no delicate pencil lines. The past few years I have done very little art, and when I do, it’s just not the same. I have arthritis in my hands, so they cramp up (especially with my tight grip on whatever I’m using to draw). Drawing is also not something that I enjoy as much when I do it alone – I have always loved life drawing, in a room filled with the energy of other artists. I’ve struggled to find something that can match that experience.
While in Australia, I decided to try watercolour. This is a medium I have used only once or twice in a class (many years ago), but I have always been drawn to the colours – the way they meld together, the layers…the immediacy of it. After observing many birds here, I was drawn to their tremendous colours, some stunning in their brightness and others so gorgeous and muted. I picked up some basic supplies, watched a couple of YouTube videos 🙂 and here are my very first efforts. I set a goal for myself, that I would spend no more than a couple of hours per painting (I have a tendency to overwork things) and at the end of the week I would 
share my learning and discovering on my blog. The most important thing I discovered in this process was that for the first time in as long as I can remember, while it’s nice when someone likes what you create, I don’t care in the same way about these paintings – if I love the colours, or see something in the painting that I am excited by, that’s enough for me. When I’m experimenting with this new medium, my mind is empty of anything but what I am doing in the moment. My mind is quiet…
ort while after – it’s kind of like advil, it does wear off), I’m off for a walk to the beach, or to a cafe to read a book. It’s a wonderful feeling. While I am dreading heading back to Winnipeg without Marco (the flight is exhausting, but it also means another goodbye), I plan to take a class this fall and continue painting. My hands are not bothered by this lighter medium, I feel I could do it for hours at a time.
cindy rublee - living without beethoven 