sf sunset and career counselor excersise: obituary
Thursday, July 27th, 2006
this is from a photo. the hardest part of this was getting the colors of the sky. i think i tried 3 base colors before i got the one that i wanted. i tried mixing so many colors to get it right. i even referred to a color wheel, but seeing the color on your mixing thing versus on canvas is so different … the base color that i finally decided to go with is a pea greenish-orangy color rather than a poop color.
this one took me three days. i mean literally three days… like i was so engrossed in it to where i’d forgotten about my career counselor appointment and was late by 15 mins.
i hate being late! sometimes i don’t calculate the time that it takes to do something … i don’t know. sometimes i just get distracted with something else and i think….. okay, i’ll leave by this time. but does that ever happen?
oh, so during my meeting with diane, she modeled the process that i was to do for my next assignment. this will probably be one of the hardest ‘looking deep inside myself’ exercises. i can do whatever i need to find out three reasons why i was put this earth. i’m suppose to find my core.
she said that when she looks at obituaries, it’s always the same. so and so was born here and so and so did this type of work. so and so has ten kids and two ex-wives…. etc. with this type of obituary, you don’t really understand who the person was. you don’t feel his humanity. you don’t feel how he was different from other people - he was different just as i’m different from you. but if say his obituary said this: so and so was warm hearted. the most important for him was to give voice to those who did not have their own. he can often be seen in africa educating mothers of the danger of female genital mutilation and why the practice needs to stop.
the second obituary is the one where you can picture the man trying to give a voice to the young girls who have none in their country. you can feel his humanity.
well, i’m suppose to imagine that i live to 82 years old. my assignment is to write my own obituary. one that i want people to remember me by. one where people of future generations can feel who ‘myra’ was.
my problem is that i am so many things. i guess i just have to find the three things that if taken away would make my existence miserable. i guess i can start with having contact with people or my strong need to help others. i don’t know if those are “core” things, but i’ll start with that train of thought.
i mentioned that i would start with asking others how they see me. diane said that this is a solo exercise. i should be the one to define who or what i will do between now and the next 50 years. i’ve let other people for the longest time define who i am and i never realized that. i guess this is why it is so important for me to find who i am and to be true to myself. to be authentic. to not having to put effort into being something that i’m not just to please people. just to avoid conflict maybe? or just so i don’t disappoint people. i guess in my growth process, i’m going to have to accept that i cannot make everyone happy and that i will disappoint someone. i probably already have.
well, having so much fun with the munchkins. i am so tired, but it’s been a blast playing games with them all night, singing my niece to sleep … etc. i think today, we might stay local and hit the ice-skating ring and bike over to the trails and head over to the park. it will be lovely today.
