Monday, September 13, 2010

Leaf Frottage

Leaf Frottage
It is a cloudy, fish-smelling evening at the beach tonight. Another long day of art-making with the children has come and gone. I did leaf rubbings (frottage) with my middle school students as they had never seemed to have done them, and I was trying to teach them texture. It was a bit of a bust because they were impatient and easily distracted, so I am re-working the curriculum for texture in middle school and upper elementary students who have never done leaf rubbings or other texture rubbings. Now if it could be an app. on their iPhones, they'd know frottage!


I think the gray today has added to the gray in my heart. I am fighting homesickness. It's not pretty. Maybe, I will have more compassion for others who are homesick because of my own experience! Something good needs to come from this heartache. It's a hard way to learn it. 


Contrast of warm and cool colors.
Everything seems wrong today. I am tired of no eye contact with any men. I'm tired of dresses and capris. I'm tired of shirts that cover my bum, and I am tired of weird food that was interesting at first, but isn't now. The potholes are annoying, the dirt on everything every day is getting old, too. 


OK, that was all a part of working through culture shock. Reading about it and living it are two different things. Seeing the handy chart showing the dip in one's happiness or comfort doesn't really help right now. I am hopeful that my emotions will steady; there are many amazing sights here. Most of all, there are many special people who I hope to get to know better in the year ahead.


With or without art supplies, the children can learn to draw, so I think I will go back to teaching drawing basics with pencils, erasers and computer paper.


I am enjoying cheery roses where I am staying; I am helping care for two super children while their parents are in France.





2 comments:

  1. Dearest Marcia, you are such a blessing now, and what you are learning will be a blessing to others in the future. Dad is teaching you so much about depending on Him and Him alone. It's similar to going through cancer in many ways - you live in a "land" that no one else can really understand while they go on living their lives. And it is just you and Dad. But He is there alongside you living it with you. I can see you writing a book some day - even if you just publish your blogs. It will be illustrated with your art and filled with your heart. Any good thing is usually birthed in pain and suffering. And you are birthing something beautiful! Just continue to take one day at a time, one hour at a time. He knows your every tear. Love you bunches!

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  2. I love those roses! I think you need more plants in your house----and novels, and Angel. Let me send her over. She can't see well now so she gets mixed up as she is following us for dribbles of food and somehow gets tangled in our feet. Then you could fight the gloominess of heart and air, trip over the dog, and then yell, "Angel, get out of the way," like we are doing ten times a day.

    If you would just go trippingly around your apartment like you are going to land on your head and then yell just as you catch yourself from crashing....just speaking for myself, it is an adrenaline rush.

    Each time I look at your blog, Marseea, I think how lucky you are to have a clean house. Three pictures on the wall and one leather chair and no clutter. It looks like heaven to me since I seem to be living in a warehouse. Not that I notice too much since I am physically chained to the computer. Your tush can actually be hidden under clothing? And there you go! Roses, a sparse clean house, and a hidden tush. That does it! I am coming to Morocco!

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