Had a bit of a scare this morning. Which sounds dramatic for what it was. But it felt dramatic.
My Morning Ink sketchbook was not on the coffee table where it lives. I looked through the pile of sketchbooks multiple times thinking I must have been missing it. I looked through the piles of books on the trunk. I looked through the pile of stuff on the sofa. I looked under the sofa and coffee table. I took the throw off the sofa and shocked it out and put it back. I looked in the dining roomand through the pile of stuff on the dining table. (Yes, there are a lot of piles of ‘stuff’!) I put a message in the group chat asking if anyone had done anything with it. But, of course, no-one else is up at 5.30 in the morning! I started imagining that, for some reason, a member of my family was playing a trick on me, and I felt devastated. Devastated that they would pick this really special practice of mine to use for a joke. Devastated that, even if they didn’t do it as a joke they didn’t have sn understanding of how important this is for me.
And then I looked at the suitcase sat in the living room and remembered that my daughter’s friend had come to get her stuff from it yesterday. And wondered if it might have somehow ended up in there. And, lo and behold, it was!
I was so relieved and got straight to my drawing, marvelling at how bad it made me feel to be prevented from my Morning Ink time. And grateful that it was just an accident and not intentional. And then, of course, really guilty that I thought anyone in my family would do that on purpose, because I genuinely don’t think they would.
Thankfully all is well and what it has taught me is that I need to make sure to hold this practice safe and not let anything push it out of the way.
