![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
52 Card Project 2022: Week 4: Crisálida
Jan. 26th, 2022 09:07 amOkay, this one will be long. I re-did this card three times because it was so important to me, and I wanted to get it absolutely right.
I've remarked with some relief that this year I haven't descended into seasonal affective disorder as I often do in the winter. And yet this week has been extra challenging. It's been cold this week, and it's cold AF today (-11°F, -32°F wind chill), and I'm wearing fuzzy slipper socks and bundling up in my fluffy black hooded wrap that's a cross between a jacket and a blanket. I've been reluctant to go out.
Then, there's the pandemic. My employer has told us all not to come into the office. At all. At the start of the pandemic, before vaccination, I went into the office once a week (wearing a cloth mask) to print documents. Things feel different: Omicron is SO contagious and I know people who have been caught it even though they've been vaccinated and boosted and are ultra-careful. I'm wearing an N95 instead of a cloth mask. I'm isolating even more than I did then. My twice-weekly walks with a couple of friends have stopped, and although I started going to church during Advent, I've stopped again.
And there's an anniversary today, and I'm sad. I told my supervisor I would be taking the day as sick time as a mental health day. A grief day.
I'm cocooning.
I watched Encanto with my daughter Fiona, and this week I've downloaded the soundtrack by Lin Manuel Miranda and I'm obsessing. Yes, I've listened to "We Don't Talk About Bruno" loads of times. It's a hit that has taken everyone by surprise, but that wasn't the song that the Encanto production submitted to the Academy for consideration for the Oscar for Best Song. Instead, they submitted "Dos Oruguitas," a song that Lin Manuela Miranda said he composed with the hope that it would sound like a 100-year-old folk song. And it does. It absolutely hit right in the solar plexus of my feels, especially after I listened to the English translation. I will be adding it to my widow playlist on YouTube.
Because of course I identify with Alma's (Abuela's) story. She fell in love with a handsome, bearded man with kind eyes who adored their children, and she lost him too young.
Of course I do. ( Encanto is a widow's story )
Watch the video. It's only five minutes long. I'll wait:
( Here are the lyrics in English )
I kissed Rob goodbye for the last time four years ago exactly today. That devastated look on Alma's face at 1:56 on the video? That was the look on my face, four years ago today.
But I have to be willing to change. I have to be willing to emerge from my own cocoon. In "Waiting for a Miracle," Mirabel compares the gifted members of her family to shining stars. In the last song, "All of You," keeping with the theme of change, Mirabel sings:
What does that mean for me?
I'm still trying to figure that out.
All three iterations of the card included Alma and Pedro's last kiss. The first draft of the card included an image of Abuela and Mirabel with the butterflies as the image at the bottom, but then I decided to make it more personal and included an image of myself wearing the black cocoon coat.
Then it occurred to me that I wanted to be holding Rob's candle. This is the candle that was lit for the first time at his memorial service. I have burned it since whenever I was particularly missing him, and now the candle is almost entirely gone, just like Abuela's candle. I was mulling in frustration yet again the problem of how I could take the picture of me holding the candle when it occurred to me for the first time that I could download an app that put the camera on timer. Duh. So you can actually see both my hands! Over that, I superimposed a butterfly's chrysalis. The name of the card is the word "chrysalis" in Spanish. The background is the storm of butterflies.
Here's the card:
Crisálida
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 gallery.
Edited to add: Wow, right after I posted this, I checked Facebook, and this came up in my memories from four years ago:
I've remarked with some relief that this year I haven't descended into seasonal affective disorder as I often do in the winter. And yet this week has been extra challenging. It's been cold this week, and it's cold AF today (-11°F, -32°F wind chill), and I'm wearing fuzzy slipper socks and bundling up in my fluffy black hooded wrap that's a cross between a jacket and a blanket. I've been reluctant to go out.
Then, there's the pandemic. My employer has told us all not to come into the office. At all. At the start of the pandemic, before vaccination, I went into the office once a week (wearing a cloth mask) to print documents. Things feel different: Omicron is SO contagious and I know people who have been caught it even though they've been vaccinated and boosted and are ultra-careful. I'm wearing an N95 instead of a cloth mask. I'm isolating even more than I did then. My twice-weekly walks with a couple of friends have stopped, and although I started going to church during Advent, I've stopped again.
And there's an anniversary today, and I'm sad. I told my supervisor I would be taking the day as sick time as a mental health day. A grief day.
I'm cocooning.
I watched Encanto with my daughter Fiona, and this week I've downloaded the soundtrack by Lin Manuel Miranda and I'm obsessing. Yes, I've listened to "We Don't Talk About Bruno" loads of times. It's a hit that has taken everyone by surprise, but that wasn't the song that the Encanto production submitted to the Academy for consideration for the Oscar for Best Song. Instead, they submitted "Dos Oruguitas," a song that Lin Manuela Miranda said he composed with the hope that it would sound like a 100-year-old folk song. And it does. It absolutely hit right in the solar plexus of my feels, especially after I listened to the English translation. I will be adding it to my widow playlist on YouTube.
Because of course I identify with Alma's (Abuela's) story. She fell in love with a handsome, bearded man with kind eyes who adored their children, and she lost him too young.
Of course I do. ( Encanto is a widow's story )
Watch the video. It's only five minutes long. I'll wait:
( Here are the lyrics in English )
I kissed Rob goodbye for the last time four years ago exactly today. That devastated look on Alma's face at 1:56 on the video? That was the look on my face, four years ago today.
But I have to be willing to change. I have to be willing to emerge from my own cocoon. In "Waiting for a Miracle," Mirabel compares the gifted members of her family to shining stars. In the last song, "All of You," keeping with the theme of change, Mirabel sings:
Look at this family, a glowing constellationYou'll note that at the end of the video I posted, there is now an opening in the valley, a breach in the range of protective mountains. This is an invitation to Albuela and the community: It's time to leave the cocoon.
So full of stars, and everybody wants to shine
But the stars don't shine, they burn
And the constellations shift...
What does that mean for me?
I'm still trying to figure that out.
All three iterations of the card included Alma and Pedro's last kiss. The first draft of the card included an image of Abuela and Mirabel with the butterflies as the image at the bottom, but then I decided to make it more personal and included an image of myself wearing the black cocoon coat.
Then it occurred to me that I wanted to be holding Rob's candle. This is the candle that was lit for the first time at his memorial service. I have burned it since whenever I was particularly missing him, and now the candle is almost entirely gone, just like Abuela's candle. I was mulling in frustration yet again the problem of how I could take the picture of me holding the candle when it occurred to me for the first time that I could download an app that put the camera on timer. Duh. So you can actually see both my hands! Over that, I superimposed a butterfly's chrysalis. The name of the card is the word "chrysalis" in Spanish. The background is the storm of butterflies.
Here's the card:
Click here to see the 2022 52 Card Project gallery.
Click here to see the 2021 gallery.
Edited to add: Wow, right after I posted this, I checked Facebook, and this came up in my memories from four years ago: