Tag: Personal Writing

  • Well, Gouache Painting, Nice to see you.

    Well, Gouache Painting, Nice to see you.

    Gouache Painting, Grief & Change: A Personal Creative Journey

    It’s been a while since my last post, and I wanted to check in. Life has been busy, bittersweet, and creatively fulfilling in unexpected ways.

    Work, Priorities, and Why I’m Not Gaming as Much

    As a remote SEO content specialist, work has kept me on my toes. While I usually love unwinding with cozy and casual games, I’ve stopped buying new ones. With my husband still looking for work, I’m mindful about spending—a decision I am pretty sure many of us have had to make in “uncertain times”.

    That doesn’t mean I love cozy gaming any less! I still follow upcoming cozy game releases, and when the time is right, I’ll be back with fresh recommendations.

    Brown tabby kitten with brown eyes on adoption day, looking curious and full of life.
    Skittles as a tiny, wide-eyed kitten on the day we brought him home.

    Losing a Furry Friend and Finding Comfort in Creativity

    A more challenging part last Christmas and the beginning of this year has been saying goodbye to one of my seven, now six beloved cats. Anyone who has lost a pet knows the profound emptiness their absence leaves behind. My other cats have comforted me, each offering their own fur-coated unique ways of their version of love (which sometimes is suspiciously just like their annoyance. )

    Grief looks different for everyone, but I’ve found an unexpected outlet in gouache painting.

    Why Gouache Painting Became My Creative Escape

    I recently started using a Strathmore 8×11 watercolor sketchbook, and it’s been a game-changer for my creativity. If you’ve ever been curious about gouache but weren’t sure where to start, here’s why I love it:

    • Forgiving & Beginner-Friendly. Unlike watercolor, gouache is opaque and rewettable, making mistakes easy to fix.
    • Rich, Vibrant Colors. How it layers and blends makes it feel like a mix of watercolor and acrylic.
    • Less Noisy Thoughts. I enjoy how, even if I am mixing and swatching or I do not finish, it can make the inside of my mind quiet.

    I’ve been experimenting with soft landscapes, loose summer nighttime greenery, and even a few cat portraits. It’s been a great way to channel emotions into something creative and meditative.

    Cozy Games on Hold (For Now), But Not Forgotten

    A gouache painting depicting a sunlit path with warm sandy stones, glowing moss, and distant blue leafy bushes. A single beam of light highlights the path and moss, while a dark, dead tree trunk is visible on the left.
    A vibrant gouache painting featuring a sunbeam illuminating a path, moss, and a dead tree trunk

    Even though I haven’t been playing as much, cozy and casual games remain one of my favorite ways to unwind. Some upcoming indie titles have caught my eye, and I’m excited to dive back in when the time is right.

    I’m considering revisiting old favorites still in my Steam library for now—sometimes, the best cozy game is one you already own.

    Embracing the Present

    Life is a constant balancing act between work, creativity, grief, and financial mindfulness. Right now, I focus on what brings peace and fulfillment in the moment while balancing everything else. How have you been doing? What are you trying to focus on?

  • A Clockwork Heart

    A Clockwork Heart

    Originally written in January 2012 as tribute, as healing, as grieving.

    I have a clockwork heart.

    When I wake up, all the gears tick, spin, and hum. They turn without protest as I swing my feet out of bed and go about my morning routine. Slow and steady, spokes touch spokes, turning the great machine that is my body and brain into a slide show of normality.

    I wash my face.
    (That looks like my mother’s if she were fat.)
    I brush my teeth.
    (That are crooked like hers but not like hers.)
    I brush my hair.
    (That darkened from a daisy-blond, like my mother’s. That is thinning as I age. Like my mothers.)

    I miss you.

    I look at my Christmas tree; I feel numb. I lay in bed at night and tried not to wake my husband as grief crept in like warning waves before the tsunami. I stare at the Christmas lights in our bedroom window and think their glow has been dimmed, like mine.

    Inside my heart, the pieces wind down as the clock keeps ticking. Memories become slug-thick, crude oil that trickles down into all the once-working pieces until I can feel it struggle to beat. The wheels are slowing down.

    I see: My mother is bored in a car, waiting for my father. I act like an idiot to entertain and get her to laugh. It works.

    I see: My mother took me out one night to the casino. She keeps spending money. She keeps saying she has a good feeling about this machine or that. Soon, she’s spent so much that I dread us coming home. We are so in disbelief at how much money she’s lost that we’re laughing our heads off, hooting and howling, cackling and giggling the whole way home. My mother laughs so much on the doorstep that she begins to cry/cackle. She has to lean on the door so as not to fall. I laugh with her because I love nothing more than my mother, happy.

    It’s hard for my heart to keep working. It keeps skipping and slipping; the wheels are choking on specks of dirt that bind delicate mechanics. I’m not looking at the tinsel on my walls, and I refuse to turn around and look at my tree. I think about all the places I promised I’d take her when she visited me in Florida. I think about all the food she’d never eat, the things I wanted to show her she’d never see.

    I think about Disney. How she had always dreamed of visiting Disney.

    My heart winds down to a stop, and all the gears jumble on top of one another, squeezing against my lungs. Springs, strings, screws, and broken childhood dreams pile up on one another; they are cars in the snow on the highway that don’t know how to keep from slipping. It grows and grows and grows until it feels like an angry hand reaches in to squeeze everything that I am until it breaks.

    It feels just like dying, like someone you love has died.

    I have a clockwork heart. During the day, its gears whir and spin, carrying me through the mundane with what feels normal. At night, it stops, and I am small and lost. There is no lullaby to sooth it.

    The woman who once sang me songs in the terror of my night is gone. I hear only my heart screeching to a halt and the silence.

    Image of my mother, to which clockwork heart is dedicated to.

    For my mother.
    April 2nd, 1956 – December 11th, 2011