There may not be any cake, or candles even, no jelly and ice-cream, party frock and presents to unwrap, but it is a birthday celebration even so. Because five years ago today I started this blog. And it is something that I am inordinately proud of, because I know it makes a difference. And that has been illustrated clearly to me over just the last few brief hours…….
It started when I received a message on Facebook from someone I know in real life, although I’ve not seen her for a year or so, I used to see her most weeks in my local pub and always enjoyed her company and the company of her jolly husband. They have moved away now, and I rarely go in that pub since its not so local to me now I’ve moved, but we are connected by the tenuous links of Facebook so I can see what she’s up to and catch up with her family photos. But, what I hadn’t realised was that she was watching over me, silently, and knows what I’m up to, I was blissfully unware of that fact until I received this message out of the blue yesterday
 “Jackie, just wanted to say that I love your blogs … I don’t get time to read them all but when I do, each one is like a short story with lots of details! Keep it up and thank you for writing your great blogs! x”
Aw, how lovely, I thought, and thanked her via Facebook for her uplifting and supportive words. It’s sooo good to know that my readers find what I write vaguely interesting, and come back as often as they wish to catch up with my words. Even though I don’t know exactly who they are, unless they choose to tell me.
Facebook has become a good friend to me this year already as I’ve made lots (well over a hundred just this last week or so) of new friends, and have been invited to a number of invite only groups, all supportive of each other, and able to chat and share information, offer advice, and talk about various topics that are important to the members. So its good to hear what others are getting up to, and to talk about what I am interested in. Which is why, at well past eleven of the clock last night, I was having a chat with one of them on Facebook asking me if I’d be interested in drawing him, yes I would I said, whilst two seconds later a female artist friend asked me if I was seeing her tomorrow to draw her via a third party who normally arranges it, but who hadn’t let me know, even though he’d arranged it with her, so I replied with a blank er, can’t do tomorrow??????! don’t know anything about it and have a lot on reply, as I answered the first guy about the pose he was interested in, whilst a third guy messaged me to thank me for commenting on his nice photography, and a fourth guy (who knows the first guy in real life – are you keeping up!) if I was interested in drawing him as well. Yes I am. The first guy asked me how much? and I had to go back to think which pose he was talking about, whislt asking the woman artist friend how she was and what she was up to as she enquired what work I was working on and I told her about the erotic art I’m doing, whilst giving a price to the first chap, and talking about the pose that the fourth chap was interested in as a commission and thank goodness the third guy had gone quiet, because it was like those performers who can spin plates on bendy canes, frantically trying to keep them all going, answering one question from the first guy, who knows the fourth guy, who doesn’t know I’m talking to him, as well as chatting with the artist friend who was catching up with me as well, and having a total different conversation regarding finding work in this difficult climate. Thank goodness the third chap had gone quiet, I answered the first one with a fair price (half of what I would normally charge for the sort of drawing he wanted, but it was still too much for him as he’s out of work) and chatting about the interesting pose the fourth guy wanted to chat about, whilst the woman said her goodnights as it was late, by which time it was midnight, and I’d had a flurry of arty conversations with four people in various parts of the country at the same time over the course of a frantic forty minutes. Phew, time for bed too. And I logged off with a smile on my face, because of Facebook, and the chats I was having, because it means I have something that people like, want, want to talk about, ask about, discuss, see, have, want to experience, want to own, just WANT. And isn’t that just great! Reallllllly great!
 
This morning before I started work on the painting I’m doing, I chatted with my friend on the phone, who has various problems in her life (don’t we all, they’re just different problems on different days), all of which I know about. I don’t need to explain what her problems are here, just that I am privy to them. But, I could feel the positive energies in her even as she talked through them. Because, she explained to me that recently she had heard about the “Law of attraction” – which is when you get what you want in life by thinking about what you want, and wishing for it. And I agreed with her, that it was possible. It may take time, but you will get it, eventually. And that is because you make a conscious effort to work towards this thing – which is different for all of us – it may be to be part a large family, to build a fabulous house, or to move to another country, or even THE country, or leave the country to see the world, to sing at the Albert Hall, to play the piano, to be an artist, to get poems published, to open a card shop, to run a little bistro, to stand on top of Everest, or make loads of money through running your own business. Whatever that elusive “thing” is, that dream that we chase, its possible, because we WILL it to be. And every day, its a little closer, until we get it. But, only because we want it, and aim towards it in a single minded focused sort of way. Because unless we do, we won’t be happy and fulfilled because of “I wish I’d………….oh, too late………..”. But the thing she said to me that made me so very happy was when she said “You make a difference in people’s lives” she meant partly through my own and friendly character and partly through my art, because she had never been drawn before when she met me, and I have done a painting of her, which she totally adored when she saw it, because she saw herself in a different light to the one she felt within herself (much dimmed to the one I saw in her, and depicted within the painting of her) and seeing the painting cheered her immensely, and made her happy. The euphoria quietened down slowly afterwards, like fairy dust settling in the air, but I know it can be stirred up again, by either her looking intently at the painting and remembering how she first felt, or by having another painting done of herself.
I know that’s the way it works.
And I know I have opened that aspect up in Stuart as well, in various drawings I’ve done of him but mostly the latest painting which depicts him as the lively personality and sums up the character he is and how he became like that, in just ONE painting, one image, has had a huge impact on him, and on me. Because it IS possible to do, and I achieved it. I’m sure I’ll have that chance again for other people.
But, the thing that I am celebrating most on this fifth anniversary of blogging – is the fact that I make a difference to those who want the experience of it, through me.