Sound The Bugle

I finished my NaMoPaiMo horse today.  The last year has been... hard.  I tried to focus on the good in my year in review post, but there was a lot of hard stuff too.  Such is life?  I have been grieving on different levels.  Friendships lost after a disastrous trip that was supposed to be a childhood dream come true.  Grieving leaving Japan and the friends I made there.  The distance from a people and culture that I feel aligns strongly with my values, and a place that felt safe, refreshing, beautiful, spiritual.  Our house hunt was a trial beyond words and the trial didn't stop when we finally found a place.  It's full of problems.  I could go on, but I'm still trying to stay positive through it all.  Trying.

Back to the horse, I started painting him before the middle of the month, Way early for me, the Queen/Captain of Team Last Minute - who painted her entire large Traditional scale horse on the LAST day of the first NaMoPaiMo.  This year, I was going to do it differently.  I was going to start early and venture into the exciting world of using pigments.  A solution to really the only downside of acrylics - difficulties blending.

On the 14th I talked to my Granny, the woman who raised me.  She wasn't feeling well, but said she'd be okay in a couple of days.  I told her I loved her.  On the 16th, she passed suddenly.  I have been feeling utterly destroyed.

For a week I couldn't attempt to create anything.  I thought surely "making" would help me.  A love of creating things is one of the biggest things I got from Granny.  But I couldn't do it.  I sat at my desk, moved paint bottles around, and cried.  Day after day.

Two days ago, I thought that I should come up with a meaningful name for my NaMoPaiMo horse, just in case I could pull up out of the downward spiral in time to finish him.  I spent an evening searching various inspirations, nothing clicked.

That night, in the shower, I started humming a song from Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.  The more I thought about it, I realized he had a name.

Sound The Bugle

Well, then I had to get him finished.  Yesterday, I sat down, took a deep breath, started mixing paints, and he started coming to life.

Today, after another emotional breakdown, followed more ridiculous drama with the house/our neighborhood (guns are involved), I put on some upbeat pop music and finished painting.

Sound The Bugle
Bryan Adams


Sound the bugle now
Play it just for me
As the seasons change
Remember how I used to be

Now I can't go on
I can't even start
I got nothing left
Just an empty heart

I'm a soldier, wounded so I must give up the fight
There's nothing more for me
Lead me away
Or leave me lying here

Sound the bugle now
Tell them I don't care
There's not a road I know
That leads to anywhere

Without a light I
Fear that I will stumble in the dark
Lay right down
Decide not to go on

Then from on high
Somewhere in the distance
There's a voice that calls
Remember who you are

If you lose yourself
Your courage soon will follow
So be strong tonight
Remember who you are

Yeah, you're a soldier now
Fighting in a battle
To be free once more
Yeah, that's worth fighting for