Eeeny Meeny Miney Mission

So we drove 4 hours south to visit Tony's dad Friday morning, returning late last night.  That's about all we can take unfortunately.  It's so sad watching those we love get old, grumpy, sedentary, confused, etc.  We usually go for slightly longer but break it up by staying with some good friends who live nearby but who were sick with the flu this time.  Tony told me on the drive home I did very well this trip...well, I brought with me plenty of distractions, my new daily goal of the visual journal occupying much of my thoughts since what was tangible and in front of me i was trying to escape.  I suppose that doesn't really make sense, trying to avoid the pain of real life by figuring out how to put my feelings about it into my visual journal?  Well, whatever, that's what I did and it seemed to work and I actually got the page done!  It's funny how as I'm going through the day I'm making note of what's impacting me, influencing me, affecting me and what I want to take away from it to put in my journal and then the task of finding the imagery and verbiage in my current magazine stash, in the tips of my pens & paint brushes, in the form of poetry, to take the whole day and make one page out of it.  Some things that seem important don't end up on the page but how can you capture it all?  This new project is challenging me, rewarding me and therapyzing me (that's not a word i know but i didn't like "counseling me"). 

Yesterday was another day of driving and pit stops so I didn't get to finish my page until this morning which i felt compelled to do before anything else...ok, I helped get the kids dressed, wiped Teagan's snotty nose, watched the kids play on the sidewalk out front, picked up the house a little, etc.  Again, another day filled with things I can't possibly, or maybe don't even want to, include on its page.  I grabbed little things here and there to add to it, including a St. Anthony charm that I safety pinned to the page and while at Barrel House Brewing Company I did a rubbing from the very cool & bizarre wall texture which became the background of the page. 

We visited two Missions on this little road trip, places I'm very drawn to and intrigued by.  Yes more of the cross collecting atheist's random obsessions.  I would like to put together a photo book someday, not the first of it's kind but the first by me, of all the California and Baja Missions.  I've been to and photographed several of them now.  On our way down we checked out the small Mission Soledad, off the beaten path a little and centered in fields of dusty crops, the wind blowing dirt over the property making you wonder how it hasn't been buried!  I absolutely loved the chapel with all it's quaint detail and i picked myself up a little golden Milagro heart which i glued onto my visual journal page for the day.  On the drive home, however, since we had the time we drove the 26 miles off the highway to visit Mission San Antonio de Padua.  The drive was very pretty, a mixture of old oaks and desert feel.  Fallen leaves scattered the road and as we drove through I'd look in my rear view mirror and smile at the fluttering, sparkling dance we'd leave behind.  Unfortunately the mission didn't leave me with as much good feeling.  I couldn't put my finger on it while we were there, wandering about the massive building and grounds, nor could I figure it out as we were driving away and I knew I never wanted to return.  It wasn't until my head lay on my pillow many hours later that I made the connection between the saint of lost possessions, the disabled & sick, St. Anthony, and the mission built in his namesake.  I had been picking up the negative energy of loss, of pain and tragedy and heartache.  It was almost as if I could see the spirits erratically flying about, tortured and sad.  Yes, I just said that.  Yes, I'm an atheist...but something I can't quite resolve is my connection to what I can only really describe as the spiritual world, or the energy world.  Do I believe in ghosts? Not really.  But I know I have a mild psychic connection to my fellow man and their energy.  As I tried explaining all this to Tony (ironic about the name) this morning he took the opposite reaction, that there would be a sense of love, support & kindness to those things & people lost, to those disabled and sick.  I heard him and I understood but it's not what I felt when I was there.  I'm glad I went but I won't be returning.  Maybe someday I should, to try to make peace with it, but it's very far down on my list and I've basically already put it behind me.

So here are the two visual journals for Friday and Saturday.  Enjoy!