Are You Following Me?

I haven't been here in a while --- to the blog, I mean. I've been engaged in many other creative activities with some work thrown in here and there also. This morning, though, I ran across a list on Muse about seventeen habits that a person needs to ditch if they are making life harder, and number one on the list was: You Don't Follow Through. That got me thinking about the expression, "Are you following me?" which can be interpreted in at least three ways: 1) in the sense that one is being stalked, 2) in the sense that two people are having a conversation, and wants to be sure that the other person understands, and now 3) Do you follow the wonderful things I am doing at my blog, Facebook page, Twitter, etc. Are you following me?

In the first sense, among the things that sometimes follow me is the black dog of depression. I don't have it nearly as bad as I have had it in the past. A lot of wonderful things are happening in my life. Nevertheless, when a person has been stalked by the black dog (and by the way, I love black dogs as much as any other dog --- this is a metaphor here, okay?), she often goes throughout life fearing that the black dog is coming back and moving in.

Now, let's look at the different approaches that a person can take when she is actually being followed by this black dog or fears that she will be. She could turn around and just look at the black dog. Look it long and hard and cold in the face. Smile at it. Tell it to go away. Chase it. Sing to it. Give it a treat. Pet it. Ask it why it is following her. Ignore it. Pray for it to find something better to do. Find something better to do.

Today, I like that last option best because friends, there is almost always work to be done of all types, and I need to do it, starting with cleaning up the kitchen (again). I've also got grading to do. The black dog can sit here and watch me, if it wants to. But if it does, I'm going to sing, "Does That Make Me Crazy?" and it can turn its head in the side angle way that dogs do, and listen. In between my school work and cleaning, I'm also going to sneak in creative bursts up in

the art studio, where I am collaging a gamecock landing on a snake. Here it is in progress.

I've just put a small Eiffel Tower paper cutout on the fence behind the gamecock. Why? Because it's a nice way to say I remember the violence that occurred in France recently, the many deaths due to terrorism, but also to say we are going to rally, all of us. We're going to fly in and land on the snake. We are bigger and stronger than that snake. I am bigger and stronger than the black dog, also. He's already getting sleepy from the music I'm playing in here right now.

Listen for my wings, black dog. Better run the other way.