Sunday, January 14, 2024

"To change the things I can..."

"May I cultivate the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

I am facing some big changes. Health, diet, and an ongoing quest to age well; a job search; and, just living with a heightened awareness that... who knows?! We never know what tomorrow brings.
My feelings are acting like a mouse in the walls... sometimes, contentedly and quietly nibbling; other times, racketing around like they’re shod in tiny horseshoes.

What helps?
Choosing to change some things I can change.
We're in a three-day stretch of extreme cold, like much of the US, so I'm staying in, so that does not include hill-walking outside.

Instead I'm doing things around the house, like altering this book cover, below.
A couple years ago I'd looked for images to help me envision the character Murderbot. It's a human-cyborg construct, the protagonist of a series of sci-fi books by Martha Wells. It has no gender and indeterminate race, but almost all illustrations of Murderbot make it look masculine, and usually imply it’s white too.

I'd collaged a photo of a United Nations soldier, an African woman, [second photo, below] onto the cover of the first book of the series to help me visualize Murderbot otherwise, as I read.
Yesterday I collaged another--I'd cut the illustration off another novel whose name I don't remember:
 Murderbot doesn’t wear makeup, but this could be one of several other characters in the novel.

2 comments:

  1. welcome to the bitter cold!!! today we might actually reach 1 degree and 6 degrees tomorrow. changing what we can is a good thought and one I'm taking to heart right now. I know I can't change the weather but I can do craft work. so today I've been cutting fabric up in strips to make a border.

    kirsten

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  2. Cold here too .and even snow in the Western Isles/Hebrides

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