A Day in My Life Photo Challenge for 30 Days of RSD/CRPS Awareness - Day 4

A Picture of your favorite quote that helps you get by and why -

Wow, I must be in a contrary mood... I can't quite address either of today's challenges as I believe I was meant to....

          Mistress Mary, Quite Contrary... oh well, at least I'm not gardening heads!

For one thing, I can no more choose 1 favourite quote than 1 favourite animal.... and those who know me know how much I mean that. Also, there's the thing of "a picture of your favorite quote".... When I was showing my work as an artist I was often irritated by the request for words to explain my paintings... I felt that "if I could've said it in words, I would have".  This challenge makes me feel the opposite.  I've looked through my favourite quotes and I can't make a one of them adequately translate into a visual image.

So, I am bad and stubborn I guess... but not without enthusiasm for the concept of quotes that help you get by.  Here's a few of my favourites along with my apologies for bein' baaaaad (bad to the bone):

“We’re all a little weird. And life is a little weird. And when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall into mutually satisfying weirdness—and call it love.” ~ Dr. Seuss

"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted." - Albert Einstein

"I am not young enough to know everything." - Oscar Wilde

"Gravity is a harsh mistress." The Tick

"What is a weed? A plant whose virtues have never been discovered." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work." - Emile Zola (1840-1902)

"Where the spirit does not work with the hand, there is no art." - Leonardo da Vinci

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world." -
Oscar Wilde

"Everything we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." - Edgar Allan Poe

"There's a world of difference between truth and facts. Facts often merely obscure the truth." - Maya Angelou

"Nature hates calculators." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"I do not want the peace which passeth understanding, I want the understanding which bringeth peace." - Helen Keller

"Where there is shouting, there is no true knowledge." - Leonardo da Vinci

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former."
- Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"Everything in Nature contains all the powers of Nature. Everything is made of one hidden stuff." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

"A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity." - Robert Frost

"The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it."
- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950

"The basis of optimism is sheer terror." - Oscar Wilde

"To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else." - Emily Dickinson

"All the world is full of suffering. It is also full of overcoming." - Helen Keller

"After great pain, a formal feeling comes. The Nerves sit ceremonious as tombs." - Emily Dickinson

" Find ecstasy in life; make the mere sense of living joy enough." - Emily Dickinson

"Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length." - Robert Frost

" Being deeply loved by another gives one strength, while loving another deeply gives one courage." - Lao Tzu

"The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned." - Maya Angelou

"Sex and religion are closer to each other than either might prefer."
- Saint Thomas Moore (1478-1535)

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

"Now, now my good man, this is no time for making enemies." - Voltaire (1694-1778) on his deathbed in response to a priest asking that he renounce Satan.

" It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil would die in his own tracks of ennui." -
Helen Keller

"All that you touch
All that you see
All that you taste
All you feel.
All that you love
All that you hate
All you distrust
All you save.
All that you give
All that you deal
All that you buy,
beg, borrow or steal.
All you create
All you destroy
All that you do
All that you say.
All that you eat
And everyone you meet
All that you slight
And everyone you fight.
All that is now
All that is gone
All that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon."
- Roger Waters (Pink Floyd)

"Watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you, because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it!" - Roald Dahl

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wego Health:  30 Days, 30 Posts for National Health Blog Post Month

Training Wheels
Write about a time your health condition forced you to grow up and take the training wheels off (so to speak).

This is an odd one for me. I know that many people have had significant and sometimes fairly abrupt personal growth through their experience of illness as adults, and I appreciate and validate that... but it's been different for me.

I was born early, with respiratory problems. I had my first anaphylactic reaction (of hundreds to come) as a very young infant, asthma and severe allergies and chemical sensitivites from the get go. I was diagnosed with mitral valve prolapse as a toddler. I had my first of numerous dislocations at around age 6. I was diagnosed with colitis at age 8. My childhood was filled with medical experiences and hospital stays. I was always "the sick kid". I had a brief, wonderful time in my teens when some of the immune problems seemed to slip into the background, but still got RSD from a string of knee surgeries related to the hyperflexibility at age 17. It went into remission by age 19, and by age 20 I was hospitalized with "an immune system failure" involving near constant anaphylaxis, which is now believed to be Mastocytosis or Mast Cell Activation Disease; though I have had some better years, my life has been a constant battle against anaphylaxis and massive sensitivity and allergies to drugs, foods, environmental substances and a wide array of chemicals. I did manage, incredibly enough, to stabilize my condition enough to forge an wonderful, active, satisfying life as an artist, wife, mother, home-schooler, environmental activist, community teacher. herbalist etc etc for much of my twenties and thirties. During that blessed time, I did have to deal with the complexities of my childrens' inherited complex immune mediated health issues as well as the ongoing maintenance of my own complex health needs, but it was still a golden time. At age 36, following an auto accident, I again ended up with RSD/CRPS, which totally tipped my (admittedly precariously but beatifully balanced) apple cart completely. Due to the pre-existing immune condition, as readers of Taming the Beast already know, I was not able to tolerate any of the traditional treatments of the disease for over a decade. Sooooo... at what point did illness lead me to "take off my training wheels"? Probably around the time that I had training wheels on my bike, I guess.

Maybe I'm fooling myself, but I don't think that illness gave me any particular boost in personal growth. It has been a part of who I am all my life, and not the good part. I wouldn't wish it on anyone and I truly don't believe that it has been a vital part of making me who I am. It has interferred with my productivity, my peace, my happiness and taken multiple PhD's worth of wasted time and intellect to survive. I am writing Taming the Beast in an effort to ensure that some of that time was in fact not entirely wasted, and to save others the time and effort that my enforced health education cost me. I am trying to make some lemonade here, folks, and I am glad and grateful for the opportunity to do so, but I'll tell you true; I'd rather have been celebrating my successful multi-pronged career as an artist by  mountain climbing, canoe camping, and dancing to beat the band....

Author: Lili Wilde
Date Posted: 2013-11-04   Date Last Edited: 2013-11-04 17:23:04