Art and Buddhism.

So Ross has been gone for a little over a week now, and I'm going to be honest. It hasn't been easy.

Since we've done this before - the long-distance thing I mean - when I went away to grad school for two years, I thought it would be a breeze.

But as it turns out, that is not at all the case.

During my Buddhist book group last night, we talked about the concept of seeing. We're reading this book right now called Buddhism Plain and Simple by Steve Hagen, and this whole issue of seeing - how we torment ourselves by misinterpreting what we're seeing, how things instantly click into place when we realize what it IS we're seeing - was illustrated by this image Hagen includes in his book. Can you figure out what it is?

I TOTALLY had to skip to the back of the book to get the answer. It drove me nuts while I held out.

Anyway, you've seen this image before (trust me), but no one in our group was able to get it at first glance - we all needed the hint! And then when we did see it, we were instantly more relaxed, more comfortable...a woman in our group even said, "oh thank God!" when it became clear to her.

I'm trying to liken it to my situation with Ross's absence, as pseudo-philosophical as that sounds. Like...I think I'm seeing how depressed I am when he's gone, when maybe I'm getting to see how awesome/supportive/helpfully distracting my friends are? Maybe I'm getting to see that I'm a lot more attached to him than I thought? (And is that a good or bad thing?)

Well, I apologize for holding you hostage in this post while I dribble emotions everywhere. To snap out of my funk, I spent part of my morning looking at these photos from the 5 x 7 art show that happened a few weeks ago at The Whitley. Aren't they rad? And - while not pictured - let me assure you that penises were in FULL effect at this show. I think I counted three penis portraits while I was there. And snickered at every one. Because I am a 12-year-old.