Types of Self-Care

 

In Case You Need This Today...

 

Cute Soul Taker?

 

Basically a Houseplant

 

Translation: Codependency

 

Cancer has gotten my attention on many things.

But one thing I hadn’t quite counted on confronting was codependency. And, oddly enough, or appropriately enough, I faced mine as I was placed in a position in which I needed to be taken care of in an intense way. There’s nothing like a threat of death, major surgery and life-altering changes to one’s physical body to really get someone to face their own limitations and unflattering codependent nature.

One can argue we all are codependent, to varying degrees. It’s not just about enabling a drug addict or an alcoholic, say, giving them money, a place to crash or bailing them out of jail. Codependency is often more subtle than that.

Again, trusty-dusty Wikipedia gives us its definition…

“Codependency is a behavioral condition in a relationship where one person enables another person's addiction, poor mental health, immaturity, irresponsibility, or under-achievement. Among the core characteristics of codependency is an excessive reliance on other people for approval and a sense of identity. Definitions of codependency vary, but it is generally defined as a subclinical, situational, and/or episodic behavioral condition similar to that of dependent personality disorder. The term is less individually diagnostic and more descriptive of a relationship dynamic...”

Uh-huh.

Human beings are nothing, if not codependent. After all, we’re social creatures, interdependent on working and living together. Each of us has strengths and weaknesses. The “many hands make light work” principle is often trotted out, encouraging unity and getting things done, etcetera…

On and on, creating nothing but codependent behavior for miles!

Yes, we need to be helpful, of service… within reason.

With BALANCE!

And here is where you and I can get tripped up, as our poor self-images, need for purpose and our extreme approval- seeking demand we overextend ourselves, again and again.

It would be ideal if we would and could recognize this, each time we fling ourselves into self-destructive, unrealistic “save the world” patterns.

But often, we are too much in the middle of our self-imposed tornadoes to witness them spinning us out of control. And then, like Dorothy, from “The Wizard of Oz,” we say to our crisis-stricken lives, “Toto, I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore!”

Cancer has strongly nudged, if not, forced me to examine how I was showing up for others in a codependent fashion.

Maybe you’ll see some of yourself here.

Again, as human beings, it’s hard not to fall into at least a little codependency. Largely, I believe, that’s because it has a lot to do with unrealistic expectations, both others’ and our own. Boundaries can be blurry, if they even exist at all when we traipse into a relationship dynamic with another person.

Codependency can be sneaky and subtle. It is often revealed through what others say to us. Here are just a few of my greatest hits. Enjoy.

“You’re so thoughtful!”

I have heard these words uttered repeatedly throughout my life. It usually follows on the heels of me doing some gift-giving. I love to give gifts; it’s a big way I express love.

However, I’ve needed to adjust my gift-giving, post cancer. I soon discovered, although it was never voiced, certain people expected the gifts to keep rolling in after my diagnosis, while I was in the hospital, getting my surgery and as my energy levels were zapped.

Still, that notorious expectation… People wanted things “back to normal” from me. Yes, they paid lip service, acknowledging my health crisis, saying things like “You take care of yourself.”

Yet, actions do speak louder than words, don’t they?

Eventually, their patience wore thin. I was taking too long to recover. I wasn’t “back to normal.” I was different. And soon, there was the pressure for the gift pipeline to resume. Resentment, and sarcasm were executed as I tried to “explain” why I just was not getting with the program.

And soon, unrealistic expectation reared its ugly head within me. Guilt. Arguments like “I should give them money, flowers, gifts like I did before. It’s not that bad. I can do this. They’re counting on me. I can’t let them down.”

I was saying this stuff as doctors strongly cautioned I “take it easy.” That meant no gift-giving, no excessive thoughtfulness (obsession) with pleasing someone else.

I had to take care of myself. I had to rest. I had to receive gifts and help instead of worrying about dispersing them like Santa at Christmas.

Ho- Ho-Ho. Not as merry, as I battled with expectation.

Translation: Codependency

What should everyone expect in this situation? When does expectation become demand?

Gift-giving/receiving has to do the spirit in which it’s done (the intention from both giver and receiver), the expectation (from both parties) and the sense of self derived from doing so concerning both parties (“Am I loved or worthless, based on the transaction?”)

That last one, especially, just shines a big Klieg light onto the “all-or-nothing” way of thinking. Codependency thrives on that premise. We’re either Savior or Villain. There’s no room in between.

“You’re very conscientious!”

This statement has also been directed at me. It’s not in the realm of gift-giving. Rather, it mostly operates in the context of “acts of service.” I do something for someone. Fairly straightforward, right?

Nope.

Here was usually where I responded to an emergency. The only thing was, it wasn’t a one-time thing. No. I had to repeatedly rescue the individual. This was a pattern.

Yet I was not being conscientious for conscientious’ sake. I was simply envisioning the worst- case scenario… and it was solely up to me to prevent it.

How’s that for ego? How’s that for completely unrealistic, unhealthy and unsafe expectation?

Translation: Codependency

Here’s where I was a participant. In these circumstances, whether they be rife with abuse, manipulation or dysfunction, I was choosing. I think that’s what gets lost in the shuffle for so many of us, even within these circumstances. We are constantly choosing, making thousands of decisions each day about how we will respond to, well, life.

Iyanla Vanzant, a well-known life coach, has a great quote: “You can always make another choice.”

Not surprisingly, we, codependents are not thrilled about that statement. We’d rather believe “there is no other choice” and “I have to do this.”

No, we don’t.

It’s not about shaming anyone who has been through abuse and treacherous situations. When you’re in it, you are in survival. There may not be much luxury to analyze the complexities of the environment as, say, you and I are simply trying to stay alive and sane.

However, if we can grasp onto any notion of power and control that we do have access to, we can tap into that power of “making another choice.” It’s not easy; it’s not instant. It’s ongoing and imperfect.

And it is possible, however, whenever, wherever you and I can accept it. We can make different- and better- choices.

 “You have a servant’s heart.”

This one still makes me cringe. I have heard it spoken to me within a volunteer context, where being pleasing and accommodating were held in high regard. And, usually, that means there is some form of worthy cause, implying self-sacrifice and “the greater good.”

In my personal experience, this applies to church. I want to state, church is just one of the many possibilities out there when it comes to being codependent in group settings. I’m not “picking on the church.”

However, yes, indeed, codependency is often encouraged within a church setting. For me, personally, whether I was doing something for a pastor, “the team” or “for the Lord,” it still called into question what was appropriate… and what was not.

It is a sticky question to entertain. Just how DO you and I deal with things when it appears The Almighty is counting on us?

But notice my words; I say “appears,” meaning, is that really what’s going on here? Or is it something else?

Volunteering is a noble, loving, human endeavor. But, if/when you and I add matters of faith to the equation, there can be added pressure and blurred boundaries to the mix.

I received a lot of great insights, camaraderie, and personal discoveries of myself within my church volunteering experiences.

But, undeniably, I also received some toxic messages, encouraging harmful codependent behavior, for “the greater good.”

For me, that meant staying long hours, being sleep deprived, stressing myself out because of unrealistic expectations (from both myself and from church staff), neglecting my husband and my writing, because, after all, “this” (whatever the current task or project of the day was) APPEARED to be that much more important.

“THIS,” after all, included…

Saving lives…

Saving souls…

Feeding the hungry…

And so, I heard the statement, part approval, part warning…

“You have a servant’s heart.”

As long as the pastors were pleased with my performance, as long as I made things flow easier, generated more money, removed burdens, was compliant and cheerful, while being self-sacrificing, I was, indeed, that stellar person with the servant’s heart.

Deviate from those mentioned examples, however, and I risk being the exact opposite? A selfish, unloving, uncaring person?

Can you see the agonizing, double-bind trap to it all?

Translation: Codependency:

We all need to do our part. Yes.

However, spoiler alert, misuses of power and codependency can thrive. And, as we’ve heard of many scandals over the years, church is not immune from those exploitative behaviors.

But, again, this goes beyond the church. Think of any “well-meaning cause.”

“The greater good.”

Think of organizations and groups that have set such high bars of curing humanity’s ills. To make any and all of that happen, even the most well-intentioned group can fall prey to encouraging codependency. There can, without anyone realizing it, emerge the message…

“You need to keep giving and doing at this high level, for the cause, so we can experience the results of it.”

Yet, there is less realization and appreciation to OTHER results which can occur if we try to keep up this impossible pace…

An emotional and mental breakdown…

Depression…

Anxiety…

Addictive behaviors…

Broken marriages and relationships…

Deterioration of one’s physical health…

And, while I was impacted by much of the above listed, what, again, got my attention the most was that last one, via my cancer diagnosis.

Now, to employ church terminology, my “temple,” my “vessel,” was at risk.

Translating Codependency:

I wish I could say that my epiphany was one distinct moment. It wasn’t, even with my diagnosis. Rather, it was a subtle awakening, like slowly coming out of anesthesia.

I think that’s what it can be like for most of us codependents. We often don’t know what we’ve experienced until, perhaps, years- even decades- after the fact.

Hindsight, 20/20 stuff.

But, sooner or later, we come to recognize the dysfunction, the pattern. And, sooner or later, we recognize it’s not working. Our way of dealing with life must change.

People pleasing and being viewed as “nice” can bombard us with guilt and obligation. But we need to look closer at what those connotations are all about.

And, within the framework of codependency, it’s about others’ needs being more important than our own. Each of us needs to recognize our needs, wants and desires are JUST as valid as someone else’s. And sometimes, they take priority over that other person’s situation.

It’s the cliché example of the Oxygen mask on an airline flight. You need to put your own mask on FIRST before you can help anyone else.

And, even if there is no one else around to help, you are worthy enough to pay attention to.

That is the translating we codependents need to be doing.

All by ourselves, without anyone else’s needs or demands, we are worth it.
Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

 

The Freezer in the Bedroom

 

As a kid, once upon a time, my childhood bedroom was upstairs, in our nearly one- hundred- year- old, poorly insulated house. Summers were tropical rainforests, complete with Minnesota mosquitoes, keeping me awake. Winters were Arctic, requiring multiple comforters at night. Long story short: it became next to impossible for me to sleep up there, in my baby blue- painted, but unhabitable, childhood bedroom.

Eventually, I slept in the living room, on the pull-out couch.

Fortunately, around the age of eleven, my family finally decided to replace the house’s deteriorating porch with the new addition promise of a “family room” and…drum roll please… a newer childhood bedroom for me.

Granted, it was not painted baby blue; wood paneling was its motif. And, it was a much smaller square room, as opposed to the vast pizza oven/deep freeze as my first upstairs bedroom.

Compromise, okay. I’d deal with it.

At least I got my own room, better insulated, a place I could really sleep in and await my joyous adolescent years (can you hear my sarcasm?).

So, after a three-month summer vacation, spent tearing off the old, replacing it with the new, finally, I had my small square bedroom. I was giddy. I walked into the empty space, imagining where I’d place my bed, dresser and vanity.

But before I could get any of my stuff in, furniture or stuffed animals, my family shoved a gigantic meat freezer along one entire wall of my bedroom.

That’s right, I said meat freezer, one of those humungous, topaz-colored models that looked like a full-on coffin. I think you could probably stick a full-grown man in that sucker, without needing to do any dismembering.

Handy.

And my family just assumed (you know what they say about assume) that I would have no issue with this arrangement. I didn’t have room for some of my bedroom furniture, but hey, I should be grateful to just get a bedroom, right?

I said that to my eleven-year-old self, trying to convince her this freezer was not encroaching on my development in any way. No biggie. I still had my little haven where I could write, read, draw, listen to music and enter adolescence.

Let’s get the show on the road!

Only, the show was frequently interrupted by a family member entering my room to extract some frozen meat from my room.

Oh, Rib-eye tonight, huh?

Meanwhile, I turned twelve. Then thirteen.

Years of lunches and dinners brought about by people barging into my room, opening the freezer coffin lid, chilling the room for about ten minutes after it was closed, and feeling like my privacy was invaded. My boundaries of separateness as a budding person were treated as nonexistent. After all, I should be grateful to have a room.

This eight-foot freezer is no problem; it’s not an issue.

But, as a feisty thirteen-year-old, I started voicing (whining) my displeasure, attempting to reason with certain family members, trying to negotiate a relocation for this meat freezer. I was growing up, getting bigger, needing more space and privacy.

Eventually, my negotiating (whining) won out. It was finally decided that this large monster would be moved to the garage, where, in my opinion, it should have resided the entire time. We also had a basement with plenty of space to inhabit the freezer.

Really, why did it have to land in my small bedroom, in the first place?

Answer? Because it was convenient.

And here, I learned a lesson about weak and disrespected boundaries of what is and is not allowed and enforced.

It was simply more convenient to place the freezer in my bedroom. No one needed to go downstairs, in the dingy basement to get the wrapped meat. No one needed to go outside to the garage.

Just easy- peasy. Get it from Sheryle’s room. She doesn’t mind. It’s no big deal.

And besides, the freezer was once kept on the old porch. It’s the way things have always been done. Why change?

Recognizing any of the dysfunctional patterns, trampled boundaries or harmful assumptions within you own life?

Why am I harping about this freezer, years later? Why can’t I get over it, as many people are wont to say?

Because, sometimes a cigar is not just a cigar. Sometimes a freezer is not just a freezer.

This large behemoth was a testament to how there was a resistance to change, to respecting boundaries and to respecting privacy, as harsh as it sounds. My family did not see me as a separate individual who needed time, space and privacy to grow. Convenience and attachment to the familiar status quo were more important than acknowledging that me, as a child, had a right to develop and discover myself without encroachment.

To me, subjectively, that freezer encroached on my time, space and privacy. No one else saw it as an issue, because it was not an issue to them.

Silly, blown out of proportion, perhaps? Well, hang on. Because, again, the object, any potential object, is not just a neutral object. It is a representation to you, to me. And, even if it is that representation to only you or me, it’s still, nonetheless, valid.

It often, however, taps into the greater messages surrounding autonomy, self-esteem, boundaries, people pleasing and any number of mistaken thoughts and beliefs.

What is that for you? What is your freezer?

Like I said, I negotiated the freezer’s removal from my small bedroom. By age fourteen, my room was freezer-free. However, the issues, the messages and the refusal to allow me to be me were still in place.

And here I slammed head-on into an ugly reality many of us confront when it comes to our family dynamics: there can exist both an inability and an unwillingness for some individuals to view us with the respect, dignity and healthy treatment we inherently deserve. We need to face that and deal with how things are.

And then we need to make a choice. How will you and I treat ourselves, freezer or no freezer, metaphorically speaking?

We can often get talked out the validity of our experiences, dismissed as being too sensitive, taking things too seriously, blah, blah, blah. You’ve heard the criticisms in your own life, right?

If it’s a problem, an issue, a wound for you, that’s legitimate. If you feel a violation, that is valid and needs addressing.

If individuals refuse to acknowledge and validate what is bothering you, then you, all by yourself, need to come to terms with it for yourself.

Find your own personal meaning. And, while you are doing so, dare to embrace the real, eternal truth: you are worth being seen, heard, loved and valued. Don’t let anything convince you otherwise.

So, yes, I’ve been learning all about what are my personal feelings and boundaries. I am learning about my individual value.

All this from a freezer in a bedroom?

Yes, all this from a freezer in a bedroom.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse

 

 

Perspective

 

In high school art class, I was taught the definition of perspective:

“Two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon.”

And, to get a more tactile lesson in that definition, my art teacher had us students draw our high school hallway, capturing that perspective.

So, there we were, a bunch of ninth and tenth graders, perched at various points of the hallway, our 18 X 24- inch sheets of paper taped to gigantic drawing boards that could be used to bludgeon someone.

And, from there, with our pencils and rulers, we endeavored to capture that illusive perspective line. No easy feat. I learned an art class lesson very early; draw LIGHTLY. It was hard to thoroughly obliterate a mistake of a dark line, even with the thickest of pink gum erasers.

Furthermore, the challenge of capturing perspective’s line, on the first attempt, was usually incorrect, meaning, what was supposed to resemble the flow of a long hallway, quickly became the row of lockers colliding into the opposite wall.

Two seemingly parallels lines meeting at a vanishing point on the horizon?

Hardly.

It was more like you’re never going to be able to open your locker again.

For the few weeks we students were doing our artsy sit-in, probably, while being fire/safety hazards. And, I have found myself learning a few lessons, beyond the drawing of a hallway, ever since.

The Seemingly Never-ending Row of Lockers:

They seemed to stretch for miles.

With my trusty-dusty ruler, I had to carve out several of these sliced buggers while, again, making sure that they, somehow, met at a vanishing point on the infernal horizon. These drawn slivers of locker had to be spaced accurately. You couldn’t just have a three-inch block of locker next to a two- millimeter slice. They had to TAPER!

TAPER!

As I was lightly drawing with my ruler and pencil, I kept thinking about the school lockers. How many instances of bullying, getting shoved into them and getting sexually harassed near them have occurred, since the dawn of high school time? I know I experienced a little of my own hashtag Me Too back in the day.

As I was sitting in the exact same spot on the hallway floor, day after day, I started realizing how much lockers were a metaphor for life.

Each locker was a contained space. Each locker held something: unique, personal expressions of its master. An athletic calendar of upcoming events, a photo of a boyfriend or girlfriend tacked on the inside of the door, books, lettermen’s jackets, gym clothes, maybe an unwieldly instrument like a trombone for band practice. Each locker was a representation of a life, positioned next to another locker, representing another life.

And so on, and so on…

But, as I was vexed with the task of drawing locker slice, after locker slice, it also occurred to me how much lockers represent something more universal and philosophical.

Uncertainty? Monotony? Tediousness?

Life going on, regardless? Yay.

Who, in their adolescent mind, really thinks about boredom, the disappointment, the loss, beyond that of high school experiences? It can be further challenging as the “adults” force feed teenagers glimmering promises of pristine futures, limitless achievements, happily ever after, perhaps?

I know, I know, I know. You can’t break it to ‘em just what life actually is. Each person needs to find out for himself/herself.

These lockers just captivated my attention, way back when. If you focus on something for long periods of time, other thoughts show up.

And, no matter what age or stage we find ourselves in, past high school, there is still that row of clustered sliver blocks, lockers, representing us, veering toward some point, which, one can argue, is our mortality.

Decorate your locker with that!

The Floor:

You know the scene in the 1991 film, “Terminator 2?” There’s just endless road, lurching forward, ominously predicting how cyborgs were going to kill all of humanity? Well, that’s how I viewed the hallway floor as I went about my art project back in the day. It’s was smooth, polished green, and it seemed to keep going, always with the threat of tripping you up.

It appeared to be more menacing than the lineup of endless lockers. After all, there was no personalization here. To quote the band, REM’s lyric, just “three miles of bad road.”

Fantastic. Higher education.

I couldn’t quite get a handle on the hallway floor, this buffed, jade-green surface, for which many a times, I’d tripped and fallen, splat, onto it. Being uncoordinated didn’t help; slippery Minnesota winters, trudging in pools of melted ice further also created obstacle courses, en route to the lockers and classrooms.

But, overall, I suppose what got my attention was how the floor represented the path, life’s path. It just stretched before us, yes, tripping us up from time to time. There would be falls; there would be injuries. Graduating from high school would not- and could not change that.

So, hit the ground running, hit the polished hallway floor running, hit whatever pathway we encounter running, sooner or later, well, life happens.

Breast cancer, for me personally, was just one bit of evidence to support that theory. Although, yes, I was always uneasy with my breasts, no one ever told me, as a young person, that this experience would be part of my hallway floor, my path, the ongoing stretch of life set before me.

Sometimes, disease, illness, loss and death are the floors we must walk on.

Exit Sign:

As that high school student, drawing the hallway, my vantage point had an Exit sign within my sight line. Nothing extraordinary about it. You’ve seen one Exit Sign, you’ve seen them all.

It was positioned to my left, so, I proceeded to draw it in the top left corner of my paper. A simple, slightly rectangular box, with “Exit” written in it. Not much to write home about.

I thought my little sign was adorable. It made a statement. And it wasn’t just, “Go! Get out of here!”

No, rather, it was, “This is the way out.” Simple, less violent, no teenage stampeding, crushing bodies trying to escape the hell of high school.

I was enduring high school. Most of us do. It’s a time fraught with angst, bullying, rejection, awkwardness and lonely insecurity. So, naturally, we’d probably do anything we could to escape that.

All things are subject to change. It’s a universal truth, Inevitably, life does change, some way, somehow. Signposts, signaling an Exit here or there, prompt us to acknowledge and remember we will move on a have different experiences.

For me, personally, high school would end and an era of eating disorders, in their full expression, would begin throughout college into my young adulthood. And then other transitions arrived: marriage, my writing career, loss of one parent, caregiving to another… and cancer.

No one could prep me with a big enough Exit Sign for THAT one.

Yet, here I am, supposedly, in Survivorship mode, navigating the uncertain reality of what the ultimate Exit may mean. Yes, I think about how I once so innocently drew that little sign on the top left side of my paper, never entertaining how much thought I’d give it later.

But eventually, you and I do give our personal Exit Signs a lot of thought, don’t we? Something ends, something “phases out.”

And we need to start over again.

Vanishing Point on the Horizon:

Back during that high school art project, as we sat at the end of the long hallway, there was the destination apex, where, supposedly, our two seemingly, parallel lines met at a vanishing point on the horizon.

When it came to the literal high school hallway I drew, that was represented by a large window at the end of the smoothly polished jade-green floor.

A window- well, there’s a metaphor, huh? Let’s look outside. What’s beyond it? What does the world look like, from here?

The trick, in drawing the beast, was that, on sunny mornings, blinding sunlight would stream through. You had to be careful, looking directly at it. No one here was a wise Native American elder, practicing the ritual of staring at the sun until his/her retinas burned out, while simultaneously, achieving an enlightened vision.

Hardly. Remember, we’re a bunch of teenagers. One needs to lower that expectation a bit.

Still, as I averted my eyes, trying to capture the window, noting how the entire end of the hallway was Madonna’s white-hot set in the “Lucky Star” video, I couldn’t avoid one simple truth:

There is more.

Perspective.

We don’t always see everything when we think we should see it. That, I guess, is what hindsight is for. When you and I are finally mature, wise, compassionate enough to handle the deeper truth in life, then, the vision revelation often comes…

“Oh, so that’s what that was.”

If we try to force things, before we’re ready, we can burn ourselves out. Our retinas may be intact, but something else can be destroyed, if not seriously damaged.

We’re not ready for “it” yet.

Hopefully, we will be someday. But today- now- is not that day.

And, until we are, we need to keep learning the lessons our spirits were assigned, our cosmic homework.

We don’t get finished, actualized, enlightened, all, in one fell swoop. It’s a series of smaller vanishing points on the horizon, smaller, “Oh, so that’s what that was” revelations.

One after the other.

“Draw what you see, not what you know:”

This quote was uttered daily by my high school art teacher and it sticks with me, to this day.

In the drawing context, the point she was trying to hammer home with us was to not get ahead of ourselves. Yes, we may know there’s an ear or a flower in the still life’s vase, but are we actively experiencing drawing the shape and the line of what is before us?

No, we, instead, want to go full steam ahead and draw what we believe is that ear or flower. We’re not in the moment, experiencing it with our pencil. We are assuming instead. Assumption rarely leads to great art.

Going beyond art class, my teacher’s wisdom is the gentle reminder to experience what I’m going through, not make assumptions about what I may or may not encounter. I have yet to master this skill; I can be a bit of a control freak, wanting answers.

Cancer was a doozy for me, therefore, in that department. I don’t know, I REALLY don’t know, what the future will look like. Sometimes, I’m uncertain about my present.

And the past? Well, I’ve had to face it and challenge myself with what truly happened. That’s more painful than just assuming the tale I’d like to believe.

So, yes, I’m currently in a state of challenging the past, present and the future. Although I’d like the tidy, fairytale, “happily ever after,” I have to face and live “what IS.”

I need to draw WHAT I SEE, AND NOT WHAT I KNOW.

And, the irony in doing so is this: I discover, learn and know more from practicing the “what IS.” Truth over story.

Eventually, when you and I face what we see, we, inevitably, stumble upon something. Some personal revelation. Some lesson.

I’ve read some affirmation statements, encouraging us to rejoice, to make the best of things when we find ourselves stuck in a hallway, known as our life circumstances.

Don’t worry. Soon, a door will open and ta-dah. Chin up. That kind of thing.

I don’t know how realistic that advice is. Some hallways are quite brutal. Waiting is the equivalent to agony.

Perspective: “two seemingly parallel lines meet at a vanishing point on the horizon:”

Not all of us draw our high school hallways, trying to get the accurate look of 3-D dimensions from lockers, doors and floors.

But ALL of us can achieve perspective. What do the issues, events, people and places mean to us?

What vanishes from prominence? What emerges as predominant?

No two perspectives are exactly alike. They are fingerprints; they are snowflakes.

A challenge, perhaps, is to recognize that, to find meaning from it. To face what intersects, what disappears and what remains visible.

Perspective. More than just an artistic term.

Copyright © 2022 by Sheryle Cruse