Joy Bingo

I stumbled across a sweet project while scrolling here. It was a post called: Dad Bingo from Incidental Comics. He wrote that the original inspiration for Dad Bingo came from K. Woodman-Maynard in her essay: Create Your Own Joy Bingo Board.

I decided to try it.

I have felt lost. What’s happening in our country is so big and I am so relatively powerless. It’s painful and difficult to accept. How do I move forward while still protecting my heart?

In January, I participated in 30 Days of Drawing with Wendy MacNaughton. It was an anchor. (In a good way. A grounding way, which is reassuring when you feel adrift.) One habit that emerged from the daily assignments was doing art first thing in the morning.

I am not a morning person. I cannot stress this enough. I am fairly useless before noon. My husband gets up around 5am every day. I don’t even understand the concept of 5am. I draw or paint in the afternoon, when I’m settled. When I’ve eaten, had something to drink. After I’ve eased myself into the day doing a few mindless chores. But because Wendy’s assignments came early via email, I read them in bed, then got up excited to begin. I did it before I ate breakfast. Before I even took my supplements some days. I was way off my usual routine.

Which was great for me. Habit is autopilot, which can be a pleasant daze, but is not conducive to paying close attention. It is low energy instead of high. But this? It was energizing. Ideas were popping.

I’ve kept the habit, more or less. (A new routine!) I am much more likely to do a simple project in the morning, and it’s a positive start to my day. Whatever time I waste, I know that at least, I did THAT.

A friend recently asked what gift this current darkness has given me. She lives with chronic illness and acknowledging unexpected blessings in the hardship helps. I told her that it was the active search for comfort and finding it. Of tucking myself into that space and letting it soothe me. Which has largely taken the form of art.

The end of the 30 day course (on January 30th) created a void. I wanted to fill it. I’ve done a series of projects since then and Joy Bingo was one of them. It was a multi-day venture. First, thinking of what I wanted to put on the card—ordinary pleasures alongside those that will take me slightly out of my comfort zone.

Next, making the card. Which was fun. I messed up the butterfly, but brought it back to some semblance of ok-ness. The waving hand is wonky. I’m ok with that, too.

Then, ticking off each box as I finish the task. I’ve completed 12. Halfway home! (No bingo yet, but I’m close.) (Do I get a prize? One of my squares is “celebrate small victories.” Boom.)

Once the card was complete, I looked for ways to incorporate the suggestions. Then (very quickly) it started to feel like an obligation, which is the opposite of soothing. I did not want another “to do” list. (I have far too many as it is.) So, I set the card aside. And something else happened. Just naming those things and illustrating them left an impression. The way you remember a list better when you write it down, even if you don’t keep the paper you’ve written it down on. It placed those things on a back burner in my mind, and I found I was attracted to them without thinking about it. Time passed and when I looked at the list again, I thought: OH! I did this! And this!

It set a gentle intention. And that’s what I needed. With the world leveraged by cruelty, I needed to be gentle with myself most of all.

There was a beautiful story making the rounds online during the pandemic. Maybe you saw it. It’s by Kitty O’Meara:

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

It comforted me then. It did not happen that it healed the country, or world, on a mass scale. But some of us turned inward, and we are turning inward now to find ways to deal with a new threat.

We take action when we can, and restore ourselves in between.

I saw this post from Strange Pilgrims:

I know it sounds mad but if you took long walks and listened to your own thoughts and started writing again with no clear plans, it would heal you.

When I read that, it plucked a string in my heart. This. Do this.