Tuesday---Muse-Day

Moon Mama, self portrait, age 12

The quote at the bottom reads:
What other dungeon is so dark as one's own heart!
What jailer so inexorable as one's self!
Nathanial Hawthorne

Look at that face----
SUCH sweetness, such innocence.....
Yet forlorn and frightened...
Part teenager, but still part little girl...

What a beautiful age.
What an awful age.

This was the first actual self portrait in the series I've started, a replica of the original photo.
Some of you may have seen it before, when Christine of BlissChick and I talked about the sad transformation that takes place around the time a girl turns twelve.

Even though there was a bit of the wild child left in me at this time in my life, look more closely and you'll notice a certain hesitancy, a slightly bitten lip, a sadness in the eyes.
I had discovered that who I really was could be frightening to others, unacceptable, uncomfortable at the very least.
This is the time in my life when that door had been slammed shut so many times, it stuck closed.

As Teresa of Maggie Grace World commented a couple of weeks ago, I've got my foot in that door, and now it's time to kick it wide open!

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Speaking of Teresa, her kidney was removed on Friday and she is home from the hospital today!
The miracles of modern medicine coupled with a strong, unstoppable woman wrapped in a blanket of prayer from friends and strangers alike......and WOW...amazing things happen.

Teresa's blog friends have started a blog on her behalf---www.HealingMaggieGrace.blogspot.com
Artists from all over are making donations of their work to be auctioned off, and there is a PayPal link if you'd care to donate funds to assist in Teresa's care.