Collage of Life-the beginning

Painting and Poetry

As an expat, you learn to live 
with saying goodbye
 and the feelings that overwhelm 
you with each move.

It starts with the family and friends 
from your home country
 and then it is for the 
friends and countries you have 
lived in and left behind.  

The 'feeling' reaches in 
and sits heavy on your heart. 

I felt the best way to 'let it all out' 
was to create a painting 
representing everything I felt.

It was a challenge, 
as I had never painted before.
Finding an art studio 
and an art teacher to help me 
set my ideas onto canvas 
was no small task..
but I did it.

As I progressed, 
I discovered many things about myself
and through the months 
I slowly began to feel at ease 
with my new home. 

The images and words 
in the painting above
represented my feelings 
about 'home' ...in New England.

I called on poets, 
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, 
Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson 
and used their words as inspiration. 

A few free word associations came about. 
"A boys will is the wind's will"
written in "My Lost Youth" by Longfellow
became
" A women's will is the wind's will"
for me.

Other words written into 
the painting...

Return the traveller to the shore.

Often I think of the beautiful town 
that is seated by the sea,
And my youth comes back to me.

I took the road less travelled by 
and that has made all the difference.

A Quietness Distilled.

Shape the thoughts that stir within. 

It was 2003,
and I named the painting
'Collage of Life'. 

In 2009, 
when I started to write 
outside my journal,
it  seemed a natural for the 
name of this blog as well. 

Another outlet to 
shape the thoughts that stir within.

Welcome to my first blog post on
Collage of Life.

Collage of Life 
by Jeanne Henriques