Reflections - Jacomina de Regt - "Choose Joy"

My reflections are about my own breast cancer journey; treatment and afterwards.         Each of us lives afterwards with a different focus. I think I was determined that nothing was going change in my life. 

But recently I visited a friend who went through this journey during COVID.  I was struck by how she focuses on "enjoying life now".  

She is a quilter and at her guild meeting, the free table provided this panel and some of the pink fabrics I used, including the ubiquitous pink ribbon, which I so dislike myself.  I love the pink insect binding.  My own stash had the pink soil, where I imagine deep roots growing and of course, the boots!

This is my reflection:  "After the breast cancer treatment journey, plant your feet firmly on the ground, step forward and choose to observe with joy all that is around you: the flowers, the insects, the clouds, and let the worry balloon about the future float away.  Take time every day to just stop and purposely pause to observe what gives you joy.

So, I went in a totally different direction than I had originally started working on, namely a picture of my granddaughter in a science museum where she had stepped into a triangle of mirrors and was reflected six times.  The technical challenge of showing mirror fabric and her in different reflections was incredibly difficult.  It would have been a more literal interpretation of "reflections" instead of the more philosophical one I now submit.  

For "Choose Joy", I made more balloons, including really sparkly ones from silver sari material, but they obscured the message too much.  A first for me, I added puffy paint.