{"id":1286,"date":"2016-08-08T06:57:56","date_gmt":"2016-08-08T10:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/?p=1286"},"modified":"2016-08-08T17:59:19","modified_gmt":"2016-08-08T21:59:19","slug":"flight-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/robinbotie.com\/blog\/flight-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"Flight from Reality"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Robin\u201cI love being home with you,\u201d I told the dog, when everyone I knew was out somewhere having fun, and I was feeling antsy with nowhere to go. \u201cBut now let\u2019s find something beautiful and joyful to photograph. Something besides you,\u201d I said, and followed her flickering tail around the pond, stopping to take pictures of the water and wildflowers. A colossal pink cloud floated overhead. I snapped a dozen shots of it, awed by its rosiness.<\/p>\n

The cloud would be a perfect illustration of joy, I thought. After weeks of watching the garden dry up in the drought, after howling my grief songs<\/a> and driving people mad trying to move boulders<\/a>, I desperately wanted to blog about something joyful. So that night I stayed up late, turned on the TV, made popcorn, poured a glass of sherry, pulled over a cozy chair for the dog, and began playing with the image of the pink cloud. And over the weekend, I missed a picnic and passed on a dinner invitation, as I Photo-shopped the cloud in the water, in my face, around a lone girl. I Photo-shopped the heck out of that cloud.<\/p>\n

Then, I Googled \u201cpink cloud\u201d to get an idea of why I was so taken with the cloud, and what I might write about it. But there was no joy in any of the articles listed. It was a term used in alcohol and addiction<\/a> recovery programs to refer to \u201cunrealistic feelings of well-being and happiness experienced during times of despair.\u201d It represented \u201cignoring life\u2019s problems in a dangerous euphoria,\u201d … \u201cflight from reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

I looked at the picture I\u2019d spent hours composing. I looked at the dog. And then I had to consider that maybe I\u2019m the one walking around with my head in a pink cloud, convinced I\u2019m solidly planted on a sure path to healing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where is joy?<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I love being home with you,” I told the dog, when everyone I knew was out somewhere having fun, and I was feeling antsy with nowhere to go. “But now let’s find something beautiful and joyful to photograph. Something besides you,” I said, and followed her flickering tail around the pond, stopping to take pictures […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[927,925,923,247,921,926,406,924,563,922],"class_list":["post-1286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-702","tag-delusional","tag-euphoria","tag-flight-from-reality","tag-grief","tag-head-in-the-clouds-healing","tag-lone-girl","tag-looking-for-joy","tag-path-to-recovery","tag-photoshop","tag-pink-cloud"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t