I am sitting in the Toronto airport as our flight has been changed…which means an extra five hour layover. The P.A. system is making announcements in both French and English, so I thought it appropriate to use a French tune for today’s Inktober post. I must admit, I do not speak French so my spelling is a little rough. I was also very distracted by the very LOUD overhead announcements, which often startled me as I wrote. All that being said, here we go…
I used stencils to write the big words – Ding, Dong Ding – then a random ink pen I found in my backpack for the text in cursive. Between the constant announcements and the glittering duty free shops, this was a hard one for me to focus on and I think it shows.
Time to channel your inner Frenchman and sing along…
Frere Jacques, Frere Jacques
– Traditional French Round
Dorme vous? Dorme vous?
Sonnez les matines, sonnez les matines
Din, Din, Don
Din, Din Don
I am not a real fan of the piece yet I am proud of myself for not bowing out and taking a mulligan on today’s post. No one would have blamed me, yet it would have made me feel bad about not living up to my Inktober commitment. Sometimes the way we feel about ourself lies in direct proportion to the size and type of excuses we take when things get hard. We know when we quit even of no one else knows.
It’s sort of like taking a French class. You want to speak such a beautiful language, until those verb conjugations and pronunciation pitfalls do not roll off your tongue. Learning something new is hard, it takes work AND it is not always sexy…even if it is French! You flub things up, fall on your face, there are distractions and even cleaning your bathroom looks like more fun that pushing forward. THAT is how it is supposed to be. If doing something new was easy, everyone would do it. Yet for anyone who has tried to learn a language – French or Japanese…which is in my future…it gets hard and you feel stupid. That’s normal, it’s part of the process.
Let this wonky piece serve as a reminder that doing something new or different isn’t easy, yet you feel proud of yourself when you do not quit. Nothing great happens in this world without a little pain, frustration or having to push yourself to get moving.
Tomorrow we venture down under…G’day Mate! See you then…
