If you couldn’t tell, the Friday picture was my first attempt at a project in Photoshop.  I have been trying to teach myself Illustrator and Photoshop through youtube videos and it is tough!  But I had fun making this portrait out of words of Joan Rivers in honor of the great comedienne who had a pretty tough but pretty amazing life.

The words were lyrics from songs others performed at her funeral ceremony.  I was especially touched by the Charlie Chaplin song “Smile”, I would not have made it through that without blubbering uncontrollably.

I watched her documentary “A Piece of Work” yesterday and it was wonderful with some sweet moments and some not-so-sweet moments.

One thing that stood out to me was a moment when she yells at someone in the audience who is heckling her, telling her the act isn’t funny (she’s talking about deaf children).  It got me thinking about the old adage “you are only as sick as your secrets”.  What I took away was that our emotions can control us if we don’t release them.

And in releasing them, we can try to find the humor and joy in them.  I think this rings true especially for eating issues.  Even just acknowledging that things are hard, sometimes I’m unhappy, sometimes it’s just a bad day and it’s okay not to smile.  That acceptance and even love for my emotions allows me to let them out.  And I usually feel better right away, or at the very least, tomorrow.

It’s in trying to deny the emotions, pretend they aren’t there, fearing even admittal to ourselves that they exist, that causes the most pain.

Thank you, Joan, you will be missed.