Diva Challenge #181: Water

The Diva's challenge this week was all about water, as she and her family recently enjoyed some time frolicking in various aquatic activities.  Like many of you, sometimes a challenge speaks to me and other times, it is a struggle to catch the wave, so to speak. 

For this city girl, aquatic sports growing up consisted of a run through the sprinkler and getting my bathing suit on to help dad wash the car. 

I did a tile with a beachy theme, and even pulled a few out of my archives that are somewhat oceanic (the archives being a couple of repurposed Illy coffee pod cans that hold about 100 tiles each - I don't organize well in notebooks, etc.)  Still, I wasn't feeling that personal connection with the theme.

Thinking back on my feelings about water, I found I do have one really emotional connection to water.  I remember reading an article years ago in, I believe, Readers' Digest, that definitely had my number.  A writer was on a book tour in Wales.  The weather was dismal and the surroundings were rather bleak, and she wasn't having any fun at all.  She checked into her hotel, which was a rather shabby affair with a small, gray and chilly room  She thought she was in for a miserable stay until she opened one more door.  There, in the bathroom, was a magnificent oversized copper tub, shining like the Ark of the Covenant in the wilderness!  The rest of the article was a rapturous description of steamy, fragrant bubble baths in that tub.  I love this woman!

Total bliss!

I am a bubble bath aficionado from way back. As a child, I would start the bathing experience by setting my Garfield Goose bath pellets (a Chicago thing) under the tap and watch the colors fizz and swirl into voluminous bubbles.  I would "swim" and float in the water, draping the washcloth over my torso to keep every surface of me warm.  I would sing and imagine myself as a princess in a beautiful castle with a maidservant to add fragrant bath oils and ready my giant fluffy towel. As an adult, I have been known to stay in the tub for hours, reading by candle light, sipping a glass of wine, refilling with hot water as necessary to prolong the bliss.  My poor husband anxiously inquires "Did you die in there?" No, Sweetheart, but I have gotten close to heaven!  The bubbles, the fragrance, the soothing warmth and buoyancy of the water, all contribute to daydreaming and a decidedly meditative state.  That is my water life. 

But, to continue the theme, here are the other tiles I did, one this week, the others in 2012 and 2013.  Happy waterways!



I enjoyed using Agua and thought just a touch of blue fit.
 

 

Fun octopus and starfish  imagery.

Not exactly aquatic, but still has the feel.

An early tile on Bristol board before I started using Zentangle tiles.