I love apps. I've downloaded dozens over the years. Some I keep, some I don't, but I love seeing what's out there. Games are fun. I'm partial to Jumbline2. Functional apps that help with things I do during any given day like colornote, stopwatch/timer, calculator, buddhify, sattva, allrecipies, and cheftap (to name a few) are all good. My favorites though are apps that let me capture articles/websites like keep, pocket, feedly and evernote and apps that are news and social media aggregators like flipboard, news360, pulse, digg and mashable. There are many others in these categories but sometimes I have to tell myself to stop. My new discovery is Medium. It's actually not new at all, being developed by the Twitter founders several years ago. And it isn't just an app, but that's how I found it. No idea why I didn't find it sooner! It's a publishing platform and full of wildly interesting writings. If you like to write...or read...you must go there. But set a timer app on your phone. Otherwise you can get lost in it. A couple of days ago I read a small article by David Kadavy. (https://medium.com/100-words-about/100-words-about-100-words-4b902d946265#.3jqiqj572) His "what if" challenge was to get as many users as possible to start publishing 100(ish) word stories every day. Here are my first three. 100 words. Do it quickly. Do it now. While I’ve seen this concept before, reading it this morning here in medium…https://medium.com/100-words-about by David Kadavy…I thought both “yikes!” and “what fun!” So, here it is: day 1. I sit in my oversized captain’s chair, like every morning, with coffee and journal, to write. Journal writing every day is easy. It’s how I keep up with my life. Remember details; think about things, evaluate the day’s accomplishments. This last thing is more important to me than it should be. (I write about that too.) It’s the other kind of writing that tries me. Writing for someone else to read. I love writing, but after years of practice, I’m still learning about its discipline. I always want it to be spontaneous and from the heart, so feel intimidated by the days that it isn’t. So the challenge: 100ish words a day for a 100ish days. Go. 100 words or so, day 2. Listen to the sanity voice and take a nap. Resting is weak. Just ask the voice in my head. A waste of perfectly good productive time. My to-do lists are long. Make: earrings and necklaces for etsy shop, finish knitting blanket, design new kitchen island top. Write: next blog post, new website text. Do laundry. Go to gym. Learn: this list is infinite. And all of this is surely urgent. Sometimes though, the sanity voice in my head says “oh for god’s sake, just take a nap. It’s Sunday afternoon. Your creative spirit is already asleep, can’t you tell? You’ve been thinking about blog posts and earring designs and what do you have? Nothing! The house is clean (enough). You know you’re not going to the gym. So really…just stop…read, sit and stare, take a bath, or completely end this conversation with me and take a freaking nap. 100 words (or so is always implied). Day 3. My mantra. Mantra: late 18th century: Sanskrit, literally ‘a thought’, thought behind speech or action. Mantra: a group of words in Sanskrit believed by practitioners to have psychological and spiritual powers. My mantra is this: Create. Sweat. Be kind. Give back. Listen. These words remind me who I am and how I live, at least sometimes, and who I want to be and how I want to live, all the time. These 7 words became my mantra because they rise to the top of 1) things that I’m passionate about: create and sweat, 2) the things that if all humans did it the world would be a magical place: be kind and give back, and 3) the thing that if I did it better and more often, to both the other people and the Universe, I would be a better person: listen. I think that my mantra words are powerful because they expose who I think I am and write the meditation of who I want to be at the same time. Share your mantra? I'm going to attempt to write and post on medium, about 100 words a day for about 100 days, I'll re-post them here a few at a time, but treat yourself, wander on over to medium.com and look around...
0 Comments
I almost always take off the week between Christmas and New Year's. And with that time, I almost always tackle a big winter project. Gray, wet, and (sometimes) cold Nashville winter does not inspire me. A big winter project is the antidote. This year's project was my kitchen. I live in a 1909 Victorian house in the East Nashville area of Nashville, TN. I love my house. Not only does it hold nearly 28 years of our family's memories, I think it's beautiful in it's own right. These houses have good bones, but no surprise, after being alive and loved hard for well over a hundred years, they also need ongoing time and attention. There were two badly designed rooms when we bought the house. The downstairs bath, which finally was the object of my winter project 3 years ago, and the kitchen. The renovation that was done before we bought the house was clearly imagined by someone who never cooked or had friends over. Ugh. It was not something we could afford to tackle for a number of years. But about 15 years ago, post divorce, and with the help of a significant other at the time who had all of those skills, we gutted and redesigned it. Friends in the neighborhood said it was transformed from arguably the worst kitchen in the neighborhood to one of the best. I'm still happy with the layout, but after 15 years, well, you know...things get weary. The back half of the kitchen was originally either a different room or more likely, a back porch. The walls and ceiling are beadboard. So, we used faux beadboard to face the new island. At the time, I thought it looked fine, but over the years, I thought it looked weak. I painted it a few years ago in hopes of making it look more solid. Ehh. The other thing that started to grow on me was that "no one wants to be a finish carpenter" thing. We did install quarter round on the floor all those years ago, but we didn't really trim out the island or cooktop/counter shelf area; without those finishing touches, there's a subtle message that says 'not professional'. Time for an upgrade! After taking a day to paint a pretty gray over a poorly chosen green from a year or so ago, I took the next couple of days to accomplish the refacing and trim. The meat of the project however was the floor. There remain original heart pine floors in most rooms of the house, however as can be imagined, there are places where there was too much damage over time to save them. (When we moved in there was a lot...a lot...of mediocre carpet. Ugh. I tore that all out within the first few years, uncovering good and damaged wood. There's tile now in a couple of rooms.) The floor in the kitchen was covered with roll linoleum that was installed improperly and after a few months began pulling away from the walls. It's funny now, but then, not so much. Removing the crappy linoleum revealed 95% good, but 5% damaged wood. I removed the damaged areas as best I could and patched the areas with new wood. The aesthetic solution at that point was floor paint. I love painted floors. I repainted the floor every few years and that was good until the last year or two. The patched places got loose and some other places that had been questionable ten years ago, had continued to deteriorate. Time for a new floor. And since this was a winter project, why go conventional when I could design something one-of-a-kind? Wood and tile. What could be better? After long consideration of either stripes of alternating wood and tile, a chevron pattern of alternating wood and tile, or squares, I ultimately decided on squares. Finally making a decision, the design had only just begun. I spent several hours measuring, remeasuring, determining how to get (mostly) consistent sized squares and how to address the 'extra' areas. Once that was all done, it seemed so obvious in hindsight...funny....
The progression went like this:
Tiling!! Early in the process, I started with the larger elements in each square and played around with the smaller tiles that would border and fill in. This is what the kitchen looked like for a few days. While each square is very different, for overall visual harmony, each square uses a few of the same long marble pieces and each has small circular elements. There is also terrazzo tiles in all but one square. So here's a look, square by square...
Grout and done! (Except for sealing the tile in a couple more weeks.) What's your project? I'd love to hear about it!
I suspect a lot of people, maybe most people, experience moments that make a deep impact on the course of their lives. This has been true for me. I'm not talking about dramatic events, like the loss of a loved one or sudden financial windfall, which would have redirected the course of my family. I'm talking about a moment in time that to no one else seemed particularly significant, but for some reason to me was a big deal. An action or a thought that resonated ... either to the mind or the heart in a way that it couldn't help but shape the future me. I grew up in a smallish city in Southern Indiana, in a medium sized house that sometimes felt smaller because it made home for six of us. A fairly typical 1960's build, the upstairs held kitchen, dining room, living room, bedrooms and a bathroom. Upstairs was primarily for the business of life...eating, sleeping, getting ready to go out in the world, doing homework, reading quietly. The downstairs held the family room, play room, and utility room. Downstairs was for the more casual side of life...hanging out, watching tv, playing cards, playing pool, having slumber parties...the fun stuff. There is a hallway upstairs that connect bedrooms and bath to kitchen, living and dining rooms. Although not a particularly long hallway, it probably still holds the memory of more footsteps than any other part of this house where my mother still lives. It is in this space that I made some decisions about my life. I'm not sure exactly why, but maybe because this space is kind of like a portal. Only big enough to scoot by another person and have an isolated interaction or have a few quiet moments to think before heading out into the family fray. There are three especially significant hallway related memories. Two involved interactions with my parents and one was a decision that I made for myself that did, in fact, inform who I've turned out to be. The hallway pat on the back... This hallway that I'm speaking of is narrow. When we passed each other in it, it took some effort to get by without touching. I don't know if it was something my parents thought about specifically, but passing either of them in the hall often included a squeeze on the shoulder, little hug, or some other brief but consistent display of affection. I didn't think of it at the time, but looking back, those small interactions were grounding for me. I was a happy kid, but spent a lot of time rolled back in my own head, thinking about things all loose and dreamy. Creative and emotional, sometimes insecure and awkward, I could feel a bit "outside", a little untethered. I needed those connections. They served as literal, physical and emotional grounding for me. I have friends who talk about how their family weren't "touchers"...no hugs, pats, "I love yous"...I think I would've been set adrift. You are my most different... I've always been driven to create. I don't remember a time when I wasn't thinking about how to make something. By the time I was 10, I would save my allowance and wander the craft kit aisles at Ayr-Way (predecessor to Target). It was close to our house so I could walk there and take my time. I needed to have paper and pencils and markers and yarn and more complicated things like printmaking tools and oil paints. My mom taught me to sew in the 5th grade, so fabric became a big deal too. My dad would always be properly impressed throughout my purse making phase...which I think lasted about 2 years. I kept diaries off and on and wrote poems sometimes. As remains true today, when I was in a making space, either in my head thinking about a project or fully engaged in its execution, it was a happy and safe and energizing space. I also had a growing suspicion that I was a little different. Nothing spectacular that I could really put my finger on, but a sense that my siblings fit in a little better...did things and were interested in things that seemed a little more normal. I wasn't agonizing over it, but I was thinking about it; trying to sort it out. One ordinary day, my mom stopped me in the hall and said "honey, of all my children, you are the most different and I really love that about you." Those, of course, may not be the precise words, but that's what I remember. And it was validation. Sweet, triumphant validation. I had permission to be myself. And then there was 7th grade.
I feel sincere awe and admiration for anyone who made it through the 6th, 7th, and 8th grades feeling confident and without serious angst. There are probably some out there who were magically able to negotiate early adolescent hell flawlessly, but most of us didn't I think. I woke up ridiculously awkward in the 6th grade. Where did that come from? By 7th grade, I knew my hair looked wrong, was pretty sure the friends who liked me yesterday probably wouldn't today, realized that my physical coordination was so uncoordinated that things like volleyball and softball were only another source of embarrassment, and, uh, let's not even talk about dancing... Funny now, but horrible then. And on top of that, there's was still the sense that I was a little different. I had been thinking about this for a while; having conversations with myself. Thinking about what was important to me and wondering how well I would fit in (outside of parents who would always love me) if I kept becoming who I wanted to be. Many years later I would recognize that this whole process wasn't unique to me, but "developmentally appropriate". Most 7th graders are trying on different versions of themselves to figure out what fits and what doesn't. The easier part, though I didn't always feel successful at it, was having the right clothes, getting invited to the right sleepovers, going to the school dances (even if it meant not dancing and keeping your friends from realizing that you're not dancing) and learning how to be reasonably popular. The more difficult part was reconciling the versions that were becoming increasingly important to me, that I kept mostly hidden, because I didn't really see them mirrored in my friends. And it was those versions of me that I liked the best. It was loving to make things and do that differently...the burlap and leather purse, the skirt made from panels of all different fabrics. It was loving art and experimenting to find my talents. It was realizing that I was much more drawn to social justice and views of the world that I now identify as very left leaning but at the time simply seemed correct. Now I know these things aren't revolutionary or specific to me but at the time I didn't see them in my friends. In the 7th grade, it matters most what your current and future friends will think. I had a decision to make. I made that decision in the hallway. It was a simple but striking moment of clarity. There wasn't an accompanying thunderclap or voice of god, but it was a clear moment and clear in my memory even now. I was walking down the hall and stopped to confirm...I am a little different and love that about myself. That sense of being different will be my path forward. No apologies. There they are...the earrings that were all but finished when I broke my wrist. Needed nothing but final polish. I posted them on Facebook and instagram, had gotten some good comments, so I was looking forward to regaining enough grip strength to get back to them. Good grip strength happened last weekend. And then this happened. Argh! I try to be very careful about small solder joints. The last thing you want to happen is for a joint to fail after the stone is set (refer to above picture...this is a bad thing...). Often I will reinforce with a small decorative circle of metal that covers the joint, but I thought this joint overlapped enough to be secure. I was wrong. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to go for the fix. I could think of two possibilities. Sometimes you can drill a small hole in the back of the setting and then use a small round file or punch to dislodge the stone. The setting in this case made that less likely to be successful because the bezel sides were high enough to curve in around the stone. I felt sure the stone couldn't be pushed out. The second possible fix is something I've never tried. To prevent the stone from either exploding or changing color for the worse, it has to be somehow protected from the intense heat that will be required to re-solder the joint. I wasn't optimistic, but decided it would be an adventure in skill building to figure out how to submerge the stone in water, but not the backplate, and re-solder the joint from the back. This would mean building a structure that would keep the broken joint level and supported while the stone setting was underwater. Possible, but would take some engineering! So, while I was contemplating that, this happened. I picked up the earring I'd already polished and something looked "off". I gasped. (I don't know if you can see the problem immediately...I had a battle with google photos and I lost, so this is the only bad picture that remains from before I dismantled the earrings.) I said a few ugly words, out loud, but to myself. What happened? I have never seen this before, but all I can conclude is that polishing with my flexshaft--and electric rotary tool that reaches high rpms--had created enough heat to alter the stone. Ruined. And no fixes that I could imagine. The good news was that I could let go of building a little swimming pool for the other stone to attempt the fix on the other earring. As I said, I was not optimistic. The bad news, I now needed yet another plan. I think it's always acceptable to abandon a project all together, especially if the frustration outweighs the motivation to keep going and there's no creative energy available. But I wasn't there yet. It was time to re-imagine. Time for new stones. I found a pair of small black onyx square stones that seemed to fit the bill. The truth is that one of the lessons I'm still learning is how to not feel so frustrated when something I've invested myself in and am feeling happy about, goes belly up. I have to stop, get quiet, and focus. The mantra this time sounded something like this: Breathe out. Let go of the effort put in to the first try. Embrace the lessons learned. Be happy that reinvention was successful. Last Saturday I went to Art Camp. The third annual art camp, hosted by Nossi Art School in Nashville, TN. (artcampnashville.com) I didn't know about it the first year, so I've been twice. Every city, town, or village needs Art Camp for its creatives. I don't know who originally thought of it, but I owe he/she/them a debt of gratitude.
It's a very straightforward platform:
So what's the big deal? There is some kind of magic that happens when 150 or so creative, artistic, entrepreneurial personalities all get dropped in the same space for several hours. My happy place is not being in a crowd of strangers. And yet, this immediately feels different to me. These are people making art. I want to share their space. There's a buzz...a happiness...a vulnerable and trusting exposure of self that feels safe in this space. There are stories of belonging, perseverance, success, and fear of failure, shared with people you've never met but feel artistic kinship. I got to hear these stories and I got to tell a little of mine. The best thing about the stories is that we accept each other as artists, each on our own journey. There is a sharing of knowledge and skills and resources. Sharpening your artisitic vision, what resources does our city have to offer, how to tell your story and how to have a multifaceted social media presence were among the offerings. These sessions are a big deal to me because I can make myself crazy trying to figure out everything I want to know using Google or YouTube! My most significant "takeaway" was about creative community. I need it. Even though investing in creative community will mean taking the time and being socially vulnerable, I'm pretty sure that magic will be present. Thank you Art Camp. I broke my wrist. Then had surgery on it. A happy, funny man that I don't even know suggested the best back story. Walking in my neighborhood last weekend, holding my heavily dressed hand/wrist/arm up in the "thumb sucking position" (required until the swelling is gone), this man was getting out of his car, looked at me and said, "WWE?" I said, "Yes! I've been looking for a better story; this is it!" So, now that you know I broke my wrist in a WWE exhibition bout, I'll move on... When I found myself one handed, I immediately did an inventory of how this would impact my life for the next several weeks. Then, almost instinctively, I reacted to that on an emotional/life perspective level. The inventory went like this: argh...I'm off the (climbing) wall, off my bike, out of yoga, out of spin class for a while. Ok, ok, ok...I can walk. Elliptical. Run? Stationary bike? Given that activity is how I protect my psychological balance...uh, sanity...I needed to get that settled in my mind pretty quickly. The second inventory was how this would impact making/creating. What are my current works-in-process and works-in-design? Two pairs of earrings done except for final polish. Dang! Can't grip the tools I polish with for a while. Always several designs ready for being realized, but...firing up my torch? Not a good idea. Cutting/sawing metal? Performing any two handed operations? No. This pretty much shuts down most work executed at the jeweler's bench. At least until my fingers are more available for gripping and holding. I can definitely transfer designs to metal for etching though and I can still sketch new designs. OK, what else? Sewing? Once I get all the finger use back, I think so. Manipulate lye to make some soap batches? Um, that would just be stupid. Build something cool with my favorite power tools? That would be a great way to do further, perhaps irreparable harm! "Chill out", I said to myself. Then, a happy idea. Rope necklaces. I made several a few years ago when I was working more with beads than metalsmithing. Long strands make for such versatility! I made a few more for my friend Kelli to show/sell in her new boho chic themed boutique on wheels...SWAT Boutique--Style With A Twist. (You should really go see her if you're in or around Nashville...find her on Facebook.) These two were made largely one handed, so more slowly, but in some way more satisfying. Offers that lesson to me where I may never have mastery. Slow down. Ponder the design. Enjoy the process. I finished taking inventories. My full time job: yes, I can type one handed for a while and yes, I can wear yoga pants (to avoid buttons, zippers, and all things fitted and not stretchy) to the office every day for a while. I wonder how long I can get away with yoga pants...? Day to day living: twisting motions are a problem, so jar lids and ponytails are nealry impossible, and let's be honest, my life isn't damaged by the temporary loss of either. I broke the non-dominant wrist, so driving, feeding myself, and writing are virtually unscathed.
While I wouldn't have purposely orchestrated this to learn the lesson, I do think there's value in observing myself react to it. There were decision points that flashed in my mind...am I going to whine about this or find opportunity? Am I going to use it as an excuse to lay low and wallow a bit or am I going to see it for what it is...a broken wrist, no more, no less...and carry on? Having a few completed decades of life behind me, I'm relieved to say that there has been some wisdom and maturity gained. The moral of the story is that a broken wrist is nothing. I have been gifted with a crazy good life. Everywhere I look in my life, I see richness...family and friends and talents of people who I do know and people who I don't, goodness and generosity and grace. I deserve none of it and am grateful for all of it. I'm pretty sure I could write a year's worth of blog posts about time. When I think about time in the most straightforward way, it's very simple. There are a finite number of seconds, minutes, hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a year. We have agreed on that as a humans. We've counted time the same way for a very long time. It gives us a way to mark night and day, how many years we've been on the planet, when the weekend is here, and when enough of the day has passed that opening a beer is socially appropriate. For me, practically nothing else about time is easy. It's difficult to even know where to start in trying to talk about it. A few of my swirling awarenesses (is that a word?) about it are these...
My very good friend Kara said once to me... that there are people who are about the process and people who are about the product. While there are many stops on that continuum, when she said it, it really hit me. I'd never thought of it like that exactly. I'm way on the "about the product" end. I love the completed thing. The success of the process. Or, the lessons learned if not so successful. Because a completed things means that then I get to move to the next thing. Or do that thing again, incorporating those lessons learned. And while I do the next thing, I'm likely to be thinking about the design of the next thing. And often in the meantime, I've seen something...a piece of wood or fabric, or a shape or new technique that could be used for the most interesting ever earrings...so that goes on the list. The true life confession that accompanies this however is that often the joy of the process gets lost in the quest for the product. The being-present-in-the-moment hasn't even been in the room. I have come to realize that I'm giving those moments away. So I think about this often. It starts with what I know about myself. I will always love the product; the accomplishment. But I want to love the process as much. I want to see myself finding joy in the all the moments. Because it is not what comes naturally, it is something that takes thought, strategies, practice. I think this balance will be a life long challenge, but worthy. So far, I have identified a few strategies to help in this journey. One: I can get anxious, and therefore distracted, sometimes if I feel like production is lagging. Projects that are tedious or are simply going to take a long time to complete can find me feeling not productive. I've learned over time that breaking up the big projects with other easier-to-accomplish small projects addresses that anxiety. Two or three hours working on something like a new dining room table top, which gets me about 10% further down that road, followed by 30 or 45 minutes of sewing, which completes one entire side of a floor pillow, gives me that "yes!" feeling. I've had to work on my patience for process itself. This is not particularly fun, but is particularly good for me. I've designed big projects, that have little parts, so I have to work slowly and find joy and success in process. This was a big project....a winter project. Dining room table. Involved building the table top, cutting hundreds of wood tiles from 2x4s, sanding individually, setting, grouting with sawdust grout, sanding more, staining, varnishing. Two: Another thing I've learned about myself is that sometimes I have to be deliberately social. (Does this sound crazy?) My full time job can be so consuming that I can spend most weekends alone, in my house/studio/woman cave, being alternately consumed in making. It's great as long as it's great, but it can also lead to that swirling drive to produce. (Thought bubble: "I have this whole day to make, create, produce! Go girl, go!") When I get to that point, or if I'm especially self aware that day, before I get to that point, I remind myself to get out of the house. Do it now. Walk. Work out. Phone a friend. Make plans for the evening. Get out of my own head! Three:
The best, if not most difficult, practice that improves life in almost every way is meditation. But it's hard. I know almost no one who meditates who thinks it's easy...at least I'm not alone. The goal is to connect my sitting bones (this will sound like a funny phrase unless you do yoga) to my meditation pillow or some other quiet place once a day for at least a few minutes. That's sounds so easy! And yet, I find myself avoiding even looking at that pillow in the mornings, as if it's going to suddenly say, "so really, avoiding me again?" The hard part of course, is achieving a quiet mind. And not judging myself over and over and over as I practice letting those intruding thoughts go as they appear...practice, practice, practice. However, meditation is without a doubt the best way for me to find the moment, be in the moment, love the moment and honor the moment. When I can do that, time is my best friend, my soul mate. So where does my journey with time go? Will I find the place that offers me balance between the way I embrace process and product? Will I achieve that easy partnership with time that results in joy in every moment? I don't know...it's a process... I made a business card this week. Actually, it's my fourth business card. I never used the first three because my impatience in designing them and ordering them before the design was right meant that when they arrived, they just looked stupid. One might think doing that once would be lesson learned, but no... A missing business card element was the logo. I didn't have one. Trickier than it sounds; scary in fact. The wisdom around logos is that they should somehow be reflective of what the business or person represents. They should give enought information that days...weeks...months later when the person who has kept your card runs across it again, they say "oh yeah!" instead of "who is this?" When I was playing around with website names, one that I liked was PeaceLoveEarrings. A logo for a name like that would've been so much easier! A peace sign with some earrings dangling off, right? Problem is, although I do love earrings, my work isn't that singularly focused. I knew I needed a different name. Benson Street Studio worked so well it made me wonder why it only took several weeks and about 200 other discarded ideas to come up with it! Even then, the logo seemed not obvious. Once I saw what I wanted, it seemed obvious, but not until that moment. Funny how that happens. I used an online company to make the logo and design the business card...www.tailorbrands.com. I looked around at some others, but this one was very easy to use, gave me a lot of options and is very affordable. (Chromebook users: You may already know this, but if not, you can spend an hour trying to unzip the downloaded file using one of the typical couple of ways, so you can then upload it to wherever you will order your business cards...or you can skip all that agony and remember that you need an app to do it. Downloading the unzip app and using it took about 60 seconds!) I like this business card. It's simple. Clean. Even accurate. So proud of myself. For the most part, I'm a half glass full person. It isn't lost on me that my life is rich. Richer than any human being deserves simply for existing. I wonder about that sometimes. Why do I get to be here in a set of life circumstances that has been full of opportunity and for the most part, lacking in adversity? My childhood was enviable, my education solid, my genepool is healthy, my country (though a little crazy right now) is among the world's best, my grown sons are now my friends and even like to travel with me, my job is meaningful and has provided stability and my friends endure my stories, drink wine with me and tell me they love me. So when I feel lost, I try not to get stuck there. But sometimes I do. The best way I've been able to describe these past several months is that it's been like being in the tunnel. The metaphoric tunnel that on some days is so long and curvy...like being in the tunnel maze from hell...that you can only imagine that there is an end to it that leads to the light, other days you can see the light, but you can't get there (and aren't sure if it's real light or the headlight of another oncoming train), and then the days where it keeps getting brighter and you know you're about the exit the damn thing. It's not actually being in the tunnel that is the most difficult. I don't think there is anything I could do to prevent it...shit happens. I'm a pretty good fixer and I know from experience that patience, wisdom, and time will resolve a lot of things. The most difficult thing is the coinciding loss of balance to life in general and the realization there wasn't much I could do to keep that from happening either. The normal balance between work, family and friends, and protected time to make/create/be inspired is a balance I try to protect. When life goes sideways though, the scales become almost impossibly weighted. The tunnel wins. Creativity loses. Ugh. And what I'm learning now is that even when the scales start to right themselves again, it doesn't all come back into harmony at once. My working hypothesis at this point is that my mind has learned a new normal. A new normal that excluded spontaneous earring design ideas and the motivation to spend even a few minutes at a time at the bench or sewing machine or with power tools and pieces of wood, much less design and execute a big project. I don't know if it's a function of slower rebound because of age or a normal process of stress recovery, but whatever the reason, I know I nearly made a scene a couple of weeks ago when sitting in a meeting, I realized I was doodling on the edges in my notebook. And what did those doodles look like? They looked like earrings! Creativity lives! I think when all is said and done, creativity will win. And if it gets lost as life moves on, I'll look forward to it winning again. This blog post is about someone (me) who has been so excited about, and committed to, writing a blog and suddenly found herself with weeks of empty space between her and said blog. It is a musing on how life and creative energy do not always peacefully co-exist. One of the things I've learned over the past fews weeks, as I've written nothing on this blog, is that creative energy isn't a given. Even though it's always been dominant in my fundamental core...it's been there as long as I've known myself... it remains fragile enough to nearly be obliterated under conditions that life gifts me with sometimes.
It's disconcerting to realize that a foundational part of who I am seems to be so vulnerable. I would like it better if this creative core would be the most enduring, the most unshakeable part of me. The strength that would carry me through the storms of life and all that. I wish that when the rest of my life feels gnarly and overwhelming, my innate response would be to be up half the night fabricating ridiculously amazing earrings or designing a massive mosaic or pouring several batches of specialty soap. But alas, not so. I just end up feeling tired and somehow distant from myself. I can look inside and see the creative passion still there on my team, but like it's been benched. I don't totally understand the phenomenon. I'm pretty good at "work-life balance" and pretty good at managing my life, but it seems I have less control over creative momentum than I would like. I wonder why? Is it that creativity is less tangible than I think it is? Or maybe accessing it is more elusive than accessing other kinds of energy? I can override lack of desire or focus when it comes to not wanting to go to work, or exercise, or do something social when I'm overwhelmed, stressed out or just damn tired. I just do it. But rarely can I create-on-demand. Which, in the case of this blog, has meant writing. I'm so glad this isn't a self help blog since I have no good way to tie a bow around these questions. I can only say that during times when the creative within doesn't seem to be easily accessible to me, I miss it dearly, and take enormous comfort in knowing that it's still there and will, in time, emerge refreshed. |
Hi, I'm Donna. Long time artisan/creative. Full time work in nonprofit world. Mother of two adult sons. Currently, also mother of two cats. Recent PostsThe patience project. Because patience is a virtue. And a creative challenge.
Don't mess with imperfection. How copper and heat speak for themselves. Politics and Art wage war inside me Write 100 words, take a nap and share your mantra Tile and wood floor...this year's winter project...kitchen renovation Archives
September 2018
Categories
All
|