Goodbye June, parting is such sweet sorrow, ’til it be July tomorrow, or something like that.
Wow, it has been an amazing month of cramming in every bit one can do in 30 days. Writing, rewrites, site updates (which I’m still working on), a blog redecoration, and even two new pages added in expectation of more content to come soon. Heck, even a few much deserved days of doing absolutely nothing at all.
However, don’t let me sound like I’m Mrs. Productive extraordinaire. No, it is once again one of those moments where I have so many ideas and so much to get on paper that I don’t have enough hours in the day to do it. I have even had a few dark days when I questioned my purpose, not just here in print, but in all aspects of my life, but it didn’t last. Each time it happened something came glaring out at me from the dark, slapped me on the back and said, “get over yourself girl and get on with it.” So I got on with it, and here I am, quickly making a June post before the midnight hour strikes.
So goodbye June, it was great while you were here, we laughed, we cried, we had fun in the sun even, but it’s time to be done with you and embrace July in all its fireworks and impending sunburns. Who knows what might spark once it arrives?
Here is an example of one of my freelance pieces in print this month. Read my article Investing Affordably in the Future with Art in Bride & Groom Magazine’s Spring 2009 Issue. http://www.bridegroommag.com/
Or you can view the article online, see page 27 at this link http://issuu.com/brideandgroom/docs/spring09
May is coming to a quick and somewhat quiet end here on my blog. Earlier this month I proclaimed I was going to revamp the blog and I hoped my website as well, but I haven’t done either because I have been circling in a pool of indecision.
Now some might read what I have just written and imagine that I have slipped off into the deep end and have gone under in that pool of indecision unable to find the surface. However, that’s not the case.
Actually, I have come to understand that having creative indecision about things that represent you as an individual is the best kind of indecision you can have. It forces you to not only weigh all your options and reconsider your choices, but it also forces you to ask the question, what is is about this thing, this word, or this image that makes me indecisive when I can’t make up my mind to use it, write it, or display it?
In fact, indecision takes you along a path of self discovery. Even in those times when you make no decision at all you at least know that what you left behind on the path are the things you were certain you did not want, and what you do want may soon appear just over the horizon past that shimmering water-like mirage in the distance.
I think Ms. Oliphant sums up indecision nicely when she wrote the following:
Perhaps, on the whole, embarrassment and perplexity are a kind of natural accompaniment to life and movement; and it is better to be driven out of your senses with thinking which of two things you ought to do than to do nothing whatever, and be utterly uninteresting to all the world.
~Margaret Oliphant~
The days and days of silence here is not due to a lack of things to write. I never have that problem. The problem I have is deciding on which thing to write about at which hour and on which day. It’s a curse in many ways to have so many ideas and not enough time to find a home for all of them, whether in an article, a poem, or a story.
No, what I have been doing is once again considering recreating my blog and my main site into something different. Some new reflection of myself I suppose you might say. I have come to realize that I need a break from words and instead need more visual creativity. I suppose that is why I have been exploring numerous genres of films lately, slipping back to my art history research, perusing photographs, and exploring lots of web sites.
So if you come across this way in the coming weeks and wonder what’s happening here, like why is there silence or why is there is a new layout. I’m delving into the art of recreating, and the words will have to wait for a little while. Just do what I do, blame the Muses.
I was determined to have at least 7 days of complete exile and forced seclusion in order to work on my current writing project. However, if any of you followed along on Twitter, you know that it turned out to be an impossibility. I refuse to say failure because it was not for lack of trying and it wasn’t that I didn’t write, I just could not keep my commitment to seclusion and I have spent the past few days trying to understand why?
It boils down to this. You have to learn to go with the flow, even when you think the flow is going against you. We may not see our lives in terms of nature, but it is just that. You can’t will a river to flow north when it is already flowing south and the same holds true with our daily lives. There are forces being exacted upon us at all times. Now, I don’t mean crazy evil movie-type forces that appear out of nowhere to destroy us. I mean the forces of just daily living, the life force of people around us, and the moments of change and perception that happen along our path that we can’t ignore. They don’t have to be negative things. They only become negative if we choose to label them as such.
I have realized that it is OK to swim along in the direction that the river is taking me. It’s all about perception. If we perceive of the river as a true resource and a life giver, then we can be secure in our ability to flow along without resistance. The moment we see the river as the flood of destruction, then in that moment we drown in our inability to open ourselves up to whatever possibility may reveal itself along the river’s edge as the current takes us farther down stream than we planned.
So in the future when I make plans, I will always make room for my plans to change. Like Picasso said, we shouldn’t put things into stone, we should leave lots of room for ambiguity.
You have to have an idea of what you are going to do,
but it should be a vague idea.
~Pablo Picasso
