It’s such a strange, thing, too. Some days I can just write pages about, essentially, nothing (those who’ve been reading this blog from the early days already know this) and yet on other days it’s like I have to lasso each single word and drag it out of my brain using all my strength.
The “blocked and dragging” days (as I have creatively chose to call them) seem to happen more frequently when there’s a lot of crap going on in my personal life. You’d think it would be the other way around – isn’t emotional drama supposed to be the most potent writer’s brain fertilizer there is?
Apparently, I don’t respond well to fertilizer. Or, maybe the problem is that I’m over-fertilized these days? I suppose too much fertilizer can be just as bad as not enough.
Although, why I’m using gardening metaphors, I’ll never know. I am the absolute owner of a certified “black thumb” when it comes to gardening.
And now writing, too, it seems.
And jewelry-making – I feel like my latest work has been very rote, simple and totally uninspired. I don’t remember ever having been as unexcited about finished designs as I’ve been lately. Each project feels like it is taking eons to finish and by the time each is done, I’m so “over” the design that I don’t even want to put it up on the website.
I haven’t touched either of my other two favorite hobbies – cross stitch and rubber stamping – in several years. Some of that is just due to lack of time – there just aren’t enough hours in the day to work full time, be a single parent, get all my chores and errands done, deal with the fall out caused by the irresponsibility of the kid’s other so-called parent, and also do necessary things like eating, sleeping, exercising, etc.
See, anything creative or hobby-related didn’t even make that list.
Sometimes I think I should just give up on the art stuff, but how are you supposed to have an enjoyable, balanced life if you don’t make time for the recreational things you enjoy? What kind of life is that?
On the other hand, if I carve out the time for the fun stuff, it invariably means that required stuff such as, oh, I don’t know, 18 bazillion baskets of laundry, doesn’t get done. Or rather, it gets washed, but doesn’t get put away.
Is that really bad, though? I mean, is there some cosmic rule that says that the laundry police are gonna put me away for life because it took me two weeks to get the laundry put away by which time there was more laundry to be done?
But it’s one thing when I make a conscious choice to ignore the laundry in favor of something “fun.” It’s a totally different thing when I make that choice and the resultant creative effort is…less than inspiring. Not to mention that there’s this whole guilt battle going on in the background of my brain that tells me that I’m wasting time and should really be attacking the giant laundry monster instead of waiting until it’s large enough to take on a life of its own, rampage through the local area and cause widespread chaos and destruction.
Guilt sucks, btw. In case you didn’t know. Sadly, giant guilt capacity apparently comes standard from the factory with my model and I haven’t been able to find a mechanic competent enough to uninstall it. Not that I haven’t tried…
So, I suppose all of this is my long-winded way of saying that today I find myself tired, out of time, overwhelmed by both household chores and creative projects, and totally uninspired to tackle any of it.
Oh, and feeling guilty for not being able to overcome all of that.
On the bright side, I’ve managed to turn whining about all of it into a blog entry of decent length even if it is of totally non-sensical and meandering structure.
Go, me.
This is the fire that was known as the Santiago fire. The lake in the foreground is Mission Viejo lake. The fire originated north and east of this spot (that would be off the left side of the picture) which is the area my son's school is in. Just about everything around his school burned although the school itself was fine. It did close for a week because of the fire danger and the poor air quality.
