as good a day as any, I imagine. my husband's sleeping, the girls have gone to school and we've got a three day weekend full of activities and trips ahead. the laundry's caught up, supper's planned, the garbage has been taken out and all that's left to do is make some coffee and go to the shed, write a bit, paint, take pictures. I might be moved to do some yard work, it happened yesterday and it could conceivably happen again.
for the moment, though, it's the thought of paint (lids left off, colours a bit mixed together, and the paint almost at a nice sort of pudding-like consistency, very nice for building up texture) that's pulling at me. so despite the fact that I could do so many more useful things, I've decided to go ahead and indulge myself while I'm able to.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
it's a good day for painting.
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3 comments:
thank goodness some people give in to the urge to make things beautiful. If we were all walking about with our heads bent to "duty" this would be a much drabber, boring world.
I certainly did give in to the urge and it wasn't much of a struggle, really. I didn't so much as give in as volunteer.
sometimes I feel like I make enough of a contribution (existentially speaking) to offset what I take for myself. but quite often I'm tormented with the feeling I'm sure the ivy must get here, an invasive weed, climbing at the expense of sturdier plants.
mind you, an ivy can choose to crawl along the ground, or spill down over the edge of a concrete wall quite nicely. but of course if it finds the perfect place to climb and be sheltered in, what else is it going to do? what should it be expected to do, being what it is?
there's this song I quite love called something I can't remember, my mind's a blank all of a sudden, the girls have shrek 2 going because it's friday night and they have "machine time." yes, I'm rambling way off topic, I know, but oh well. this is just a kind of conversation blunted by time and distance but staggering along regardless. so you pardon the hitches and gasps. (I hope!)
it's just such a relief to let it all out and not worry so much about it, and I don't allow myself that particular luxury all that often and why I don't is a constant source of mystery to me. because I'm happier when I do. when I'm myself, expressing myself freely and with a sort of detached loving amusement that maybe skirts the edges of equilibrium, I'm much nicer to everyone around me. I just might not get much more accomplished than I did today.
but I don't mind working slowly and incomprehensibly, making useless or quite functional objects that don't need at all to be brought into the world but suit a particular purpose I have in mind at the time. and I'm teaching myself all sorts of skills along the way that seem to be on the verge of coming in handy, so all in all I'd have to say that I don't think I've wasted the last two years here in the emerald forest. things are coming along pretty well, for the most part. I just have to relax and not be afraid so much. wu wei, baby, that's the way to go.
iI found that when I had a family about me- children, a husband, parents- I gave in to duty much more than I do now that I live alone. Then, what mattered most was how they viewed me and anything I did to satisfy the inner me was done privately and in whatever spare time I could manage to steal from "their" time. I think it was the era we were brought up in. Now that I am older and living alone, I see how damaging to the individual that kind of excessive "other-serving" can be. How one balances self and others is subjective, I know, but still, as a society we don't do nearly enough to honor people's individual needs. There has to be a way to take care of others and of one's self without having to "steal" the proverbial Calgon moment. I wish I knew what that way was...
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