Time

Do I need time?

It’s funny that I actually do not need more time.

Back when I was a young mom working around the clock I would have said YES! Absolutely!Sleep was in short supply. Meals and laundry ate up huge chunks of my day. How did I do it? I’m not a fan of mundane chores. Routine is not my favorite. At different times I was working in and out of my home. Running, always running.

Today, I love when I have things to do that aren’t in the yard. My job and yoga keep me a little busy. The way chores are drawn out, are endless, never having any urgency, is a different way to live. It’s taken me a while to figure it out and then accept it.

I still balk at routine. I did learn to make chores more satisfying and fast as one with four busy kids might do. But I, from the youngest of ages, was always looking for something way more fun to do when I was done. As in get the room cleaned so I could go outside, (and not to weed or rake)

Getting done was my constant goal. Creativity came after chores. Except when it didn’t. Oh there were those crazy deadline approaching days when life ran amuck until roughly five o’clock when we (I) would run around cleaning up and maybe brushing our hair so it would look like maybe we weren’t goofing off all day. Oh I wasn’t fooling anyone, but a way younger me wanted to be a good wife and mother so supper had to be ready…

I wonder what it would be like if creating was my work. If goofing off making stuff was my actual job. (Oh wait, it was). What if I was born into a creative family? Or I lived with creatives who take art seriously? What if I just started calling my art my work? I mean it’s not like Im watching tv. Art isn’t passive. But it does still feel like everything else is important and nessesary, while painting, drawing, art is not. Plus it’s messy…

I learned that doing art was silly and foolish and a time waster. And made an unnecessary mess. I know it’s not, since it’s what gives me the most satisfaction of anything. I know it’s valid for me in my life.

What you learn as a kid has a funny hold on you, though. Even after making a life and businesses around art, as well as holding a full time art teaching position, and being a professional artist, designer, home stager, I still feel as though I’m goofing off while everyone else is doing serious important work things.

And here I am.

Working all day. Taking a few walking breaks and sprinkler moving breaks, but mostly working.

Thanks to the Untethered Soul I have a new perspective to view my artist self and all the conversations going on in my artist’s head from.

Oh and I forgot the part where I’m not happy with what I’ve been doing. There’s that part too. I’ll look with fresh eyes tomorrow. Today I’m glad to have worked. To have dedicated a full day to this art thing I’m compelled to keep doing.

I guess it’s a good time to observe myself thinking all of that!Hmmm.