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Since I'm sitting here with a head full of wool and feeling miserable on my birthday, I have nothing better to do all day than hang out on the computer. Anything else would simply be too taxing. However, this gives me one thing that I don't usually have--time to think & write. The last few birthdays have seen me through a lot of changes. Our family moved to Florida right after my 30th, moved back right before my 31st (!). Both of my girls are now in school so that I can work more. I've had a 'go' at a new job. Don't particularly enjoy it and will not continue it. However, it's given me the opportunity to explore what I really want to do. Or at least to see more clearly the direction I want to go in. This year really feels like the year that I'm finally listening to that voice inside me that says, "No more! No more of this wishy-washy, playing it safe, monotonous rut! Remember what you wanted to do/be when you were a kid. Do that!" And so I am. A very funny, talented and hard-working friend from childhood & I are starting to 'art' together. The learning curve for her is very, very easy. She is already an artist. Gets paid for it, MFA--the whole shebang. I, on the other hand am a slightly ADD 'creative person' with no training, no know-how and only a vague idea where I want to go. But she is cool with that because she likes to work in lots of different media. Right now we're working in ceramics. Thank Goodness for Mr. Miller's 8 & 9th grade art/craft classes or else I wouldn't know a pinch pot from a burnishing tool. It's really, really, really fun and rewarding to work with clay. It reminds me of when I discovered gardening. I'd had an utterly traumatic upheaval in my life and getting my hands in the dirt and watching things grow literally saved my life. It's taken about 10 years to get my sanity back (mostly) but I am actually still breathing. The clay is very much the same. At least this time I'm not healing from a wound. Merely putting my corrosive self-doubt to rest.
I have come to realize that for me the act of creating, of making something-anything! is what allows me to be kind, generous and compassionate the rest of the time. The more I engage in that part of my brain, the less compelled I am to buy, consume or to be bored. The funny thing about clay is that you can smash it all up and start again. In fact, you can forget about it, the clay can dry out and you can simply throw it in a scrap bucket, add water and start the whole process again! You have an infinite number of mistakes and discoveries to make. Nothing is permanent until the clay is in the kiln. What a freeing concept. I have always had such a perfectionistic, must-do-it-right-the-first-time personality that I've kept myself from doing anything really well.
This is the year of embracing creative mistakes and pushing myself to do something many, many times until I get the results that I want. I've realized that genius is often the result of simply being willing to do something ad nauseum until it is perfected. And for someone who has difficulty keeping to one task and has limited financial resources (who doesn't?), I am rarely satisfied with my results of any undertaking. Except, perhaps, biscuits. My biscuits are awesome!
So, this is the year of Living Dangerously. Letting go and absorbing more. Paying attention and daydreaming.
I am appreciating the people around me who find the time to pursue their passions. I am grateful to the artists, farmers, musicians and rabble-rousers. I am grateful to have a supremely wonderful husband. He cooks, he fixes. He's generous and patient. My girls are strong, healthy and creatively driven. My parents are loving and supportive. Even my in-laws are funny and encouraging. I love that on my 35th birthday I can look on my group of friends and see that I have meaningful 25 year friendships with people that love and inspire me still.
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