Day 03 : From Procrastination to Trust
Today I am tired. After many hours of client work yesterday, I woke up to a luxuriously spacious day with a wide open opportunity to create, make, do, and… I just felt tired.
For the first half of the day, I wandered about my studio trying to “set the mood” for creative play. I lit candles and incense and drew tarot cards and tried to empty my thoughts onto the pages of my journal. When that didn’t work, I began aimlessly tidying, vacuuming, reorganizing, shuffling papers, until finally, after I’d seemingly done everything else I could think of, my hands found their way to my pencils and pastels, and the discomfort of duality within me found its way out and onto a small strip of paper in a creative flow that couldn’t be forced.
It’s tempting, or rather a hard-to-resist habit, for me to say that I wasted half the day and all I have to show for this luxuriously spacious twenty-four-hour period is an insignificant eight-by-three piece of scribbles. (Oh, how brutal and unkind the inner dialogue can be...)
But I believe the more accurate conclusion, if there is one, is that my creative self needed all the kindness and nurturing of the first half of the day before she was ready to come out and play.
It is also no surprise to me that my inner critic’s summary of the day (see second paragraph of this post) left out many important details that led to the moment of creative flow: the extra hours of sleeping in, the morning walk with my dog and partner, a kale and blueberry smoothie, the cool air from the open window, the deep breaths, the break from email and phone, the music I listened to while I tidied and cleaned.
