In lieu of Morning Pages

Today I didn’t have time to write my morning pages. There were animals to feed and more pressing matters. So this will be the ramblings of a somewhat unsettled mind. Heads up. 

 

I’ve been thinking lately a bit about the meaning of life or rather what it means to be alive. So often we don’t really consider the first words Jesus asked two disciples who started following him, “What do you want?” [John 1:35-39].

 

He didn’t ask them what they needed at that moment or what other people thought about them or about their situation. He didn’t ask them what their families’ expectations were or what their teachers and mentors had encouraged them to pursue. He didn’t ask them to study law or medicine or engineering. He didn’t start with the answer which He already actually knew. He asked them what they wanted. 

 

When they called him Rabbi/teacher and asked where He was staying, He simply instructed them to come along and see. 

 

It’s a short section of the first chapter of John and could be glossed over as rather insignificant. I suspect, however, that it is critically important. I tend to believe that the Bible is like an intricate tapestry. No thread is unimportant, no detail there by chance. It matters where our minds and hearts are. It matters what we want in our walk with Christ. We can come and see and follow and develop what we want by discovering what God wants for us.

 

Being alive in the biological sense is something far less than actually living a sentient, meaningful existence. That’s why some of us choose to make Living Wills and give our loved ones instruction on what to do in the event of a “being alive” and prolonging inevitable death, vs. actually living situation. Living a life worth living matters.

 

I think often we are given purpose, and, in our hearts and minds, this purpose is what we want for ourselves when we are younger and less influenced by others in this world. It is easy to place too much importance on the desires of well-intentioned parents or mentors and not enough importance on the inner voice guided by God. The tug of war is knowing the difference between selfish wants and purpose-driven, living type wants. When we give ourselves over to the Lord’s plan, we can often rediscover this purpose type want and come into alignment. We get a chance to come and see what is intended and beautifully created for each of us.   

 

Ramble over for today. Go seek and live your life that’s worth living.

Living Slowly

I had planned to have some work in progress photos to share, and while that could be lovely, I’ve honestly not had a lot of time to spare lately. My mother and father-in-law have come up from Peru for an extended visit, and while they are very helpful, it’s a busy season here on the homestead. Having two additional adults who need to eat their main meal around 1-2PM has shifted my entire daily schedule. Add to that other friends and family day-trip visits on account of the warm summer weather, and my routines are often disrupted. 

 

It would be easy to just throw my hands up and not continue to live intentionally. To just say, “Screw it, whatever,” and just live in a reaction mode. I find that to be counterproductive in reducing anxiety. I was speaking with my brother recently about our mother’s propensity for finding four-leaf clovers. My nephew and I both appear to have inherited the ability, and something he said to me struck me as being true for me too. He said that if he sets out looking specifically for four-leaf clovers, he doesn’t find them. Think about that for a moment, when he makes it his purpose to just look for them, he doesn’t find any. 

 

When we take the time to slow down while doing our daily chores or while spending time with family, if we relax our minds to be present in the moment, wherever we are, then we can see the four-leaf clovers amidst the hundreds of regular three-leafers. When I’m not so focused on getting from point A to point B, making a meal because it has to be done, bathing a baby because she has to be bathed, but I take the time to exist in that moment, on that day, on this trip around the sun, there is a richness of detail – the aroma of fresh ginger, the wet curls on my daughter’s head, the tiny veins on a clover leaf – that I would miss completely in my rush. 

 

How do you take time to live intentionally, to live slowly, each day? 

 

Transitions: New RV Studio Tour

I am writing this post a day late. I took yesterday “off” for my mom’s birthday. It was her first birthday where she wasn’t here with us. It was a tough day, for sure, but we kept busy with homestead projects. I’m not certain I’m dealing with her loss in the healthiest way, but I’m making do and coping. 

 

Mixed in with the homestead projects this week have been preparations for the arrival of my husband’s parents and also an exciting new studio move. Those who have been following my art journey on Facebook and Instagram will know that my first “studio” space was a desk area in our kitchen. As I got to working more regularly, the materials and associated mess expanded, so last year my husband suggested I take over the guest bedroom. That area also became somewhat “small” for the materials and work, but I had plenty of table space for office work and framing paintings. I was rather content there, BUT every time we had family visit and stay, the space had to be converted back into a guest bedroom. 

A desk in my kitchen was a great start

I was so thankful to take over
the guest bedroom for a while

Recently my husband had a crazy, wonderful idea that we could get a travel trailer, RV type space to be a studio. At his urging I looked around online and actually found a 1996 Dutchmen 5^th wheel RV. The folks who owned it before me began a renovation of the space, but it wasn’t quite completed. It cost less than a newer model which should allow me to complete renovations and maybe even add solar panels and a composting toilet. My lovely husband hit two birds with one stone, because I have been looking at tiny houses for years now, so this new studio space satisfies my yearning for a tiny house of my own. 

 

My wonderful father and our dear friends Bill and Josh helped to change the hitch to work with the ball hitch in my dad’s pick-up truck, and the new studio arrived here at our place last Friday. It will need some work, but I’ve been able to move in most of my art materials. There are great storage cupboards, cubbies, and closets, and the middle area is tall enough for my easel. I honestly would never have dreamed of having a separate studio space any time soon, so I’m so excited to get to work and am still a bit in shock that it has worked out. I look forward to sharing the renovations and studio updates with you!

Here comes the studio on Papi's truck

The mid point is tall enough for my easel

  

The kitchen and booth areas

My canvases fit nicely in the closet

I can even fit books in the cabinets

What is your "studio" space like? Do you use your kitchen table, a desk in the living room, a guest bedroom? How do you navigate space and time for art making? I'd love to hear how others are handling their art creation spaces!

Overwhelm: What I do about it

I know there are a lot of resources out there for stress and depression and even overwhelm, but I didn’t want to leave a post up complaining about an issue I’m having without also sharing what I do personally to cope. Luckily today I’m having a solid 8.5 out of 10 day, so I can share some of my tool kit. In no particular order, here are some of the things that help me stay sane:

 

1.    Maintain good sleep hygiene: The amount of sleep one needs varies from person to person, but I don’t feel like I can face the world unless I get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. Unfortunately, I often have interrupted sleep and unintentionally biphasic sleep. I also have plenty of nights where I simply don’t get enough. A few tricks that help me are to read an actual, physical book while falling asleep – something fascinating but not enthralling, turn lamps down low, stop cellphone and television use at least an hour before bed, and cover my alarm clock numbers with a sleep mask to create darkness in my room. These don’t give me perfect sleep regularity, but they help.

 

2.    Keep my digital calendar and physical planner up to date: I prefer to use both my Google calendar and a Panda Planner. On my digital calendar I color code for medical appointments, birthdays, work appointments, church commitments, and kids’ activities. If it’s not in my calendar, it doesn’t exist. Writing it down and backing it up for access on the go helps me to reduce the anxiety that I might miss something or drop the ball. 

 

3.   Practice gratitude: This might be taking a moment to pray and thank the Lord for something simple: a hot cup of coffee, a glimpse of a Gold Finch or the little Downy Woodpecker that haunts the dead trees off the front porch, the time to take an uninterrupted hot shower. It can also take the form of writing a little note of gratitude in my Panda Planner, or it can be something a bit more long-form if I find time to write my Morning Pages. Taking time, no matter what is not going right in life, to remember what IS going well, helps to keep me mentally balanced and focused.

 

4.   Acknowledge and nurture my artistic self: I believe that each of us is unique and has certain parts of the self that make us tick. When we deny these parts, we wilt inside and cease to be as intended. We devolve into a lesser version of ourselves. The awareness, whether conscious or subconscious, of this lack or loss left me feeling anxious, dissatisfied, hungry, for years. When I do not make or create or acknowledge the need to do so, I feel as if there is a watcher just beyond my peripheral spying on me. There’s a niggling sense of need, a constipation of spirit. When I don’t take time to allow my artist self to play or to escape into my work, even if just for a short time, on a regular basis, I feel deep seated anxiety and cannot cope with the other tasks on my to do list. My husband has supported me in devoting more time to creating, and that makes a world of difference. It isn’t an indulgence but rather a very real necessity.

 

This leads me to my last tool to share for today.

 

5.   Triage: I have to sort the priorities in my life and the lives of my children. This means that I need to not operate in a reactive mode but rather a mode of careful consideration. Routines where appropriate can help reduce decision fatigue, and for the rest I make case by case decisions. It is en vogue for modern families to buy in meals and prioritize sports, dance, and other youth activities, and I have no criticism if that works for other families. It doesn’t work for me, so I choose to live our life at a somewhat slower pace, prioritizing relationships and time on the homestead. I am learning to say, “No,” when the activity offered doesn’t fit in with what we’ve identified as our priorities. It’s a process.

 

What daily rituals or “tools” do you keep in your kit for dealing with overwhelm?          

Overwhelm

On the risk of sounding a bit like I’m whining, my topic this week is overwhelm. I realize that I live a privileged existence here in a first world country, but despite that I still suffer occasionally from overwhelm. This past weekend I was truly under the weather on Sunday. I’m not sure if I caught a stomach bug or if it was the Boston Crème doughnut I ate on Saturday (bakery to remain unnamed), but I felt a bit like death warmed over. Luckily my husband had the day off and was able to pitch in and help out despite also being pretty tired from his six-day work week. On Monday morning I felt somewhat better, and I managed to get out of bed at a reasonable hour. I even wrote my Morning Pages. In my stream of consciousness writing, I found myself mentally sorting through all the projects, paperwork, and plans, that I have going. 

 

Around 7:30am I transitioned to getting the kids up and fed. My father very sweetly stopped by a little after 8am to check on me to see how I was doing. It’s fairly standard for us to check in around that time in the morning to discuss our plans for the day, so it wasn’t as if his visit was unexpected. He began to talk about our small herd of cattle that are living on a neighbor’s farm. The plan is to move most of them here soon, so that said neighbor can start his own herd again. We have amazing friends who are helping us out with this project, so I don’t actually have much firsthand involvement. Regardless, it suddenly felt like one more project was being piled on, and I had missed a deadline already. It was sort of like those recurring nightmares I have where I show up to a mathematics class at university and all the homework assignments are due at end of term the next day, but I haven’t completed any. And it wasn’t a project that I started or had any say or decision-making power about really. Anxiety welled up.

 

I burst into tears. 

 

My poor dad came over and gave me a hug. He had zero idea of what I’d already been mentally juggling in that moment, and he’s got quite a few things on his own plate. We’re both still reeling from the loss of my mom to cancer complications last July. Her birthday is at the end of this month. Throughout the course of the day and several additional chats, I started to feel better bit by bit. Several things helped me, and now on Tuesday I feel like I *may* actually be able to tackle what I would like to achieve this season on the homestead and in my life. I think in many respects the anxiety and overwhelm came in no small part from feeling like I have projects to complete in support of others and that I am sometimes asked to de-prioritize the projects that are near and dear to my heart. When I feel overwhelmed, the suggestion often offered is to do less in the garden or to not worry so much about making my artwork. These aren’t actual solutions, but I’ll talk a bit about that in my next post. For now, I’m being patient with myself and remembering to chip away at my goals “bird by bird,” as Anne Lamott put it. I’ve sussed out a few things that help me to avoid or cope with overwhelm, so I’ll share those with you next time.

 

Be well. Be blessed. And remember to be patient with yourself.   

I feel guilty when...

This post goes out to other creative mothers. 
Whether you paint or craft, quilt, sew, or sculpt – this post is for you.  

Within the past few years, I’ve decided to truly dedicate time to making my artwork. At the moment it’s taking the form of acrylic paintings. The paints I’m using, with the exception of three recently purchased tubes of Golden Acrylics, are student paints I received as gifts a LONG time ago. When I really got back into making art, my daughter was a newborn. I would literally sit at a little desk area in our kitchen nursing her and draw or paint in the evening after our two boys were in bed. So, I’m a beginner with some serious time and material constraints. 

This morning while washing dishes, simmering a homestead smoked ham to roast later, waiting for a load of baby clothes to finish in the washer to transfer to the dryer, and preparing lunch for my three kids, I felt guilty. I felt guilty that I wasn’t in the studio. I felt guilty that I hadn’t written my Morning Pages. I felt guilty that I wasn’t out preparing the garden beds or purchasing our starter plants from the nursery. I felt guilty that the clean laundry wasn’t yet folded and put away. I felt guilty that I wasn’t playing with or reading to my kids. I felt guilty that areas of my house are cluttered and need cleaning. I was doing THREE things at once, and I still felt guilty. 

 

Honestly, I believe this is a little ridiculous. 

 

Yes, there are days when I sit on my butt and watch old shows online for an hour or two. Some days we order in food, and my daughter and I *may* be eating box mac n’ cheese as I’m typing this, but for the most part, I prepare homecooked meals, grow/raise a lot of our own food, and I make time for my creative endeavors which may even be developing into a small business. The house isn’t filthy, if a bit untidy. The children are fed and bathed, educated and entertained. Most of the time they have on clean clothes. 

 

If you’re like me, weighed down by the expectations, societal or personal, take a minute. Just, take a minute and breathe in deeply. Close your eyes and realize how much you’ve done, all the little tasks that add up, all the big tasks that get taken for granted. Think about the things that absolutely have to get done – did you do them? Did you get them done with some help from friends or family? I bet you did. I bet everyone’s okay, healthy, probably even happy. And if something did not get done, realize that maybe that’s okay. Realize that maybe not everything has to be done today. Realize that some things are okay to leave undone in order to make room for your passions. Give yourself a break, and for Heaven’s sake, stop feeling guilty. 

About this time each year...

So this year it's not August - we're nearly into November, and I'm writing a blog entry. So much changes from year to year despite the things that stay the same. Mom died back in July just days after sending a rather upbeat email update to the family about her chemo and immunotherapy treatments. She had decided to fight, to ask for a little more time - six months to a year. She made it a couple of months. 

There's nothing poetic about death. My mind searches for her pulling in the drive in the grey, well-worn HHR. I'm struck by a pang of expecting when I walk into my folks' living room and see her purse and her things just slightly out of place from where she left them. Search as I might, death has not given me any great words or sentiments to put into print, to share with the world in order to help others in the same state of profound loss. It just is. It's just a gap - a void - a feeling that I wish she'd just come home already. I keep thinking of things that I'd been meaning to ask her.