Catching Up--Wonder, Letting Go, Make, Community

Right--falling behind with Reverb10 and realizing that as with other things, I am making my own barriers and standing in my own way.  Thinking about and addressing these issues doesn't have to take a couple of hours and at least 3 revisions before publishing.  Granted, that might produce a better entry for my readers! But I can't use that as an excuse not to step up & speak to the prompt in whatever way I am able to manage.

4 Dec prompt:  So, how did I cultivate a sense of wonder in my life this year?  Quite frankly, I didn't.  My focus was more on just getting by.  But if I am honest with myself, I could elevate that view a bit for next year.

I will say that I did learn as the year went on to appreciate things that I didn't before, and I learned from reading all the wonderful blogs out there that my creativity can express itself in many ways--in the food I prepare for my family and the appreciation I take in the physical effort of it as well as just taking notice of the smells and colors of the ingredients, in the things I share with my children and the laughter we create with each other, in anything and everything, really.

Also, in Susan Tuttle's book Digital Expressions, I learned that taking beautiful pictures of everyday things is within my reach--it's all in learning to really look at things, to see what I am looking at.  Same thing with making an attempt at sketching something.  The curve of a handle on a coffee mug is a lovely thing and full of beauty.  As the boy said in August Rush, beauty is all around us [he may have said music, but it's one and the same].

All right, how can I cultivate a sense of wonder in my life next year?  I don't think I want to place the pressure on myself to blog every day about something, or write in my journal every day.  Perhaps the thing to do is simply to make myself the promise to look for the wonder, to appreciate it in the smiles of my beautiful children, the pleasure when I play something well on my harp, the smile I get when the little wren hops into the middle of the wreath on my front door and checks it out.  I am surrounded by wonder.  But it is up to me to acknowledge it.

5 Dec prompt:  What or whom did I let go of this year?  A few things--some friendships that had run their course, the feeling that my goal is to get back to a physical body I had before I had two children and two miscarriages, and spending my free mental time replaying scenes from my marriage that I wish had gone differently.  I choose to think about other things now, because that wasn't accomplishing anything.  And I finally am aware that rather than going back to something that is gone, my job is to go forwards and find out what is here now.

6 Dec prompt:  What was the last thing I made?  The last thing I finished were some holiday cards.  Materials used included vintage postcard stickers from Hobby Lobby, papers I painted myself on acrylic paper, grungeboard, Distress Inks, Stickles, metal embellishments, Dresden scrap blue snowflakes, etc.  I am halfway through a journal from Julie Prichard's Art Journaling course on the Land of Lost Luggage network (Ning); I used folded notecards from Michael's for the pages, waxed linen thread for sewing the signatures, and for the spine I've used pleather that I've had around for some time, and the cover papers are Oriental-themed ones I got on my last trip to the in-laws in England.

7 Dec prompt:  Where did I discover community in 2010, and what community would I like to join in 2011?  I found community online, and the comments that have come in on my blog and what I read from others has touched my heart deeply.  I love sharing what I'm doing and hearing other's comments and critiques--sometimes the littlest word can send me off in a completely new direction.  And of course, to receive approbation from others is balm for my wounded, fragile creative female ego that is always seeking the approval of others (I am trying to not do that so much and learn to listen to myself and trust myself, at least creatively).  In terms of how to extend this into next year, I'd like to get organized enough to start submitting entries to magazine challenges and participate in a regular online challenge.

Thanks for reading this much.  All comments welcome!

A Moment

Couldn't post yesterday, could barely even think--ate something that disagreed with me completely.  So hard to do for kids as they needed (husband is away on a trip), but I got it done in the end.

This prompt, I find, is stopping me in my tracks.  Not an easy one, and it seems too much like cheating to pick something that happened just recently . . . but this just isn't how my mind generally works.

I will do something from a couple of months ago.  On a weekday morning after getting the kids to school (two different places), I went to the trails in the canyon down the street from us, but I went in from the Floral Park side rather than the side closer to us.  Much to my surprise (we've lived here over ten years now), I found extensive trails that I'd never known were there.  On my way in, I met one man coming out with his dog, but once inside the trees all was stillness and solitude.  There was no wind, no rustling--just a sense of waiting.  The sun was not yet high enough in the sky to have made it down into the canyon even though it was about 8:30 a.m., so there were not even any shadows yet, and while it wasn't dark, there was not yet Light.

As I briskly walked down the trails I passed cool grey ponds filled with nibbly little minnows, and I saw plenty of flowers waiting the sun.  At one point I came to a large rock, and I squeezed by until I could see that I could go no further.  The water rushed down a waterfall, the peace was nearly overwhelming.

How to Eliminate What Doesn't Contribute to my Writing

 . . . and I shall extend the title, "...what doesn't contribute to my writing or my art or frankly my creativity in general".  The answer to that one is easy for me!  I get sucked in to the internet easily and find quite often that 30 or 45 minutes have gone by with nothing really to show for it.

While there is something to be said for gathering information about what's going on, I know very well that much of what I do is almost compulsive--one more check to see if a new blog post from someone has come up, one more e-mail check, etc.  Plus, given that I have two children and thus cannot say that my time is my own, I could easily be more disciplined about how I spend my time when I am in charge (i.e., during school hours) and decide that reading blogs and my news sites is just something I save for post-bedtime, when I'm usually too done in to be creative anyway.

Besides, I have found that getting into the creative mood in the evenings--while it is certainly my preference--is not a good thing for me.  I get so high on creating that it takes me forever to let it go and unwind enough to go to sleep, and that's not a good thing when I have to get up at 6:15 a.m. for the getting-ready-for-school routine.

So I shall promise myself that beginning tomorrow (why wait?), I will transition to reading my blog list and checking news sites only in the evenings (at least during the week), and the transition will be complete by the New Year.

Thanks to Reverb10 for providing the nudge to focus in on this change that I knew was needed and make it a reality!

One Word Looking Back, One Word Looking Forward

Hmm, ran across Reverb10 on Christen Olivarez's blog, and it's intriguing.  I enjoyed the 30 Days challenge in November, although I wasn't able to keep to it between two kids in school plus hosting Thanksgiving & having my parents visiting for a week, but it definitely raised my attention to what I was doing each day that's creative.  Which is the goal, right?  Even if I couldn't document it, I DID it, and I appreciated and honored the process as well as the outcome.

So, looking back on 2010, what one single word would I pick to describe it?  Either "struggle" or "growth" would work, depending on which angle one is taking.  I think they are both sides of the same coin myself.  And with all of this growth that I've been having, I choose to go with the viewpoint of "growth" over "struggle".  Struggle is just that.  Growth is something new and good resulting from the struggle.  That is, truly, what I feel has come from this year.

Onwards, now--what word would I like to see myself selecting come this time next year?  Some choices come immediately to mind, such as "relaxed" or "serene", but that doesn't feel quite enough, somehow.  What I think I might like instead is "confident".  I would like that, yes I would.  I'd like to own what I do, not to belittle it or feel like a dilettante or pretender--to really give myself permission to get over that fear that maybe I really don't have anything to say and am simply accomplished with techniques, and to learn to think proudly in my heart and sing out loud with my voice that I am a Creative Person, and that is important and it is enough.