Balance

The ongoing struggle. In every facet of my life. Life maintenance vs sanity maintenance. (ach! ‘vs‘ = it’s not about one against the other, either/or) The need to make money/the need to create and how to meld the two. The need for company/the need for solitude. Photography/landscape design. Assemblage/ceramics. Computer time/studio time. Want/need/desire/curiosity.

It’s about melding,combining. Making choices creates a life of balance, which means releasing options, maybe to be explored at a later date, maybe not. And that letting go, that possiblity of loss is the hard piece. So much so that I become the proverbial donkey starving because I can’t choose between the two haystacks in front of me. As I acquire more self-discipline, balance will become my prevalent state of being.

A dear friend/mentor suggested I change my filter a bit and consider creativity and life from a place of focus rather than one of choice, which I connect with a sense of loss. Focus is more about concentration, right now, the immediate future. I can focus on x, follow where it leads me, explore it fully and with attentiveness and fullness, joy and accomplishment. Then, upon satiation within that experience I can refocus and move in closer or choose a different piece to focus upon. It’s about balance, not the all or nothing.

A daily blog (with a time limit for it’s creation because I could espouse and edit for hours!) is part of my developing focus, discipline, a creative habit ala Twyla Tharp’s book “The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life.” Other pieces parts of my daily habit are walking or yoga, journaling (Morning Pages, Julia Cameron’s “An Artist’s Way”), meditation and set hours to be in my studio and working. And in there somewhere comes the Day Job, and Life Maintenance (house and yard, food, laundry, bills, etc.)

I am truly a work in progress. And this is part of the unfolding.