Another week has started in the farms/small towns in southeast Wisconsin. Nature, in her ever moving glory, has dumped most of her glorious hair on the ground to eventually turn into mush and mulch and hiding places for various little things until spring.
Today is the last warm day — the so-called Indian Summer — trying to coax us out of the house and go walking or biking or fetching the dogs one more day before it invites the colder air to come and visit.
Do you, as artists, change your routines when the weather changes?
I know my friends down Australia way are going through the lovely growth of Spring, thinking about picnics and boat rides and art fairs and dinners on the patio with friends.
Their counterparts up here in the U.S. for the most part are waving goodbye to the hot, melting vibrations of sunlight, settling instead for a weak, yet still bright, effort from the sun.
Many of you are artists — even if you don’t acknowledge yourself as one. You arrange gardens, build patios and put up swing sets, paint in watercolors and oils, cut up pieces of magazines and cloth and broken glass and make the most glorious collages.
We all do something with our spare time — how can we not?
But cold weather does put a damper on outdoor activities. Perhaps not a damper, per se — you can still enjoy outdoor activities, walk in the snow and make snow angels — but cold weather does tend to keep one insider a lot more.
Do you do the same activities you did in the blazing hot summer?
Technically I suppose I could do many of the same things inside as outside. Keep my plants growing, paint rocks at the kitchen table, ride an exercise bike rather than a purple 10 speed down the road. But some of it’s not the same without the grandkids or warm weather.
I am fortunate — writing is a year round project. I wish I was as versatile as the sport allowed (short stories, novels, poems, essays, opinion pieces, blogging, research papers, sonnets, tweets). I like to stick to the blogging and novel writing end of the pool.
In the winter time, when you’re stuck inside, blowing, tearing wind and snow and ice and nothing but a cabinet full of popcorn and ice cream, you would think your concentration focuses even finer.
It’s not even winter time and I find myself dissatisfied with everything.
Is this another passing phase? Should I find something new to write? Some new type of art to dig into?
Or should I just enjoy the popcorn and ice cream and take a break for a while?
What do you do?
I’d like to do a little speculating, a little exploring, a little wondering today. Come play me……
Humoring the Goddess 