Category: slowing down

Finish Your Sentence the Right Way

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

You know — there are days when I would post 2 or 3 or 4 times if I let myself.

There are others’ blogs I’d like to share, new Galleries I’d like to showcase, photos I’d love to show you, topics I’d like to yammer about.

But I can only take me one day at a time.

It’s not like I know a whole lot about anything. I am one of those who dabble in a dozen things at one time and am neither an expert nor a consistent follower in most. But how can one not want to share other’s creativities? 

I get so excited when I see other blogs and the things they’ve created. The thoughts they’ve had. The discoveries they’ve made. And I want to show you what I’ve found.

I’m sure what I see and experience is only the tip of the iceberg out there. But it’s the seeing and experiencing that wears me out.

When I look from the outside in, it all looks quirky and fun and a little bit on the wild side. Who wouldn’t love to have this much enthusiasm for sharing?

But looking out from inside, I’m exhausted.

Like I said in last week’s blog, I’m Too Old To Be This Busy, this “do ten things at one time” makes me tired. Makes my brain tired.

Working 9-5 used to make me tired. Raising my kids made me tired. Now running on creativity makes me tired. I know it’s not some blood disease; I work closely with my doctor to make sure all my meds are in line and appropriate. 

It’s the mental chatter that sometimes drives me nuts.

Write a blog! Find a new unique artist for the Gallery! Create a page for your crafts in case you ever sell them! Figure out PayPal! Take some product pictures! Call your friend to see if she got the job! Make a ledger! Read some blogs!

See what I mean? The list is endless.

I’m not really complaining. As a matter of fact, I’m excited that others are finding their rhythms and doing their thing and being creative while juggling a dozen other tasks too. Like I always say. I LOVE creativity. No matter what you’re creating, editing, fixing, refinishing, making, crocheting, painting, I love that you’re doing something. 

I just need to calm down a little and share things one at a time. Do something and complete something. I can’t leave dangling participles out there looking for something to modify. 

And just what is a dangling participle, you ask? Here’s a few from Thought Co.:

  • Oozing slowly across the floor, Marvin watched the salad dressing.
  • Coming out of the market, the bananas fell on the pavement.
  • She handed out brownies to the children stored in plastic containers
  • I smelled the oysters coming down the stairs for dinner.

If my mind doesn’t slow down soon, I’ll be doing all of the above.

In triplicate.

 

 

 

Changing Seasons

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 18 Comments

A touch of Fall in the air today. Cloudy day, cool breeze, cold rain. 

My kind of morning.

I know the dark and moody weather is on its way. These days it seems to match many of our moods. There is sunshine deep inside every one of us, but as the days shorten it seems to hang around with its friend Cloudy more and more often.

This weather tends to encourage more contemplation, more introspection, more struggling for inspiration. I know it’s the cycle of life, and we all go through it, but the older I get the more interesting this cycle gets.

I think our bodies automatically shift gears in fall, storing nuts and fat and ideas for the days when we are hiding behind three feet of snow.  Memories of family and friends and those we have lost seem to hang around a little longer. We can snuggle more with our pets without breaking out in a hot sweat.

As I contemplate this snuggling, reflective mode, I think of my fellow writer and poet Ivor. A wonderful writer and human being, he lives “down under” and is probably looking out his window hoping the temperatures soon warm up so he can walk around in short sleeves again. Funny how all of us can be on the same reflective wavelength yet our weather be so different.

Do you make plans for each season? Do you have projects that work better in one season than another? Books you want to read that you’ve left until under-blanket-time? A short story or crocheting you’ve been mulling around in your head that can’t come out until the temperature drops below 30 degrees?

I do love this time of year. I have a  few projects that don’t take a lot of energy or sunshine to carry out. I want to try to draw one of those pictures full of designs and lines like my last Sunday Evening Art Gallery artist (Rachael Pease). I have wind swirls I want to make for art fairs next year (if they ever come back), I’m even planning on rereading Shogun again (1,192 pages). I also have started taking long walks in the gray, listening to my creaking bones along with the birds and wind (the creaky bones are loudest).

What are your plans for the next season?

 

 

Why Can’t We Slow Down?

~ humoringthegoddess ~ 10 Comments

tumblr_ln6ma5pk1i1qkmpj8o1_500Do you ever have times/days/weeks where you are fumbling so out of control you finally have to stand still and say STOP?

I don’t know if it’s a symptom of (self-prescribed) A.D.D., but I constantly find myself in swirling situations where I’m turning and falling and rushing and not finishing.

And I can’t take it.

The other day I dropped something. I bent to pick it up and hit my head against the table leg. Then I stood up and dropped it again. In turning to reach it I swiped all the paperwork off the table and into a raining mess. The raining mess knocked over the stemmed wine glass with a trace of milk still left, breaking the glass and spilling milk all over.

I had to stand still, close my eyes, and count to 10.

Then the reprimand begins.

Who drinks milk out of wine glasses anyway? Why didn’t I just do the dishes and wash the glass when I was finished? Why are all those papers on the table anyway? Why aren’t you paying attention?

One time I was running a little late for work; stepped out of the car in the parking lot and slipped on a slice of ice right next to my door. Those bruises have finally faded.

Why didn’t you leave for work earlier? Didn’t you see that patch of ice when you pulled in the parking space? Don’t you watch where you put your feet when you get out of the car?

It’s like I’m moving through time and space too fast. Keeping up at work and keeping up at home is a non-stop travelogue for me. I find myself forcing myself to slow down. If I don’t, I get bruises from car doors, misplace my glasses and/or keys, lose earrings and other items of jewels — all kinds of stupid things.

Where am I going in such a hurry? What ever happened to stopping to smell the roses? Watch a sunset? Watch fireflies? I know I have to slow down. To think before I do. I’m not as flexible as i was 20 years ago. And I’ll wind up in the hospital if I’m not careful.

It’s just that with (self-prescribed) A.D.D. I feel at times I can’t sit still for 5 minutes. I’m either itching or swinging my leg or flipping through TV channels or snacking. I’m always afraid I’ll be left behind if I don’t get it all done. That I’ll be standing at the end of the driveway waving goodbye to everyone else because I couldn’t get ready on time.

This is especially true because I’m older. Every forgotten thing is Alzheimer’s; every hesitation is senility. Every broken glass is old age; every pain is cancer.

Although I do believe you can’t do everything, be everything to everybody and still keep your sanity, my unconscious mind is trying to prove different. It thinks that if I keep going at 150 mph, I can outrun the grim reaper.

Maybe it’s time for a speeding ticket or two.