Life Ain't No Damn Bowl of Cherries

Nor is it a purchased-only-yesterday, golden glass seashell ashtray of cherries either. I say this in reference to day-to-day put on yer pants and get going living, but more specifically about how life seems to require a lot of nimbleness. If you are wondering what that statement has to do with creativity, you're not alone. (Ha! Just kidding!) No seriously, I think creating, fashioning, crafting - you name it - your life takes nimbleness. And dexterity. Patience (with yourself, mostly) mixed with perseverance. Hope.

This is on my mind because I'm now committing myself to figuring out what else I want to do, besides teaching. I'm working on this with someone - and what a find she is - talking about past jobs and interests and writing lots of crap down. (The good kind of crap). Also as of yesterday I'm reading a book called Finding Your Own North Star and based on the introduction alone I'm reminded that a lot of people, if not most, hit a point where they feel they've gotten off track completely or at least feel estranged from what they were meant to do with themselves. And that's a really painful place to be. Panic-inducing, discombobulating, stymieing. The book begins with a quote by a guy called Dan (age 41, but he could be any age, or a chick* for that matter) and goes as follows:

"Right in the middle of my life, I realized that I wasn't where I wanted to be. It was like I'd wandered off the right path into a very, very bad neighbourhood. I don't even want to remember how scary that space was - makes me feel like I'm gonna die or something. I'm only telling you about it because a lot of good came from it in the long run. So anyway, I don't even know how I ended up so off course. I felt like I'd been sleepwalking."

In reality, Dan is Dante Alighieri and this is from the first few lines of his The Divine Comedy, 1307. So let's just say that this kind of confusion has been happening to people of all ages since at least the Middle Ages. I don't know about you, reader (assuming someone will read this), but I find this comforting. I also take comfort in the fact that Dante did find his way out and that though the journey can be hard sometimes, it's also very (very) rewarding. This according to author Martha Beck, but I tend to believe her. Better still, that you need not reinvent yourself from scratch, indeed that the answers you seek, the talents and skills - some even transferrable! - are there already. You might need to hone them or rely on something or someone outside of yourself to help you get there, but the foundation is there already. (Didn't I warn you that this post would be rambling and wordy? No?)

I am not sure how to wind this up, but just to say that I like the notion that finding 'home,' or your stella polaris, or purpose - of living your life and yes, meeting your responsibilities is something that you fashion. It's ongoing. You won't be good at everything, but you've got to be bloody good at some things. Go there.

* I don't find chick to necessarily be a put-down. Depends on how it's used, is all.

Sew Brain Dead

You know those days when everything runs smoothly and you feel you're making great progress? Not only that, you think maybe you have a genuine talent that's been lying latent and all it needed was a little prompting in order to burst out and change your life? You know what I'm about to say next, I bet - that today was not that day. I mean, not to say I'm not happy that the PJ bottoms are sewn together, because that's actual progress. However, if I learned anything in today's sewing lesson, it was simply that learning a new craft takes time. It takes time and patience. The bobbin will run empty, the machine will unthread itself, and you'll realize it only after you've been "sewing" a few minutes. You'll become acquainted with both the small and large stitch ripper and you'll remember that there are lots of ways to get creative with the word "F***er!" - and that it really does help blow off steam.

One of your cats will chatter non-stop, attack the tape measure, and roll on the fabric until banished to the bedroom. You'll feel brain dead at the end of the day and have no desire to make dinner, not that you ever really do. You'll remember that slogging through is necessary if you're ever going to get better at something and that even if you get to be really good at something, you'll probably still need to slog through many times. You hope you really do remember that so you don't throw up your hands and say "F***er!" so often that it loses it's lustre, or give up new craft altogether. You blog when you feel you have nothing important to say, when you think

nobody is reading and then you eat that last piece of strawberry-rhubarb pie.