I feel like a whiner because it seems I've been complaining a lot lately about not having enough time to do everything -- live this life, manage a household, take care of myself, my family and loved ones, make art, market my art, buy, package, post and ship fiber products, search for new suppliers, take a walk occasionally, spin, blog, AND relax and enjoy myself. And everytime I read a new blog post from wonderful folks like Chris O'Bryne about all the things we could be doing to do more with our art/our blogs/our websites, etc., I feel like I'm just not keeping up.
Ten years ago when I lived in Southern Humboldt...I'm not sure how I managed to do this, but for three years I
- gardened intensively, raising everlasting flowers on a virtually "impossible" piece of land with only minimal creek water, major pests in my organic garden, no topsoil, etc. -- harvested flowers twice a day in summertime, made dried floral products, and sold at the local farmers market
- worked part time for nonprofit organizations
- designed, produced, marketed and sold my beaded jewelry, including doing 5-7 out-of-area shows a year completely solo
- baked biscotti for all the local coffeehouses
- vacuumed a 1000 square foot 2-storey cabin weekly
- stacked and managed four cords of wood each year, schlepping wood through the snow in wintertime, keeping the stacks covered with humongous tarps, that kept the often not-as-dry-as-desired wood slightly moldy yet continuously got chewed up by wood rats and voles
- regularly changed the oil in my 1979 Honda Civic
- kept the brush away from the house in summertime by weed whacking, to the point where I could barely open my hands for a week to ten days because of the repetitive gripping action on the whacker
...well I could go on and on. What amazes me today is that I was able to do all these things back then, that I had that much energy. And I didn't seem to feel guilty, I just did everything that needed to get done. As I'm writing this, I'm feeling guilty that I'm not doing whatever it is that I REALLY set out to do today...no, I'm sitting on my backporch enjoying the sun's heat and the mild air, nursing my lower back.
I'm just wondering why it seems so imperative for me to do so many things. When I lived in the country I kind of didn't give a hoot if I kept up with the outside world. Now I feel impelled to, in my own way. I think I feel that if I'm not doing everything I can in every moment (darn near), that I'm not doing "it" right or well enough. I keep saying I just want to make art, but artmaking absorbs very little of my life, in reality.
Perhaps this is what being on the edge of a breakdown feels like. But I think it's more like a "break open." I've been thinking recently that I want to do my life differently now, but it keeps showing up the same because I don't yet have those new habits or behaviors or thinking that will usher in a change in my outward reality. This is what I've been wrestling with lately, and I'm thinking maybe this deep unrest is what's been driving my sense of overwhelm for the past couple months. I don't know for sure. I need to meditate on it. But not right now.
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