Chapter 5, Check-In -- Possibilities

The last quilt back for my quilting extravaganza at my friend Dorothy's tomorrow morning is in the dryer - so while I wait, I decided I might as well do this week's check-in. I did morning pages every day and actually enjoy the rhythm of getting my thoughts down on paper, working my way through the odds & ends that make up my daily routine - trying to sort the mundane things that have to be done into a managable format, while keeping an eye open for the "wow" moments that might be lurking among the less interesting stuff. For my artist's date, I made another trip to GoodWill - this time a different location that the one I went to before - liked the location of this week's date much better and will probably continue to check it out periodically in the future. On my way home, I tried to evaluate whether it felt successful as an artist date or not -- or was it more or less just a shopping trip. I made some purchases -- black leather purse that looked brand new for $3.99, a throw rug with pine trees & snowflakes on it for $4.99, an incredibly soft, long-sleeved short gown for $3.99 and a small - maybe 14" diameter - round braided rug - actually a pad for a chair seat - for $1.99. But as I drove home, I tried to decide whether I really felt as though I ought to qualify the trip as an "artist's" date. I did remove the strings from the braided chair pad (that would have actually tied it to a chair) when I got home, thus turning it into just a small round braided rug to put under the girls' water bowl in my bathroom -- that's really the only creative thing I did with any of my purchases that I can think of. I saw a few clothing items in interesting fabrics while I was there - and if they had been tagged with right color ticket to make them the Thursday $1 specials, I might have purchased them - but at the full ticket price, small though that is really, I somehow couldn't allow my artist's child to have them. Most appealing were a black velvet vest with silver metallic stars or snowflakes embroidered on it and an Ann Taylor cotton skirt - very short & very small (8P) so no way was I going to be wearing it - with an assymmetrical pattern of flowers tossed on an ecru background. The vest was either $3.99 or $4.99 and the skirt was on the "better quality" rack for $6.99. Today I ran some errands and as I was driving around town, it suddenly flashed into my head that if I want to do some sort of small quilted piece as a tribute to my mother, that skirt fabric might just be a perfect thing to include. So before I went back home, I swung back by GoodWill to see if it was still there -- luck was with me and the skirt was still on the rack - and synchronicity played a hand and today everything in the store was 50% off, so artist's child only had to pay $3.49 for the skirt! It's really beautiful fabric, so I'm glad no one else decided to purchase the skirt while I was coming up with an idea and giving my artist's child permission to make the expenditure -- I was even going to let her pay full price for it this time, but was thrilled to get the better bargain!

I think the discussion on our blogs this week about this particular chapter and how we see the possibilities available to us was very helpful this week. It pushed me to analyze how I feel about the issue and to put down in writing what I came up with -- I think that actually telling someone else how I feel about the chapter and the way I want to be open to the possibilities inherent in this AW journey will actually make it seem more concrete to me and help me to maintain my focus.

Task No. 9 - this weekend it became really clear to me that my favorite creative block is over-reading -- I read two novels this week and when I'm reading, it is difficult for me to motivate myself to put the book down and do anything else. Last night I woke up in the night 3 times, and because I wasn't finished with my book, each time I woke up I "had to" turn the light on and read for awhile. Didn't make for a very restful night's sleep and today I haven't been very alert or able to do many of the things I had planned for today. I drew a little cartoon of me sitting in a chair with a book in my hand, a full bookshelf beside me and piles of books beginning to stack up around the chair - soon I will have walled myself into the chair and no one will be able to find me. I suspect the reading deprivation week helped to make me realize this -- as I suspected last week however, I might have figured it out during the reading deprivation week if it hadn't been a holiday week when we did it. The difference in routines during Thanksgiving week sort of masked the results I might have seen in a more normal week I think. What am I going to do about this? I'm not sure. I love to read and can't imagine giving it up -- but I do get frustrated when I'm not doing anything on the creative front too.