My first blog post could be something I chose to make daunting, but I'd rather think of it as a place I can only improve from. After all, likely only a few friends who I guilt into reading this will ever see it.
I decided to do this the way I do a lot of things. Seemingly all of a sudden and spontaneously, but in reality it has taken me years to get here.
I have many many paper journals. Most of which have lots of blank pages in the back. Sometimes I pick up an old one and start writing in it and of course can't help but notice and peruse the last entry. I did this last night. It was an entry from a few years ago. I was in a bad relationship, I was trying to buy my house, I was struggling to find time for my art, and I was worrying about money as there was a dip in the amount my clients were sending me. And while I did get out of that relationship and started a profound healing journey, I did buy my house, and the work situation improved, (though is now again suffering temporarily, thank you Covid) I was about to sit down and write out a very similar sounding entry in more than one distressing way.
I write out goals a lot. I have written out the phrase "make time for your art every day" a heartbreaking number of times. I spend a LOT of time listening to amazing speakers and reading books and taking courses to help me "find my joy" in art, but I have failed to make it a priority. I lie to myself and I hide from the world. It is so easy. There are a million things we all need to do. I DO need to make a living. I DO need to go to the grocery store, make nutritious food, meditate, exercise, give of myself, try to cultivate loving relationships, have adventure, change the sheets, deal with the next house disaster, family crisis, blah blah fucking blah. But I know in my heart what I am doing. I am putting everything else ahead of the essence of ME.
So I'm diving in and I'm going to just learn how to swim. I am making this promise that I will post something SOMETHING here every day. It is the cumulation of small consistent actions that create our lives. It is by living consciously in-habit that I hope to drown out that fearful self negating voice.
I did a ten minute meditation today with a water colour brush and palate in hand. I am deliberately posting something that doesn't look like much of anything because this is the beginning.
