Treehouses, Unfinished

Treehouses, unfinished.

My tree houses, play houses, dream houses, art shacks, writing rooms, creativity cottages. Yes. Unfinished. So many little projects with so little free time. But plenty of dreams.

I'm looking forward to finishing it tonight. Not that I have much brain power, right now. I've been sitting in front of my computer for an hour trying to figure out how to write this post. Uhm, make that two hours.

But it all just seems so momentous again. So many things to do, so many projects to take on. So much work so much work. So hard to pull my brain away from taking care of kids and the tv playing in the background and finding something to eat and worries about how the money situation will ever make sense again.

I'm getting lost in the list. The list of things to do and desires and musts.

So.

Take it all back to the core.

Art to center myself. To understand. To breathe and to be.

Why do I have to keep reminding myself of these things? Why do I get overwhelmed with the task of making it something REAL. (which in my psyche means, paid for. Silly psyche.)

Why do I ask why and struggle against the process of beginning, or overwhelm? Why do I forget that it's all the way it's supposed to be.

Gosh darn it,
because that's the way it's supposed to be.

Okay. Here's where I am:
After 38-- fine, 33 years (since kindergarten) of being an artist, and 23 years of trying to be a novelist, and 20 years of being a poet, and 10 years of being a teacher, and 3 years of PPD where I lost it all, and one year more of getting it back... I'm ready to take it global.

No. I'm not ready to take it global, but I'm ready to GET ready to take it to the rest of the world and make it a career, not just a calling.

And it means I get frustrated and confused at the immensity of it all. And I get scared about not being good enough to be a professional, and the echoes of my poetry advisor saying I couldn't do it get louder and the panic sets in. And that's all normal, a normal part of the process. And it means I have to take it back to the scaffolding of the thing to remember why I've been doing it all in the first place.

It's about me, and understanding myself, and it's about the world, and helping others to understand themselves. It's about saying yes instead of no.

I just joined another group. Yes, another. Now on top of The Portfolio Project, and on top of Creative Everyday, I am doing a book blog based on the book The Twelve Secrets of Highly Creative People. Not to mention the third draft of my novel (this is the one I'm going to show people) and trying to get an etsy shop up. It's another 12 week project and I'm getting a little overwhelmed, but I know my motivation here. My motivation is to....

What's my motivation again? Am I trying to whip my creativity into shape? Harness her up to my goat cart? Prod her down the road of commerce? Yipes.

Maybe. And that might be why I joined this new group. To focus on my creativity for myself, not for making a living so I don't have to go back to teaching when the kids start school. To make paintings based on my insides, not some market. To open up the skin and get deep.

Oh yeah, and to have some fun, to do some playing, to center and breathe, to get messy with paints. And write about those people who have been living in my head for three years. And to take care of myself. And to have fun with the kids. And to live. Oh yeah.

Live.