I feel really cozy and like writing more when winter starts blowing it's chill my way. (Something of Bergman in that maybe...the northern solitude, the indoors becomes the "inner"). I am reminded of an experience I had a few years back. This was during those heady days of working the office job, yes, a nine to fiver, feeling pretty much like a fish out of water. It was Christmas week, and my boss decided to give us some extra time off. The business we were in pretty much tanked after the Christmas holiday and we would sit around with nothing to do anyway. It was such a nice and welcome surprise. I recall the relish with which I anticipated the time off, with the holiday shopping over during that sleepy week between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. It also put me in mind of a certain birth...um... no not Jesus. My son, Nicholas, was born on December 25th, thus sealing that day as one of unequivocal importance in my personal journey. And yeah the Jesus thing is cool too.
I digress, sort of. I just remember these few extra days as being extraordinarily delightful in a way I did not expect. The young child was playing in the next room, showing off the new birthday Christmas toys to friends, or on a play date, hubby at work, poor guy. And I was sitting next to the jolly tree, with a cup of tea, reading, journaling, looking out at the grey darkness that I could decide not to venture into, and feeling so decadently bad and so deliciously good. I keep going back to this theme it seems, the quiet, the inner, the stillness that reminds me who I am and that I am, as they say, not a human "doing" but a human "being". It it in those moments that things emerge from the depths, things I need, things I crave, things that cannot be bought or sold, nor coached, nor required. These are a few of my favorite things.

so here I sit..

Waiting for a student who appears to be a no show. This week has been fraught with cancellations, I forgots, and out and out I quits. Quitters! Sometimes it seems to me that people get discouraged just when things are starting to heat up, just when the work begins, their motivation ends. I try to keep people pressing on through their challenges, and I hope to inspire them whenever possible. But to those who have no stomach for work and challenges, (a normal and healthy part of any creative process!) I kindly bid adieu.

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The Introvert's Dilemma

I just breathed a deep sigh of relief, hearing my own thoughts, the quiet surrounding, the uninterrupted exchange of internal ideas....Nobody's home! YES! What can I say, I love my friends and family boundlessly, but I sometimes feel I lack the proper filters for existing on this earth as both artist and mom/wife/teacher/chief cook and bottle washer....The noise of the world encroaches and the noise of needs needs needs, everyone's needs but the still voice of unreason. The imagination's pictures, waiting to unfold, waiting until all has calmed down and daily duties (which are, let's face it, NEVER done) are put aside, start to slowly unravel before us. We cannot force them to come forward, nor can we coax them when things are hectic. At least I can't. This may well be the dilemma of an introvert. I have become SO much more extroverted and out in the world then I once was that I forget. Hello, somebody else is in there! The real somebody, or the original somebody maybe. Maybe not more important or real, but neglected in all of this hubbub of caretaking, and just living the physical existence. That inner time gets relegated to luxury, "special" time and I find myself lost and a bit of a bitch. Yeah this isn't only the introvert's problem, I'm thinking it's also a Mom problem, a woman problem. Cause, y'all, we are doing waaaaaaaaaaaaaayyy too much.
So I'm taking a deep breath today, before students and instead of preparing or cleaning or shopping for items of food. And I'm listening in on the radio waves of my own grey matter. And it's raining which is as it should be.