And I wanted to do an update on my digital footprints project, and to talk about how interacting more deliberately really does change and enrich your experience.
And my babies, well, my baby and my boy, I wanted to talk about them.
Somehow I'm not managing any of it though. I've been casting around for ways to explain it, and I can't get any further than this:
My heart is so heavy
Everything is slow, and everything is difficult. I can't find a lightness in anything. Actually it's not just my heart, it's all heavy, I'm in thick gloves and a bodysuit and it's all muffled and padded and muted and just sort of bleak.
There's nothing wrong as such. We're getting through, the boys are growing and flourishing, I'm doing my work (just about), the house is in one of its tidier phases, we're dutifully getting through our austere winter veg box each week.
I just can't quite think forward, somehow. I'm one for buzzing with projects and thrilling full of ideas (yes, thrilling is a verb, in this sense, in the engaged way that I mean it, I don't just get thrilled, I thrill). I invented the "Kaffe test" for myself, for when I feel a bit down and gloomy - does looking at a picture of something Kaffe Fasset-y (either his, or in his style, or with some intensity of colour, actually anything from Attic24 will do the job too) give me a lift, a fierce desire to MAKE IT NOW and LICK ALL THE COLOURS?
Nope.
Experience tells me that the way forward is to act as if. Keep doing all that daily stuff, nurture the babies, read the books, collect the projects, sign up for the work and hope that at some point the days start to be differentiated again. I'll write on here about some books, and pretend I'm an aspiring writer, an aspiring anything, and if previous doldrums like this are anything to go by, I'll suddenly find myself inadvertently aspiring again, daydreaming about quilts and crochet and blankets and textures and colours, galloping through books, churning stuff out. Suddenly and, I hope, soon.
yes. *as if.* just keep swimming. you'll emerge from the darkness into the light.
ReplyDeleteI relate to this - I think it's all part of the natural rhythm of creativity though, so don't give yourself a hard time when your energy for making is low. Perhaps it's your way of reminding yourself to 'fill the well': read, quietly be, absorb rather than create...
ReplyDeleteI really relate to this too Helen. That sludgy feeling comes and goes quite often for me too. I find that doing something creative, or getting out into nature, helps me a lot. Hope you feel like thrilling again soon... Big hugs xxx
ReplyDeleteYou're kind, all of you, and I do appreciate your empathetic reachings. I definitely need a bit of well-filling! In the mean time, keeping on going is *something* - it's a tick in the box, every day.
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