"DisasterPiece"

I woke up feeling all out of sorts this morning. Not cranky. Not overly tired. Just out of sorts. And I don't know why.

I spent last night creating for the Creativity Boot Camp: Spring Training Workshop that I'm taking online. The assignment was to get messy. To create a "DisasterPiece." There were no more instructions than that and my follow directions, do as I'm told brain kind of freaked out.

Eventually I took a black and white photo from last summer of a cemetery sculpture and painted the background with bleach. That was the only plan I had. The bleach looked like fire. I didn't know what else to do, so for the first time in my life I turned my brain off and just went for it. I crumpled up the photo and tore it into pieces. I smudged it with oil pastels and then tried to put it back together. I thought the background needed something so I destroyed pages from an old Baptist hymnal and glued them down first. Then I glued the photo back over it.

Something about a cemetery, flames and old Baptist hymns just spoke to me.

It's my disaster I guess.

I loved turning off my brain and just doing something.

But this morning I think it has me feeling off kilter. Overexposed.

I hope it fades today. I don't like feeling this way.

And, of course, there is another assignment for tonight. This one involves drawing/scribbling/doodling. And that never goes over well with a control freak who draws like a four year old and expects perfection. . .

What the hell have I gotten myself into??

How I Said No to Fear Today

How I said no to fear and yes to silliness today. . .

. . .I cooked breakfast wearing no pants. {they were still in the dryer and we were hungry!}

Not something i would normally {or really ever} do!

Ali's comment after walking in the kitchen and she finally stopped laughing? "Oh, if I had a blog you would so be on it today!" And I thought, what's fair is fair. So I hereby confess.

And it felt good to laugh at myself.

To Dance

{warning. this is stream-of-consciousness writing. i've been unable to write lately so this is kind of raw. perhaps i should warn you with "danger will robinson! danger!"}

Writing. . .the antidote to self doubt and self forgetting.

That's exactly where I am right now and where I feel like I've been. And I didn't even know that I had forgotten.

The daily-ness of life took over and being on auto-pilot seemed like the only way to keep going. Sure. It was devoid of some small amounts of stress. But I guess it was also empty of the spark of interest and vitality that keep things smoldering and sprightly.

How to get back?

It seems to be the question of my ages. The question that keeps returning to me in the endless cycles that my life seems to be engaged in. I get a few areas of myself "together" and then something else seems to fall apart. I change my focus to try and heal that and something else falls out and exposes it's warts and ugly hair for the world to see.

Perhaps I spend too much time analyzing. Too much time staring at my navel and wondering if everyone is as messed up as I am.

Perhaps it's all my illusions of control. The world has been spinning for millions of years without my help and will continue to spin long after I am gone. Surrendering myself into the great unknown of that creativeness and life sustaining-ness calls to me. But the process of letting go seems so novel and strange.

My brain longs for order in the chaos. Neatness in the mess. A plan in the empty slate of the day. That's the way I've spent my life. And it has worked for me. Perhaps the reason I can't just plunge myself into the chaos of creation is that deep down I'm afraid that it just can't work. That if I empty myself of my "plans" and my "control" I will lose.

Lose what??

{Seems crazy when I write it, but there has to be a core of truth in there.}

Planning has worked. I'm "successful" if mostly broke. I have a house, a car, a job, a partner, three dogs, a cat. People who don't plan don't have those things. Do they?

Surrender means what? to cease resistance to an opponent and submit to their authority

But, if I surrender my fears isn't that different? Right now my fears are the opponent. Right now I already submit to their authority. They win. I lose. They shape my decisions and my future.

{fear is a thief. it takes and never gives. how many times have i preached that sermon?}

Tired. Of. It.

I want to paint. To create. To write. To think. To sing. Maybe even to dance.

But I can't do those things when my brain screams YOU MUST HAVE A PLAN. CREATION IS MESSY. YOU ARE UGLY AND STUPID. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE ANYWAY? YOU ARE NOTHING. NO ONE LIKES YOU. YOU AREN'T GOOD.

And so far, no amount of wishing, pretending, gratitude list-making has made any of those voices any quieter.

So maybe it's time to surrender. To make a mess of things. To lay down the fear of doing something wrong and having someone laugh at me. To tell my brain to shut the fuck up about how no one likes me.

We started the ball rolling yesterday.

And perhaps today I will take one more tentative step towards a dance.