Look up and find the dragon in the clouds; or watch a beetle negotiate freshly cut grass; or marvel at the expanse of rose and peach satin that is a sunset. Look at the miracle that is how your hands work.
Never lose your sense of wonder – it has surprising strength to help us through.
You don’t want to hear the story
of my life, and anyway
I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen
to the enormous waterfalls of the sun.
And anyway
it’s the same old story —
a few people just trying,
one way or another,
to survive.
Mostly, I want to be kind.
– Mary Oliver
The word ‘deadlines’ has gotten a bad reputation, perhaps because in many circumstances, they are imposed from without. But when we set up our own, deadlines really are a form of self-care.
Without deadlines, we can be at the mercy of our emotions and lose valuable time. Not the kind of deadlines that make us crazy, but reasonable time frames to help us accomplish our goals.
There have been times in my life where I have elevated procrastination to the level of high art. And while I can be very creative in how I avoid facing certain tasks, in the end, it only makes me feel less accomplished and less successful, as they still sit patiently waiting for me.
In my experience, procrastination around my creative work always boils down to fear – fear that it won’t be “good enough”, that I won’t be able to execute what I am envisioning, that I could have done more. There are so many things wrong with those thoughts. The bottom line is that we all still feel better when we do what we need to do.
That’s why looking at deadlines/self-discipline in a different way makes so much more sense. Striving to set and meet goals means loving ourselves more. And not to be trite, but we’re worth it.
I still may struggle at times, but deadlines=loving myself is where I’m headed. How about you?
I love poetry. You? April is National Poetry Month, so I thought I’d share the occasional poem that I prepared some graphics for. There may be more, but this is what I’m posting so far.
I don’t know if we could have a proper national poetry month here without our wonderful American poet, Emily Dickinson.
A love poem of sorts by another great American writer, poet and novelist, Alice Walker.
Okay, it’s true — Tennessee Williams is a playwright, but this seems like poetry to me, so I took a small liberty.
Wherever you live, why not find some poetry this month – fill your heart with gladness, sorrow, life, love – some poetry.
You know that feeling of being all over the place? Yeah. That’s where I am. There are so many things that I both need to do and want to do (not necessarily the same things), and I feel like I’m in the center of the room, spinning, not knowing which way to go.
A fellow writerly blogger, Pam, just did a clever post on her blog, roughwighting, which weaves the titles of many of the books she’s read this past year into a coherent story. Then she lists allllll the books she’s read. Talk about intimidating! What have I been doing with myself in 2023 that I haven’t read that many?? (Please cue the self-pity.)
She asks what is the best book we’ve read in 2023, and at least I can answer that one – The Museum of Extraordinary Things by Alice Hoffman. It expanded my list of my 6 favorite novels of all time to 7. But back to the spinning ….
I do make lists, but I think we sometimes have to sit ourselves down and remind ourselves that we really are one person, forgive ourselves for not being super-human. Stop spinning. Take the deep breath we need to take. And breathe. Just breathe.
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