a tiny speck of blinding light

Today was mostly an administrative sort of day, in the office and not anywhere in the studio except to measure or count something. Yesterday was like that.
And the day before.
I don't remember what happened the day before that, just that everything seemed more difficult than it should be.

And today, Aubrey and I began to get on each others' nerves as we worked. So we took a break, drove to the post office and as a treat, let someone else make coffee for us. By the time we returned we'd worked out a couple of things on 'the list.'
At six we took a walk around the neighborhood. The heat was still cloying, so it eventually evolved into a trudge around the neighborhood. But the conversation was lively.
Each activity proved useful.

Not working in the studio for days tends to have a negative effect on my mental state. Not working in the studio for weeks makes me nuts --not at all in the good way.
It occurs to me that it's a stupid thing to put such a burden on my work. There are other ways to achieve a similar end result (balance, peace of mind, the zone, zen, any alphabet of terms). Swimming, for example. Any activity that allows us to concentrate on that all-important "one thing" can serve as meditation. There is indeed such a thing as too much thinking, after all.
It also occurs to me that I've stopped doing these other sorts of activities that used to 'tide me over' until I could get back to studio work. I can look back (now) and see how it happened, gradually. I stopped seeing swimming or relaxation as productive and valuable activities. It's classic anxiety-driven over-working behavior. It seemed that if I had time to do other things, I should be in the studio, even though a vigorous swim can be accomplished in twenty minutes.

This is not good thinking. Or logical.

But loads of us tend to be illogical when it comes to caring for ourselves.


It doesn't matter so much why we do it, as recognizing that we do and fixing it.

I've spent a great deal of energy and time trying to fix a lot of things. I've spent little time enjoying.

Most of those things we fret over will very likely seem to fix themselves if we fix ourselves. There's a reason we're supposed to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first. Silly humans!


I need to fix me. For sure.

g'night