Knowing When to Take a Day Off For an Artist’s Date
I vacillated over what I would write today, until I put it off until the last minute and then some. Once 
again, my inspiration has come from my morning pages.
There comes a time when we have to stop, look around, reassess, and do something purely for ourselves. I’m realizing that’s the premise behind Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Date, because, as a creative, clearing my head is often more necessary than I realize. It’s all too easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks that, although necessary, are rarely critical.
In the last couple of weeks, I’ve spent a few hours making chili and spaghetti sauce for my freezer, watching a couple of movies, and snuggling with my cats. I’ve also scrubbed floors and dumped sandboxes. All necessary, especially if I manage to embroil myself in writing and client work over the next month or so at the expense of housework and cooking. In the process though, writing and the things that make me sit down and write have taken a back seat.
I finally realized as I wrote today’s morning pages (and after sleeping in to clear both a massive headache and the aches and pains of scrubbing floors) I needed to find a way to take time for myself, including time away from those very demanding cats.
Taking Off and Letting Go
As I wrote those words across the blank sheets of the 5-subject, college ruled spiral notebook I use for 
my morning pages, a plan began to form. A saw myself strolling along the shore alone but for a few seagulls and maybe a seal or two playing in the ocean. With each crash of a wave, a little more of the tension I hadn’t realized I was carrying drained from my body and sank deep into the sand under my feet. I sucked in great draughts of sea air like a woman who’d been deprived of oxygen too long.
Rejuvenated by the release, and filled instead with the power and majesty of the sea, I sank into the chair I’d planted on a dune, picked up the notebook I used for writing prompts (another of the large spiral binders I fill by the gross these days) and let my pen move across the page, going where my fingers took it while my mind was free to play or simply dissemble.
I don’t know how long I sat there, nor how many pages I filled, but eventually I became aware of my surroundings again, lifting my face to the warm sun and chill breeze. The words might eventually become part of my memoir or perhaps a work of fiction. Whether they were used elsewhere or not didn’t really matter. They’d served their purpose simply by filling the pages. Yes, I’d re-read them, perhaps even aloud at some point, but doing so would engage my analytical nature, and that isn’t the purpose of an artist’s date.
Seeking Sanctuary and Release by the Sea
I go to the beach when I’m filled to the brim with life’s detritus and scum. I usually wait too long, and need several hours to ensure the last cobweb has been swept away, the last ugly, hateful thought or emotion has, as they say, left the building. But it’s worth the time, worth the disengagement. The experience releases the truest, most perfect part of my being, allowing me to spill onto the pages of whichever project I choose to pick up with complete abandon and better still, complete honesty.
Right now, I’m allowing myself to engage in too many pointless, no-win conversations on social media. I’m reacting to the same pack of lies and bullshit everyone around me is chewing over like vultures on carnage. Only I can put a stop to it. There are choices I can and will make over the next few weeks to regain my creativity and shut out the noise.
Are You a Wolf or a Sheep? Think Carefully Now.
I got a different image of wolves and sheep today as I wrote. The wolves are the ones who find themselves unable to let go of the crazy nonsense we’re being fed, perhaps even subliminally lately. They have to keep killing and mangling everyone and everything in their path, not necessarily physically, but with words which ultimately drive everyone either insane or away.
The sheep aren’t as typically portrayed, following along. Instead, they’re the ones who remain quiet, 
calmly grazing, but listening to all the noise around them. They stay out of the conflict, but listen and learn. They’ll know instinctively when it’s time to stop chewing and get moving, but it won’t be the wolves they’ll be following.
The sheep are much smarter than they let on. They know the best way to make things change is to use subtlety. Standing on a soapbox ranting and raving may draw attention to their cause, but it will also draw attention from those who would stop them from making changes. Sheep aren’t looking for a fight, as they’re ill-equipped to do so. They’re looking for a movement, slow, subtle and undetectable until it reaches critical mass.
But they also know when to move slowly away from the ranting of the wolves; when the noise they make becomes more violent and less rational. They know when to remove themselves as potential prey so the wolves fight amongst themselves, and instead become each others’ prey.
Regaining Our Childhood Innocence
It makes me wonder if humans, by nature would rather fight, would rather win the privilege of writing the history books and declaring they’re right, even when they’re dead wrong.
I write this gazing at a picture of myself when I was young and innocent, maybe 4 or 5 years old. It was a time when I knew nothing of arguing for a cause, or of hate, or of differences. I accepted everyone on their own merits, my only criteria whether they were friendly or not. Sure, I misjudged more times than I’d like, but I was blissful in my ignorance of greed, hate, prejudice, and power.
Since that time, I’ve formed my own prejudices. I’m not proud of that, and try hard to set them aside, even when people have used those differences to temporarily defeat or stifle me. I’m learning those actions are theirs to account for, not mine. Allowing myself to be stifled or held back is on me, not them. And holding an entire cultural, racial, or economic group accountable for my setbacks is also on me.
None of us deserve to be judged. But least of all, by the actions of some arbitrary group we are lumped into.
Learning to Let Go of Judgement
I think back to a question my daughter asked me when she was about 6. “Mom, am I a DB?” to which I responded: “Heather, are you dumb?”
This child of mine who, at 6 years old was reading on a 5th grade level, doing fractions in her head, and had been identifying dinosaurs and pronouncing their names correctly for at least 2 years could only answer my question in the negative. I made it clear to her that neither the color of her hair and eyes, her cultural background, nor the fact that her skin didn’t tan as easily as one of her friends did not determine either her level of intelligence, compassion, or physical abilities.
Yet now I allow myself to get into those judgemental discussions, forgetting I have a choice. When I keep choosing to engage, it’s time to disconnect, if only for a few hours, and find that child-like innocence which allows me to accept everyone at face value and not lump them into groups, either by personal characteristics and background, or by their beliefs on subjects like spirituality or politics. When I do so, I’m allowing myself to be sucked into the same soul-less maw they are, and I don’t like that. I do not like it at all, Sam, I Am!
Checkin’ Out to Reconnect With What’s Important
So don’t look for me stuck in front of my computer or haunting the pages of Social Media. If you want to engage with me, try taking a walk on the beach!
About the Author
Sheri Conaway is a writer, blogger, Virtual Assistant and advocate for cats. Sheri believes in the Laws 
of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. She is available for article writing and ghostwriting to help your website and the business it supports grow and thrive. Her specialties are finding and expressing your authentic self. If you’d like to have her write for you, please visit her Hire Me page for more information. You can also find her on Facebook Sheri Levenstein-Conaway Author.
Be sure to watch this space for news of the upcoming release of “Forgotten Victims: Healing and Forgiving After Suicide”.
