not quite a silk gown

“The two most powerful warriors are patience and time.”

– Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

“Patience is the ability to idle your motor when you feel like stripping your gears.”

– Barbara Johnson

“With time and patience the mulberry leaf becomes a silk gown.”

– Chinese Proverb

When my internet connection acted up for such a long period of time, it threw off my work schedule (since I work from home and receive files from hundreds of miles away, that DSL is essential), and I got into a bit of a funk toward the end when it was supposed to be fixed and then, well, wasn’t.  I continued to make art every day for about the first five days, and then I thought, “What’s the point?  Even if I post twice a day for the first two days I have access, I’ll still be behind — and then I’ll never catch up on my other work.”

(Please note:  the other work is the kind I get paid in currency to do.)

This thought process, along with repeatedly checking to see if the connection had magically returned, anguishing over it when it had not, and then pining for my daily dose of inspiration on other blogs, plus the negative effects of not making art, was really spinning me down into a dark, dank well.  I was grumpy and even once gave in to tears, mostly over having broken my near-perfect posting-every-day record at my other blog.

I struggle with perfectionism, big time.  (I sometimes think of myself as a recovering perfectionist, because it really is one of the most damaging addictive thought patterns I’ve experienced.)  And on the day I broke down in tears, I kept getting messages from the Universe about patience.

A book fell open to a favorite quote about taking one’s time.  A Chinese fortune about waiting patiently popped to the top of my found-papers stash while preparing to collage.  The identification needs of the moment required a long, meditative wait at the DMV.  A friend (and mirror) bemoaned how, if she had only been more patient, things would have gone quite differently — and perhaps more in line with her desires.

And the telephone company’s technician decided there was nothing whatsoever wrong with our connection inside of two minutes.  After his hasty departure, we spent the better part of three more days with no DSL.  If that wasn’t a clear message about rush jobs being a bad idea, I’m not sure what would have gotten my attention.

Eventually, I did receive the message.  It took another day for me to act upon it — or rather, not act.  BE.

I decided to just let go.  I dropped AEDM like a hot potato (although I did continue to crochet for serenity), stopped carrying the camera with me on walks into the garden for a few days because it made me think of how many days I’d missed my garden blog’s posting schedule, and picked up a book I’d been wanting to read.  It’s one of those guilty-pleasures books, a truly cheesy Regency romance, which I even allowed myself to put down in order to nap.  (Naps aren’t usually part of my routine.  When you work at home, naps can be the first step on a steep, dangerous, and slippery slope.)

But it was only then that I realized how tired I was.  And I’m glad things worked out to give me a rest before the holiday travel season was upon us.  I’ve been known to push until I made myself sick.  Maybe I should be writing the befuddled phone company technician a thank-you note.  That morning, he may have been acting as a wise messenger, without knowing it.

[A further note for those following my AEDM progress:  I still got a lot more art done in November than I usually manage in a month, and some of the partly-finished projects, idea notes, and sketches will end up fueling further art down the road.  Probably fueling some blog posts, too.  The whole idea of AEDM, in and of itself, was a motivating factor that I normally do not feel around this meditative time of year, when the earth is drawing in upon itself to refuel and restore its reserves.  Thus, I can heartily recommend Art Every Day Month 2010 to any artists that might be considering it.  I’ll probably be joining you!  And I can urge you all to visit Leah Piken Kolidas’ website for links to all of the participating artists and their wonderful projects.]