the scent of water

Did I mention disorganised?

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. – Rumi

If the things I keep around me really do reflect my deep dark self, you would have to say I was random, messy, and often in need of repair.

If you squint hard enough, use enough imagination, and focus only on a few small corners, there are happy splashes of colour strewn (randomly, messily) about the place as well.

I guess we see what we want to see.

I'm giving myself another semester off study, and whether I will return, and to do what, I don't know. I am good at psychology (who knew this English major could kick butt at statistics?), it's being any kind of psychologist I have grave doubts about. It takes someone a great deal more sure of themselves than I think I could ever be. I used to be ashamed of that, but now I think there are interesting stories in the messy, the random, the broken. And it's always been about the stories.

Daydream believer

For a few short months I have time to daydream. I got sick, again, and this time a course of antibiotics and a week in bed wasn't enough to fix anything. Months later, and an hour spent in the grocery store is a big accomplishment for my day.  Three hours in a museum is like running a marathon.  It's okay. Things are getting better. It's kind of a gift, actually.

A gift because out of these daydreams has come the desire to draw (I am up to drawing a parrot - you start with a circle for the eye), the interest in trying new things for no other reason than to try them, a long lost affinity for the ridiculous that I half believed I would never see again. It's given me time to look at the underbelly of doubt I have been hiding about what I am doing and why I am doing it. 

In a couple of months I return to my Master's degree, if I don't run off to art school before then. It's a temptation. But if I do go back, I go back as someone who will take what she is doing very seriously, and not seriously at all.  I don't know how to explain it better than that.  I hope to keep my capacity for daydreaming and, rather than see it as an indulgence, to see it as as a source of the imagination, a place (to paraphrase John Updike) for the spirit to rest. Life's hard enough without willfully leaving out the best parts.

To put all that another way: I have enough. I happen to be alive. End of discussion. - Maira Kalman

Painted Pink Pumpkin

 

I visit the doctor this morning and he says that nothing is wrong. It feels like something is wrong. It feels like there is a big fat lead elephant standing permanently on my shoulders (a rather gracefully balanced one), making it difficult to do anything. On my way home I visit the corner shop and flick through some of their magazines*. The pink pumpkin makes me smile, the elephant shifts her weight just a little bit, and I buy the magazine.

I should have known better than to undertake study in an area that didn't thrill me. My grades were good, it seemed the quickest route to where I wanted to go. How stupid of me to leave joy out of the equation. Now do I cut my losses and pursue something else, or plod my way through a joyless year?

I don't know. I would ask the pumpkin, but she's not much bothered.

 

*HOME NZ

Smart shoes and salad

Once upon a time, a week or two ago, I opened my letterbox and found a cheque.  For me.  For achieving the highest psychology grades in my year.  And everyone lived happily ever after.  I suppose I could have spent it on books for the coming year, stationery, invested it even, but in the end there was just the one sensible choice.

Shoes. Obviously. It's not that they are anything spectacular, it's that they are mine, the fruit of my very own guts slogging. A young friend christened them my smart shoes, and I am pretty sure they actually do raise my IQ by a good 10 points everytime I wear them. Or is that my height by 10mm?

And? As part of my study this year I get to write a thesis on creativity and blogging.  It feels like cheating and pretending, like I get to play 'school'.  I'm pretty sure there is a rule against research topics being that much fun.

The salad. Also low on the spectacular scale, and also all mine. Well, Iona's.  She planted, picked and chopped everything in it, and thinks it well worth its own piece of internet glory. I think she's right.  For sure, it tasted good.