Procrastination part three

Two days into grinding it out and there's still more to get done. My brain is feeling like over-cooked cauliflower and my rear-end, perfectly molded into the swivel chair, now feels a part of the furniture. I long to move around, to escape, to fly away--but there is enough discipline left to remind me that I did that first, and now I must earn it. When one goes on vacation, one must still pay the bills for it when once back at home again.

I long to make my lesson plans adventurous, eye-popping and a joy. If some plans are more drudge than elation, I feel a sense of failure. As the sand slips through the hourglass, so escapes the opportunity to dig deeper, search more thoroughly, to hack more vigorously through the jungle of possibilities. Every explorer has their near misses. If we had only swung a little more to the east, then the secret burial grounds of the African elephant and all the riches of ivory would have been ours. But instead we turned back--the call of the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches of life was too strong. The glory will be for another time, and the PB & J will have to do.

Procrastination part two

Today I am in the purely perspiration state of things. Not much time left. Now I really have to just dig and sweat and grind out some work. At this point, it will just be ugly. When inspiration doesn't come, and time is running low, you just have to make due with some less-than-stellar ideas and a dim bulb instead of brilliance.

Procrastination, Inspiration and Perspiration

Sometimes you just can't make something happen until it's ready to happen. It would be easy to say that true procrastination is this. That would be laziness. I'm willing to suggest that sometimes it is not procrastination, but a prolonged pondering of what to do. Those of you who have read The War of Art will probably get all over my case about this. Sorry. I have just experienced sometimes that I can put off and put off because I'm stumped. Then finally the idea comes, the inspiration. At last I'm ready for the perspiration in getting it all together.

Examining My White Christmas

I recently read a book that was entirely about snow crystals, more familiarly known as snowflakes. It was fascinating, and made me realize this common fluffy stuff is way overlooked--literally. Do yourself a favor. Get a magnifying glass and step outside someday with it and a piece of dark paper to catch the crystals on. Look at them closely. The big fluffy ones are merely clusters of smaller stars. Individual stars are amazing. Be patient. Many are broken. They melt quickly. If you don't gasp at the beauty, or even wonder at their symmetry, you have my deepest sympathies.

Diamonds in the Sky

Crystaline sparklers floating,
Lacy fern-like stellar forms,
Delicate, fragile, fleeting,
Icy cold and breath-taking.
Lost in a moment--
Noticed by few.
Unable to withstand
A sigh at its beauty
As the dragon breath
Of its admirer
Melts it to oblivion.
Art in ice.
Snowflakes.

Harvey and I

James Stewart's movie, "Harvey" is a beloved classic. His six-foot, three-and-one-half-inch tall rabbit-style pooka was a comforting friend. If we are all honest with ourselves, we will admit that we all have at least one pooka in our lives, and maybe multiple ones. They may not be tall, and they may not be rabbits, but they are welcome invisible companions.

How can I say this? Well, there's a conversation that runs through my head almost continually. I've usually got someone I know in mind, and I am talking to them about something of interest to us both, usually explaining, and they are always very attentive and sometimes agreeable. However, sometimes we have arguments that I always win. It is very comforting either way. Why would this not be a pooka?

Sometimes my pooka is not someone real, or at least historically present to me. Laura Ingalls Wilder and I have had conversations. Jane Austen and I regularly chat. Am I nuts? I think not. But my imagination is acquainted with all sorts of people whose company I enjoy. They are there to listen to what is on my heart.

As of this moment, I haven't met Harvey. But when he does come, we'll go out for a drink, I'll pick up the tab, and he will listen to my worries, hopes and silly anecdotes. Harvey and I will get on famously.

Things Go Invisible

Have you ever noticed, or in this case, not noticed how things seem to disappear from your attention after a while? They continue to exist, and be exactly where they have always been, but if someone asked you, you could never remember the details of what they are referring to. For instance, only recently did I actually look at my mouse pad and discover it was a Max Payne mouse pad. I never noticed before, and someone had to explain to me who Max Payne was. I don't know where this mouse pad came from, but it's been mine for quite a while now.

My husband used to have a picture from a coloring book tacked on the wall next to his desk. Our daughter colored it when she was five. It stayed hung up there until probably after she was fifteen. It wasn't that we were so sentimentally attached to this picture. We just stopped seeing it.

Once one of the kids made a piece of "art" and I hung it on my wall. It was just a toilet paper tube on a string. It literally hung there on the family room wall for years! Finally a good friend asked me why I had a toilet paper tube on my wall since forever, and I really didn't know what she was talking about. I looked, and there it was, suddenly visible again.

It can be a dangerous thing to set something down "temporarily". Years later, there it still is, and you still don't know where to put it.

As I reflect on this post, I'm wondering if it says more about my lack of observation, or my lack of housecleaning! Probably both. I can look at a layer of dust for a long time before it bothers me. Same with cobwebs. You can brush them away. They come right back. Almost as fast as finger smudges, unwanted refrigerator magnets (these are different from wanted refrigerator magnets), and clutter on my kitchen counter.

I keep telling myself that someday I won't be so busy, or so tired, or so preoccupied. The truth is that right now I don't feel like fighting the futility of having everything just-so. Someday, just-so will be something I may fuss about, but in the meantime it's easier to just let things fade away into invisibility.