Slowly Slowly Slowly

Do you ever feel inspired by someone’s example, as opposed to their work? I just printed out a beautiful picture of Miranda July to put on my journal. I’m not crazy about her movie, but I love how creative she is and all her various projects. I feel the need to have what she represents nearby. Mainly, as someone who actually finishes what she starts. She does so many projects, and I realized last night that what inspires me most about her is that she does it ALL. She does projects and then she finishes them! EGADS! Sometimes I think that’s what separates me from “them”—those darn successful artists. They actually FINISH things. I am great at starting, and then procrastinating. Sometimes it’s like wrestling a giant centipede to the ground to settle myself down to FINISH. Lots of kicking and squirming. There is so much I want to do, and I get so IMPATIENT for things to be done, so I can get started on the NEXT thing, but then my unfinished projects hinder me starting on those next things.

Like everything else, it takes a lot of teeny tiny steps to finish things. Sometimes we do them unconsciously, effortlessly, and then when it’s time to finish, it can be painfully hard to do all those steps to COMPLETION.

There is so much I want to do: record and put out another CD, go on tour in October, start a guerilla art revolution in midtown Manhattan, make a new calendar, have an art show, finish my novel. All these things ARE HUGE and I can get lost in the BIG IDEA of them, as opposed to the small efforts that I can make daily.

Someone asked me recently, “What about consciously taking time off?” Meaning, I have a day job AND a night job, do I ever give myself permission to have a break? It was a TOTALLY NEW CONCEPT. Oh my goodness! I’ve been doing it this way for years, you mean I CAN have time that isn’t completely devoted to my “real life” as an artist?

I realized that procrastinating isn’t real time off. There is A LOT of work involved in procrastination. I don’t know about you, but I find guilt EXHAUSTING. I find stalling exhausting. Slowly, slowly, slowly I am finding that conscious time off is perhaps JUST AS IMPORTANT as putting in studio time.

Of course, it’s hard to turn off the artist in you, because that’s the filter in which you view the world. Yet, maybe with small moves, little goals, a real working week, where you have nights off, slowly slowly slowly you can live a life of accomplishment.