Slowly, Poorly, Hardly

One of my favorite quotes is by Annie Dillard: "How we spend our days is how we spend our lives." I feel like this is a quick reminder to me to DO SOMETHING THAT MATTERS TO ME everyday. Of course, this doesn't always come easily. I go through weeks where an amnesia comes over me and I get bored and LAZY about what matters to me.

It hit me this weekend, after I spent a day alone doing art, baking, listening to the radio, that I had just mastered a day that was near perfection. I thought, if this is life, I'll FRIGGN' take it! Mostly, it was a day that was good because I had stepped over the screaming critic and done what I most enjoy: CREATE. It made me realize something about myself. Probably one of my biggest curses as a creative type is that at some point I did something well enough to feel like I was GOOD AT IT. This is a good feeling, but the minute I didn't feel "good at it," I became blocked. I changed mediums and it would go well and then happened all over again.

This last year has been entirely about undoing that part of me that says "is this good?" It's been a year of asking myself, how do I want spend my life? Do I want to spend my life dreaming of writing, drawing, and playing music? It's an enticing activity, because I can DREAM UP all kinds of scnerios and fame and belief systems as to whether or not I could do it as well as the person who is succeeding, and in the meantime, NOT HAVE TO LIFT A FINGER. OR do I want to spend my life actually DOING these things and risking not being "good" or the standard that my fantasies have set up for me? I think growing up for me as an artist has been about discovering that the honeymoon period of anything that works and feels good will wane--especially in a creative life, if you are to keep going. This last year has been about that discovering my days and to do what matters to me, even when I am out of the groove or not cool, or think everything sucks--I try to do it anyway. This is a question all of us face.

It's hard to remember, because your mind is an EXPERT in deceit, but if you sit down to DO whatever it is you want to do, even for a moment, it's the best cure. As Anne Lamott says, This is how we make progress: slowly, poorly, hardly. Then a miracle happens and what a relief!