Thursday

No, thats not why I was crying.

Teaching dino camp for kids this week. it's been fun and tough.

I caught a bug from them this week too, a cough and sticky in the throat. It made dance class difficult and frustrating and I cried during our stretching and cool down, I tried to quiet my sniffling as they echoed against the mirrored walls. It's tough when you feel too old or uncoordinated or ungraceful sometimes and you have a huge mirror to reflect it all back to you.

I checked out Bird by Bird again from the library just to read the story about Ann Lamott's brother who is sitting at the kitchen table with stacks of books, frustrated and overwhelmed by the daunting task ahead of writing a paper, and her father leans over and says, ' just take it bird by bird' and how as a writer or as an artist just sitting down and focusing on something small is work enough, bit by bit, you complete what it is that seemed so daunting.
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This morning I was thinking about the chapters of my adult life

Chapter one; Full time artist/ student, part time teacher. I worked a lot and had lots of shows and was constantly drawing and painting and singing and making and biking and collecting. This was my job.

Chapter two: Full time Museum education, part time artist. Still a lot of heart and soul in my projects, but fewer of them, and it surprises me when I happen to see something I made for someone again, years later , I think wow, I made this? it looks foreign to me. I spent a lot of time thinking about child engagement and participation and lessons to instill curiosity and higher level thinking. This chapter could be called ' community of learners' a popular museum education phrase. I was highly critical of myself and my inability to follow through with projects. I am immensely proud of myself, because this chapter ends with me working will an internationally known museum. My heart wasn't always in it, but that's how far I went.

And now moving in to chapter three, and it's approaching a store filled with hand made goods, re tooled and re purposed parts shared. And I'm excited to say that I spent 10 years of my life making things and selling them and learning the intricate ins and outs of sanding wood and painting and staining and rewiring and scrapping fabulous things together in lovely new ways. The perfect pinnacle . The perfect place to be now that I feel firmly myself at 29.
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I read randomly in that book the Secret that love is our highest frequency we can operate from , and that restores my faith a little.
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I am beginning a new painting tonight, squares of pinks and oranges are floating around with overlays of deep red. We'll see how it turns out.