beginning of transformations

Transformations are beginning to ever-so-slowly occur, though I am not sure where they intend to take me. The days, the moods, the moments…still back and forth, a bit all over the place. I’ve been doing my Morning Pages every day and I’m a bit surprised to find that I crave my time with these pages. Half the day, I am writing more than 3 pages in my head. So much to say, to write, to release. The only frustration is the limit of 3 pages. Today, this morning, there is much more than 3 pages worth of words going through my head. I need more space, more time. I’m craving it. My relationship with words reignited, pushing at the seams, begging to be freed. Let it all out, put it on the paper, embrace the flow of word after word, the inherent beauty in each word speaking to me, pleading for me to respond.

I did my Artist Date yesterday and am now left with very mixed feelings about the whole experience. It did not feel the way I imagined it would feel. In fact, it did not really feel like anything very special at all. Just another afternoon errand instead of a date with myself. I found myself frustrated and filled with too many thoughts and worries unrelated to my plans.

I had planned to go to my favorite discount art supply store in search of stationary. Not the typical ordinary kind of stationary for sale at Target, but more just good white paper for writing hand-written letters and fun envelopes to brighten the mailboxes. I was looking forward to wandering the aisles, admiring the paints (especially the super heavy acrylics I’ve been aching to try for the past year), allowing my hands to graze across large canvases, imagining what creations might come if I sat with a large white canvas and the super heavy acrylics before me. But that was the experience I was hoping to have, not the one I had.

Instead, I found that despite their vast selection of paints and canvas, pencils and sketchpads, they have a very small and disappointing half-aisle allotted to writing paper and envelopes. After much debate (as none of it was really what I was searching for), I ended up with some basic white paper and a few gray envelopes. Gray…seriously, the color I chose was gray! How boring could I possibly be? Gray! Nevertheless, I asked the cashier (a very artsy-appearing young woman) if she knew of anywhere with a better selection for writing materials. Perhaps I should have attempted to explain to her in greater detail what exactly I was hoping to find. But no, I did not explain and so upon her suggestion, I found myself at a store down the street filled with overpriced, cutesy packages of stationary, an array of colors so bright and repugnant (at the moment) that I felt as if I had entered a child’s candy store. It was not a pleasant experience (though not completely unpleasant) and I quickly left after a few good-hearted, yuppy, salesgirls showed me a wall of individual papers and envelopes appropriate only for sending out invitations to a formal wedding or parties thrown by the wealthy elitists of Buckhead.

All the while, unwanted thoughts clouded my date. Worry about my grandmother, once again enduring congestive heart failure. Worry about my mother, worried about her own mother and her dear neighbor/friend. Worry about the Stats mid-term that ended just prior to my lovely date, a test that no one in the class could have possibly passed (this determined after a group bitch-fest following the dreadful exam). Irritation that despite getting an offer to work with little children in the mountains for a year, I could not give a definitive acceptance until I can manage to track down a preoccupied member of the faculty at school and get the “ok”.

So, after a couple of disappointing and frustrating hours (that I had anticipated to be a welcome date of solitude and imagination), I ended my Artist Date at the drugstore, finally arriving home with basic white paper, boring gray envelopes, a case of Diet Coke, and two boxes of 75% off Valentine’s Day candy.

I’m laughing about it now, content with my chocolates and Diet Coke. The paper will suffice and the gray envelopes…well I’ll just have to use some brightly colored markers and do a bit of decorating.

The transformations are beginning, but that is what I need to remember. They are only just now beginning. One small step at a time. Attempting to find the good embedded in what appears not-so-good. Moments of optimism and a newfound determination. Even with boring gray envelopes, I guess my week isn’t half bad.