This is me–my ideas and my work–in progress.
That may truly be the only way anything is.
As I shared, this site is still a work in progress, but it is farther along than at any other time. Rather than using the summer to obsess over work-related things, and having the teacher-gift of the summer “off,” I am using some chunks of it for different pursuits.
I do all of this in fear that I will create a routine I cannot sustain. When I have done that in the past, mostly with an exercise routine during the summer–see the daily triathlons each summer morning between 2006-2009, and the 1-hour lifting, 1-hour cardio daily summer routine of 2021–it died as hard as an ephemeral Mayfly once the first day of school arrived.
Cold stop.
Dead.
The problem is, in the time I am building it, I grow to love the routine so much, bordering on obsession, that it is too easy to become resentful of school and the demands of the job, once it starts up again full time. In that way, I can empathize with the discontent of the students when they have to return in late-August.
Yet, that worry about creating a routine I will love so much that it will make me dread my day job–however real–is another excuse-laden obstacle for creating.
That’s all this really is: a love of creating.
Right now, in addition to creating this site, I draw for about 45-60 minutes each morning, create collages for about 30-40 minutes each night, and spend 15-20 minutes writing before bed each night. Most of that routine is one I have been able to sustain into the school year.
And, while I have been bodily-shelved and restricted from working out time and again over the past few years, summers especially, all this creation has provided me an outlet for some of that energy and enthusiasm. It stokes my mind in ways that make me want to do more. Of course, problematic is the lack of sleep I now get, with my brain working new ideas and angles into my dreams each night. some of which I lose to the night breezes.
All of this is a long way of saying that I have changed the routine just enough this summer to enjoy the process of creation; maybe even more than the finished products. I take extra time, even creating across several days, letting the work marinate on the page and in my mind, before coming back to it to continue, and add new ideas.
This is the reason for this site: I needed a place to show some of it. Never all of it. Over 30 years of writing, more than a year of daily drawing, and about a month of nightly collage creation would take too much time to post and curate; I would never take that much time away from what I love doing even more: creating.
Maybe this is just a long thank you note for the ideas espoused by Austin Kleon in his books, but especially in Steal Like an Artist and Show Your Work, both of which I read again this summer.
Now, back to “work.”