The Shrinking Margin.

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If only there existed a magic button for my life, one that I could press to give me that time and space my mind needs to feel rested again. Today I find myself feeling cramped and small and crazed, oppressed by my insecurity. Oppressed by my inability to juggle and format and finish the things I need to do. Do you ever feel that way? This is how I’ve felt intermittently for the last few weeks.
Summer is my favorite season, because I feel an exuberance in the warmth of each day, an unquenchable need to celebrate life in all its green and flourishing glory. Each wedding, party, cook out, firework, each slice of watermelon and ice cold beverage wet with condensation is a joy to me. I don’t want it to end.

I don’t want to miss it.
And so I struggle in this paradox: in a season that I should celebrate and relax and enjoy the lengthened days, I find myself so overcommitted and busy that the days feel like they’re flying by without me. My calendar and my mind are so full that I have no space to breathe and enjoy it. I find myself living in the margins of my life, which are shrinking by the second.
It’s no wonder, then, that when I think about writing, I’m too worried about whatever else I should be doing to feel at peace with my creativity. For me, writing is a process of roaming through the recesses of thought and imagination, of exploration and rabbit holes and contemplative ideas. And I haven’t made time or space for that recently. So when I sit down to write, and I turn inward to my thoughts and feelings, what I find is a mess – much like the explosion of laundry that has barricaded the path from bed to my closet. Not an inspiring landscape to live in.
Perhaps a three day weekend to celebrate independence is as close as I will get to that magic time and space button, so long as I don’t try to cram it full of going and doing. I won’t be checking my email. I won’t be looking at the time. And I will try my hardest not to think about the coming work week or what Ithink someone else thinks I should be doing with my time.
It is my time. It is my life. No one else can create it for me.
Time to breathe. Time to think. Time to restore rest and writing for me.
To celebrate, here are a few links from around the www that have inspired me this week:
Why Todd Henry hopes to die empty.
Two recent sources of inspiration and motivation: Jeff Goins and Darrell Vesterfelt. A great quote from Jeff’s talk with Darrell about the inherent narcissism that comes with being a writer:
“Because writing is an internal act, as is any form of art. And the journey of looking inwardly to bring something out can sometimes be hindered. We can look inside ourselves and never get out.”
And after the concert I went to on Monday, I can’t stop listening to The Swell Season again.
For all my single ladies out there, keep believing. We have entered the era of The Return of the Nice Guy. Swoon.
Speaking of nice guys, I married one. Yes, this is a shameless, mushy plug for my music man Matthew Jason. I’m abundantly thankful that I married an artist, someone who understands the roller coaster ride of creativity in all its awkward, crying, mascara-streaked glory. [Obviously, we’re talking about me, here, not Matt. My husband does not wear mascara.] He lives to play his heart out, and he always inspires me to keep going. [Fan him on Facebook or follow him on Twitter. It would mean a lot to both of us.]
[Image found here.]

Midnight in Paris.

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midnight in paris
As promised, hubby and I went on a much-needed dinner date Friday night, and went to see Midnight in Paris. Since its rave reviews at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival in May, I’ve been dying to see it. I’m a new fan of Woody Allen’s work since falling in love with his classic Annie Hall a few months ago, so I have been trying to explore his filmography more. Sadly, his last film, You Will Meet a Tall, Dark Stranger, was only mildly amusing in my estimation.
His newest film, though, is brilliant. Midnight in Paris is the story of a dissatisfied but successful screenwriter, Gil (Owen Wilson) who aspires to write his first novel and break away from the manufactured and blockbuster-driven film industry. His fiance, Inez (Rachel McAdams), is less than enthusiastic about the shift in his creative priorities. While vacationing in Paris with Inez’s parents, they run into Inez’s friend Paul (Michael Sheen), a “pseudo-intellectual” that is an “expert” on everything from French sculptures to literature to architecture and wine. Inez is eager to tour Paris with Paul and his wife Carol, but Gil is visibly and annoyed and sometimes threatened by Paul’s arrogant and often argumentative pseudo-intellectualism.
Set against a back-drop of the ever romantic and sentimentally-filmed Paris, the conflicts between Gil and Inez, Gil and Paul, and Gil and Inez’s parents highlight the inner conflict that Gil has with his writing. Gil, however serious he is about completing his novel, is unsure if he has what it takes to be a legitimate writer. Surrounded by people who question the same thing, Gil pines for a golden era, like Paris in the 1920′s, when Earnest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso, T.S. Eliot and others graced the city with their creative geniuses.
As he wanders Paris alone after midnight, Gil encounters in surprising and mysteriously tangible ways his belief that if he had born in that golden era, he would be the writer he longs to be.
Aside from being utterly surprised by the unfolding plot, I appreciated that once again Allen’s work addresses the heart of creative and artistic struggle, mocks it and at the same time consoles it. It’s a natural and naive inclination for all artists to believe that the golden ages of creativity have passed and along with them the “greats” who understood and created art in its truest forms, and that we are now left to mimic and recreate their work; nothing is original anymore. We allow our loss of faith in our generation to influence and taint our own work. We ask, how can we be sure that our work is genuine, meaningful, authentic, moving, timeless?
It has left me wondering, what era do I pine for creatively? What author or artist do I wish I could have met and what would I ask them, given the opportunity? And, how did artists before us feel about their contemporaries and the world they lived in? What era did they pine for and attempt to recreate?
What about you, dear readers? Is there an era, time or place that you wish you lived in, or that influences your work? If you could meet your favorite author or artist, who would it be and what would you ask them?

Working for the Weekend…

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It’s Friday, my friends. I have a lot on my plate this weekend, but I’m happy to be home (for once!) and working and I plan to embrace productivity in all it’s exhaustive glory so long as I actually accomplish it all. I know, I know. I can do anything, but not everything.
For now, I’m struck by this thought that Shauna shared on her blog the other day,
“I choose to believe that inspiration is my responsibility—I create it in the life I lead…
It’s my responsibility to live a life that sustains me creatively, so that when it’s “go-time” and I’m staring at a blank screen, I’ve got something to say. The work of inspiration doesn’t happen when you sit down to write—it happens all the rest of time, when you’re reading great writing, when you’re taking walks or taking naps or taking pictures on your phone at the farmer’s market. Pay attention to what inspires you creatively, and work that into your life with the same urgency and intention that you plan writing time.”
I, like many many artists and creative people before me, struggle with effective inspiration-gathering. What is inspiration and what is wasted time? How do we live life and make time to write about it? How do I write about life if I’m not living it?
This weekend I know I have to dedicate myself to work and life – producing the articles and write-ups and quotes I’ve committed to, paying my bills, cleaning up around the house, scheduling my car repairs, going grocery shopping. It’s not glamorous and it’s not always fun, but I can’t avoid life if I’m going to write about it.
As for inspiration, I plan to make time for that promising 70 degrees and sunny Sunday headed our way and throw a cook-out with my favorite people. Good food and good company are a recipe for the best kind of writing, truly. And for tonight, I’m going on a date with my hubby. We plan to see Midnight in Paris and eat dinner together (a rarity for us right now, unfortunately.)
What will you do with your weekend? I hope it’s a good one.