balancing

I suspect that all humans experience their lives as balancing acts. The only difference lies in what it is that they are balancing. For most of human existence, as foragers, horticulturalists, pastoralists and the majority of peasant folk in agricultural societies that balancing act was between the demands of nature and the needs of the human body and spirit, and losing ones balance meant death. Many humans still live that kind of balancing act in today's world. Even more, have to balance the demands of hostile, repressive, and destructive human forces, against their human needs; where again, the consequence of losing ones balance may be death -- or imprisonment.

Even in modern, industrial societies like our own, the balancing acts of some involve intense struggles against economic tides that threaten to swamp their lives; threatening the loss of homes, jobs, income and all depends upon those things.

So I count myself extraordinarily lucky, and a bit abashed that my own balancing act concerns merely trying to carve out time, space and energy for creative and social life amidst the demands of work. To spur my efforts in this area, I taken up the "Creative Every Day 2009" challenge, and enrolled in a creative writing class.

Balance, I think, depends upon accepting limitations, celebrating what can be accomplished and not becoming discouraged by what cannot be. It has become clear to me, that aside from certain creative elements that are inherent in teaching itself*, I will not be able to be "creative every day." However, by continuing to hold the challenge in front of myself, encourages me to improve the balance in my life, and engage in more creative acts.


I made time this week to continue the work on an traditional granny square afghan, piling up new squares, and thinking through how to complete the project, as the left over yarns available are not quite enough.

Creative writing class continues to provide lots of opportunities for creative growth with our free writing exercises at the beginning of each class session. This week's reading assignment introduced us to the "short short story;" and I was inspired by that to turn a fragment of a dream into my very first ever complete short story. I've started stories before, I've even gotten to the middle of stories before, but I've never completed a story before. It's a first draft, and will need many revisions and much polishing but for the first time in my life I have a whole story with a beginning, a middle and an end. It's fairly trite -- the plot lifted by my dreaming subconscious out of your typical, mundane TV cop show. But, this is more than I've ever accomplished before.

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*like trying to figure out new ways to answer the same old questions!

creative every day 2009

I've decided to make 2009 my year for creativity, of all kinds. I found the Creative Every Day 2009 challenge to help keep me keep focused.

So far this week, I've written three poems. I also began a granny square afghan to finally use all that yarn my mother sent me nearly a decade ago. It's been fun trying to figure out what colors should go together, and think about an overall design.

I've been writing poetry since 1965 -- with a few lengthy hiatuses (hiati?)in the past 15 years -- but recently I've tried to start writing short stories, with little success (three started, none finished). I decided to get some supportive assistance, and yesterday I signed up for a friend and colleague's course in creative writing which will focus on both poetry and short stories. Madeline was showing me the syllabus as she was crafting it, and it looks like it will be such fun. She tends to run the course more like a semester long workshop, with lots of sharing and exchanging of ideas.