I'm reading/doing 'Simple Abundance' and 'The Artist's Way' again. It was ten years ago when I last did them and I can't help but notice what a totally different place I am in this time.
Ten years ago, I was desperate for 'soul food' - starved, it seemed. There were, besides Brian & I, four teenagers in this house, five kids counting my oldest daughter's boyfriend. The physical presence of so many people in a space, all of us carrying great amounts of emotional/hormonal 'luggage', was suffocating & draining at times. I loved it, mind you, and was happy - but I think that it had been so long since I was my own person - actually I had never gotten to that point - that I thought that I might never arrive there. That person was struggling so desperately to emerge, that I read everything 'soul' oriented that I could get my hands on. So many of the exercises, like the 'artist's date', even daily pages, seemed like such an extravagance and completely out of reach.
Fast (and I mean FAST) forward ten years. My house is quiet. That's been a surprisingly easy adjustment because I've filled my day and my life with lots of other wonderful things - friends, adventure, creation. And thankfully, my brood is all just minutes away from me, so at any given moment, the house is filled with the chaos & noise that it (and me) is accustomed to and thrives on.
Where I used to crave 30 minutes that I could call my own, I now have the entire day to fill as I choose. It's wonderful and exciting - but I wouldn't trade those days where my life was governed by the needs & wants of my children, for anything. If not for that, I wouldn't appreciate what I have now. I wouldn't be aware of how I've changed. And I wouldn't be reading Simple Abundance & The Artist's Way, with completely new eyes.
There is a line in the book, 'The Red Tent', that I think of almost daily: " in her hands, she held the fullness of the day, numbering the pleasure of work and the sweetness of children." I say ... Amen.
Ten years ago, I was desperate for 'soul food' - starved, it seemed. There were, besides Brian & I, four teenagers in this house, five kids counting my oldest daughter's boyfriend. The physical presence of so many people in a space, all of us carrying great amounts of emotional/hormonal 'luggage', was suffocating & draining at times. I loved it, mind you, and was happy - but I think that it had been so long since I was my own person - actually I had never gotten to that point - that I thought that I might never arrive there. That person was struggling so desperately to emerge, that I read everything 'soul' oriented that I could get my hands on. So many of the exercises, like the 'artist's date', even daily pages, seemed like such an extravagance and completely out of reach.
Fast (and I mean FAST) forward ten years. My house is quiet. That's been a surprisingly easy adjustment because I've filled my day and my life with lots of other wonderful things - friends, adventure, creation. And thankfully, my brood is all just minutes away from me, so at any given moment, the house is filled with the chaos & noise that it (and me) is accustomed to and thrives on.
Where I used to crave 30 minutes that I could call my own, I now have the entire day to fill as I choose. It's wonderful and exciting - but I wouldn't trade those days where my life was governed by the needs & wants of my children, for anything. If not for that, I wouldn't appreciate what I have now. I wouldn't be aware of how I've changed. And I wouldn't be reading Simple Abundance & The Artist's Way, with completely new eyes.
There is a line in the book, 'The Red Tent', that I think of almost daily: " in her hands, she held the fullness of the day, numbering the pleasure of work and the sweetness of children." I say ... Amen.
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