Complete "The Artist's Way"

So what happened today with the symphony was pretty revealing. I got to sit between and 8 year old being given an opportunity that I would have loved at his age, that he didn’t. And on the other side, a woman my age that had to recover from parents that gave her everything. Maybe not having stuff makes it so much more of a treasure when you finally get it.

So I wrote for and hour and avoided being specific. I just made myself responsible even more for my position in life. Realized how important the lists that I make are for me in making my life work. It was hard, but good.

I’m still stopped at Chapter 8 Task 2, reinventing my childhood. I’m totally avoiding this and WOW thats probably significant, wouldn’t you think? I stopped everything rather than deal. Is that a message or what. Maybe I should skip it and move forward like pem1970 . maybe I should isolate for a couple of days and just work it through and make my way through whatever is there in the spooky forest. What scary and painful stuff is there, well I probably should find out and it will either be incredibly painful or just not that bad. Hmmm. I probably will live through it and might even get in a good cry.

1. Just had a great syncronicity. My friend was doing a phone job interview and I ended up talking to the recruiter. I am totally qualified to do something for the company but not the job he was interviewing for.

2. Artist Date. This week I decided to try to write an erotic short story. It was really fun. Realized that my erotic vocab need a little development. The story is important for women.

3. I haven’t been doing morning pages since I started exercising. Only so much free time in the day.

Someone wrote me about this and I thought is was great syncronicity for my chapter 8 task 2 work that I’m doing today. I loved the comments by people that had functional families or at least memories of someone functional events, or maybe one functional parent.
Blog link
http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/010594.html#010594
and the card for this day,
This is quite morbid but funny- http://www.canary3d.com/mashup/DFD-card.jpg

I asked my daughter today whether she wanted to reinvent her childhood and she said, “No, it made me who I am today”. I told her she was just repressing her disappointments. I love her so much.

This has been sitting on the shelf for a few weeks. Its hard. I started last night. Will take it on my artist date tomorrow. I’m going to a music festival and I’m making cards for my daughters to tell them how special they are to me. My middle daughter sent me pictures of herself in her rock climbing class. Youngest sent me a bankcard for a joint account we opened to help with emergency financial needs. Oldest sat at the end of my bed and talked me into calling a friend that I was worried about. Good daughters. I wonder what their perfect childhood looks like. Not the one I had with them thats for sure.

I think it takes more like a month to do each chapter. I’m on 8 and I started last December. The morning pages are really helpful. The forced artist date is such a treasure. Watching for syncronicity is fun and magical.
I’m doing the chapter 8 tasks this weekend, if I don’t die from this cold first. I have ONE north facing compass goal, but it will take integration of the other goals to truely stay on track. I almost feel ready to make the plan. Maybe by MOnday I’ll get it all down.

I’m still going. I have no idea if I did this chapter before. The exercises seem new. I like them. Really had some insights with the exercise where we look at who supported us as an artist as a child. Wow was that harsh. Got some answers that I probably would never have come up with otherwise. Still have to get through it all and then I’ll post.
The morning pages on the bus is really working for me. Several people write on the bus. But most of them are writing nutty stuff because I peeked. One tracks the bus arrival and departure times. One writes the same phrases over and over, like the Simpsons opening credits. I bet people think I do something like that too. Funny. I probably get some intense looks on my face. All my friends that I ride with know I just journal though.

I’m almost to the end of a composition book. I can’t remember which chapter I’m on though. I think I’ll start at week 6. I think I’ve been stuck there for a while.