Be Gentle With Yourself, Week 7

More collages. I'm almost to the end of the 40 day art journal. Tomorrow is day 40. I think I'll take a break for a few days to ponder how I am going to proceed. I'll have to think about the things I've learned by doing this.

I've enjoyed the words, I've enjoyed the images, I've enjoyed the cutting apart and the putting together. I've been a quilter in my past and this feels a lot like that, but working with paper rather than cloth.

I like the feeling of being born by bits, and not all at once. Always, a work in progress. It occurs to me just now that this process of working daily on these small collages, with no real thought of the outcome or of completing a finished project is a metaphor for my life. Each day I do what I can to do the best I can with what I have on that day. I don't look too far ahead but instead try to keep my mind right here in the present. I enjoy the process without thinking too much about the outcome.

I had a counselor type person tell me once that I sure spoke in metaphors a lot. I heard that spoken with a disdainful tone, and for a long time, I tried to nix the metaphor from my speech. I tried to come out and say what I had to say, without trying to couch it in symbolic language. Another thing I've learned from doing this practice for almost 40 days is that I love metaphor and visual symbolism. I have a poet's heart, and I'm not going to apologize for that. Not that anyone is asking me too, save for my own self!

I read an interesting article on Brain Pickings this week (https://www.brainpickings.org/?s=mary+oliver). It was from an essay written by Mary Oliver, something about the third self. In it, the author quoted Mary Oliver, saying, "In creative work — creative work of all kinds — those who are the world’s working artists are not trying to help the world go around, but forward. Which is something altogether different from the ordinary. Such work does not refute the ordinary. It is, simply, something else. Its labor requires a different outlook — a different set of priorities." I'm no Mary Oliver, but I am, on my own small scale, in my own small spot in the world, a creative person, and an artist. The things I do are not earth shattering. They aren't things that will spread very far beyond my own small circle, but they are important, they are my things to do.

Part of my being gentle with myself is accepting that, and not comparing myself to others. I am only here to do what only I can do. Also, maybe I can accept that it is good for the world that I am here?!