A Time To...

It has been a long time since I have had the opportunity to play with words or to release the words within me that define my emotional state of mind or heart. To delve into thought long enough to discover an AHA moment... that was a phrase of mine before Oprah made it famous. ...or to get a new perspective, or learn something new. When too much time passes without a release of my thoughts there is a back up problem and I do not know where to begin. I start to feel a panic emotion, overwhelmed that too many thoughts need to get out of my minds door at once that they are all jammed into the doorway and none of them can get out.

Life has been too full of not necessarily fun things, although some fun things are in the mix, but mostly life things: relationships, the grieving of a loved one passing from this world, a job I enjoy, for the most part, but it's a lonely job removed from the distractions of visitors, which is a good thing, again for the most part, but a visitor here and there would be nice. I am secluded and left to work through countless, no pun intended, numerical figures and deadlines. My creative side needs more outlets and after a while of holding back my creative bent I feel an explosion on the horizon; an explosion of emotion and a need for uninterrupted time to let the creative prisoners out. I become impatient with everything and everyone in my daily environment for needing something from me. Things I would normally do with great joy become exhausting. Sometimes I need time with no time limit and no interruptions; a time to unlock each event and let it spill out onto paper or into the computer and teach me what it will. A time to explore what I really feel or felt about something. A time to cry and grieve. A time to laugh, pray, and listen. A time to sleep to the tune of my own body's clock and not that of a scheduled work day; or anyone else's schedule. A time to read and a time to sing.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to let out some of the creative prisoners. I spent a weekend away and did many of the things in my above list. I read, wrote, sang, played my fiddle, read some more, had time with my God to seek wisdom, direction and to listen; although this gift of unfettered time was like handing me a box of assorted chocolates. I couldn't decide which area of creativity to indulge in first. So it went like this: my fiddle beside me on the couch, a book on the table in front of me, paper & pen beside the book. I picked up the fiddle, tuned it and played the same song three times. It was a good thing I was alone. Then I picked up the book, Stephen King's memoir of the craft "On Writing" and read the authors forwards, all three of them. Put down the book and picked up the fiddle and played two more songs, until the anxious feeling came back and I picked up the book, I wrote a few lines on my life that the book inspired, picked up the fiddle and played another song. I could not settle on just one creative outlet. I wanted them all and I wanted them all now. I wanted to let them all out at the same time, but then I didn't know what to do with them once they were out. It was like when the quartet I was in went into the prisons to sing for the prisoners. You were not allowed to spend more time with one inmate over the other. I kept moving from each creative outlet much in the same way as I moved among the prisoners. Shaking hands and speaking briefly to each.

I have so much to explore. I cannot settle down to sort out just one emotion from another and so even this blog is hard and creating an anxious feeling because my mind is going faster than my hands can keep up. There is too much to pour out or sort out.

It is like a close friend that you don't talk to except for every three to six months. The conversation is overwhelmingly long and almost burdensome. More contact, on a regular bases, for a shorter time is more productive and enjoyable. I need to find a better balance in my life. My personality is such that I can only do one thing well at a time. I am totally engrossed in that activity or chore or area. It seems I am either all left brain or all right brained, but never a balance of both sides of my brain at once. Whatever I do, I do well. Delving into it full mind, body and soul, almost. It is as if everything else needs to be cleared off the table, my schedule and my mind and then I find the grove of that particular subject. Everything else gets shut behind the door waiting its turn to get out.

I see lots of people who can do both sides of their brain on a daily bases. I can't. Perhaps it is because I am a thinker; a deep thinker and evaluator, attaching emotion and feelings to everything. I have a bent to my personality to find out the why or why not. I could be happy sitting and writing at my computer everyday. I have plenty of creative prisoners wanting out to last a good while and there are new captives everyday.

So, I will try to do better at regularly letting my creative prisoners out.