Sitting there staring at a blank sheet of paper. And just sitting. I learned a long time ago how to overcome this foe. Just write. Simply write….write anything. Write I am so bored and politics suck and the Mariners are finally in first place. (I wrote this a month ago, the Mariners did not make the playoffs!) Write down every state you ever lived in. Write words in no particular order like basketball phlegm-bot down down, I’m going down down, down super happy fun ball. That is how I learned to get unstuck when trying to start a composition. Don’t tell anyone please, but as I am editing this now I find myself getting re-stuck. I’ll have to re-learn this lesson again myself (already!)
Why did it take me a good chunk of my life to learn the same thing in regards to relationships and painting and woodworking? I have now painted more days than not in the past three days! (Um, I need to get back in the studio! I’ve painted more this month than in the previous twenty years combined. How did I go from painting nearly every week of my life for nearly a decade to a full stop? I replaced oil paints with oak and maple and walnut for several years but then that too dried up. Of course moving across the country several times didn’t help, the whole time dragging the multi-ton equipment and wood with us. I have even begun converting our two-car garage into a woodworking studio. I could be making dust within a few months. I have wanted to do this for years. But I haven’t. And then the next year I didn’t. I continued to not start woodworking year after year. I was really good at that!
I still have not gotten unstuck with regards to yoga. Yoga was part of my life every week for about a decade. I could not imagine not practicing. It helped my psyche and strength and flexibility and balance. I met such neat people. Maybe running into a former yogi at the grocery store started this metamorphosis. It was so wonderful to hug her in the cart-return area. I have been smiling ever since. I even got unstuck regarding a significant relationship in my life. Like woodworking, art, yoga, and so much more, I am not sure what the future holds. I do not know why I was stuck for years or decades or essentially indefinitely (since I am still not practicing yoga). But I am unstuck, now, at least, for some of these things.
It is likely no coincidence that I am finding myself getting unstuck in many different things at essentially the same time. Maybe sequentially or serially, maybe not. Maybe they are not related, but it really has always seemed to me that nothing starts getting better until everything gets better. I guess the opposite is also likely true, nothing starts degrading until it all starts to fall apart. Part of it is perception. It seems like it got dark last night 30 minutes earlier than the previous night. I doubt that is true, but it sure felt like it. Summer continues, at least in our minds, until well after the leaves begin falling and the winds chill.
Unfortunately I do not really understand how I got unstuck. Maybe in a dream I simply started painting or working a 4/4 board with a scrub plane. Maybe it was just time. Maybe it was inevitable. Maybe it won’t last. Maybe I will find myself getting refrozen in the familiar molasses and slowing to a standstill again. Maybe I’ll get my yoga mat out tomorrow! Maybe this will help challenge you to get unstuck in some fashion 🙂
