AN OVERSCHEDULED LIFE (BUT GOOD)

The month-long silence is an indicator of how much I've over-scheduled myself recently.  Really?  How is that possible?  Since I don't work for pay anymore.  But yes, I've done it.  (And I have also actually seen some paying clients as well, but that's a story for my other blog on careers and work.)  So what have I been doing...

My Zentangle® Toolbag

That totebag is actually still a work in progress, but it's been fun to work on it slowly.  I did all of the above work in one evening while I was in Providence getting inspired.  Then...

...Molly's new tangle, introduced at the training, named "Arukas" which is Sakura spelled backwards (Sakura is the pen company that makes all those wonderful, high-quality, archival pens that we use)...then...

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I was inspired all right!  Three days of total inspiration!  Just no time to write about it.  I was in a frenzy of inspiration.  What a lovely state to be in...no thinking, just doing, and no expectations, just experimentation and delight at how things turned out.  Then...

Now we're getting into what happened when I got home...still inspired...

There are so many times lately when I am aware of how privileged I really am.  So much of the world is struggling for shelter, food, clean water, clothing, or caught up in war or other horrors we perpetrate on each other.  And here am I--granted, after decades of working, but still--in a position to pursue my many interests without having to worry about where my next meal is coming from or where I will sleep tonight or whether I will be safe doing so.  I sit, at times, and contemplate how it's possible for me to have this much and for others to have so little.  I am not wealthy, not in material goods.  But I have enough.  And so many don't.

I often wonder if all this is just pointless frivolity, when faced with all the serious issues in the world.  And yet, I completely believe that humans are capable of creating beauty in the most grim circumstances; so then, if I--whose current circumstances can be described as anything but grim--can create a little beauty and a little peace in life, should I not do so?  I may never be a great artist, but perhaps, through art, I can learn to be a kinder and better person, and perhaps that is how I can work toward positive change in our very troubled world.