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Friday, March 1, 2013

Inspiration whilst doing the dishes

My twenties were were rich with time, bars (lots of bars!) and constantly changing ideas on what I was going to be when I eventually grew up. Some days a theatre producer, other nights I was running a performance production company doing nights full of burlesque, live mural painting, short films and music. Other days I was taking the food world on and loving it in Bondi. Some days I just wanted to be the object of someone's unrequited love - mainly as I felt it was my turn to be on that side of the fence. Then it was the natural healing days. These days required me to stop drinking. These were satisfying times but took a hedonist like me quite a bit of concentration. Maybe a bit more than I could maintain beyond twelve months at twenty five. Some years were an amalgam of all this plus more ... Travel, beaches and interesting choices of partners.

Everyone was invited to join me in this wild ride of fantasy and life building. It was worth coming along for as it was a fearless trip with very few boundaries. Life was intoxicating and wonderful. People and their choices amazed and exhilarated me. Things happened, some things that now I look back on and it could almost be someone else's life I tell the stories of. Was that person  with all that energy and belief really me?

The only thing that brought me to a halt was the paralysis of too much choice. Incredible bucolic freedom.

The road block now is often the feeling of no choice. No time. Limited ability.

What happens to our creative selves, our warrior fearless selves as we travel into adulthood? I could never be the person I was at 25 ever again. That was a person in a time capsule. I probably wouldn't want to be her anymore either. Mostly out of fear for my life.

As I am presented with more opportunity to flex some wonderful creative muscles, long in hiatus, I am pondering how you do this in between kids drop offs, mortgage payments and mopping the floor.

Words and pictures are just part of it. A wonderful part of a who I am has been rekindled but the person I am now doesn't quite know how to hold the flame. I'll work it out in some fashion but it has been an interesting exercise in actually looking at who I've become without really noticing. Or simply using good old denial to mask parts. Now its about making choices about what to make of the slight rebuild.

Is this something women do as they take to marriage and children? Is it something our mothers taught us was simply part of being someone's wife? All our work, home, house and study decisions are made  with the family unit in mind.

Well, this mother and wife is going to try and work out how to be a little bit more than that. She's going to try and find a bit more of herself. This time the creative lubricant needs to be gentler, go to bed sober and wake up in thier own home more often - but maybe this means it will be more effective for longer stints and instigate positive growth that stays. Maybe this time it will be enriching and nourishing. Is that what people mean by growing old with grace?

So as I watch, am allowed to witness, a world filled with people still doing things that blow my mind, some days I feel like a true participant but some parts of me are still twenty five trying to work out what I'll do when I grow up ...