TAW Thoughts 11 - Ten Imaginery Lives and Things to Change

Cindy, on the TAW Book Club I’m registered on, put up a couple of exercises which forced my hand in thinking about these things (and working through the resistance of why I didn’t want to do so). From last week, but I’ve just done them -

 Ten imaginary lives -

(hard-pushed to find ten)

1. Writer - published and productive novelist
2. Adoptive parent (working on it)
3. Rich enough to have my dream house by the sea (see No. 1)
4. More world travel whenever I please (not at someone else’s deadlines)
5. Proper cafe owner which does proper coffee and brunches (not particularly well done in England)
6. Luxury Dog and Cat Holiday Camp owner with a big English country house (and staff to clean up the dog poo)
7. School teacher
8. Fantasy artist (pencils, not oils or watercolours)
9. Lyricist for a brilliant songwriter / musician
10. Respected politician (okay, not so sure about that one)

 Ten Tiny Changes

I can’t recall this being in Week 2 of The Artist’s Way, but it makes sense to include these to get to each of the above imaginery lives, I guess. This will truly test whether the above is actually really something I want to work towards.  

1. On Writing - I am writing, in fact I have just enrolled in a writing course which promises to make my fees back in published articles or return them if I’m unsuccessful. I am doing quite a bit over this.
2. On Adopting - Working on that as best as possible. Obviously.
   
3. On Rich Enough - I wrote about my dream house in my morning pages today. It was out of not having much else to write about. I see myself getting to that rich state personally - enough for a seaside home - via my writing. But I told myself off for not centreing on that manifestation constantly also, as a separate entity. So I’ve promised to print out a picture board I did a couple of years ago, and sticking it onto my wall today - where I can see this dream every day. I think it’s even got writing on it.
   
4. World travel - this again manifests itself with richness. I am reasonably well travelled anyway, but would like the choice to just up and go on a family holiday to an African safari or something - whenever I please. I think this one remains a subset of the rich enough dream.
   
5. Cafe Owner - There is a new town to be built in this county, with a guided bus route into Cambridge and St Ives. I have long bemoaned the fact that England doesn’t do proper brunch cafes, and have the fondest memories of some which peppered Wellington, New Zealand (and Auckland) which did a roaring trade on weekend mornings, with the best brewed coffees, cups of tea, hot chocolates with real cream, the best cakes and the best Eggs Benedict and healthy cooked breakfast options. The cafes always had an outdoor large area, where you could order your brunch, meet up with friends and read the big Sunday papers in the weekend sunshine. The new town would be the best place to set this up, but realistically - we have no money to do this. And I have no experience in catering anyway. But I can look into trying out some of those recipes here at home for some nice summertime brunches.
   
6. Pet Luxury Camp Owner - there’s a huge market in the U.K. for luxury pet hotels - there are even celebrities who hire limosenes to take their pets hundreds of miles up to the Yorkshire dales for a week at such a hotel. I have a dream of owning a large country home, with plenty of fields and lakes as surrounds, and this seems to be a nice side business, plus employing local staff to maintain, and providing locals with a discounted way to holiday their own pets with the pampered pooches being shipped in from elsewhere.  It’s not a dream I want to pursue, though - unless I happen to win the lottery to be able to buy that mansion in the first place.
   
7. School teacher - again, not a huge biggie for me. I am about to have a job interview for a position at the school’s after school kid’s club though. Wish me luck.
   
8. Fantasy artist - maybe I’ll start messing around with pencils again. I’m a good drawer, but I don’t currently want to focus on that right now - it would be to the detriment of No. 1. Until that is stable and working, I don’t want to deviate much from it. I have a habit of getting into something, and spending hours doing that instead of what I should be doing.
   
9. Lyricist / songwriter - I think this one might be lived vicariously through my daughter, lol. She seems to have inherited my musical ability, and spends most of her time entertaining us with made-up dances accompanied by songs. Before she was speaking entire sentences, she was already making up songs to well-known tunes. I need to get her piano lessons once she’s old enough, although she will never be a singer as she’s also inherited my vocal abilities.
   
10. Politician - full of opinions, that’s me. But I’m not a natural Brit, so am not entitled to run for local elections, and am unsure as to my own vocal abilities there. I’m better at writing at the speed of my thoughts, not talking. But I am making waves in my behind-the-scenes support of my husband, who is currently running for school governor. So my opinions will be somehow worked through in that respect, if he’s successful. Perhaps personally, I can combine the writing with letters to the editor to hear my voice out there more often. That would be a good combination.
    

 So, I have some homework tasks. Better get busy.

In the meantime there appears a tie-in with some thoughts from elsewhere. Susan White asks us on her blog, to consider what legacy we might want to leave behind us - what should we be remembered for. She’s even good enough to suggest that we might already be working on it.

I hummed and hahhed over this for a couple of minutes.  Logically, it should surely be from something mentioned above - afterall, those are my ultimate dreams. But in those, I had not mentioned my present life much at all - digital scrapbooking, altered arts, creating for others and for my family, even blogging here right now. They should not be denyed, even as I move onto filling my life with some other facets.

To make this easier on me, I thought about what might more simply be put on my gravestone, by my family perhaps. That thought derives something much more defined. Whereas success in writing might mean a large epitaph in the local paper (maybe even internationally) the bare bones of a person sits in a few expensive letters on a tombstone. 

My legacy then, I might like something like this -

“Author, Artist, Loving wife of ………………… and proud Mother of ……………..

“She helped people think, and was very kind” 

Perhaps I’m kidding myself with the kind part, but there’s always hope.  

Comments

[Diane]

Hey Michelle - I feel so daft. I've been drifting in and out of your website and didn't really read what TAW is. duh! And then a friend of mine recommended I read a book called "The Artist's Way" - penny dropped! So now I know what you're talking about. Teaches me I should read properly and not just skim over people's blogs.

Anyway, interesting stuff. I seem to be moving in a new direction this year. More about creating art for me. Expressing myself in a real way visually and through design in my work. Not trying to create to "get sales" or "be popular" ugh - how did I buy into that? I think it's because of a real low self esteem issue. Will be back ;)

Maybe I should write about it on my blog too. Might help me with the exercises.

x