TAW Thoughts 2

Day two in the big brother house. Michelle wakes up, full of despondency from a dream about returning back to her old workplace. There is way too much going on with her mind lately.

I’ve not even finished my reading assignment mind you. Another hour spent, and I still have two pages to go. This reading is hard. Like the author suggests, through the first few chapters the reader will probably go through a period of defiance.

Defiance? I would call it utmost resistance. I’m not even sure I understand totally all about the two basic exercises. I have a thousand questions even about them.

But I did try the morning pages - write three pages of longhand - this morning. It was three hours after I’d gotten up, mind you. And they have been called morning pages, but at the moment, they appear as mourning pages, maybe even moaning pages.

I’m going to have to go ask my fellow bookclub participants whether I’m on the right track here.

And as for Artists Dates - when the author puts these down they seem plausible. Go spend a couple of hours each week, just with yourself. Go to the aqaurium, the beach, a long country walk….

Despite both I and my husband spending some considerable time trying to work out what I could do for an artist’s date with my own self, we are still a little, well, rubbish at it. I live two hours away from the nearest beach, and an hour’s drive away from any wildlife sanctuary or zoo. Even the parking at the beach or zoo is too much for my miniscule budget anyway, let alone the petrol for the car. We don’t have aqauriums in these here parts, but we do have a lot of country.

I live in the Fens - people from elsewhere in Britain upon reading this will have a bit of a giggle. The Fens is a huge sky country where there are no hills, but lots of farmlands. No woods or forests much either. It has an undeserved reputation of being known for it’s in-breeding I’m afraid.

Long country walks I can do for TAW - except I take one every single day - along with the dog. The book states we should be alone, and discounts the distractions of family members like children. I presume this also means the dog himself. He is distracting - our walks involve my wading through mud in my new Christmas wellys, and shouting at him to stop bothering the other dog running in the same fields. It’s not all together a relaxing experience on most occasions.

If I were still living in Wellington, New Zealand, I know exactly what I might do for my Artist’s Date - I might train down to the city and go to the big library there. I fondly recall my lonely trips to that big library, snuggling down into a reading chair with some old magazines from the racks, or people watching (my favourite hobby ever) whilst sipping coffee at the library cafe (accompanied by a huge slab of carrot cake too). You could look down onto the lower levels of the library itself from that cafe. And watch as varsity students crammed over some text, or children selected from the children’s book area. Or simply watch the masses of people walking around the harbour parade outside the library itself - across to Te Papa the national museum.

My village does have a library - run by volunteers. It’s tiny, and doesn’t feature seats to sit in. My local market town too, has a small library, but no cafe. In fact, there is no such thing locally, of cafes where you can sit down with a cake and a decent brewed coffee. The nearest Borders is in Cambridge, and I can’t afford the petrol or parking fees - £15 for two hours! - so that one is out.

The only thing I can remotely think of is Starbucks. My market town has just opened up a starbucks, so this must be the message I was needing perhaps. Of course, this would not be a weekly date - I can’t afford the parking and cost of the mocchachino I might want. And I don’t think they’ll accept someone sitting there without a coffee for two hours, even if she did mutter something about a date, and being an artist.

Artist’s Dates in the summer might be easier - I could try to call my reflective time sitting out on the garden bench, listening to the dizzy bees and birdies, as a date perhaps.  

Comments

[Bec]

Hi Michelle,
You don't actually have to go out for an artist date, just make some time once a week to do something just for you, just because. As long as you're doing something that 'fills the well' you can consider that an artist date. But make sure you still plan and set aside time for it and don't fall into the 'oh, this can count as my artist date' trap.
Best of luck.
-Bec