It Was Bound to Happen

“Now is our chance to choose the right side. God is holding back to give us that chance. It won’t last forever. We must take it or leave it.”

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Wednesday’s child is full of woe…or perhaps woah.

That’s what I get for writing on Monday how I’m dealing with my three words, how I’m feeling better, and how I’ve got a writing plan for the blog. Then Tuesday it was all about the information I’m consuming, how much reading I’m doing, etc.

Yesterday afternoon I hit a wall, physically and emotionally.

The details aren’t important. But let’s just say that while I had a plan for today’s post, I found myself last night not wanting to write about that topic, or any topic. So I went to bed without knowing if I’d have a post for today.

Fortunately for you dear readers (both of you), the insomnia kicked in and I’m up writing this at 2:00 a.m.

It happens, and it’s just part of what I’m dealing with these days. And it’s a reminder to not get so far ahead of myself and to take it one day at a time.

This too shall pass. Either that or I will.

Too soon?

I just need to be about making the right choices.

Left turn. Albuquerque. You know the drill.

That sort of gets back to what I had planned to write about today. Over the weekend I listed out the topics for Monday through Friday. Today I was planning to talk about my need to create.

You see in one of those turns I didn’t make, I was accepted to Virginia Tech as an art major. I ended up going to Asbury College (now University) as a music major, but ending with my degree in communications. It was the right decision for many reasons that I don’t have time, or the current desire, to write about in this post.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d pursued the art degree at Virginia Tech, or even at Asbury where I knew some fine artists.

You see, I’ve always loved to draw, even back at a time when I couldn’t draw. And back when I remember on one of the things our first grade teacher told us was “you never color orange next to red.” Why she told us that I’ll never know because I love that fiery combination.

I digress.

I even won the “Art Award” my senior year in high school. By that point I was designing homecoming floats and campaign posters and lots of other stuff. Some of that continued in college as I did publicity for events and edited the yearbook.

Fast forward now to my work in theater and graphic design. Almost all of this is self taught.

I’m not trained. I don’t have the degree. And much of what I do falls into the category of no one else will do it, so I will.

Sometimes I come up with some good stuff. I was reminded of that today when I got an email from Zazzle

Stations of the Cross. Available at Historic Occasions on Zazzle (click the pic)

telling me I’d sold another set of my Stations of the Cross posters. This is a series of Photoshop images I did a number of years ago with the intent of transferring them to canvas. I’ve never successfully done that, but I’ve sold multiple copies for churches to use during the Easter season. You can check them out at my Zazzle shop.

True story, I’ve never ordered one of these posters, so I have no idea what they really look like in print. I should fix that.

Why am I telling you this? Did you miss the fact that I’m writing this at 2:00 a.m. and we’re all doing well for me to be telling you anything?

What prompted this is my desire to get back to the canvas. I had put the paints and canvas away for more than thirty years until a couple of years ago, when prompted by the desire to paint the above mentioned series, I pulled them back out. I had quite a run there of my own personal wine and painting sessions. A couple of things I’ve done have turned out okay.

But the rearrangement of my office for the virtual Santa stuff meant that the paints and the canvas had to be packed away. You can only do so much in an 8×10 ft. room. Lately I’ve been wanting to get back to the canvas, just not enough to rearrange the office one more time. At least not yet.

I miss that creative side of me.

But the truth is that, while the pandemic has halted my creative efforts in terms of theatre, I’m the only one keeping me from the canvas.

Well me and a stack of crap that I need to find another place for.

So, maybe I ended up writing about creativity after all.

Maybe expressing myself this way, if not necessarily on canvas, is the therapy that I needed to get through a day like Tuesday.

If only it would help me get back to sleep.

Photo by Mike Petrucci on Unsplash

MUSICAL INTERLUDE

On this day in 1964, Simon and Garfunkel recorded the first version of The Sound of Silence at Columbia Studios in New York City.