Aha!

I've been compulsively reading the biography of Gerald Durrell, written by Douglas Botting.

So many nuggets of life are in that book, not the least of which is Botting's ability to tell about a human being in all his fullness (faults in full view) with love enough to make room for errors.

Writing skill aside, Durrell's story reads like a warning, as well as a call to arms for anyone with grand ideas. First of all, don't turn to drink to comfort you in your solitude, exhaustion, and humiliation. Second, the establishment is going to make fun of you. Do what you know you need to do anyway.

Durrell certainly didn't mean the above to be my lessons drawn from his life. He wanted me to focus on ecological concerns and conservation. But instead, I saw how a man used the fame he gained from what he would consider mindless sheep (humans) to save numerous varieties of mindless sheep (ugly and uninteresting animals).

Another pebble in my thought-shoe is the idea that Durrell's first wife nagged him into writing (delightful books) and he continued writing, For Forty Years, as a means to earn money for his real work. No wonder he drank, and what if his drinking actually held him back? Boggling, puzzling, and compelling is the story of a chemically dependent hero.

Today

If you could do anything today, what would it be?

I was painting yesterday with a visitor to the island and she had taken a "Point Zero" painting workshop from a woman whose book I'd read and was trying to apply to my own painting.

http://www.pointzeropainting.com/index.html

The bottom line in Cassou's approach is internal direction. By asking ourselves open questions for our next steps, we steer by an internal compass that no one else can give to us. This morning, I wondered how that might apply to the creation of our daily living.

If you could do anything today, what would you do?

I'm thinking of a chicken picnic at the beach. Or...

And you?

beauty

I am attempting to write an article on beauty with the hopes of submitting it to O magazine. One recent issue of the publication stated boldly on the front that they are starting a beauty revolution. Articles were silken in their praise of us just as we are, nestled in a hefty surrounding dose of plastic surgery ads. We are downright schizophrenic in our ideas about beauty, and the number one enemy for all seems to be age (time + gravity).

I don't really have anything to say about beauty in my article. I am as confused and conflicted as the next beauty-wanna-be.

In my teens, I wrestled with two ideas about being gorgeous:

1. A woman is beautiful in proportion to the amount of cosmetics she can afford to leave alone. (A twist on Thoreau's definition of a man's wealth.)
2. If the house needs painting, paint it.

Which door would I choose: number one or number two?

I stepped through each one at different times and was sorely disappointed by both. If I left myself au naturel, my mother thought I was ill, and people pretty much ignored me. If I put on makeup, I got unwanted stares and acne.

I talked with a friend about my debate, and he sagely advised that the ideas number one and two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.

Oh.

Well, I suppose, there you have it.

A Little Slort of Sheep

Shawn has suggested that I'm on a vision quest with my sleep deprivation. I suspect that it has shallower roots, running somewhere along the streams of small business ownership and "being at that age."

Whatever the reason, I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days. As you read this, keep in mind that I'm not drunk as thinkle peep. I'm just a little slort of sheep.

Last night I was tired beyond description. I sacked out around nine, and woke up completely at midnight. Since there is no compromising with insomnia, I got out of bed and went to work at the shop. I completed one task I've been working on for two weeks; hopefully avoiding anything that required real logic. Then I came home and went back to bed just as the teens were waking.

I've started doing a little obsessive/compulsive routine at bedtime to increase my Z mojo. The voodoo I do worked pretty well for the first three nights, but now I forget to do it. I'm not obsessive enough about my compulsions, it would seem.

So, here's my next plan.

I'm going to set up the laptop on standby. If I can't get to sleep within the half hour of waking, I'm getting up and writing on my new story. It may be a Dali-esque mystery. I may read it and later wonder what the heck I'm writing about, but I'll get done the writing that I want to do and I won't sweat laying awake.

I think this plan will work, because of all my little routines, avoiding real work is the one I have most refined. When I was a child and couldn't sleep, I would think up just one little task that I told myself I must do before going to sleep (like "put lotion on my hands", or "put a ribbon on the bear"). I would drift off to sleep easily with the idea that by doing so I was avoiding work.

Clearly, I have work and sleep issues. As a kid, sleep meant danger. I am far along enough in my healing to be free of that, I think. As a kid, work meant kudos. Maybe I'm not over that one yet.

Or maybe I've gotten in the habit of worrying (as I suspect) and I'm letting that dominate my rest hours.

Maybe my next plan should be research on how not to worry?