each day

Every day is an opportunity. Every moment really. I woke up this morning well rested and happy and looked out at the grey day and thought I am so happy to have this day. I don't feel stressed or anxious. I think it is important to notice when you feel good. We are so good at noticing when we don't.

I have small things to do. I have to go buy two small boys, my co worker's children some lego because she is having all the staff for supper tonight. I have to iron my pants, study my French, make a video for a course I am making, and I have to go to the Bridge Workshop where I volunteer for an hour each week. Just a regular day. I will be working because I love to work.

I was at Heathers' yesterday, my hairdressers and while I was waiting for the colour to set in my hair I made a roadmap of all the things I had on my mind. Three pages of little bullet point lists. I have to do this once in a while, to clear my head when I have a lot of work ideas circling my head at once. It is just taking inventory. It is not a to do list. So I took this few minutes and I tried to make sense of all that I had on my mind. 

Sometimes I feel worked up and even a bit confused or overwhelmed. When this happens I need to talk about everything I am planning with the people I work with. The real key though is taking the time to write notes with a pencil in an organized way. I write down all the ideas and leave space by each one. Then each thought I have about that idea gets put under it. This little system brings me a lot of rest. Instead of going over and over these ideas in my head, I know I have a little idea map in my book in my knapsack. For a few days, even a few weeks or months depending on the ideas, I will go back to it and review it. I will edit it, refine it or expand it.

Sometimes on this map I have things that might never happen, things I might never do but have been swirling around in my head for weeks. Sometimes I write things down that I did not even know were still on my mind. It is a good practice for me. It clarifies things. As an artist and an entrepreneur, I can have ten or fifteen projects going at once, many of them small. It is important to sort and filter my thoughts around them.

My pages are just scratches of pencil. They are not an artistic bullet journalling with an architects printing and sweet drawings. They are more like a grocery list that you would make if you had to go to ten different stores. Not pretty but somehow perfect. Taking the time to do that yesterday released me from a few days of feeling rather frenzied.

Every moment, an opportunity, even waiting for your dye to set at the hairdressers. Perhaps if I rested more and just took it easy I would not need to map out my thoughts, but this is me. I am a person whose mind is always going and my body follows, at least during the day. Most evenings I get lost in a book or a show and eat snacks like the rest of the world. I like to be busy and I fill my days making art and running the studio. Every day there is an opportunity to make, to meet, to gather and to find joy in life. Grateful. So grateful for each day, even the quiet ones, the grey ones, the ordinary ones.