So, for the next 100 days, I am going to notice my own life. To see the tiny moments that create my existence. To lovingly describe the moment, using my preferred craft of writing.To honor the way creative living plays into my everyday life. For this is what the core of making is to me: making a life.
It isn’t that I stopped noticing my life, it’s just that I didn’t always stop to photograph it. In our social media world, do you ever wonder that failing to photograph and share a moment means it didn’t really happen? A bit of a joke, but also the reality of thinking these days, right?
And stalling a project is, honestly, a natural part of being a maker.
Yes, we need to be true to our need to create, to give power and time to our creative life. But we also need to be realistic and compassionate when a project stalls or other projects take center stage or real life demands temporarily get in the way.
I’ve picked up a day here and a day there, with the goal of finishing the project before 2017 arrives. A good way to honor my Word for 2016: Create. Here’s a selection of some of my #100DaysofCreativeLiving Photos.
As I mentioned, my goal is still to finish this project before January 1st rolls around, to complete at least the 100 Days of Creative Living – on Instagram by then. But my work as a maker, my real work in the world, is not to stop noticing my own life and the details that make it richer.
As I said when I began this project is still true: if we want our creative lives to be sustainable, we need to learn to subsist on tiny sips of inspiration and see the infinitesimal moments of beauty and perfection as our building blocks.
To see the small moments of my life as holy as the big ones. To recognize that the way the light falls across a birds nest left in the maple tree outside my dining room window is as important to my creative life as publishing two books this year. To recognize myself that these days of not feeling at my best, yet sitting in the side-by-side companionship with John are just as important, or maybe more important than our vacation this fall.
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
― Mary Oliver
Debra Smouse is a life coach, author, and self-admitted Tarnished Southern Belle. A native Texan, she now now lives in Ohio with the Man of her Dreams.