I just wrote this elegant blog post, and then the app crashed on my phone. I toted the joys of true moblogging, which is still buggy, yet so much more than we had years ago, a decade ago, back when I programmed my own Blogger site (before they offered it all wrapped up in a neat little package).
I shall attempt to remember what I wrote.
I haven't traveled anywhere exotic or interesting today; I'm still trying to figure out my summer plans, who's couches I'll be sleeping on, who will have me. Until then, I let my art be the fantastical different world we all yearn to see or visit, especially with the advent of Instagram.
But I sit just the same, at the end of the day, panhandling for the shiny bits, sifting through the muck for those gleaming moments. Human life is messy and complicated yet so simple and straightforward; we all are covered in muck, some more than others, waiting for the right person or people to come along and see the gold under the surface. Each day, no matter how dirty it may get, there are always those nuggets left at the bottom, a tiny fortune each of them, as they represent the bits that make the rest bearable.
I did that with this journal page. It got away from me at some point, and instead of racing to put it on life support and try and rescue it, I allowed it to spiral out of control, to become imperfect and a mess. It folded in on itself like a collapsing star, brilliant for one moment and then gone. I watched as it happened and let it. It can be incredibly liberating!
So here are the shining bits, the gold at the bottom of the pan, the pieces I loved if a crumbling whole. I even went further, transforming a part digitally, going further, inside out, stretching that feeling of not being satisfied or in love with a spread into a new kind of joy at what I could pull out of it.
You should always look at what you create in such a way. Where are the nuggets of gold you've spent hours searching for? What parts are amazing and why? You'll find it much easier to sit with a less-than-stellar page that way.
Works for messy days, too.
