In the spring and summer I'm a gardener. I work hard for my clients and feel good about it. I have a few bucks in my pocket then and I feel proud that I have the opportunity to say "it's on me" to my partner and friends.
During the winter, I'm a house keeper and I'm lousy at it. I keep having to push myself to do the work. The satisfaction of a job well done is short lived because it keeps having to be done again and again, and my accomplishments fade away as the dishes pile up once more and the ring in the toilet bowl becomes more pronounced.
So I've been trying to discipline myself, but it seems that the more I accomplish this and accept that I have to do the things I have to do, the more I feel I'm squelching my creativity, and forcing myself to be something I'm just not.
Obviously the rewards of my summer job are more to my liking than my winter job, so my self-discipline is easier then to come by. I've never been very good at reconciling the conflict I have between impulsive and disciplined behaviour. Mostly I just end up not doing anything because I can't do one without feeling remorseful or guilty about not doing the other. I should be cleaning right now, but the tedium of removing the bits of exploded food from the inside of the microwave brought on a dullness of mind that I just couldn't endure a moment longer without expressing it.
I feel much better now for having expressed it, and writing that sentence about the toilet bowl ring. Maybe now that I've satisfied a creative impulse, I can get back to the cleaning and feel good about it, ... just like I'm suppose to do.
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Location:Canada
WEll Dar, as you are feeling guilty NOT cleaning, somewhere along the line in my life I became a little ? lol OCD...clean, clean clean....I cant stand footprints on the rug...guests come and i feel the urge to clean after they have gone to bed. How crazy is that. I wipe thw dogs feet countless times a day when he goes out, and stand with a towel handy when he drinks!
ReplyDeleteThe several years i was very ill, those things went by the wayside as i struggled to live, but my partner did more because he is MR CLEAN>i felt guilty about that...even thought he thought nothing of it. Mindless cleaning ..sometime i know i am wasting precious time keeping up to my own standards of perfection. Maybe it's the years of medical training... but sometimes during thoses moments an idea will pop into my head.
WHen i head out with my camera and my JEEEP, i can be the real me...dog hair on the seats of MY vehicle, and sand between my toes. When i get away I have NO urge to do this, and i revel in hiking and getiing dirty and sweaty and wearing the same clothes a few days so the bugs don't notice me.
Which one is the real me? both...i "allow" myself the pleasure of doing whatever i want after the tedious tasks are done. You what i HATE...GROCERY shopping! ugh!
I think because i have SO many things i want to do, including tending my buterrfly garden, feeding birds, just hanging out with my camera, I still feel the need to keep my partner happy by having things in the orderly way he needs. Guess it rubbed off after all these years... :) my secret slob comes out inside my armoir...there i am free to be me till it bugs ME........:)
Do you think you could stay here for about a week or two? (GRINNING)
ReplyDeleteI like the contrast you have - out and earning in the summer, inside and creating in the winter (with the cleaning of course).
ReplyDeleteI find whilst I'm doing all the mundane, mind numbingly boring jobs, my mind is free to drift off elsewhere. It's like writing preparation.
The worst job for me is the washing. The never ending cycle of washing/drying/putting away. It's enough to make anyone's brain melt.
Lane, you're very good you know at saying just the right thing. Thank you. ... If you're brain melts while you are doing the laundry, can it still drift off to thinking about writing?
ReplyDeleteNo. Laundry is the mother of all brain mush activities. It's so dull, even the imagination refuses to come out and play:-)
ReplyDeleteI hate cleaning, but now I have a system that works for me...clean well one thing in the kitchen and one thing in the living room, a shelf a cupboard etc each day, then go play. Things look good after a few days. compromise..
ReplyDeleteAnonymous here personally does not mind doing the laundry but yet will qualify that the machines do it...it's the folding, putting away we likely detest! And as Debra said, I will do ANYTHING to NOT go grocery (or much of anything else unless an absolute 'need' not want). Sameness again with Debra my bedroom is my 'sanctuary' and ditto on the messy until I CANNOT stand it! ;-) It is what I like to call 'organized chaos'...
ReplyDeleteI believe the winter doldrums have the effect that Lane mentioned and I love that hibernation type analogy..brain mush a phrase I use OFTEN! Clearly, we alternate between discipline as may I suggest ' grown up reality' and our creative squelching is the little kid screaming LET ME OUT TO PLAY...I don't wanna (insert here: wash dishes, go to the store, do..my..CHORES!!)
Lastly, I got a good big grin from this piece Dar (having come in way late!)and, as opposed to Lane, my favorite descriptive was absolutely the BITS OF FOOD THAT HAD EXPLODED IN THE NUKER. ...now that is one yucky helluva'horrid job.
We are here all creatively inclined and I find I write WAY MORE when I'm pissed, sad, a trust has been broken yet there are the happy silly and OH SO! childish little 'ditties' too.
BRAVO for a great read Dar,Lane & Debra! anon PH