Sometimes 'making' feels like too much effort. The creative process requires your heart and soul and everything in between. It needs feeding like a newborn, it needs tending like a newborn. Unlike a newborn, you can detach from this process and I often do. Normally I detach for necessity, to follow the orders of the day. Whenever I return, there is this mixture of guilt and relief and turmoil. It feels so hard but I cannot stay away. Even when it is quiet I hear murmurings in the distance and I know eventually I must respond and see to their needs. Even when the ideas are gathering and the work is shaping it feels fraught, the worry of the outcome and the next step already there tapping me on the shoulder. I read some wonderful words recently, they were simple ones ... 'Try Softer'. I forget now where I read them but they were offered up as the perfect antidote to 'Try Harder'. Music to my ears, my heart rate slowed. I am trying softer, really I am. But I may have to practice but that's ok, practice makes perfect. But I prefer the softer place, so that's where you'll find me.
