hanging out
by Elouise
morning sun
hangs out behind a curtain
of glowing fog
Yesterday was glorious. Foggy and gray at first, before turning into a bright sunshiny day that included tea with a friend in the afternoon.
Hanging out doesn’t come naturally to me. From very early, my parents programmed me to keep my little hands busy because the devil might find work for idle hands to do. In addition, my later commitment to running away on the inside discouraged me from doing ‘nothing.’ The enemy was always just one step or one breath behind me.
So race on I did. One step after the other. With time out only when forced to take it.
The year after I left the dean’s office I had a full year sabbatical. Glorious! I decided early that I wanted to write more. So I began working through Julia Cameron’s book, The Artist’s Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. Fortunately, most of her assignments required that I write.
Unfortunately, one did not. It stuck its ugly neck up at the end of the first chapter, in a list of tasks to accomplish.
Task #1 was to write morning pages first thing every morning. Stream-of-consciousness. No problem. I was like a duck playing in water. Next came
Task #2.
Take yourself on an artist date.
You will do this every week for the duration of the course.
Fortunately, Cameron lists several sample ‘dates’ for the socially challenged who prefer to stay in our little dens. All these ‘dates’ will be fun, silly or even outrageous. If we had to learn how to do this, so be it! I felt awkward and more than silly at first. But then I got into it—for a while.
Big sigh. So yesterday morning I decided to resume weekly artist dates with myself. I inaugurated this by spending the entire day with no agenda except fun things I wanted to do strictly for myself. Which included tea in the afternoon with my friend.
The day was beyond wonderful. I know the sun won’t come out every day. Yet the freedom my body and spirit felt was remarkable.
Finally, for those out there who don’t quite see what the problem is, I’m positive you’ll read this and feel nothing but good-will for the rest of us. If not more understanding or empathy. For which we are grateful.
Elouise♥
© Elouise Renich Fraser, 21 February 2018
Image found at trekearth.com – a park in Poland
Telling the Truth 
Well it looks like you had an enjoyable time, you seem in very good spirits (almost said “for a change” ) perhaps you should do a few more tasks.
That picture with the fog looks quite serene, we gat very little fog here in Sydney, I can’t ever recall seeing even a morning mist in the 50 years I’ve been living in NSW, I know out in the bus and down south they get them, They do look nice in pictures but I suppose I’m lucky not having to put up with them.
I recall when growing up in London the fog was positively horrendous.
Did you know that during the war the BBC recorded Big Ben chiming 6 o’clock during an extra special pea souper of a fog and broadcast it every evening before the 6pm news which was generally followed with a Churchill chat.
The Luftwaffe used to listen in to the news before setting off on the bombing raids to judge the weather by the Westminster chimes coming from Big Ben, apparently they could tell what the weather over London was like and we woke up to it so the BBC did the tight thing and Jerry was convinced that London was always covered in a thick fog.
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Actually, this one was “for a change.” I hadn’t seen warm weather or my friend for way too long!
When I was a child in The Los Angeles area, the yuck was smog. A disgusting mix of fog and polluted air that caused all kinds of nose and respiratory distress. Great comments about London and the recording! 😊
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True stories usually are Elouise.
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what a spectacular image E, and tea with a friend sounds like a great date to me too. What a novel idea, a weekly date doing something like that, I wouldn’t know where to begin, my time off is spent playing catch up these days, need more toes in the sand days. ❤ ❤ ❤ how about singing karaoke? now that could be fun too 🙂 if only in the car at the top of your lungs 🙂
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All I can say it Try it! You might like it! I started them when I was working fulltime. It took an intense inner fight to finally give in and do it–and an agreement with myself that 1/2 day was just fine, too. Which it was! Singing karaoke? Sounds positively redemptive and fun! I think you’ve got what it takes…bigtime. 🙂
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