Daily Archives: June 11, 2012

Living In the Moment

sketch of salad ingredients

"Chickpea & Cucumber Salad", mixed media by Kerry McFall

Ever have those times when there are so many ideas bubbling in your head, that you simply can’t begin?  So you lay in bed and fret, wishing you had the energy to do the six things on your to-sketch-today list, PLUS go downtown and help with the photo survey of your dying neighborhood, PLUS run errands and buy groceries and clip the cat’s nails, PLUS spread the barkmulch before the weeds take over, PLUS edit the video from the Muddy Creek School Quilt project, PLUS change the sheets on your now-sweaty bed…  I have those days a lot.  The worst part is the things-to-sketch list… I absolutely ache to start them.  But this weekend I reached a compromise with myself: I gave myself permission to stop fretting, and to simply live in the moment.  If the sheets need changing, don’t rush through it just to get to the next thing on the list.  Just take my time, do it right, maybe stop for a snuggle with the kitty or a cup of tea.   No multi-tasking.  And so I moved through the weekend at a slow and steady pace, not feeling guilty about what I couldn’t get to, took a stroll around Bald Hill Farm (yes, the sun WAS shining!), and wound up my Sunday afternoon leafing through “Real Simple” magazine and making a salad.  Naturally, the luminescent cucumber, the blazing backlit basil, the little heart- shaped garbanzo beans, seduced me into starting another sketch.  But that’s okay.  It trumped everything else on the list, because it WAS the moment.  And I was totally in it, that moment when the scent of sliced cucumber and fresh-picked basil wafted through the kitchen.  It had to be done, right then.  And here it is.

The list in my head is just as long as it was Saturday morning, actually longer if you count that I added doing a sketch from Corey’s photo of her “commute” in Peru framed by a design incorporating her photo of an antique textile with dragons on it.  But that’s okay.  Its moment will come, eventually, and I’ll be in it, more relaxed if this whole approach works like it’s supposed to!