On The Rhythm of Rest (and other things)

[While staying cool, over at the lake, with all the gals and guys this past weekend.]

Good morning you pretty little tiger lilies!

If you are situated in the interior West of North America, you’ll probably agree that it feels like someone flipped the summer switch into *on* position last week.  The heat came, the gardens are leaping, the deer are laying in the shade of the fruit trees during the blaze of the afternoon and it seems like each time I look over at the dogs, they’re passed out on the cool of the tiled floor in the sun rooms.  It’s been so hot that it’s been difficult for me to get any work done and for a while, I felt guilty about that, like I always do.  Why do I feel that way?  I think it can be very difficult for artists to unwind, to relax freely.  I always feel I should be working on something, carrying my momentum through another day, squeezing every particle of daylight out of every day — momentum is important to me, it takes much effort to start up once I have stopped.  I like to work every day.  I like to keep pace with the metronomes of my hammers, pencils and paintbrushes.  I believe this is one of the reasons I have always been a long distance runner, besides legs and lungs.  I like to find a beat and pound it out, up over the hills and dales, down through the coulees and across the creek beds.  I love the push and pull of air, sucking wind on the steep sections, steadying my heart rate on the flats, recovering my legs on the downhill slopes with short chop steps.  But even when I’m running, I don’t have a standardized pace.  I feel my body slow on the steep uphill climbs, I drop into a lower gear as my legs carry me upwards.  I fly on the flats.  I let the gravity pull me down the hills while my leg muscles recover from climbing.  Work is like that too.  Varied in pace.  It’s only natural.  So, you see, I have to remind myself, and believe with all my heart, that the rest has rhythm too, it isn’t a dead zone, a syncopation gobbling black hole.  It’s a necessary change of speed and it is healthy to take it when I can.  Robert has helped me with this, a lot, over the past two years.  He is so much better at recognizing my fatigue, naming it and helping me to step away from work when I need to, and even preventing fatigue by naming days off for me or sending me out into the wilds to wander, brush up against nature and be filled.

He jumped a fire yesterday and will be out for a few days (or maybe weeks or months, who knows), but before he left, he told me, “Jillian, it’s too hot for you to work.  You go ahead and find something else to do and enjoy yourself.  I think I’m going to get a fire.  It’s my time to work now.”  He did get a fire and I have gone gently with myself here.  Tending all my chores in an unhurried manner and still managing to do a bit of work in Miss Maple in the early mornings and evenings, before the sun turns that Airstream of mine into a toaster oven.  I don’t have a choice really, it’s too hot to do much else, but I do have a choice regarding how I view this pace and the new structure of my days during this atrocious heat.  It requires rewiring my mind a bit, but I’m doing just fine.  My eyes are clear and I don’t feel annoyed by circumstance.

That said, I’m leaving for the Puget Sound today.  It’s just a blip of a drive, up to the top of the North Cascades and then I’ll run like a river down to the sea.  I’m going to land directly in the arms of a girlfriend I love and cherish.  Being by her side for a few days is going to be so good for my soul, for my me.  Additionally, I’ll be doing a bit of beach combing, well, a lot of beach combing, in the cool of the ocean air.  Pray I find moon snail shells the size of my head, talk directly with a cluster of orcas and rendezvous with a family of otters while I’m collecting sand dollars.  Doesn’t that sounds spiffy?

Go gently this week, dear friends.  I’ll be thinking of you!

All love,

The Plume