Not Enough Time (or Energy) In The Day

Suddenly, it’s 9:30 and you’re not really sure what happened with the day even though you got to mark 5-7 things off an ever increasing todo list. That’s what I feel like today. The vegetable beds got planted and the pathways around and through them got mulched. That was a good deal of work and constituted the main part of the day. Actually, I think it constituted all of the day. Tomatoes (Cherokee Purple, Celebrity, Yellow Pear, Bloody Butcher and an Orange Heirloom), peppers (jalapeno, bell, serrano, latin flare hybrid whatever that is, banana), eggplant (ichiban, regular, fairy tale hybrid), corn, beets, turnips, spinach, cucumbers, beans, squash and radishes all went in the dirt today. Still have some tomatoes (San Marazano) to plant tomorrow and will be done.

It doesn’t help that I”m achy from last night. I woke up and didn’t feel sore but as the day has worn on and I have lugged 20 bags of mulch and leaned over beds to plant seeds, the ache has set in. My hands are sore from the toes to bar.

I’ve started back into Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain so I’m hoping to work on that tomorrow. The picture above is my first Pure Contour drawing. It’s actually not bad for a guy who has trouble with stick figures. Too much interpretation of what I should draw and not enough drawing what I see. Pure Contour drawing solves that to a large degree, eliminating the left brain and its analysis. I notice that when I’m drawing it’s very hard to switch off the critical, analytical side of my mind and get into flow. It’s been impossible at work lately with interruptions constantly coming up. Everything feels very fractured. The next drawing is of a wadded up piece of paper and I’m supposed to spend at least an hour on it. That is both exciting and frightening. In many ways, drawing is relaxing in the total concentration it requests. No social media, no music, no internet. Totally attentional. Being more attentional is one of my 2014 goals, a nebulous one albeit, and I think the drawing helps. As does picking the saxophone back up again. And writing a blog post every day for 42 days.

There’s not much focus tonight and tomorrow might be a real rest day to recover from 4 days of hard work.