Warm Summer's Eve

 Hello there, again, dear blorg. I wish I was contributing more to this space, but it isn't for lack of momentum; every day I write in a physical (gasp!) journal, record my diet and skin condition into a log, and contribute to a Tumblr with my design project progress and relevant thoughts. Don't worry about the last one, I'm quite confident you won't be able to find it unless you already know. That's a lot of writing each day that I typically do as I slow down for evening. Alas, none of those things are prayers for She of the Written Art. I fear I'm becoming an idle worshiper. 'Inactive' if you will, according to the tenants of a certain organization of Mormon persuasion.

I guess I also write for work regularly, but those are rendered in thin blue lines, evenly spaced across a white page. It seems that when my superiors look at what I produce, all they see is loose leaf. A perfect landscape for them to disregard everything I've done and proceed to cram as many selling points as they can into a tight space. Why take your time and treat your audience as having their own priorities when you could construct the hardest of sells known to man? 

There's another kind of revision that often happens to my writing when produced in a professional setting: pointless changes. Did you know that a "Services Newsletter" is entirely different from a "Services Communique"? Why not make it the "Monthly Internal Services Communique" for good measure? We'd certainly hate to mislead all those people by using the word "Newsletter" in a monthly email about news and updates.

I haven't been writing for the sake of writing for a while. It's like a dance with your keyboard to the persistent rhythm of the flashing text cursor. Blink, blink, blink.

Right now, as the season has rolled over a hot summer full of possibility, I feel like I should be doing my dance on a regular basis. Even though I don't use it to wax poetic, my journal usually consumes all the writing fodder I come across. Sure, I'm recording more of my life for future record, but it's more formal and to the point. I don't get the space to properly bounce around and think through things.

It would be nice to write a little bit more regularly. So I may attempt to do just that, at least in bite-sized pieces. I've discovered that a secret key to improving productivity is to commit to the absolute bare minimum and allow yourself to go beyond as inspired to do so. Case in point: I only set out to jot down a sentence or two, and here I am five paragraphs later.

This evening I was sitting on the deck with my cat in my lap. We had just completed the mother of all Costco runs and put everything away, and I just wanted to cool down in the fresh air. So I sat there, and watched the light disappear from the clouds after turning a rich fuchsia. And Mozz, normally a standoffish and secluded retiree of a feline, was happy to lay down in my lap. And turn around, and lay on my chest so that I could scratch under his chin. And he purred, and he purred. A pretty rare occurrence on its own, but he kept it up for a half hour. And my girlfriend read a book in the chair next to me, and the young men on their raucous motor bikes drove by, and the breeze cooled my ravaged skin. I didn't have my phone with me, or a book to read, or music in my ears. But in their absence I found a little slice of beauty and peace.

I'm worried about self-improving myself to death. On top of those daily tasks I mentioned at the beginning ('chores', as I like to call them), every day I make sure to also go for a walk, strum a ukulele, and do some pushups. None of these are particularly time intensive, but they add up.

And I still feel like there are things left undone; read a few pages of a book, do some creative writing, meditate, sketch. They all just feel... cumulative. Before you know it, there's a solid hour or two a day you need to devote to the betterment of the self, while I feel like I'm craving the ability to have unstructured down time and space away from my responsibilities. Therein lies the madness: I know that if I completely take up the mantle of hedonism, I'll be left unsatisfied in other ways. As with most of life, there's a delicate balance somewhere in the murky depths. Maybe it's not meant to be found, but just sought after.

My eyelids are slowing a bit and my fingers stumbling around the dancefloor. It's time for bed. I just need to strum some chords and record my epidermal observations. Then pet the cat on my way to brush my teeth. And then bed. Let's get to it, then.

-Cril

People concertina to my private magic lantern move for me
With the senses all inclusive
In the theater of triggered memories

Motioning still

They stand inside me
And moments until
The one I leave
The one I leave

Frou Froud - Flicks