“A magpie nest of knowledge and ideas” oh I do love the way you have with words! I find I am less “creatively promiscuous” as I get older. I think because I have come to realize the limits of my energy. The side benefit of that being that I find myself enjoying the process more —being more mindful in the practice of my creative endeavors. Mostly. As someone who sews costumes for events and outings I do still sometimes suffer from the last minute craze of “I must get this done because I have a thing to go to and I miscalculated the amount of time it would take me”.
Oh boy do I understand that. You've made me realize the real divide in the kinds of creative work/play I do is stuff with deadlines vs. stuff without them. I go in cycles of bristling against deadlines and craving them because I know a due date will push me to finish the thing.
As someone who has four unfinished embroidery projects, two loom knitting projects, a mixed media art/painting in progress, a felting project, an unfinished beaded beetle, and notebooks full of story starts, poems, and two novels-in-progress, I am relieved to know that there are other knowledge-magpies out there collecting all these wonderful ways to do things. I very, VERY much resonate on how much time we spend in life having other people both try to tell us what to do and convince us we're happy doing it that it really does drown out what WE want -- and WE'RE the ones who have to live within our wants.
I have leaned in to learning. I watch a ton of videos on people who are quilting, thrift flipping, dyeing, making resin art, thatching cottages, gardening, espaliering, and laying hedges. I have a store of Someday lists that I hope to get through, but life may leave me first. And that's okay - I will die deeply interested in things. ☺
Thatching videos are entrancing! Tanita, you and I have so much overlap in our interests & projects-in-progress. Right down to the two novels unfolding at once, in overlapping bursts. And the notebooks full of poems and beginnings. It's funny that when I read your list, I think: how lush and magical and fertile! Whereas so often I give my own assortment of in-progress projects a guilty side-eye.
I'm a gingerly sticking one toe in at a time wader. Though actually I've been sitting on the bank contemplating the water for a long time before I even get a toenail wet. I've been contemplating the idea of water, reading what water enthusiasts have been saying about water, wondering if water really is worth it, and then making a plan.
And more and more I'm just too full to make time for creative pursuits. We're in the busy teen years. And it's busy teen years in a house full of neurodivergent people with anxiety disorders. So I'm spending a lot of my creative energy convincing *other* people that they can do the things. I suppose a positive way to frame that is that I'm putting most of my creative energy into helping to form persons these days. Helping the persons I love to enter and engage in the world which they will all too soon be entering as adults. Aha, I find myself saying, this is why all the homeschooling mothers used to go strangely quiet during the teen years. It's a lot.
I know it's a season and that as my birds launch (hopefully!) I'll likely have more time for my own creative pursuits. But these days I'm more passive in my engagement. More likely to read than to write, more likely to listen to an audiobook than to read. And juggling far far too many appointments. I look longingly over the fence at the green fields and want to go roll down the hills and make daisy chains, but somehow other people's pastures seem much more inviting than my own. But at the same time I know that other people looking over my fence will be amazed at how many books I'm reading and balls I'm juggling and wonder how I do it and marvel at how rich and wonderful it all looks.
In short definitely leaning in more towards knowledge maven than maker.
Definitely loved all the stuff about John Holt, but somehow Never Too Late did not actually ever make me long to take up the cello.
Great Shaw quotation! There are many more at this Oxford website: https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/acref/9780191843730.001.0001/q-oro-ed5-00009969
Fun! Thanks for sharing that!
I've loved quotations since I started reading....
“A magpie nest of knowledge and ideas” oh I do love the way you have with words! I find I am less “creatively promiscuous” as I get older. I think because I have come to realize the limits of my energy. The side benefit of that being that I find myself enjoying the process more —being more mindful in the practice of my creative endeavors. Mostly. As someone who sews costumes for events and outings I do still sometimes suffer from the last minute craze of “I must get this done because I have a thing to go to and I miscalculated the amount of time it would take me”.
Oh boy do I understand that. You've made me realize the real divide in the kinds of creative work/play I do is stuff with deadlines vs. stuff without them. I go in cycles of bristling against deadlines and craving them because I know a due date will push me to finish the thing.
As someone who has four unfinished embroidery projects, two loom knitting projects, a mixed media art/painting in progress, a felting project, an unfinished beaded beetle, and notebooks full of story starts, poems, and two novels-in-progress, I am relieved to know that there are other knowledge-magpies out there collecting all these wonderful ways to do things. I very, VERY much resonate on how much time we spend in life having other people both try to tell us what to do and convince us we're happy doing it that it really does drown out what WE want -- and WE'RE the ones who have to live within our wants.
I have leaned in to learning. I watch a ton of videos on people who are quilting, thrift flipping, dyeing, making resin art, thatching cottages, gardening, espaliering, and laying hedges. I have a store of Someday lists that I hope to get through, but life may leave me first. And that's okay - I will die deeply interested in things. ☺
Thatching videos are entrancing! Tanita, you and I have so much overlap in our interests & projects-in-progress. Right down to the two novels unfolding at once, in overlapping bursts. And the notebooks full of poems and beginnings. It's funny that when I read your list, I think: how lush and magical and fertile! Whereas so often I give my own assortment of in-progress projects a guilty side-eye.
I'm a gingerly sticking one toe in at a time wader. Though actually I've been sitting on the bank contemplating the water for a long time before I even get a toenail wet. I've been contemplating the idea of water, reading what water enthusiasts have been saying about water, wondering if water really is worth it, and then making a plan.
And more and more I'm just too full to make time for creative pursuits. We're in the busy teen years. And it's busy teen years in a house full of neurodivergent people with anxiety disorders. So I'm spending a lot of my creative energy convincing *other* people that they can do the things. I suppose a positive way to frame that is that I'm putting most of my creative energy into helping to form persons these days. Helping the persons I love to enter and engage in the world which they will all too soon be entering as adults. Aha, I find myself saying, this is why all the homeschooling mothers used to go strangely quiet during the teen years. It's a lot.
I know it's a season and that as my birds launch (hopefully!) I'll likely have more time for my own creative pursuits. But these days I'm more passive in my engagement. More likely to read than to write, more likely to listen to an audiobook than to read. And juggling far far too many appointments. I look longingly over the fence at the green fields and want to go roll down the hills and make daisy chains, but somehow other people's pastures seem much more inviting than my own. But at the same time I know that other people looking over my fence will be amazed at how many books I'm reading and balls I'm juggling and wonder how I do it and marvel at how rich and wonderful it all looks.
In short definitely leaning in more towards knowledge maven than maker.
Definitely loved all the stuff about John Holt, but somehow Never Too Late did not actually ever make me long to take up the cello.