Is what I can do well under pressure the thing I’m supposed to be doing? Ironically, if I can write this blog, then I will have undermined my answer.
How postmodern is that???
I have guests coming this weekend, and perfectionist control freak that I am, I allow this knowledge to put me into a panic. I’m not ready. I have to get ready. Therefore, I cannot do the things I normally do: paint and write my blogs.
I have plenty of time to do it all, but the panic makes it impossible for me to focus. I’d rather retreat to playing Scramble and Ruzzle on my iPhone. In fact, my granddaughter tells me I can get a Rummikub app for it as well, so I could add that one to my repertoire.
The first thing I do every morning is to make a list of things to do that day. I star the vital ones, put the important ones at the top, and a group of “wouldn’t it be great if I got to those, too” at the bottom.
But my panic tells me I can’t do any of them.
I play a couple games of Scramble.
Then I just walk out into the studio and start working on two recent paintings that didn’t quite satisfy me. When I am able to fairly easily bring them both to fruition—one quite amazingly—I pat myself on the back.
“I guess I’m a painter, after all,” I tell myself.
So, OK, am I a painter or a writer? I must be a painter if I could just walk out into the studio and do that.
Writing is much harder.
First of all, you need a topic, and I just can’t think of one this morning. I can’t think of anything.
With painting, I just pick up a brush and start. One thing comes after the other. What I see tells me what to do next.
Of course there are bad painting days, I’m not denying that, but those bad days don’t keep me from being able to go out there and do it again.
With writing, it’s different. Having a good writing day just makes me fearful that I’ll never have another one.
Having a bad writing day makes me think I’m stupid.
So is the one I can do under pressure the one for me?
And which one is that?
