This post almost didn’t happen. Procrastination was kicking creative inspiration’s ass.
Cause I got a baaaad case of summer fever. Not the kind that puts me in bed moaning and groaning with all sorts of aches and pains. Nope. This summer fever is the kind that says, “Blog? Yeah, sure. Whatever. I’ll write something later. I got birds to listen to and a nice comfy chair on the porch.
Serious porch sittin’ in what passes as summer heat in the PNW. In other words, ideal weather.
The week limped along. Later became now. And the muse was pointing to my watch, tapping her foot, and threatening bodily harm.
I gave you a list of things to write about. Just pick one and do it.
True. She gave me a list but not the will to write. Because my ego was being hijacked by the High Priestess of Procrastination (hereafter known as HPP) who in fact is a very real post-menopausal deity clad in twice-worn, wrinkled summer gauze and badly in need of a haircut.
She is also sworn enemy to my muse.
In other words, my creative soul was getting bitch slapped from two directions.
I’m not sure who would’ve won the war for my creative soul if my friend Donna Rae hadn’t intervened.
Wanna go to Ediz Hook today?
Ediz Hook! The beach. Salt water! This made both of those warring bitches happy. Muse said Inspiration! HPP said Goofing off!
And I said YES!!! to a play day at the beach.
Because of course I did!
In the end everyone was happy. We spent a few hours at the beach on a gorgeous day. Walking the shore. Taking photographs. Filling the muse’s cup. Drinking it all in—the salty air, the rocks, the sand. Shorebirds. A seal. Silvery iridescent smelt dead from spawning but not enough of them to stink.
The water, the sky and the hills of Canada across the strait all the most perfect shades of blue. And you know how much I loves me my blues!
On the way home, another stop to photograph reflections of boathouses in the mirror clear water.
Inspiration and Procrastination making their peace on a narrow sandy spit of land.
A very good day indeed.
Your Turn: A Prompt for Creative Inspiration
This week’s creative prompt is simple:
Do something that feeds your creative soul.
Take the walk. Visit the beach. Wander a bookstore. Sit on the porch. Follow the thing that makes you say yes.
Sometimes creative inspiration looks a lot like goofing off.
But you do whatcha gotta do to fill the well.
Back next week–
Love this, all my sisters bad language from when we were kids….beach yes, spending our youth climbing hundreds of stairs up and down for the beach, just to procrastinate! I now live smack on the water shores and procratinate all the time. Best ever inspiration is when the afternoon weans into evening, the light here up north is nicer to the overworked brain! So I can go into my studio without the blinding sunlight. Yesterday I overpainted a large painting 3×4’ that was returned a few days ago, it hung two years on loan at the seaside restaurant here….And as soon as it was in I mixed up the drying oils of seablue paint with some turpentine(get high)and used a housepaint oversized brush and painted over the whole upper half. Letting it run and do its drippy thing. Then whacked on some gold powder and didnt look….later sprayed over with a dissolvent. The whole painting sighed of relief. I hated it for two years, now it is content. Me too. Worth the long wait!
Yes, you have a 5 minute walk to the water, I have a 15 minute drive. But neither one of us is far from the sea.
Sometimes all an old painting needs is to whack it with more paint. The earlier painting underneath becomes another layer adding depth and richness to the new one. And noow you loved it again!
You’re taking your first step toward becoming a true Washingtonian — when the sun comes out, you drop everything and go outside and get your Vitamin D!!!
And like a true Washingtonian, I’m now thinking of 70 degrees as a heat wave, lol. I’m definitely loving this weather!