Irene visited me here, so I visited her blog. I had been there before, though I don't know when or how I got there. The name of the blog is "Pregnant Pauses" and she writes, "A pregnant pause is a momentary stillness laden with significance. It is rich, prolific, provocative, wow. It is a threshold for ideas and can translate into one to one thousand emotions. It welcomes imagination and brims with untold possibilities. Sometimes, it is even pinched with humor. Life's most unforgettable moments are highlighted by pregnant pauses. Now, I gladly share with you mine."
I talk, write and pace to formulate ideas; the opposite of pauses. It's as if I gain momentum from my physical movement, like those tiny toy cars you first make go backwards in order to wind it up, and the minute you let go, it goes forward. Though I call my studio variously the womb, the cocoon, the basement with one small window, when I am there it is by no means a quiet place.
Writer Joan Rosier-Jones told me to "write it, don't tell it" when I first met her 12 years ago, but it's not just about writing. For the amount of talking, writing, pacing AND thinking I do, I produce very little finished products, weaving or otherwise. I do breadth well, not depth, and not longevity.
Just yesterday, I heard on the radio about the new Kate De Goldi book called "Billy". (Her web site doesn't have the info yet, but an Australian site does.) Billy is an outside-the-square kid, and is told to go to the "Quiet Space" several times a day, and by the end of the book, he is not changed, but is redeemed not in a small way. Something made me go to Pages and read the book last night.
I need to learn where my Quiet Space is.
7 comments:
great blog!
Thanks for the visit, east of oregon.
thanks for visiting my blog...take care
Your thoughts give me ... pause. ;-)
Sometimes I think, it is a women's thing, the difficulty to pause and escpecially to appropriate time for the creativity to survive beyond the pause.
Foggy greetings from Vienna,
Merisi
That's an interesting thought, Merisi. I'm often asked when I have time to weave and blog, but for me, sometimes I need to blog to offload the many thoughts I have so I can move on and concentrate on my weaving. On the other hand, when people say men do things this way, women do it that way, I always come out a man - for e.g. I cannot multi-task, but can do just one thing at a time. Or maybe I just have an old brain without all the modern enhancements and added memory to suit the new century - a distinct possibility.
A sunny but blustery hi from Nelson!
Food for thought, your comment, Meg. My brain seems to function best when I juggle more than one thing or when my adrenaline level is very high. In consequence I have not always an easy time concentrating on a single thing (even simple stuff, like reading, which I love), mostly because I feel the need to have concluded certain tasks before I "permit" myself to stay with another one. I would myself most likely diagnose as under the influence of ADD, but not succumbed. Yet. ;-)
Merisi, I should amend what I said previously: I can concentrate on one thing at a time, but I have a hard time concentrating at all. And that goes especially for reading, but even during a much anticipated movie or TV show, (I love TV and I LOVE documentaries), I jump up and down getting another cup of tea or going downstairs to get the laundry out of the dryer, and by the time I come back up, it's commercial time!
I've even half-seriously thought about early onset Alzheimer's, this restlessness and forgetfulness.
"I feel the need to have concluded certain tasks before I "permit" myself to stay with another one." Exactly. Except in art, I need to capture these fleeting thoughts and ideas, so I need to learn to balance the concentration vs. allowing the flights of fancy, as it were.
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