Begin

In January, inspired by a challenge on Ali E's blog, I carefully selected the word "Begin" as my inspiration for 2007.

Update: it is the middle of March, and I haven't "begun" anything, I haven't done one single thing towards my personal goals for this year. Great. Now, to be fair, until two weeks ago I was working sixteen hours a day, and I only stopped doing THAT because of Mario's health problems (and my own exhaustion, let's not mince words.) I don't bring those things up as excuses, but as bonafide reasons why I ended up putting myself pretty far down on my list of priorities.

Begin.

I have considered all my goals at length, and while I know I can't possibly accomplish them all in 2007, I know I can make progress on all of them, simply by doing one thing:

I will make time for creativity every day.

We convince ourselves that creativity takes time or silence or space or inspiration or something else that we simply don't have. Well, bullshit.

I'm not suggesting I will spend an hour writing tomorrow, because I won't. But surely I can write for five minutes. Or journal for ten. Or knit for three. Or daydream for one.

Kelly gave me a wonderful book for my birthday, "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. And while I am not yet ready to commit that much time to the exercises she recommends, I AM ready to commit just a little bit of time to myself.

Begin.