Being Creative Helps

Week 130 – September 12, 2022 – Overdue and Overcoming

Oh my… I’m just writing this second blog post soon after the last one I wrote because I made a commitment to blog weekly during the COVID-19 pandemic and then added an educational blog mid-week to help me with creating a new habit of writing on a regular basis. I started blogging to help me with the writing process. I look back at some of my early blog posts and they were short, vague, and somewhat incoherent. Overtime I tinkered with the blogging process, FIPPA, and distribution of my work.

I think I have landed on a way of being with my blog especially with the inability to access my blog directly (due to the 2-step authentication, moving, and a new phone) and blogging from my homemade laptop like contraption with my iPad and Bluetooth keyboard from my iPad mini. It seems to work and I’d rather type with QWERTY than with my thumb on my phone. At least my typing skills can keep up with my thinking. My thumb is MEH at best. I’ll leave the thumb texting to social media and texting. There is nothing more annoying than auto fill and thumb texting. Low accuracy.

Oh geez… I’ve just thought about another thing I have to do (aka. Write) soon after this blog post. I need to do it because I will not get to it once the week begins. OK. What I am realizing is, I need a schedule to insert when I am going to write, rest, and work. This makes sense. I know that we tried to get to this with my academic coaching, but a lot of that work was about my research agenda and recognizing my worth, my goals, and my strengths. What I have learned is, I am doing the work. There is nothing more exciting that realizing you’re on the right track. Keep going.

One aspect that I did make time to do during the week and on the weekend was BEADING. I am enjoying it so much and I hope one day I can also engage in weaving. I was listening to a podcast and they were saying that you don’t become an artist, but you were always an artist but never given the opportunities to develop or explore it. You can replace the word “artist” with anything else. Basically that podcast was about, we are who we are taught to be, so how can we find ourselves in that mess. That might not be the best summary but that’s what I took away from the podcast.

Anyway, I feel like I have found one of my places in Prince George… Two Rivers Gallery. I am really enjoying the beading workshops held at the gallery and I am learning so much from the act of beading. I had no idea that I would enjoy beading. I had always believe that textiles or foods were not my areas of interests or expertise so I never even bothered pursuing home economics courses in high school or anywhere else beyond it. Today, I am a food pic foodie and beaver. Who knew? I am also in a profession where I have to read and write. I never saw that coming.

Making time to be creative fills my cup and in return helps me to do the work I need to do with my writing and teaching. I love the learning embedded in beading and I am always humbled by the act of beading. The people at the gallery are amazing and I feel privileged and honoured to learn from Indigenous people to bead. It’s a gift. What I love about the canoe (as you see above in the image) is that you learn how to make this key chain and you give it away, then you are give materials to make it at home. This makes sense to me. You always gift your first creation. It’s your learning.

I am happy to be back blogging and getting back to the work that I have to do. I am also happy that I am willing and able to make time to bead and create. And, I hope that I can move forward with school year with the mindset of learning and creativity. I love what I am doing here in my blog and how it has evolved over time (without the pressure of too much editing because I’m working on my iPad) and trusting the process. When I get too fixated on the mechanics or logistics of things, the goods internal to the practice gets lost. I am focused on deliberate practice and my joy.