Borderlands and the recovering creative mind

Hi there.

I steal the term "borderlands" from Max who was speaking of it so beautifully and eloquently this Sunday in his homily (or maybe it would be more accurate to say his "poem"). I was shaken with how much I could relate to the things he was saying. Borderland - the place of endings and beginnings. And sometimes you are right there on the edge waiting for the ending to end and the beginning to begin. It's the half-light at the end of the day and the start of the night...where everything is covered in a weird hazy grayish light and you can;t quite make out the form of things. It's the place I am finding myself in these days....figuratively and literally.
I can't say the borderland has been a bad place, though. Actually, maybe for the first time in my life, I've been enjoying it in my own way.

So I'm making my plans to leave Toronto. Thought I would be moving at the end of this month, and then plans went awry and turns out I will be here now until April. It was mainly disappointing as I was planning on spending time in Kitchener with Kate in her first month of 3rd baby motherhood to help her out and spend time with the family - and be the un-official "Doula". I guess it will just have to be put-off for the time being.

In the meantime, I have been working pretty rarely, picking up the odd relief shift at a couple of shelters and penny pinching quite a lot. It's funny as I keep making the decision to walk EVERYWHERE (instead of spend the 2.75 for the TTC) and then wonder why in the world I am so tired at the end of the day. I have the tendency towards impatience so it has been good training for me not to have all the answers right now and have to wait. I would get into more details but that would be boring so I'll save those for another time.

In the midst of biding time I have been going through the beginnings of a kind of creative recovery/exploration thanks to Lisa.L. and with the help of The Artists Way. In conversation with Lisa over breakfast 3 weeks back I was telling her that I wanted to start some kind of "creative group" to get together with other folks and talk things creative, and our creative journeys/dilemmas to which Lisa replied "oh, I already started one 2 weeks ago!". So a little group of us have been meeting for breakfast early Tuesday mornings to go through 12 weeks of Julia Cameron's book, The Artists way. Happening upon this has been incredibly timely for me - in Julia Cameron-speak, that's, like, total "synchronicity"! One of the many examples of random stuff I've been doing: Today I wrote a letter from my 80 year old self to my present self as one of my tasks...I was tempted to write it out here it was so super inspiring to me...but think I might wait on that. I also wrote a letter from my 8 year old self. Anyway, so far going through this process has been incredibly eye opening for me on many levels and I feel like I am finally gaining ground in terms of recovering my poor lost artist (I think I dropped her somewhere between the Catholic worker and the 108 homeless men I was looking after....d-uh).

It is also forcing me to face some things I probably would have left in hiding otherwise. The process of doing that has been incredibly freeing if sometimes uncomfortable. I am actually feeling comfortable with myself again, unapologetically. And I keep making cartoon strips of my life just for fun which I find quite hilarious and extremely fun. It's strange the surprising things that have popped up. It's been a lot of fun. I've just said fun a whole lot. I must be having fun.

Speaking up fun, I need to go to the gym. hip hip......not happenin'.
peace
-jc (same initials as Jesus Christ and Julia Cameron!)