A self-imposed rest, putting my book to bed, getting high

I've been on a break from writing for two days now (well four, but weekend was off already), since I finished the first draft of my new book. So I've had a bit of time to devote to other tasks, endeavors and hobbies. Not easy for someone like me, but I keep busy, and moreover observe myself as I do.

There's the tendency to slip into an over-productivity that gets labeled (deceptively) as rest inside my head. I can fit an inordinate amount of tasks and to-dos inside 'rest'.

On a deeper level, I observe the focus. My attempts at controlling the world around me as much as I can. To clean my space and get rid of needless things. To get my papers in order for work at the new studio. To deal with the bureaucracies and admin stuff in our lives that need caring. To cook. To make. Myself useful. Fruitful.

The attempt to keep track, to keep myself mobile, undaunted and undeterred. Is a hard one to override. And I think it must be in part because of the chaos we live in, the need to be in charge of a world that signals precariously how little we can do towards good. How insignificant we are.

If I can create a safe, clean space within the confines of my heart, then perhaps I don't need to be exposed and vulnerable to the world. Then perhaps I can live.

This is how madness seeps in. Tempting though it be, you can't let it overwhelm you.

I'm taking some time. I'm rearranging the significant chunks of time that were writing into other things that need doing. Stomach the grief that is leaving behind a world you've created. Though the story ended, I find myself trying to take note of relevant things, to educate myself and open, to invite inspiration.

I don't find it easy to rest naturally, but am lucky. There's so much that needs doing, so many places I would like to temporarily be, physically or mentally. I have enough to keep me tethered, and I think how lucky to be in this process of building a life which makes me happy and fosters my growth. To be doing meaningful things. To feel myself full.

What luck and treasure, to have created the red thread that pulls me out of madness and fear when the world around me gets overwhelming.

I've still a few weeks of keeping my distance before I lurk back around to my book. Opening the new studio. I went for a photo-video shoot there this weekend. Exciting. Felt very professional. Almost beautiful in the spotlight. Twisting myself into disbelief. I like the way movement reverberates inside my muscles, because it tricks me into thinking I can extricate myself. To be nimble must equate being free.

Planning, coming up with new ideas, workshops, things I could be.

But studying also. Taking some time to dust off the old yoga manuals, to read up and go inward, to go to school. Though the promised warmth hasn't delivered (yet), spring is clear inside me. The potentiality. The sense that I could once more become anything. That I could blossom into moreness.

In a world so senselessly terrible, is it selfish or necessary that I be so enchanted by my own life?

And what's enchantment without some good music? Since it is, after all, Tuesday, I thought I'd check in and say ahoj to @ablaze. :)

This has been much on my mind lately. Particularly this,

The ministry of war is lying if it returns you home in zinc caskets

A warning.

Three years now, February sings odes of death in my calendar

And now, more. And more. And more.

Go ask Comrade Cain how can you live as an assassin?

Originally directed at another murderous head of state. But.

Paris's music has been stuck in my head since I had the pleasure of seeing her live a few weeks ago. And this quote in the beginning by the superb Emma Thompson, now more relevant than ever.

I knew one day that I’d have to watch
Powerful men burn the world down
I just didn’t expect them to be such losers

Well, kinda.