Thursday, August 23, 2012

Inspiration

" When we engage in what we are naturally suited to do, our work takes on the quality of play and it is play that stimulates creativity."

-Linda Naiman



It's been a difficult summer spent mostly focused on my daughter's continuing struggle with chronic daily migraine syndrome, working on filling her up with tools to manage her pain so that she could go into the 8th grade feeling empowered in spite of a headache that won't go away.  Normally we would have escaped LA,  to spend some time in Minnesota with my family, allowing her to run free with her friends and cousins, to be a kid in ways that living in a scary city doesn't permit.  In many ways I believe that having that time would have been more beneficial in relieving the anxiety that seems to be the cause of her pain...but we opted for a strict schedule of acupuncture and doctor visits instead.  People who care about me have been commenting on how exhausted I appear....that I need to take a break, suggesting quietly sitting on a beach somewhere.  I am very tired...but I think my exhaustion comes mainly from my brain straining for all of the creative time that has been given over to the stuff of life over the summer.  Now that school has begun again, I have a bit more time to lose myself in my work, which is the thing that sustains and calms me.  Every minute that I am allowed to be creative is a mini vacation for me.  My work is my play.