A Matter of Focus… and Vision

The rain has stopped and the temperature is falling fast.

The big dogs are dozing; sleeping off their fine dining experience for the day.

My prep email for a rapidly approaching Intentional Creativity ® workshop is written, and edited, and edited some more. (I’m going with done!)

I’ve shaken off last night’s hissy fit, prompted when a certain online shopping service’s designated delivery folks sent me a message saying that delivery was refused on my long awaited giant whiteboard.

So NOT!

After some rather loud “intentional” phone calls, my package seems to have been located and, rather than returning it so I could re-order it and wait 8 days or more for another, there is at least hope that it will appear Sunday or Monday.

No, the world won’t end if it doesn’t. It’s just that I’ve worked so hard to figure out the logistics of one of the big things I’m trying to accomplish and I was all set to test it out Monday.

For now, a front row seat, feet up, for the Saturday night Iron Chef mini-marathon. At this moment, the secret ingredient is sausage. Sounds good to me… as long as I know where it came from! Am also very glad that I’m not one of the sous chefs busy burning things.

Underneath all this “normal” life stuff, rather like drips on the first layers of a painting, a post from one of my paint sisters is muttering.

The inquiry, or perhaps journal prompt, went along the lines of whether we readers might have “left anything undone” in 2019 and had we, perhaps, made a list of those things, in the service of letting them go.

I will admit that my pulse picked up a bit of speed at that question.

I mean, Duh!!!

Both my faith tradition and my experience remind me that we leave things we wanted to do undone.

Sometimes because we’re stuck, or afraid. Sometimes because other things arise that feel more urgent. Sometimes because some of our intentions seem beyond our current abilities.

If you’re at all like me, the list of things you haven’t done is likely to be “posted” right in front of your face, like really bad wallpaper.

So big and loud and overwhelming that you can’t see through or around or even under it to the things you did get done.

Or maybe it seems more like having new glasses. The kind with the lenses called transitional, which is contemporary code for incognito bifocals.

I have a recent pair of those I’m still trying to adjust to. Between tipping my head forward and backward, juggling my glasses, and fiddling with the angles of the monitors on my various toys, I seem to feel more aware of what’s not working than what is.

It’s also true that I’m a life long list maker!

So, for this moment, wondering how I might reframe such a question if I were to ask my girls, and with deep love and respect for those who do it differently, I’m making a list of things I have gotten done. (Or made progress on…)

And I’m listening to that list for what might be there for me to learn.

What does it suggest about 2020?

Just in case you’re now busy with such a list of your own, starting – of course – wherever it works for you, I’ll just share the first thing I noticed, pondering all of this.

I took on too much in 2019.

So, while I’m not likely to ever have 20:20 vision, I’m hoping to focus more on where I’d like to be a year from now, rather than on all the marvelous, shiny things I could, hypothetically, manage to squish into next week, preferably (gulp!) without disappointing anyone.

I suspect it will take some practice…

Companions on the road welcome!!!

ps… The glimpse of art, today, which will eventually become TreeWoman 2, was blessed last night with bright teal prayer dots for the healing and new growth of rain across Australia and wherever else it is needed.

 

Sue Boardman, Certified Intentional Creativity®
Color of Woman Teacher & Coach