Herban Sprawl

Today is an important day. It is my niece’s birthday! As usual, I have her present in progress, so she gets it late. Generally, whatever I send is worth the wait, though!

I had begun this year with good intentions of cleaning up my act in that regard. Then I encountered an insurmountable problem. My idea for a card for my nephew-in-law hit a snag. I felt like Frank Lloyd Wright. I had a great idea, but lacked the proper technology to execute it, so I was pushing the limits of the available engineering! It still isn’t working, so I need to just enclose his present (from January, no less) in her package and move on!

That’s the thing about this artsy fartsy business that civilians do not understand. The creative process often defies all the generally accepted ideas of how things come to be. We get ideas that we then have no notion of how they will be executed! It often involves a process of trial and error.

I was watching that silly movie, Runaway Bride, and admiring the lamps and such that the main character had created because she had been an industrial design student. I became really jealous because that’s the kind of thing I would love to do, but lack the math skills to make the calculations. There is the same jealousy for architects, and that probably explains why I get so angry about bad design. I see a person with the skills and no sense of proportion or good taste. It annoys the hell out of me!

The result when creative types run into a snag, is that we tend to fall into two camps. There are those who will work nonstop - going without sleep and sustenance - until they resolve the problem. The others among us leave an idea alone, tinker with it a little, but generally let the thing sit (gathering dust!) until inspiration hits like a bolt from the sky. Obviously, I am in the latter category. It is not unusual for me to have several projects in various states of deshabile until the spirit moves me to pick one or the other up and bring it to completion. This drives other people crazy.

Annie, a friend from Tennessee, cannot understand why the novel plot she has been following isn’t finished. Geez. How do you explain that the characters quit talking to you without sounding like you are a person who hears voices and needs to be sent to the home? My family has enough really exquisite needlework items that I’ve made them to understand that I have a perfectionist streak and take my time. (I forgot how great some of those were until I saw a few I’d made for my sister on display at her house!) In that regard, they cut me some slack. But novels don’t work quite the same way as needlework, and require a different set of creative juices to be flowing.

Lately I have been pondering a lot of thorny issues in my think tank. Armed with a quart sized bottle of Italian lavender bubble bath, I can settle into the suds and work out a difficult situation for my characters. However, the think tank has been the scene of working out the solutions to other problems of late. Like how to raise $25,000 for a legal defense fund - or how to be supportive of a group of committed people who are united in their mistrust of changes to their beloved organization.

It all boils down to something I’m always harping about to my best girlfriend: “Honey, you have got to set boundaries!” I’m in the position of being the pot calling the kettle black a lot of the time, so I have set some boundaries on what I know I can and cannot accomplish with both those projects. One will end at the end of this month and the other will be ongoing. The ongoing one has had benefit of my think tank long enough and needs to run itself. I have to reclaim my bathtub for the things that fill my spirit.

And so, on this day, I am sending out our love and best wishes for many happy returns to the best niece a crazy aunt could ever hope to have. Lori, you will never know the joy you have brought me. (And in case he’s getting a little green with envy, your brother falls in the same category…but he’ll have to wait for November to hear it!) You will also never know how deeply you are loved by a guy who has generally been resistant to the power of children in a family! By golly, I think you might have even trumped the cats on that one! Hang in there…a package will follow!