022. about colouring between the lines (but like literally)
a barely edited piece from my journal + am i creative again??
hello!
I now write in a journal of sorts everyday, to collect highlight thoughts from every day. I don’t take it seriously, I put a 10-minute timer and let my hands do the talking for my mind.
The other day, I wrote a train of thought I had while remembering a memory that came earlier that day. I translated and edited it a bit and here it is. I wrote it on the laptop without uppercase letters for speed, so I thought I’d keep the format.
today, following yesterday’s compromise of not using my laptop to waste time, i was quite productive. i woke up later than i wanted to, though, i fell asleep later than i wanted to, and today at 9h i didn’t even have a 5% of body battery and couldn’t possibly get out of bed, so i slept one hour more. i want to wake up earlier, go to sleep earlier. mornings are so usable, especially because of the light!
i did yoga and meditated just over 5 minutes, not much, better little than nothing, so i don’t get tired of it. it’s what i need to form the habit with as little friction as possible. after having breakfast i wondered what i could do next with my day, something that didn’t involve wasting time on the screen of course. possibilities are many, but somehow they were dimmed by the long time without having spent very many unforced, free creative hours. lack of practice, so to speak.
i broke the ice by taking “the mindfulness coloring book”, which i rescued from the bottom of a messy drawer that i purged yesterday, and opened it by a half-painted page of blues and purples. i put music on, a playlist made by spotify, or more so, spotify’s algorithm that creates customized playlists, which had it been new now it would have been called A.I. to stay on trend. good music i didn’t listen to yet, the algorithm did a good job.
i took a blue pencil so as not to break the harmony and started to paint triangle-shaped spaces, while being careful not to colour passed the lines. at that moment, a memory pops up, one back in pre-school that had been kept in a messy drawer in my mind. it’s such a vague, distant recollection, that i don’t see or hear anything. by the context, i guess i’m in class and we’re colouring something. the teacher had said we had to colour within the lines, and somehow i remember as if she had said that if we went outside the lines, we’d fail the class.
i think about that concept. why would a teacher say that to children that barely know the alphabet? maybe she said it without meaning it? this thing where as a kid you believe everything adults say because they’re taller i guess. but is it even possible to fail in pre-school? is the question. maybe it was a dream and such thing never actually happened? maybe it’s a mix of different memories. or maybe a mix of memories and dreams that intertwined for so long in the drawer that by now it’s impossible to untie the knot?
but it’s so real, i remember focusing on colouring within the lines, thinking i’d fail if my pencil escaped my control. focusing just as i did today but, of course, today i didn’t care to colour outside the lines, there’s nothing to fail at that. there is only the comical possibility of having worse colouring skills than my 4 or 5-year-old self.
(This is journaled no more)
That same day, after colouring, I picked up a forgotten crochet project and worked on it some more. This was the second day of using screens intentionally, and my need to create just came on its own. I just had to allow the space for it!
The next day, I crocheted some more and kinda invented a granny square pattern. I didn’t take notes, so hopefully I remember it if I want to make another one 😅
The whole text, but especially the part titled “nowhere fast”:
im an overthinker but at least the world is ending by emma orhun
There’s more but I have to collect it and I’ll put it in the next post!
Thank you for reading! It’s good to be back,
Núria. <3