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Wow, so that was a whole month between postings.

Life is crazy post personal trauma.  For one thing, my short term memory?  Shot.  Second, my emotional capacity for anything trying is nonexistent right now.  I’m working on it though.  And the concept of time continues to blow me out of the water.  I feel like I missed the last two months of winter with my mom’s passing.  February and March were a complete blur, both frozen and sped up in time.  Now I’ll catch myself staring out the window at ten at night, unable to believe how light out it is – but it IS almost summer.  At the same time, it’s only June?  We’re just starting the summer?  I’ve been biking to work for a month already!

This brings us to June.  It’s a Monday, and something about the first days of the month aligning with a new week always strikes a spark in me.  I’ve been wanting to make a challenge for myself for a while now for drawing.  See if I could post something each day.  I was thinking I’d do it on Instagram, then I immediately started overthinking – but what about posting the Calendar girl – is that like cheating for posting old work?  What if the quality of my work drops for rushing?  What if I want to post a shot that’s not art related?  (Answer: who cares?)

I made a list of goals for the month of June also.

1. Less noise.

2. One small drawing each day (small should be in caps).

3. Yoga after cycling (more on that in a sec…)

4. Be present.

5.  It is really okay to go slowly.

That’s my list.  To elaborate – what I call noise, I mean distractions.  We don’t really watch TV all that much, which is something I’ve prided myself on.  Oh, but there is this OTHER thing I do, which is mindlessly scroll through my husband’s Facebook feed.  Because I don’t even have my own. I don’t even know half the people on it.  This is a mindless, time wasting activity.

Which brought me to number two: a small drawing a day.  What if each time I reach for my iPad to scroll through some stranger’s feeds, I instead grabbed a pencil to draw whatever was in front of me?  How quickly would my speed and confidence build up?  I already made a little travel kit – it can really go anywhere.

Tying that in nicely with number three: yoga after cycling.  I have worked downtown for five years now, a ten kilometre stretch from our little house.  Finally this year we both broke down and bought bicycles.  That is an entire blog post on it’s own…so I’ll leave it here: I’ve been cycling to and from work for one month now – so awesome!  Not so awesome…stiffness.  Every morning.  And I consider myself in shape??  I need to focus on stretching those muscles back out after I hunker down on the bike for an hour a day.  Promise – I’ll make a post about my bike soon.

Be present.  I think about this a lot.  I find myself at work thinking about capoeira.  Then I’m at capoeira thinking about art.  Art actually forces me to focus, so luckily that train stops there.  But I’ve been making myself just so damn BUSY for so long, and for what?  The years are creeping by.  And I am just too BUSY to notice.  Losing my mom has and continues to tell me how much I need to slow down and appreciate the quiet moments in life.  The little things.

And to sum up: it’s okay to go slowly.  Really.  No one will die if I don’t check ten things off my list in one evening.  In fact, the opposite could happen – I might remember my evening, and even enjoy it.

How about you?  Resolutions for June?