From Frantic to Flaccid in Fifty Feet
I got a real belly laugh the other day when, in the course of a conversation, my young friend announced, “Oh, Lynn, I just started another company on Wednesday.” His voice was a perfect mixture of regret (“I fell off the wagon and drank a whole bottle of scotch.”) and elation (“I just got a big private commission for an outdoor mosaic on a quarter-mile-long wall.”) This is a man whose imagination runs wild and whose mind never stops.
Only in this era could you claim to have started a company at such a specific time as ‘last Wednesday’ and be serious.
Compression
copyright by Lynn Bridge
My mind never stops, either. No, I can’t stop thinking, but I can quit trying to execute every idea that crosses my mind. That seems reasonable.
I realized yesterday that the only time my mind ever relaxes is when we are across the street, at the neighbors’, watching a movie and eating ice cream. That’s it. Good friends, good conversation. Just chillin’. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.
Do you live life in the frantic lane? How do you jump off the ‘speeding bullet’? Please leave me a comment below.
East-West
copyright by Lynn Bridge
Oh, Lynn, I so relate. I have a very active mind and the energy to match, so I’m always creating some new thing. The only way I can get away with it is that I have learned to drive my projects to completion. Still. Just to be still sometimes!
My relief comes at yoga class. No way to stop and write or check the computer. The asanas work my body so thoroughly my mind has no choice but to chill!
LOVE your images and LOVE your use of flaccid! I’m on a mission to bring that word into common usage and not only in the way people usually think of it. Ahem.
Great post. Keep going, and keep going for ice cream and movies to help relax.
Thanks, Cynthia! Flaccid is a perfectly good and GENERAL sort of word, so can be used in other contexts. Have you noticed how so many words have been co-opted by the scatological crowd that our everyday cache has been diminished? I refuse to give up perfectly good words without a fight!
My daughter does yoga and she says it does her a world of good. I’ve never figured out how to take the time to get ready, travel to class, take the class, come back and work in the studio before running off to some meeting-or-other. But, I should figure it out sometime!
OK…I’ll jump in here on both yoga and the fabulous scatological reference….but first
FYI: every time I look at your header I get hungry.
Yoga rules…nothing like it and even if it’s simply the ‘take a deep breath’ version it works its charm.
My dear recently departed 91 year old friend ‘Sir John’ had a real issue with the growing need to punctuate language with ‘off color’ references. To solve the situation in his own conversation he used the word “OBSENITY!!” as his primary curse…stated boldly…works well…covers everything…packs a whollop and ofends no one.
~sing the day
I am laughing about the header-hunger. ‘Mosaic porn’, ‘header-hunger’; what will they think of next?
Iona, I can do a deep breath, for sure, but to really, really do a Deep Breath, I suspect I would have to practice for a few years, right? 🙂
Your friend, Sir John, was a funny man.
Your friend’s comment made me laugh. That is SO me. I am currently ending a business so I can start another one. It’s not that the first one has failed, it’s just a transition time in my life. I think that the whole mind never stopping is definitely a creative artist trait. Sometimes I think people look at us as if we have three heads because our mind is constantly churning in so many directions simultaneously.
Good point, Rebecca, about “artist brain”. The friend in question is also a doctoral student in neuroscience, among many other things, but creative brains never turn off, although they need to!
I’m here with a cheer for yoga too – as Cynthia says – you concentrate so fully on getting your body into position, and remembereing to breathe…there’s little brain space left for ‘monkey mind’ (which is my yoga teachers name for that endless chatter in our heads!). But if anyone has an answer for how to shut that wretched monkey up when he gets busy at 3am…I’d love to hear it!
Yeah, I’d love to hear it, too, Tracey. Except I’m usually awake at 4 a.m. Which coincides with when the cat is awake. Hmmmmm……
I love to be awake and in the studio between 2-4 am…it’s one of my favorite times to be with the work…zero distractions and so much extra air to practice those deep breaths 😉
See ya in Triage.
Extra air- I like that. One of my cats is usually waking me up by 4, or before, so that’s my cue to get up and get going! She is so endearing, licking my nose and kneading me. Irresistible- I’m such a pushover.
Hi Lynn! Love this photo!
Greta, one day I made about 200 photos in Zilker Park and I saved the best, cropping them and even re-orienting them if I thought they looked better 90 or 180 degrees off. This is from that batch. Thanks for visiting!
I’m still gonna hafta pick your brain about Twitter.