More on "In-Between Time"

(Photo of an unhappy loose end in my home office. I'm going to honor the "Stop Ahead" sign, in order to stop procrastinating and finish painting the wall! Bonus points if you can identify the photocollage.)

I started to reply to Pundit Mom'scomment and I felt that the conversation was juicy enough to put into a new post. So here we go.

Pundit Mom said:

Interesting that you should be writing about this topic now. I have spent this past year cranking out a variety of freelance projects that have made a nice little chunk of change, but have done virtually nothing to feed my spirit. I feel run down and empty these days and have not been taking on new assignments so I can try to listen and figure out what my next step should be. But I am always in conflict with the part of me that says if I'm not taking on some sort of paying project, I'm not being productive.

Thanks for letting us know it's OK to take the downtime to truly find a next phase that could be better suited to our lives.

What I have found is that I need a sense of closure, finishing, and transition. I can really appreciate the value of graduation ceremonies. Maybe I should throw one for myself. I've been moving full steam ahead on Mojo Mom (writing the book and developing my platform) for so long that I've almost forgotten how to do anything else. For a while I just felt like I should be starting a new project on top of what I am already doing, but that was not working. It was quite literally a non-starter.

I remember reading a wise book that spoke about tying off loose ends honorably, as a weaver would finish a piece that is ready to come off the loom. It's important to do this for creative or professional projects and even relationships that come to an end. Sometimes I feel like the Queen of Loose Ends and that's what I am trying to attend to right now--to give those loose ends some attention and even love, whether it's taking a long walk without looking at my watch, or finally painting the wall in my office that has sported a color sample blotch for 2 years. If I had thought the project out I would have painted the whole wall when I first opened the can!

I think the book that reflected on loose ends is The Tao of Womanhood by Diane Dreher. I've read enough inspirational books to know that they are not all made equal, and hers stood out of the crowd. I can't find the book because I "organized" my bookshelves a while back, which means that my personally-logical system has been distruped. The brain works in mysterious ways. I should learn to leave well enough alone even if it means I have to build new bookshelves. I am starting to jealously scan blank walls around the house, wondering where I can claim additional real estate for my books.

I was thrilled to come across this photo of Noam Chomsky at his desk at MIT. Research is all about massive parallel processing of information from many sources, close at hand, all at once. When I come out of my cocoon I'll be ready to plug back into this mode:



So let's hope I have the wisdom to know which loose ends to tie off and which apparent messes are better left undisturbed. I'll keep you posted about how it's going.