The Artist’s Date
I do a lot of daydreaming. I always have. I spend quite a lot of time alone. Even when I was teaching at the college, one of my guilty pleasures was going to a coffee place or (ideally!) a bookstore with coffee to write. When my kids were younger and I was really busy, I often wrote in my minivan at soccer practices…
My guilty pleasures now that I’m not teaching full-time are still writing-with-coffee. Also reading novels (I read a lot of novels…kind of an addiction). That, and meeting a girlfriend to write (over coffee, usually…okay, so coffee is definitely an addiction).
So, shouldn’t I have this Artist’s Date thing in the bag? Don’t I spend plenty of time, already, alone with my inner artist?
No, I don’t. It turns out that the artist’s date shouldn’t be work (even when it is the wonderful work of writing), and it shouldn’t be with other people. It should be play, AND it should get me out of my comfort zone.
Out of my comfort zone? Dang.
(To see Julia Cameron talking about the artist’s date, go to this site: http://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/.)
I have a couple of ideas for artist’s dates. For one thing, I’ve always wished I could draw…but my perfectionist tendencies get in the way. What if I pursued this, playfully, joyfully? Just for an hour or two this week?
images borrowed from http://www.ellenfelsenthal.com/pages/horses1_07.html
I also want to ride a horse, which I have not done in years, in decades.
What would YOU do on an artist’s date?