Week Two ( I Guess Last Week Was Week One ) : Reflections and Shadows

I am winding down Week Two of the Artist Way by Julia Cameron (if need be, check Week One to see what this is about).  Two Weeks in and I am not behind, so I am already doing better than the first time I did the course!  Go Me!

Among the many tasks this week, I had to come up with 5 MORE dream careers.  Two of my five were Bread Baker and Photographer.  I just didn't have it in me to Bread Fail this week.  I Bread Fail each time I try and make it.  Yeast is not my friend.  I have always had a deep and unwavering love of bread.  If I had to, I suppose I could live without cheese (can you even imagine?!?), avocado, grapefruit, coffee, and yes ~ whiskey.  But I could never be without bread.  When I go to Farmer's Market, I usually have half a loaf finished before I get home.  It is a comfort, a friend, an aphrodisiac, a meal.  NOTHING beats a good loaf of bread.  I was raised on Arnold's Thin White so when I had bakery bread for the first time.....well, use your imagination, then blush.   Someday, I will hit on the recipe that works for me.  This week wasn't going to be that day.
I picked up my camera to play Photographer.  Batteries all dead.  Cards all full.  I only had time to go to the pharmacy for a new memory card.  $35. W.T.Friday?!?  So...I came home, deleted a bunch ( I really have to get back to the "...was..." series because I have hundreds of photos of abandoned structures!) and started taking photos.  I will try and get to Target next week for a card devoted to playing Photographer.  Because I cannot get a series out of my head ~ Reflections and Shadows.  It is probably not very original, but it has been swirling around my brain for a while now.  We'll see how that goes.  Here is a reflection shot with no editing.  I call it : Tree in Coffee (hahahahaha).

I actually took a few photos of my bookshelf reflecting onto my closed computer.  And a grapefruit half reflected onto a spoon.  I was going to post those.  They were eh, but it was a start.  As the photos were opening on the computer, I reached over to the windowsill to get my coffee and saw this.  MUCH better.  The course talks a lot about when you put your wishes out to the universe, opportunities start presenting themselves.  Many things have happened this week to make me believe that.  And this Tree reflection is just a small symbol of that.

Another task was to make a list of 20 things I like to do and the dates I last did them.  Some were 20 years ago!  The follow up task was to pick one and do it.  Due to the weather, I had limited options, so I picked read and write poetry.  Yesterday, I realized I was probably going to fall short of that task.  So instead of reading my treadmill book (Centennial.  Cynthia, one solid year later and I am only a third of the way through.  But I do love it...finally!), I read the first 30 pages of Leonard Cohen's The Book of Longing.  I read it out loud.  Leonard...now he could dance me to the end of love.

This week, my Artist Date was The Danish Girl.  What an emotional and beautiful movie!   The self awareness, bravery, love, and trust depicted in this quiet film was a loud shout out to being true to yourself.  The relationships were strong and meaningful, the scenery was sparse and lovely on the water in Copenhagen and decadent in Paris.  I read a bit about Lili/Einar and Gerda Wegener after the movie.  She was so incredibly in touch with who she really was and who she needed to become.  What a spirit and what a pioneer!

Have I bombarded you with enough words and enough "me" "my" "I" ?!  I am sick of myself so you must be too.  So Adios and I am beading a little...simple peyote.  Hopefully the next post will be almost no words, but some jewelry.  Fingers crossed!