Eating That Elephant

For some reason, this summer I have been obsessed with clouds.  I think we are having one of the best cloud summers ever in Colorado. A best friend has started calling me “cloud girl”. I’m really not sure why this preoccupation came about, though I’ve always liked clouds, or at least since I painted them all over my son’s ceiling when he was 5. I remember then that suddenly, what was just background noise popped and became a constantly changing diorama of inspiration.

Painting makes you notice.  Suddenly you stop seeing just the big picture and you see the details of what you are trying to capture.  Recently I’ve found the same is true of writing. It’s impossible to try to capture what you aren’t paying attention to. Perhaps that is why I’m so entranced by clouds this summer.  Perhaps I’m finally paying attention – to life, to where I am, and not just to where I’m putting my feet. (Yeah, we’ll see how long it will last 🙂 ).

The clouds are never the same.  I’m sitting outside on my deck, and there are new clouds compared to ten minutes ago when I sat down. They were light and fluffy, but the big gray one with little color differentiation has moved around from my peripheral vision into the front. I like change, in general.  I’m the proverbial butterfly as all my friends know.

Of course, what I like is movement, preferably aesthetic, not upheaval.   (I’m eying that dark cloud suspiciously, and wouldn’t be very happy it if started raining on me). I happen to be in a good point in my life right now that paying attention is easy.  Sometimes when the proverbial big gray cloud comes around, and there really isn’t any detail to see, it’s hard to keep paying attention.  I get that.

But looking down isn’t going to change what cloud is above you.  One of my favorite therapists (yes, I have more than one favorite therapist, and yes, I really do sometimes need more than one) used to say, when you don’t know what else to do, just look up.  Physically, look up. There is something about looking above the horizon that helps our outlook, both literally and metaphorically.

So whatever you would like to do, but aren’t actually doing, try paying attention and see what happens.  Pay attention to the clouds for a while.  Sit with a cup of coffee and see if you can just be with them for a while.  (I lasted 5 minutes. I’ll try for 6 tomorrow).

And if what you want to do is write (because it is, for so many of us), just start. Writing doesn’t always take us where we want to go.  I’ve had a big revelation lately – if I want to know how I feel about something, I just start writing.  Today, I noticed the clouds (for the several-hundredth time) and as I started self-justifying my obsession in my head, I thought, “Huh. What’s that about?”  All I started with was, “this summer I have been obsessed with clouds.”  That’s really all I had. (Oh, and a resolution to write a little something every morning, and a lack of inspiration about what I had planned to write about).  The rest was sitting there waiting for me to find it once I started writing.  A lot of things about life are like that, I think.

Pay attention, and then just start.  Let they journey take you where it will.

Oh, yeah, I guess then I have to just follow my own advice, and just hit Publish.  Hmmm, maybe I’ll watch the clouds a little more first….