Artist's Date

I know a lot of people who swear by Julia Cameron's "The Artist's Way."

I bought a second hand copy a few years ago and read it. I thought it was fun but not life-changing. And I immediately bridled at the idea of morning pages, which is the central teaching of the book. I've kept a diary since I was eight and I am now on volume 28. I don't have an issue with finding time to sit down and write what's on my mind. But I don't do it first thing in the morning. The first thing I do every day is to sit in our darkened dining room with a cup of tea and whatever book I'm reading. I find it inspirational to start with the words of others and then warm my courage up to facing my own.

But I do like the idea of artist's dates. When I started my current "schedule" I promised myself I would do something fun and unusual each week. I would go to museums or galleries I've never seen, go to art supply stores to look at the paints, go look at high end jewelry just to see how the stones glitter. But it hasn't really happened yet. I've gotten too involved with my writing project and each day feels like I'm behind and I don't want to leave what I'm doing.

Yesterday I persuaded myself to go for a walk in the late afternoon to enjoy the first day after the time change and cleared my head. I slipped my camera in my pocket and walked to the same park I always walk through, full of native California coastal plants. I wanted to take some pictures of the rocks in the park. But instead, I noticed all of the wildflowers that have bloomed since the last time I took this walk. And I took pictures of all of the different flowering plants I saw. The wildflowers are each so small and are encompassed in so much green that I found I didn't notice how beautiful they were until I tried to capture photos of them. So that was my artist's date for this week.