January 5, 2016
"Our daily lives are wondrous. It's the small things."
I heard this on the radio last night as I stood in my kitchen slicing juicy red beets into a cast iron pan and wishing for more hours in the day.
This new year already has a cadence much like the old one. I had a feeling it would. Forty years of experience have taught me that change happens in a heartbeat but transition takes longer. Transformation, well, that takes even longer still.
I had hoped by some magic, though, I would find longer hours in 2016 days. They still feel short.
Today is Tuesday and my daily work is laid out before me...spreadsheets, messaging, AP Stylebook, a bursting email box, my phone. A list of things done and yet-to-do, an accounting of my time since 9 a.m. It is now nearly 3 o'clock.
Maybe, like my friend Amanda Ford suggested last year, I can learn to become a creative ninja. A ninja jumps in and out, finds opportunity in small moments, moves swiftly, with agility, passion, and seeming nonchalance. She is alert, awake, aware, patient, ready, and she acts. Boldly. In tiny minutes she does big things.
This 15 minute break to photograph the light in my office and write a short note to share with you...it's ninja practice. I want to do more. I thought about photographing the mud on my sidewalk this morning because it moved my heart...it reminded me of how all of us are down here in the brown mess of early January together, trying to feel new again and quietly wondering if we might be stuck.
My camera was not with me. It sparked a thought:
"I want to carry my camera everywhere this year. Everywhere."
So now I have a New Year's Resolution. To be a camera-carrying creative ninja. Every single day.
You?
xo
laura