Pressing On

"Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan 'Press On' has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race." Calvin Coolidge (1872 - 1933)

Preparing for this upcoming art show is teaching me about persistence. What I'm experiencing as I enter the final push, painting and framing and packing, is, on a small scale what I deal with every day with MTBI. I only now realized that there was a parallel. Funny how writing the blog has allowed me to find all sorts of connections to other areas of my life. There have been dozens of moments when I just felt like calling the whole thing off. Then I took a deep breath and just kept on working.

This project is going to be very taxing. Honestly, I'm not sure I'll have the stamina to do it. The preparation itself is extremely draining. I've done more paintings in the last five days than I've done in the last year. Normally I don't have the time to paint unless I'm doing it specifically for a show. That usually means scrambling at the last minute and a healthy dose of stress. Part of adapting to the broken brain is controlling stressful situations. Since there are so many stressors that are completely beyond control it's important to manage the ones you can.

In this case I've set a goal of 100 paintings. (Don't worry they're small.) Odds are I will not finish all 100 but that's fine. I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Really, I was just trying to see how many I could get done. The count stands at 40 so far, and if I don't finish any more I can still be proud of that.

Today I completed a large painting for a different show. It was a scene that I've been wanting to paint for at least three years so I was excited to finally do it. Pictures of the finished product will be posted on my Art Blog (www.LAMestishen.blogspot.com). Seeing how much I can accomplish when I'm focused on one thing has really made me wonder what I could do if that was what my life was like all the time. So much of my energy is spent dashing from one appointment to another and from class to class, I feel like I live in my car. Although I do attempt to schedule at least one non-driving day per week far too much of my life is spent in transit. What would happen if I only did one thing? Most people only do one thing, why shouldn't I?

Apart from the fact that I've always been very active, and used to pride myself on my ability to multi-task, it often seems like there is just so much that needs to be done I can't imagine not doing it. There is an element of "catch up" as well. Having spent so much time getting back to normal, whatever that is, I sometimes fall into the trap of trying to make up for lost time. The futility of this is readily apparent. I'm still not back to "normal" and probably never will be. Now, the challenge is discovering what is the new normal. Determining that will take time, and persistence.

P.S. I am noticing that my spelling is getting better. There are still good days and bad days but slowly, there are fewer and fewer flags on the spell-check. I take this as a good sign.