Here Come the Birds

Birds round 1:  I can now fold the swans with ease.  Next will be cranes, a more complicated folding process. Most are headed to be mobiles that will eventually be hung outside to weather and dissolve away along with their obsessed scratchings.  Some will be flattened and collaged into something else that I'm beginning today.  I'm really pleased with how this is going and how many ideas are coming out of this little directive of making new art from old.

I want to cut out profiles of other birds-swallows, wrens, hummingbirds and other favorites-to also collage.  I've not collaged very much and I'm digging through old magazines for some images and words to use. Much fun will be happening today.

Day one of new job: Every insecurity I have comes out when I go into the unfamiliar, especially when it involves a job I've really longed to have in a vague, fantasy way.  It's been manifested, I have that dream job, and after the first day I'm seeing the steep learning curve ahead to learn about all these different sewing/embroidery/serger machines and discovered that I've been doing a couple of things incorrectly on my own machine.  So out comes the manual to my machine to study up on, and the workbook I got when I took the classes to learn how to use my machine (as part of the new job includes teaching those classes eventually).

To keep the anxiety down I have to keep my sights on baby steps and off the panic button.  I'm reading a book, The Disorganized Mind, which is a guide to self-coaching the ADHD mind. It's really helpful for catching myself in the act of "all or nothing, black or white" thinking that precipitates panicking.  Most of it goes straight to fail/succeed options. In that mind set, for example, if you're dieting and you have the slice of chocolate cake, you've now failed and the whole diet goes out the window.  That same mind set can be applied to many life circumstances where one misstep tanks the entire endeavor. For ADD-ers (which I confess I have a touch of), who may have a life history of being criticized for their unique way of approaching the world, this can be magnified to not just having made a mistake but also to thinking "I am a mistake." This is the piece I am working on, not giving up before I even start because I could make a mistake, ie FAIL. Learning happens when we make mistakes. We remember what we learned because of having done it incorrectly.

So I have to be willing to make mistakes, to misstep here and there, because this is an opportunity to grow in a very major direction that is the direction I want to be taking.  There will be butterflies, there may be a panic attack here and there, but more important, I will be growing, learning, and finding continuity across my life.  The opportunity is to stretch who I am and become who I know myself to be, the one in hiding, ready to come on out and play!