Moving Shop

Well, This is something that I thought it was important to put in, but it is certainly late in being written. And yet, it still applies. Perhaps that is why it is so important.

I moved my shop 4 years ago now – closer to 5 at this point. And my shop spaces are still in chaos.

There are certainly a multitude of reasons for this – but the longer it goes on the worse it gets.

My thought was “I'm moving to a bigger space, it will be easy to get it all organized and then I can have a great space and be more efficient.”

Great theory.

Moving a forge space is never an easy task. The weight of the tools involved, and their bulk makes it draining and awkward at best, even when it is exciting. Moving a household is also never an easy task. Now tack on a wig studio, make-up supplies, a jewellery studio and a tin shop.

And immediately after the move, go abroad for 6 weeks and on return straight into a theatre contract.

Now, I know, this sounds like whining. And maybe it is, a bit...not that there is anything at all to whine about – all those events are pretty great.

 But one of the things I want to do here is think about, speculate about, talk about the reasons for the chaotic spaces with the hope of understanding more about my motives (or lack thereof). All in the hopes of making things better.

Let's start with some of the more obvious bits.

A chaotic space can be indicative of inner chaos. Well...that says about all it needs to say, and certainly it is true. Interestingly, I started to write this piece nearly a year ago, and things have been improving in some of my spaces. In part, at least, because I have slowly been able to begin to formulate an idea of what my new life might look like...what I might be able to create now that I am beginning to see what is really happening with my time and my space. Beginning being a very important word. Nearly 5 years in and I'm only beginning to see the patterns and possibilities.

It has also taken this long for me to get a feel for what I want things to be. I had some very lofty ideas, I'm sure, when I was dreaming about all this. Fitting the elements of the imagined life that still work for me into the life I am trying to create is a huge and daunting process, especially since that needs to have some basis in the reality of how this all really works.

There are things I had thought I wanted that are, looking back, unrealistic and ridiculous. They aren't even things I want – they are things I thought I might want, but they didn't hold up to scrutiny. There are things that are now in my line of vision that I hadn't even been able to imagine before. Life is active, not static. Change is something we can count on, and should look forward to – even the hard changes – the ones that feel awful are often the most valuable ones.

Now that I am beginning to get a better idea of things I can start to commit to the ideas. That is another reason for the chaos – lack of commitment to a space, a practice, an idea...Some of that lack of commitment came from a fundamental lack of belief in what was possible. What was deserved, what was allowed – pick your baggage. It all boils down to the same thing. We can't commit to something we don't believe in – not in any way that counts. I wasn't willing to commit the time to the spaces to make things work well...yes, that's right. Self sabotage.

Having the time to use the space and see how it will really function is also in there. How much space do you dedicate to each of the fundamental bits? You can't know that without understanding how you work in a space. Knowing how you work period is a big part of that, but how that translates into any given space is a whole other dimension. Particularly when the space has (or has to have) multiple uses. And so, you have to make the time to work in the space to see how you work in the space and – you see where I'm going here, don't you? This too is getting better.

With time, almost all things are possible. And the only way to get the time is really to make the time. I manage to make time for all the things that I have to – I've always managed that. I can make time for the outside world, but not for myself. So that is another thing that I am working toward changing. But that, too, is a delicate balance.

Once upon a time I'd make time by staying up most of the night to work a job. Or by never taking time off – working (once) an insane stretch of days (something like 45 I think) 18 to 20 hour days with not a day off – each containing multiple jobs (usually about 3 or 4). Guess what? I'm not doing those things. Ever again. I couldn't if I wanted to. True, I was a lot younger then, and a lot more stupid. Oh, and just so you know? I don't recommend it. It was dumb, and stunts like that broke me in more ways than one. I did it because I didn't see any other way. There is always something that you miss if only you look, with an open mind, and ask the right questions.

So now, I need to find other ways to make time. And I am working on new disciplines. One of them is making sure I don't go back to that path where I make crazy stupid choices out of sheer habit. Making sure that what I'm making time for is the things that are important to me, to my new life. I still put too much into the schedule, but I am working on recognizing the price and how to defer the cost – better juggling the time I have to fit in a little of everything...or so I hope.

Having supportive, patient people around you – taking the time to be with them, listen to their perspective and just be in that positive space and out of your own head, that helps immensely. And don't kid yourself – that is important, hugely so. Whether it is taking time to walk through a local garden space and get out of your own head, or giving yourself the time to go to dinner or for a coffee with friends and connect with someone else...that is all a part of it. It lets you step back and get a little perspective on where you are and where you are going. Can't see the forest for the trees is a real thing, and however you manage to step back, it will stop you walking in circles through the woods.

It seems like this has little to do with moving shop, but to me,  it has everything to do with it. Moving shop isn't just about the physical placement of the tools (and when mine is closer to done there will be more on how it ends up getting set up) – it is about how you fit in your space. And how your space fits you. Without that, the rest is a bit moot. It's process. And if the process is all surface, it won't hold.

Change is hard, and change takes practice. It takes commitment. It take dedication and a willingness to step back and look critically at what you are doing and adjust as needed. Whether the adjustment is because you are falling back into old patterns, or whether it is because you haven't quite got it sussed just yet and you need to re-think. It is hard to be flexible, to not berate yourself for not knowing better – not doing better, not seeing that thing you missed. But change is life, life is change. It is all the same skill set, its just in how you apply it.

Processing change - reflections

Turn to face the strange....

Life changes, people change, the world changes...change is a constant, and some are grand, some are minute. The sky is always a perfect sky, but it is never the same (or something like that – from Illusions by Richard Bach.) Change can prove to be for the better or the worse, and what is minute can feel monumental or vice-versa.

In my previous posts of the blog, I talked some about the wealth of changes I've been undertaking over the past number of years. Or maybe that I've been overtaken by. I've moved house, and moved from urban back to rural (which makes me very, very happy!) Gone from taking the TTC to my theatre job to having to commute in from rural Ontario, often stay in the city for days – or sometimes weeks – at a time, and have a split life of home and “away”. This would be made easier and less of a change, perhaps, if I had a place to stay in the city that was my own. Then I could just be moving from Country Mouse to City Mouse and back...but anyone who is currently renting in Toronto knows what those prices are like and supporting 2 places on my budget is an absolute no-go...as it is with most people in my situation. (Also another change – with the city to country thing...I am finally living (almost) within my means. So the idea of adding an expense that puts me back in the cycle of being unable to afford my life is not an option I want to take, if I can help it.)  And again, in hindsight, Country Mouse/City Mouse is not all that easy either.  It is still a split, and there is never quite the thing you need, or the sense of home.  At least not for me, so far in the versions I've tried...but then, I'm difficult.

I've moved from being single – for what feels like most of my life – no offense to previous partners, some of whom were quite long term – to being someone's significant other, and to having a significant other. From living as a single person to living in a shared household. I've gone from someone who had only rarely been out of the country – or even the province, to someone who has been overseas multiple times. What else...oh, it turns out that I've gone from being part of a very small family to realizing what it means to have a LOT of relatives - in Scotland. (I always knew about them as a theory, but it is a different thing when the theory has you come for tea.)

And most importantly, I've realized that in order to make this work I have to get serious about making my business and the work I produce more viable. I have to make an actual effort to sell some of it so that I can continue to live in my rural paradise and still eat. And maybe choose how much I commute. In the city I always got by, in part by taking lots of little jobs that were as diverse as a piece of string is long. Over the past few years – or, I suppose, over the past decade those jobs have slowly started to go by the wayside. Some because I let them go, some because they had run their course. And now, the few I have left are coming to the natural end of their life cycle.

My first thought was, I can get a part-time job up here. That, it on more careful thought, requires either a commitment I'm not yet ready to make, or decisions I'm not yet comfortable with. Not to mention jobs up here are scarce, as they are everywhere. Mostly though, I am stopped by the fact that I can't get a “conventional” part-time job unless I am willing to give up my theatre career (which is also, by nature, part-time). And I am not there yet. Strangely, employers are not keen to hire part-time staff who need about 6 weeks off, three times a year or so. Oh, and those are usually evenings and the ever popular weekends. And then there are those fantastic trips over the big waters I've mentioned.

All of this makes me not so much the most desirable employee prospect. No matter how hard I work when I am there. And all this time away from my new home means I'm not making the kind of contacts I had the luck to find in the city – people who needed casual help when I was not otherwise occupied and yes, odd hours – sometimes after midnight – with long gaps was fine. I know how rare and special those contacts were and are, and I have loved each of them for what they have allowed me to do. I think the likelihood of any of them appearing in my current whereabouts are slim, so that means getting down to business. Which is why I'm here, at this moment, writing this blog.

I mentioned that I am a sporadic writer, and a sporadic artist/maker. It is not that I don't have discipline...there are certainly times when my discipline is questionable. But I work from inspiration, and from an overwhelming need to work. That can, I expect, be nurtured to some degree, by being disciplined. It is something I have been learning about as I begin to understand the way artists in the UK particularly seem to work. But, like all of us, I have to eat and keep myself in a home, and frankly, if I'm not inspired or at least intrigued then my work is not worthwhile doing. What comes out is junk. (I know that there are those who will think it is junk when I am inspired....sometimes I'm one of them.)

So the way I had structured my life left me less time and energy for making stuff, inspired or not. And now, all these years in I have to try to learn some new tricks. This is all part and parcel of nurturing that creativity...the part of me that questions and examines and is filled with wonder and awe at the world around me. I have to become less sporadic and believe that what I produce might not be junk. And if it is junk I need to make it junk I can learn from and grow from rather than going into that desolate spiral that tells me that I am junk, therefore all I produce is junk and so shall it be forever more.

 

It is the journey of a lifetime for most of us to realize that we are not failures. We fail sometimes, sometimes often, sometimes seemingly endlessly. But if we persevere we are not failures.

It is a strange mirror – once my writings were fueled by sadness and turmoil and struggles and they helped me to make space inside myself for hope and quiet. Now I am writing from hope and quiet (sometimes, at least) and my writings are fueled by creation and missteps and the ability to hold that quiet and look at the things that cause ripples in it and see my reflection rather than just the ripples. And to know that they are ripples, rather than tidal waves. A great deal of that comes with age I expect, and experience. I am lucky to have and grateful for the ability to be able to turn and face what is before me, and to know that however rough the terrain is I have a reasonably comfortable seat to ride it out in.

Nature vs. nurture?

I am not a blogger by nature – as I'm sure anyone who has been reading this blog has guessed.. When I first heard of them I thought they were an odd idea and couldn't see their appeal – not for the readers, anyway.   I am beginning to come around – in terms of some kind of understanding at least. And I have read blogs that I have appreciated (as well as ones that I have not.) I am a reader, but I'm not much of a blog reader...There are some I've begun to read if they catch my eye when I have a moment, but I'm not very good at following... (blogs). But then, I'm trying to change (some) of my ways.

Rather than the previous sad attempts I made at this blog which are evidenced in its archives, I started a number of months before I thought I would have the guts to publish any of it. (It turns out that I wrote two initial “I'm trying to restart the blog” postings...Very different ways of saying some of the the same things. This includes some of the remains of the one that didn't get published....)

Every time I think I have something to write, I write it and stash it in a file. I think I've mentioned that before. So what you are reading may well not be what is happening just now...I figured if I had a small stockpile that just needed a tweak before I put them out I might manage to keep ahead of the curve. That is part of why you will find this has headings and sub-headings.

So anyone does actually read this and they like, for example, reading about me making an absolute catastrophe of a project I tried and looking back on it – hopefully with some insight as to where it went off the rails – they know they want to read bits of the Learning Curves grouping, for example. It will make it easier to skip over installments, in theory at least.

It also makes it easier – at the moment – for me to write them. There will be lots of sections that will fit just as well under one grouping as another, they are all connected by that central pivot, my experiences and thoughts and processes. The truth is, I have become a very sporadic writer. I used to spend huge amounts of my time writing. I couldn't hold things in without getting really full, so I wrote about them. I know lots of people who did the same – when they were younger. I never thought I'd lose that, but I stopped finding the time. I stopped waking up in the middle of the night needing to write.

Or, I suppose, mostly. Because it is just before 3 and I got out of bed because I certainly wasn't going to sleep, so here I am. Certainly when it comes to this blog I am a sporadic writer. Sometimes things will come in waves and then I won't write again for months, or years. (I am also a bit of a sporadic artist/maker when it comes to that...) So writing in themes and entries is an easier way for me to stockpile them. Because that is what I'm doing.

It is one of the tools I'm using to make the changes I clearly need to make.  I am trying the nature vs. nurture approach...if it is not in my nature, perhaps I can create the change by nurture...

Life is all about change and most of us

have as much or more of it than we can handle at any given moment. In the past few years I've been in a whirlwind of change – but as we so often do, I'm not sure I've been changing with it. Certainly not at the rate of the changes surrounding me. I've been lagging sorely behind in my ability to keep up and cope.

Since I appear to be changing everything else in my life, why not see if I can initiate some crucial positive changes in how I work, how I write....The thing about change en masse is that it kind of wipes the slate clean. Enough change basically makes you start again – almost from scratch but with a more advanced toolkit to start with and a better idea of how to develop a plan and move forward, provided you are someone able to learn from mistakes, that is.

And that is what some installments are going to be about – not just my changes and challenges, but ones that so many people face – and some of the tools I use to try to make things work. Like this blog is becoming a learning tool...and maybe it can be a teaching tool too, at some point.