Time

No matter how hard I try, I can't get a hold of the time... I have really tried. I clear my mornings, I clear my afternoons, but they don't stay cleared. There are an innumerable number of worthy, and even extremely worthy ways to encroach upon the time I am trying to dedicate to creative endeavours. I've read, planned, carved, scheduled, tracked, promised, committed - done all sorts to save the time... but it always withers away. There isn't time to get ready in the morning, eat, tidy, write an email, take a call, let alone the avalanche of 'everything else' that follows. The 'everything else' (wrong word but can't come up with another...things, people, events, appointments, errands, etc.)  that call are important and I want them in my life... I choose them, but I want a little creative time, and I can't get it to consistently happen.

To do it I would have to get militant, as in "Do Not, Under Any Circumstances, Call, Write, Interact, or Ask Me Anything etc.,  Before 1 PM Ever.", or, and maybe this is the key, accept that the only time I really have to myself is late at night, and just schedule that time for myself. The problem is that I am tired often by then, so I looked, (longed) for the morning time... but I'm not an early morning person, so that is the crux. By the time I'm ready - it's 11 AM and the encroaching occurs shortly thereafter... If I could save 11-1 PM that would be 2 hours... it's hard my friends... it's hard.

This is a quote that I like from Kathleen Norris' book called The Cloister Walk, which is quoted in the book Found: A Story of Questions, Grace & Everyday Prayer: Micha Boyett
(previous post):

"Norris describes a monastic perspective that perceives time as a gift to be welcomed, not an enemy to be wrestled."

I wrestle still, I wrestle. I try not to... do things in the spirit if Huggye, yet for this creative time that I crave, I wrestle.