The curse of the creative.
I think a lot.
A lot.
My poor brain. I work so hard to turn it off. There are multiple obsessions… I ponder my business and how to support my oil team, I ponder my patisserie and what kind of equipment I’ll need… what kind of menu I will offer…. what books my kids should be reading this week…
I ponder my life and why I constantly feel like I don’t fit in. Even with the people that love me dearly. Sometimes it just feels like a life apart.
It’s a personal hang up, I know, this but a phone conversation the other day with my dear friend Shaye shed some light and some articulation on these feelings that roll around thru the stone tumbler that is my mind. Like, I know I’m weird. We have a truckload of offspring by modern standards, we don’t own a TV, we don’t own a microwave, we home birth, we make other controversial decision with our kids… we butcher our own pigs for crying out loud. But it’s more than that…
I’m a rebellious, gipsy-hearted, entrepreneur… I don’t want to live in “beige-land“. I want romance, beauty, art, music, wine, sexiness, music and warmth… But it comes with some sacrifice… and dare I say, a ton of insanity.
It’s the curse of the creative and I’ve had this conversation with many fellow creative souls.
See, my problem is, like Shaye and I discussed…. our life is like a watercolour. Everything simply smears together. Nothing is black and white. Everything bleeds into everything else. Nothing is cut and dried. Clean and clear.
We make a huge breakfast every morning, it bleeds into my morning workout, it bleeds into school. No one leaves for the day (we are a full-time family). There are NO moments of silence, no pause in the familial chaos.
We do school together at the kitchen table cause we live in a mouse house and there is nowhere else to go right now, drama breaks out or two of the six decide that it’s time for breakfast number two (come on, you stay at home moms understand breakfast number two!!!)
We finish an animal project outside and I decide it’s time to learn a new homesteading skill or I get my eye on a new beautiful blue eyed buck and… BAM! Trips to the lumberyard, the feed store, studying up on YouTube videos… then there’s heat lamps, deadstock and feathers and poop and chaos…
See, we’re not the type to hire a designer, finish a room and be done with it til it’s out of style twenty years later….I’m not the type to wear khaki pants and a mom shirt… I am constantly expressing myself with my wardrobe (Holla! Charming Charlie, masked balls runs!) …And God forbid I buy pasta sauce off the shelf – NO, I have to make 30 quarts at time of my own.
I mean for crying out loud, I’m making my own prosciutto.
#martyrstatus
Do you catch me? Our lives are a giant “German Shmear”!!! Nothing is ever done. And if it is, then there’s a new skill to learn or a new-to-die-for-sofa that will land in my lap that I’ll want to refinish and redesign my entire living room around. Or some giant schoolroom chalkboard that I’ve decided should but my room in half. Or I get a burr up my butt that I want “and Outlander Christmas” in order to fully “express myself” and I have to drive all over Chicagoland to find that banging Nicole Miller plaid fabric (follow me on Instagram)
I’ve fallen in love with…NOT to mention that we are going to be moving in the next year and BAM! I won’t be renting anymore….I’m going to FINALLY be able to be the creative nut job I haven’t been for the last five years of renting. Nothing is ever done…NOTHING…. and I LIKE it that way. Everything is a creative process but sometimes, when you’re looking over the fence, the grass looks greener, organized, cleaner and much more orderly.
It looks finished.
Like just pouring your husband a glass of wine, cutting him some apples and cheese and enjoying the roses he so graciously bought you.
Nope, that’s not good enough. Let me create something, even if it’s some lame photographs, with this beauty.
Sigh.
As good as it looks. I can’t imagine a finished life.
So – don’t get me wrong. I love being a proud member of the anti-beigeland-society but damn, often, it’s exhausting. It’s beautiful, gorgeous, fun and it tastes delicious but somedays…. when the laundry is piling up and there are scrap fabric and pins on the floor…. when there are glitter and potting soil all over your kitchen, when there are stinking chicks under a heat lamp on your porch and dripping honey frames sitting on your dryer and you just want some ORDER and tranquilité.… well, you wonder if your khaki wearing, showroom furniture buying friends have something that you don’t have???
I have my insecure moments. Yes, I do. I crave order and neatness. But, the stacked towels and perfect powder rooms my friends have, I know, that’s not for me. Greener isn’t always better for the creative soul and…
You know what they don’t have? Homemade prosciutto.
There can be in order in any life … but it takes different forms. I think that, if you look at your days – in and out, in and out, you will find that you and your family have your little rituals. It is these little rituals, not a finished project or a clean laundry room, that provides the order your soul craves. I love boundaries and order but I also need and crave beauty and life … so my garden is laid out in a very formal manner but there are flowers with the veggies and they spill over beyond their boundaries and it is in this tension that the beauty emerges.
Ummm, are you my twin? Cause I swear we were seperated at birth!
Bravo. Every. Word.
Beautiful Life.
Xx
Love your French beauty here.
Xx
Bisous
Doré
**applause** I love this!
I know how you feel! I wonder if I have too many passions because I always have several projects going at once, & it can be overwhelming amidst the glorious chaos of rearing young children. I’m trying to be better about finishing one creative project or endeavor before starting another, & it has helped my sanity a little. (Even just making myself finish one task, like making the bed, before starting the next one, like emptying the dishwasher, has helped). Bon courage!
Ah, this sounds and feels like me (minus the hubby-bought roses and homemade proscuitto). I’ve just been bemoaning the fact that all I do is cook and clean and the kids always want MORE food and nothing is ever really clean. It’s madness, I tell you. I’m blessed… but it’s madness.
Angela,
There may be disorder but you are living an authentic life and it’s sexy as hell! If you were doing it “perfectly” it would be stepford and that’s creepy and unholy. Chickens, babies and velvet (and apparently prosciutto)….should all go together. Yay for the people with perfectly coiffed bath towels/rooms but double, triple Yay for doing it “real”. I admire that & you!
Mary
Coiffed bath towels! I love it! Perfect description.
You always inspire! 🙂
I so know the feeling of not fitting in. I’m a momma of 8, a homeschooler, homesteader, and homemaker, but I wouldn’t have it any other way! We are the lucky ones! NO, not lucky… BLESSED by the Lord.
Oh girl. Rush ahead 10 years and you are me. It doesn’t get better when your sweet children get older. It. Might. Be. Worse.
You just described me. Problem is . . .I think the beigeland brigade is so very strange. I try very hard to get it. I just don’t get it. Matchy matchy makes me anxious. I have raised two creative children. I love who God made us. It’s an interesting way to live.
Angela, It is beauty, it does have flow and the only people it needs to please is the hearts that dwell in that home. It’s your journey and there are no rules!
It’s lovely!
xo,
Gail
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. I’m nursing an egg-bound chicken, loving on a sleep-deprived toddler, welcoming home my husband, and trying to get a handle on the mess of the house after sickness. Can’t imagine life without any of the members of our family, animal and human, tho! 🙂
Wanted to drop you an email, but the link isn’t working for me, so I’ll just leave a comment and hope you see it. Been reading off and on for a while and have had a really strong urge to leave a book recommendation for you. Can’t get over the thought that you would enjoy it as much as I did. “The Lost Art of Dress”. I learned SO much and was completely inspired and educated by it- my favorite kind of reads! Just thought I would share, for whatever it’s worth. Seemed like it might be right up your alley.
Oh man – this sounds PERFECT! I’m always talking about those very words so I would really enjoy a book with that title!! I’ll have to check it out.
If you do read it, I would love to hear (read) your thoughts on it.
This made me laugh because you are not the only one!
They say its the creative souls that feel this way. We feel out of place, no one gets us, and we don’t care LOL
If I didn’t look exactly like my mother I’d swear I was adopted. And so many times I feel like I was born in the wrong era. Now mind you I don’t butcher animals and I don’t think I could unless I HAD to. (Like put a gun to my head HAD to) but I do love to be out in the garden and grow my own food and make food from scratch.
I am content being home doing the things that other women find annoying and would prefer to higher some one else to do.
I need color in my life, I can’t stand white kitchen cabinets white counter tops and white walls LOL I can go to the hospital for that design! No I need warm cozy colors, very french country type of style for me!
If only the days were longer, the things I could get into!!
Oh this is so perfect!! Loved every word <3
Sounds like our home as my children were growing up. We homeschooled all four, often sitting around the kitchen table with workbooks, an audio of Chronicles of Narnia playing at times on break while the kids sipped hot chocolate. Many “second” breakfasts or “elevensees” as my kids and husband fondly refer to them! My husband telecommutes, so we were all together, every day, all day, and we wouldn’t have had it any other way! And yes, I feel out of place with most of the people I know, but we sure do have an interesting life! With most of my kids grown now, I think of those days and how much they meant to us. So happy that you get to spend your days with your kiddos. There’s no other way in my opinion. Such a blessing, messy house and all.
Love your blog! Maybe you are a bit different than others, but God made you that way. Enjoy it!! I am 74 and still can, freeze bake bread and re-decorate our home often. I sell at an Antique Mall and have 2 FB pages …one for my business and one for thrifty ideas in the kitchen. We also enjoy time with our grands and great grands. Life is what you make it. I pray that I can keep this lifestyle up for many more years.