In Praise of Downtime

Quiet Seattle.
The Facebook Page "Quiet Seattle" caught my eye.

It drew me in those oh so still and tranquil images. The sheet billowing on a clothesline in the sun, a squirrel perched on a deck sniffing the air, the abandoned rusty milk truck in the meadow of overgrown wild flowers ... those images conjuring up a sense of quietness, stillness, a Little House on the Prairie Relaxed vibe.

And I don't appear to be the only drawn to the stillness.
This page has 68 other "likers".
Then again the page "Eating all the fries before you get home" has 3,076 likers so maybe that doesn't mean much.

What I can say is it captured MY attention. And I think I know why.
There is something about those pictures to me that murmurs "downtime". Everything seems to have slowed down or stopped - reminding me of why I like the day after big snowstorms so much - that outside-imposed slowness I don't realize I crave until it finally gets handed to me.

In Week 4 of the Artist Way, Julia talks about how "artists must have downtime, time to do nothing." She does not qualify this by saying "this is a good idea" or "you should consider ..." no she says you "must" have downtime.
Must.
This is not the easiest thing for me.

Downtime?
If I'm not "doing", I easily fall in to thinking I'm wasting my time or (God forbid) not being productive. What I am reminded when I read this chapter is how downtime can be the most productive thing I can do for myself. Giving into that feeling of exhaustion that is dropping on your eyelid that whispers "take a nap, you'll feel better if you do" or to the thought "come on just read that 5th Harry Potter book ... you know you want to!" or listening to what my snipe at the store clerk is really telling me ... "you've not done enough of nothing lately." My inner downtime creative muse often has to get a little unpleasant for me to heed the call.

Julia says that "An artist requires the upkeep of creative solitude. And that without, our artists becomes depleted." She goes onto talk about what this really is is a Virtue Trap. We deny ourselves the very thing that will feed us and help us grow both as artists but as partners, friends and workers. Julia notes that "Afraid to appear selfish, we lose our self. We become self-destructive." The question she poses "are you destructive of your true nature" is a powerful one to look at and answer of ourselves.

The questions Julia has us ask to challenge the self-destructive patterns we can fall into are "What are my needs?" "What would I do if it weren't too selfish?"

My answers this week:
1. Buy a harmonica
2. Build a treehouse and sleep in it
3. Walk the Cinque Terre coast in Italy

How about you?

Comment away as we'd love to hear your thoughts. I'll read them very soon.

But right now I'm being dragged by my internal Dobby creative force (tip 'o the hat to Elizabeth Gilbert for the image) to do my downtime homework ... to plod off to bed to read all about Harry's latest adventures and then settle in for a nap. Just the idea of it makes my shoulders drop.

I could get used to this.

Hope you take some time for yourself this week too.

Best,
Kate

Photo at top from Kate's recent artist date wandering among Seattle's houseboats.