Monday muddle

"No breakfast till you at least start looking for it."

Somewhere in the heaps of papers that have been ignored since I moved back to the flat in December is a vital bit of paper. Today I started looking for it in earnest - which means, first thing in the morning, in dressing gown and slippers and with only a cup of coffee as fuel - the breakfast (and its book) will have to wait.

So - set the timer for 15 minutes ... do you do that, when there's something unwelcome needing doing? I find it gets me going, helps me concentrate on the task at hand. 15 minutes isn't long, but you can get a lot done if you don't let yourself get distracted. And that's the problem - distraction.

First lot of distraction came along when I found some happy memories from the summer - a talk at the Royal Society, a concert at King's Place, a walk around Bloomsbury, a quick brush-lettering session at Kew Gardens (in the rain! "rain is beautiful") -

Take a photo, and release the objects.

More nostalgia, this time about my days in Manchester with Helen and Mike, the perfect hosts. Exhibitions and libraries - and a beer festival -

Same routine: remember and discard.

And then ... all these saved papers from months and years ago, spilling out of folders, and the stack of lovely little booklets from exhibitions -

I don't know what to do about all these, and the others that I know are elsewhere. I started collecting info about exhibitions during the foundation art course, 2009 - that's a lot of paper! Logic says "you'll never look at them again" and common sense says "go forward, not back", but they are fighting a deep-rooted desire to collect, to organise, to not waste ... whether that's a waste of experience or of information. In my childhood I did not dream of such riches as are now available, but made do with the occasional visit to the poorly-stocked library. Yet, writing that I see a loophole and a chink of illumination on the problem. It'll take some thinking through....

Meanwhile this delight resurfaced - I just love it -

 And here's a relevant passage from an old journal*, back in the "morning pages" days - 2003, ah yes that was a tricky time....

"Ah my little books. Ah my rich life! Remember M the aim is to have an INTERESTING life. Roses round the door - NO. Interesting life - YES. So it was once and is again. What one thing can I do today toward this -- blank -- oh dear! Read.... Clear away a few papers. Sort out that ... form. Declutter the workroom for 15 min. Contact a friend..."

And then there was this, from the very first CQ summer school I went to - a fun exercise in improvising with shapes and colours. I don't need it any more, and it's of no use to anyone else.

*The journal, on closer inspection, yielded a Portent -

which might need to be kept somewhere ... and the rest of the book can inked up interestingly (or therapeutically) in a spare moment - !