Rainy days

I baked gingerbread today to fight off the rainy cold that has snuck back into the days here. The fog and rain have swept in amazing sea things in the weeks past, from ice to seals (though dead), Capelin (fish) that have provided food for the whales and birds, and of course my favorites the plankton, zooplankton, jellyfish and sea snails. I try to remind myself that this place is best in fog, though I am having a harder time with the rain. It did drive me back to my to do list which was growing so long that it seemed impossible to overlook. I had to do obvious things like organize the mess of papers that I continued to pack without sorting through. I had to organize the DVD’s and actually try to make some kind of label system that I would later recognize as order. Last but not least I had to try to figure out what is next.

It is a funny thing that happens when traveling, time suddenly is running. I went for a few outings to view nature again after feeling like a hermit in my room. I went out at night as well so to hear a friend’s band play. At some point the fun activities became too much like distractions that never end, and the to do list grows. I need to recapture the tenuous balance that allows order in the relative chaos that is travel. At times I need little more than the smell of homemade cake to set things right, to follow the list of ingredients until completion. It seems to have worked thus far in ordering my activities, or you would not be reading this.

I have also found it amazingly hard to work surrounded by people at all times. Artist residencies can be like that, with an ever changing list of characters that cycle through. I had found my writing nearly stopped again due to it. Writing is my most private creative acts. I need to complete a thought in one go; else I drift never to return. One day I just stopped my excellent daily writing discipline. The chaos ensued. You do not learn these things until you go through them. It made me think about how we live in a short attention span kind of world where even the news interrupts itself. I find myself doing the same and then regretting it. I sometimes wonder if it is somehow a result of our coffee drinking excess as I find myself thinking, and acting in frantic spurts when I return to the stuff.