Feeling an unbending resistance through every joint in my body I slowly wake. What time is it? Hum, just before 7:00 am. I did sleep in. The slate tiles are warm in the middle of our kitchen. Routine sees me through the making of stovetop coffee with a couple of homemade cookies that I promise to follow with fruit, yogurt and hemp seeds in awhile.
I’ve been randomly thinking about Kathy’s post “The Secret Lives of Bloggers” since she put it out on April 9th. I haven’t responded. I just keep thinking. I am thinking as I check to make sure the heat is on in the studio building as I am coaching this afternoon. I am thinking as I watch a beautiful Varied Thrush in the garden, and as I hear the rooster crow and the sheep asking for breakfast at the farm in the valley. I am still thinking as I curl into our very old Morrison chair and snag the travel section of Saturday’s Globe and Mail from the coffee table.
Bonny Reichert is telling me how to be “at home in Paris.” I read about dark French coffee as I sip a medium roast, single origin, organic, fair trade, artisan, Ethiopia Sidamo Co-Op Shanta Golba, from our local Salt Spring Coffee (we take our coffee seriously on the west coast of Canada). At that moment it tastes very dark – and very French. My two cookies made with half whole wheat flour, half the sugar (all brown) and a quarter of the chocolate chips with an added cup of chopped walnuts and pecans transform into Laduree Bonaparter macaroons and elegant tiny cakes that I have ordered decisively (because sweets are serious business in Paris – and I had already heard this before reading Bonny Reichert’s article). I am no longer sitting quietly in our strawbale, timberframe home cradled by various shades of spring verte and grande fir trees. Saint-Germain is bustling. Raspail farmers market smells soak past my nose into my sensitive taste buds.
I wonder again about Kathy’s post and how much we need to know about each other to share an experience. In fact, how much do we really know about someone even if we live with them daily? How well do we really know ourselves? Take for instance Laurie’s recent “University of Life” posts. Attempting to know ourselves seems to me to be one of the greatest adventures of living…
So my dear friend and blogging colleague Kathy, at “Lake Superior Spirit,” what you share is just right and it is enough. I believe we only ever know fragments of others and a few more fragments about ourselves – even if it is our sole intention for each day we live. Yet those moments that slice our energy in pure connection to self, to another, or to a place; in this we know all we need to know. And Kathy, your blog does this with the expertise of a French chef choosing the day’s cuisine needs from local markets.
Sprout Question: How well do you know your creative self?
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Creative Potager – where imagination rules. Be inspired.
From Mayne Island, British Columbia, Canada
Creative Potager 
Terrill – Yowza, you DO take your coffee seriously!
[Note to self: When visiting Terrill, do not get between her and her cuppa java!]
I love the vivid word picture you painted in your post today. Your descriptors were delicious as my eyes gobbled them up.
Sprout Question: How well do you know your creative self?
My creative self is rather elusive; rarely looking the same each time I get a brief glimpse. Sometimes cheeky; sometimes solemn. Sometimes teacher; sometimes student. And everything in-between.
Laurie I like how you write about getting “a brief glimpse” of your creative self in your sprout response. This seems so familiar to me. And yes I DO take my coffee seriously:)
Hi Terrill,
Most Seattleites and those in the surrounding areas take their coffee very seriously as well! I haven’t had coffee for several years but I do take my tea very seriously. I’ll just live vicariously through you and others and their wonderful aromas of coffee.
How well do I know my creative self? Just when I think I know pretty much everything about that side of myself, another side emerges and reveals itself! Then, I’d expect nothing less. Creativity for me is about tapping into the flow of all creation and that is ever changing isn’t it? How could we ever STOP being creative? It is beyond me to consider such a thing.
So each time I open myself to that creative flow, I meet a new aspect of myself and it is like meeting a new friend…that I’ve always known. 🙂
Itaya… I have a feeling that coffee seriousness is a west coast of North America attitude rather than just on the Canadian side of the boarder. Yes I so agree about opening up to “a new aspect of myself” each time we are in that creative flow. Nicely said!
Terrill, what a lovely surprise this is! I sat here and read your blog very slowly–two times–savoring it. I loved that you took your time thinking about that question about our blogging friends (and ourselves) and digested it all slowly and with the attention you bestowed upon your cup of coffee and chocolate chip cookies. mmm….
There is so much wisdom in what you say about that we only know fragments–but those fragments are all we NEED to know. Feeling and realizing that truth opens up even more freedom .
How well do I know my creative self? The larger the definition of “self” gets…the less I seem to know. But, as you say, there’s only the slice that is in front of us. That’s all we need to know today. Namaste, and deep bows.
Oh Kathy I am so glad you came by to continue the conversation that you started with your post a few days ago. Thank you so much for your elegant sprout response.
You asked how well do I know my creative self.
I have always felt at home with the creative me. More so, at times, than the “real” me (whoever she is?) I trust my creative self. She has helped me to see things that I couldn’t have faced without her. She has given me a voice; she has brought me praise — when I most needed it. Yet the question remains: how well do I know her. Just when I think I know her she shows me more. I hope she always will. Much praise is owed her — my creative self — my muse.
Leanne there seems to be a thread of congruency happening in our response to this sprout question…”Just when I think I know her she shows me more” capture the sentiment well.
reading Kathy, Laurie, Barbara & you has kept me inspired and I want to bring my blog to life from all of this inspiration. Thank you all. You are heard and do make such a difference.
Thanks Kathy. Your acknowledgment is most appreciated:)