Aging with Grace

“Procrastination is not Laziness”, I tell him. “It is fear. Call it by its right name, and forgive yourself.”

Julia Cameron

So, this is how this post unraveled. It started out with an idea about an exhibit, I saw last week, titled, Georgia O’Keeffe, Photographer, I sat down at the computer, looked at my phone and saw the Nespresso shipment had arrived and was at my door. I thought I should go and get it. After I brought it in, opening it to make sure I received what I ordered seemed like a good idea. Of course, I had to put it away.

Back to the computer, I saw a photo I had taken at the Georgia O’keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. The problem was I hadn’t written down any information about the painting in the photo. After looking around on Google for a while, I remembered I had a book of O’Keeffe flower paintings. Of course, it was on the top shelf of the bookcase under several other books. I brought out the step stool and took down the book. After some searching, I found the painting I was looking for. Now I had the information, but wait, I couldn’t remember the correct format to cite a piece of art. Back to Google. At this point I had managed to spend a good part of the afternoon with very little to show for it, with the exception of well organized Nespresso pods. Actual writing, hadn’t happened and that is what I was supposed to be doing.

This makes the procrastination part of the title fairly clear. What about the criticism? There are two parts to that. First, back to the O’Keeffe Photography exhibit. The photos were mostly tiny polaroids, about 3×3, taken at her ranch in the 1950s. Interesting from the standpoint of an exercise looking at the effects of light and the seasons. Unfortunately, very hard to see because of the photo size. Was I being too critical? Second, as a writer, I am sensitive to criticism of my work and hesitate to criticize anyone else. So, my view of the exhibit struck a cord. Maybe, the whole premise of this post was a bad idea. Consequently, all the procrastination, to do the writing. I remember a watercolor class I took, that required one of my paintings being critiqued by my classmates, every Friday. I hated that class and I hated Fridays.

I guess this explains my procrastination at writing something that is critical. I think a little criticism goes a long way and might be better avoided when possible.