Wasting Time in a Life Full of Have-Tos

Procrastination. 

I should be doing something useful: reading articles, planning lessons, working on one of my two portfolios. Anything connected with my two courses, but I'm baking blueberry muffin cake and apple crumble, writing poems, waiting for the rugby to come on. My brain doesn't work in a straight line, usually it has dozen tabs open that I jump between. The process is never pretty. And today none of it is what I'm supposed to be doing. 

It will all get done, but right now I don't want to do any of it. Everything at the moment feels like a box-ticking exercise to get to a place I'm not even sure I want to go. My life is full of shoulds and have-tos and I feel their tug-of-war with my wants constantly. Even the cakes and now the salmon in the oven are things on a to-do list, I have to feed the kids and use up the apples from the garden. 

So I steal little things for myself, a poem written in a cafe on a wet Sunday with a big pot of tea, a game of 4 deck solitaire online between working on plans, not folding the laundry, but giving it to the kids to do and having rugby on as much as possible on the weekend. 

Mini-rebellions from being a mum, a professional and a student. I'd love to just be a writer again, but it's just not possible. 

I see people on social media who are at residencies, travelling to or living in interesting places to write. Finland no longer seems like someplace interesting. It's a have-to. 

I once had six months of just being a writer while I was on a bursary, over twenty years ago and it was so amazing. I'm jealous of others' creative lives, but I have to accept the choices I've made and where I've ended up as a result. In Finland, fitting writing in the cracks of an over-stuffed life. 

I've been working on my Scots poem inspired by my Scotstober snippets. I've also had a couple of acceptances in the last few months though I've barely submitted to any journals or anthologies. Those should come to fruition by the end of the year. I need to record myself reading one of the poems. Not my favourite thing to do and with my students searching me up on the net for kicks, I'm wishing there was a way to do it without my face.

I saw the photos from the reading I did at the end of October for Globe Art Point's 10th anniversary party. Urgh, I don't take a good photo, but found one that was bearable. Photo taken by Alejandro Ramirez.

I've spent an hour on this, on cooking and rugby, so not exactly an hour wasted, but not what I should be doing. But I have also written a bit of my portfolio, helped my son sort a possible job, fed children and read a few stories for an assessment.

Since I've already posted the above photo on Insta I will add this one just for fun. The sunrises and sunsets in autumn here are often amazing. Here's one I took on the way to a course day. 

I wish I could spend more of my time being creative like this.