Experiment 10: Celebration

Sometimes when I am at a loss when it comes to an assignment, I realize that the way a word is being used is confusing me. Its not a wrong way to use a particular word - I just need a bit more time with it to find my own way into the topic at hand.

So this month's topic is "celebration."  Celebrating ourselves and our creative journey

According to the dictionary - To celebrate means to acknowledge something or someone - a holiday, an event, a person; to mark something special; to mark a special day. 

Celebrate a victory. 

So. Where can I go with this...

There are nice little sayings out there like "She celebrates life" but I'd sure like to know what that means. When someone says something like "he's celebrating a finished project" - I understand that - this is celebrating an accomplishment that gets punctuated by celebrating its completion. Celebrate does seem to mark a moment, a tangible accomplishment or date or event. But celebrate isn't simply distilled down to joy. It can encompass many emotions. Bittersweet emotions. I mark the passing of my father every year with deep sadness. Is that a celebration? Technically, yes. I'm planning an engagement celebration for my daughter - who will live in southeast Asia with her soon-to-be husband. I'm happy and sad. 

Now, what if we talk about what it means to celebrate good people and moments in my life? Marking a moment means that I have to think about it - clarify it - let that moment wash over me. It has to be something tangible. Intentional. Acknowledging and celebrating someone special - means giving them a moment in the spotlight - marking/noting why they are special, sharing that with them and/or others.

But how does this way of thinking about celebration compliment or tie in to my creativity? 

Spending the last week in Sister's, OR at Quilters Affair, I met many women who were happy to be doing what they were doing in that moment. Cancer survivors, elderly women who had been coming for years, teachers who hadn't taught an in-person class in two years - all 'celebrating' the ability to come and participate. I met a woman who was about 85 and she talked to me about how she can't do the hand work anymore - but she can sew on her machine. I thought about how I take for granted what my hands and eyes can do for me even if now its not always as easy as it was in the past. In all sorts of ways, we were all celebrating being there - and feeling gratitude in our hearts to be alive and able. 

There has been so many losses over the past couple of years. Being able to travel, work with my hands, pay for classes and hotels, talk with other quilters, learn new things - I brought a lot of gratitude in my heart to this past week. It felt like a small victory - which is certainly worthy of celebration.

I think if I was going to craft an assignment for this month, I would do it in journaling. I would talk about what kinds of accomplishments, moments,  and/or victories that feel worthy of celebration and why. I would then ask myself to step back a bit and look at that list - and then modify it into smaller, simpler victories and accomplishments. Maybe getting up on time for school was the best victory of the day; perhaps actually eating a healthy breakfast was a major accomplishment. I'd break the notion of celebration down into a 'way of taking note; marking a victory or accomplishment' and let those small moments stand with clarity when we think about our day. The notion of celebration can be used to get present and intentional. Its also important to wonder why we might not want to claim our victories - what judgements do we place as obstacles for ourselves to be deemed worthy? Does it have to be a birthday, anniversary, surviving cancer, sobriety, a new job, retirement? Or, aren't these also just clear moments that we designate as Important.  These events are given dates and the passage of years impart a weight and commitment - but so can the daily victories and events. Quietly forging new patterns, new cycles. Who knows? 

Or - I think I might try to capture a moment that feels worth celebrating. In fabric or paint or words - whatever the medium - what was that moment? What can I create that evokes that moment?

Takeaway: I'm still unclear how "Celebration" helps inspire creativity. Once again, I am a bit stymied at the direction that this course has taken. So, my takeaway is that I think I'm working too hard to work with the content as it is provided. There's some food for thought.

.