The past couple months have been a whirlwind of intense work and unplugged relaxation, with very little in-between. The big project I've been working on this spring has been an online punch needle course for the company DOMESTIKA, a holdover from pre-Covid days, which was finally filmed in May. It's been a monumental effort but their team is incredible -- I'm excited for the launch and looking forward to sharing more on that front soon.

My recent work has largely been centered around this course, so I feel like I'm finally re-emerging and beginning to dive back into some ideas and projects that I began months ago. While I'm celebrating the accomplishment of this project coming to a close and excited to dive into what's next, I've also been feeling... behind. Like I'm losing time on other ideas and projects I've had to set on the backburner.

I am constantly consumed with various ideas for new work. This is wonderful, except that it is often coupled with a sense of urgency and a fear of being unable to bring all these ideas to life. Focusing on one idea or project feels like a rejection of all the rest.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked... I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.”

- Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

This quote has stuck with me since the first day I read it, as it perfectly captures the agony of being able to envision endless possibilities, the resulting indecision on what to pursue, and the feeling of watching ideas eventually "wrinkle and go black", as though they have an expiration date.

Back in April I read an article from the NY Times titled How Long Can We Live?, about centenarians and the increasing human lifespan. It got me thinking about time and caused me to re-examine this sense of urgency that I have have about my life and my work.

At one point, the article says "If we are one day born knowing that we can reasonably expect to live 200 years or longer, will our minds easily accommodate this unparalleled scope of life?... Scientists, philosophers and writers have long feared that a surfeit of time would exhaust all meaningful experience, culminating in debilitating levels of melancholy and listlessness."

I don't need 200 years to feel an "unparalleled scope of life" is waiting to be lived -- I simply consider there is a chance I could live into my 90's. But when I am able to grasp what it would mean to have another 60 years, I do not fear melancholy or listlessness. Instead, understanding that I have time releases me from my urgency and gives me patience. I see time to practice a skill for years, to dive deeply into a project, to study an area fully and completely, to get to know materials intimately.

As I enter June and begin to decide which ideas and projects to focus on next, I am reminding myself that ideas do not expire. There is time to choose more than one fig. I have a lifetime to taste, to explore, to evolve into the artist I am meant to be.