My March Menu (how I'm spending my days)

At the beginning of February, I wrote a list of things I’d like to build into my schedule over the course of the month. They were things I’d like to be spending more time on to really be taking advantage of this season of my life (since being laid off from my full-time job at the beginning of the year), while figuring out what comes next. I definitely subscribe to the belief that “how we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives”, as Annie Dillard writes in “The Writing Life”. She goes on to say that “a schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”

My schedule at the moment is much less structured than it has ever been in my adult life. I have been trying to force myself to have even less structure, thinking I would love having completely unplanned days, but truthfully, I’ve found I am much happier and more productive when I have some sense of routine, allowing for blocks of unplanned free time within some type of daily/weekly/monthly frame.

On Mondays, for example, I do any business-y things that need doing (sending newsletters, reviewing and submitting to art calls, managing finances, etc). And I have generally scheduled a priority for each week of the month (e.g. taking artwork photos and updating my website the last week of the month, updating my print shop quarterly, etc.) So the things I wanted to add in were mostly small, lifestyle things like daily walks outside, yoga 3x/week. Some were bigger things for the creative career I’m working towards- painting and writing every day. Even when those are the things I love to do, it is easy to push them to the side and think I “should” be working on something else (like the aforementioned website updates, on which I am overdue). 

There were 18 things on the list, and in assessing how I did, I’d give myself a solid C. Maybe a D, if I’m being totally honest with myself. At least a full week of my month was taken up with a sick child, though not on consecutive days, which somehow made it feel longer, as each week was disrupted or unpredictable in some way.

I’ve refreshed the list for March, and named it “My March Menu”, because who doesn’t love a good alliteration? (If you don’t, please just pretend). 

• Paint everyday. I am looking forward to some accountability in this as my favorite 12-week art course, Nicholas Wilton’s Creative Visionary Program, will begin shortly, following his free workshop, which starts today. [If you are at all interested in painting or visual arts, it is not too late to join, here! *this is an affiliate link] And of course, my upcoming residency in France will help me with a change of scenery. I’m also planning to use my sketchbook more, focusing more on enjoying the process and worrying less about a finished product.
• Deepen my painting practice. While I am trying to worry less about a finished product, I am simultaneously worrying about the finished products. Not only what a piece of art looks like, but the impact that it has. It has always been important to me to use my art to make a difference in the world around me, which is why I work to keep my studio free of animal products, be environmentally conscious, and donate a portion of proceeds to charities that are meaningful to me. But I know that I can do more, and am excited to have been accepted into an Art & Emergence Learning Cooperative with Heather Bird Harris, one of my personal favorite artists. Through painting and social practice, she engages site-specific materials to explore the throughlines between land history and environmental crises, as well as mothering in the face of climate change.  The program starts this week and is a 10-week small group learning experience for working artists seeking to deepen their practice, grow collectively, and broaden their radical imagination of the future, exploring the confluence of ecological art, social practice, and art activism.
• Write everyday - I am currently taking the year-long course, A Year of Writing Dangerously with Summer Brennan . Today is day 33, and I have used 2 of my limited “oops” days so far, but otherwise have been writing every day since the start of the program on February 1. The goal of the course is to trick yourself into a year of writing abundance by committing to a simple and manageable daily writing practice over 32 weeks. At the end of this year, participants who wish to do so will have completed the rough draft of either a memoir or an essay collection. I have a few other writing courses lined up for the spring and summer, because if I do anything well, it is overcommit myself to projects and courses - but as I’ve mentioned before, I love to learn, and courses give me such good inspiration that I often wouldn’t come up with on my own. I am playing with my routine here - sometimes waking up at 5 to write before anyone else is up, sometimes taking my notebook out on a hike and writing in the middle of the day, and sometimes writing in the notes app of my phone from wherever I am at whatever time inspiration strikes. 
• Yoga 2-3x/week. I’m averaging 1-2 right now.
• Lift heavier. I’ve been building back up since my neck injury and feeling good about lifting 2-3x/week right now, slowly starting to incorporate more movements and heavier weights.
• Read more. I’m on the hunt for a really great novel. I’ve been reading a lot of quick but enjoyable summery beach read types. I’m looking for a 5 star, can’t put down, haunts you when you’re done, life changer. Books in this category for me are A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, Rebecca by Daphne DuMaurier, and The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. I did spend an hour in the bookstore last night and picked up several that looked promising - Still Life by Sarah Winman, How We Named the Stars by Andrés Ordorica, If We Were Villains by M. L. Rio, and All Signs Point to Paris by Natasha Sizlo (this one is a memoir). I’d love for you to send me your recommendations in a DM or comment, if you have any!
• Less screen / computer / desk time
• Practice my French.

Daily walks outside. Mostly around the neighborhood and nearby bike paths with my dog. Sometimes hiking and birdwatching, especially as the weather gets warmer. Last week I got out for a beautiful hike, one of my only free days as my son came down sick that night.