Sometimes I feel as if my timing is off. I miss my freeways exits. Miss my lunch. Miss events. Miss the post office. Miss calling family in other time zones. Then I sit down to write and all the goofy day-to-day stuff doesn’t matter anymore. I fall right in sync with the world I am creating. I find my rhythm and start my dance. When I am done and must return back to the world where I’m a step off and slightly out of place, I’m a little less weary of the drill even though timing where my writing is concerned can be a decade off. The hard part as a writer is coming to grips with the fact that what you wrote/write may be too early, too late, or worse, too different and it locks you out of the proverbial box. And, you – as artist, as representative for your work – don’t fit in a box yourself so you can’t just sneak into the “box” without being noticed. And, though you shy away from boxes, the box is where all the children must play per se…for now…
Box – part of playing area. SPORTS in sports such as baseball and soccer, a marked-off part of the playing area used for a special purpose, or subject to special rules.
Sport – competitive physical activity. An individual or group competitive activity involving physical exertion or skill, governed by rules, and sometimes engaged in professionally (often used in the plural).
Play – activity. The free-ranging and varied activity of something, e.g. the imagination. perform dramatic work by somebody. To perform the work of a particular dramatist.
Free-range – not caged. Free to move about and feed at will, and not confined in a battery or pen.
Pen – writing. The written word considered as a means of expression. confine somebody or something. To keep somebody or something in a pen or other enclosed area. female swan. A female swan.
Swan – SWAN (Support Women Artists Now) Day. A new international holiday that celebrates women artists. It is an annual event taking place on the last Saturday of March (Women’s History Month) and the surrounding weeks.
Artist – creator of art. Somebody who creates art… skilled person. Somebody who does something skillfully and creatively.
What if – the box were bigger and included more sand so there would be room for more children to play?
What if – the box was an archaeological site and all the children were allowed to pretend the sand was a cave and put their gifts just beneath the surface to be discovered and valued like scrolls found near the Dead Sea?
What if – there were “perimeter free” cards that could be used to override “un-box-able’ children so they could play from the perimeters of the box even though they weren’t actually in the box?
What if more swans were allowed to play? Would the sand turn to water and would the water be a better channel for sharing?
What if – there was no box? Would timing matter then…? Or, would all art being created equal be allowed…to be…?
Just thinking…
Hey, Nancy and Diane. Thanks for reading. Looks like “no box” is leading by three. 🙂
Robin,
I love this. It really spoke to me! I’ve often been put in a box that producers insist on calling “quirky.” And there are, apparently, very few “quirky box” producers.
I vote for no box, too.
Diane
Good thoughts! And I vote for “no box” 🙂