Challenging Excuses by Lorilee Guenter

I have plenty of time, an overabundance in some seasons. In a society that seems to value busyness it is awkward to claim to have too much time. Unfortunately a surplus of time leads me to procrastinate. There is no hurry, no pressure. Where does time go? It gets spent in bits and bobs, small purchases that, when added together, consume the days.

Two months of a forcibly cleared schedule could be seen as a gift, a time to reconnect with the important, a time to finish what has been neglected. But, for me, two months of no routine leads to just as many problems as a packed full schedule. My workspace shrank as projects spread out to fill the space. How do you write or paint with no where to put the paper? Too many hints of ideas but none insistent. Images blurred, unclear, refusing to come into focus. The opportunity for observation limited to the same space each day. Unchanging, or is it? The yard wakes from its winter slumber.

My excuses are many, whether it is a full schedule or an empty one, a full desk or an empty space. It is not hard to find an excuse to leave the pen sit and wait for a different time, a better time. Even as I write these words, the excuses rise. However, a looming deadline pushes some of the procrastination aside.

How do I get past the excuses? How do I find the time, the energy, the [fill in the blank] to start again? With difficulty. With intention. With small habits built one on one. With doubt and fear and stumbling about. Then a phrase plays in my mind and won't be dismissed. Words return slowly, quietly waiting for me to respond.

Give me space
a time and place
so the words spill
and ideas fill
the emptiness

But don't you see
I gave you me
I'm all you need
I gave you life

Will I listen?