The spirit of adventure has been knocking on my door again of late. For the longest time she has been absent and I have missed her. She’s been coaxing me out of bed every morning with a cheeky smirk on her face and twinkle in her eye. I think she’s asking me to get ready for an adventure called life.
Waking up this morning knowing full well that along with Cape Towns weather, my Monday was going to be wild. I have a two week adventure out of town ahead of me and time for work seems to be running out faster than I would like. Although work and play is often part and parcel of time on the road, jewellery commissions won’t be.
I wear many hats in order to live the life that I am. I take on jobs and opportunities far outside the creative industry in order to live the dream. What a lot of people don’t see is how hard creatives hustle in order to make life balance out on all levels. I’ve wanted to be a full time creative since forever and often felt like I was failing if I took on other odd-jobs in order to make rent or go on an extra adventure. But over time I have realized that I wasn’t going to be happy just creating, if I could find a way to get paid for all the other things I love doing, that is the dream. So over time I let go of the idea of failure and embraced how well I have kept my multi-faceted being sharp and shiny by changing career hats ever so often.
It is in the changing of hats that my inspiration cup fills up. And so for the past few years I have managed to split my time between creating and the mountains and currently making a living by doing so.
On the work side of life there are a few bulk things that need to leave the studio soonest but I seem to have slower than usual capacity and it’s eating away at the deadline calendar. Something shifted recently. I found myself in the middle of not one but two crisis’s, an existential one and a mid-life one, same same but different. I’ve always known where I was going and what I was doing with my life. But now I know nothing and the compass seems to be broken. I’m not panicking, you’re panicking because all of a sudden I am rethinking everything and wondering if I even want to make your piece of jewellery.
It’s a rather bizarre place to be. To know so much about what I wanted and now not know at all. Like life has come to an abrupt halt and I’m in a landscape I’m not sure I like. I’ve never sat still or stood still long enough to honestly talk to myself about these things, I am always moving and shaking and pioneering my way through life. For the first time ever I have no clue of what is about to unfold and I have no problem with it what-so-ever.
I had a full day of work planned along with an early start. But then the day escalated so quickly and now here we are at five in the afternoon and I didn’t tick off a single thing on my to-do list. Playing Russian Roulette with life feels rather exhilarating after all these years of trying so damn hard to do it right, by the book, to be good, do good and all it’s left me is exhausted.
So I jumped on the escalation train and shouted ‘Wooohooo!’. Unplanned coffee with a dear friend, kickboxing at ten to eleven, a one hour forty-five minute hike was next and I had to face the wind and the rain and some hail along the way. The sun came out between the squalls and I really didn’t want to be anywhere else but there. The wind whipping at my jacket, the rain stinging my face and fingers, I’m getting soaked and it’s cold and it’s making me happier than a lot of things have made me lately.
My mental state is so entwined with the elements of the earth. When the world gets too much, it’s the earth that holds me dear, shelters me from insanity and brings me back to what matters most.
So out there in elements I surrendered to her magic of rearranging my mental state. For the first time in forever I am excited about feeling, failing, falling. It doesn’t scare me anymore and I look forward to being a rookie at all the things I have been avoiding for so long.
I think I just started living!
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