Simply Sunday - The quiet power of limiting

The quiet power of limiting, turtles, Illustrate Your Week 19, and more

May 07, 2023

Quiet Power of Limiting, Turtles, Illustrate Your Week

"Something that worked for me was imagining that where I wanted to be — an author, primarily of fiction, making good books, making good comics and supporting myself through my words — was a mountain. A distant mountain. My goal. And I knew that as long as I kept walking towards the mountain I would be all right.” Neil Gaiman

Happy Sunday everyone!

Thank you for opening this email today and letting me “talk” to you from the page. Thank you for reading.

A few small notes and pointers today:

The quiet power of limiting
Prompts for Week 19 of Illustrate Your Week
Morning Stories for April 30-May 6
Turtle inspiration
A podcast from the vault

Seeing Blue and the Adjacent View

Neil Gaiman and Austin Kleon are both on my mind, but they have to be pushed out, little dominoes in the future. That opening quote though…. Some part of me quietly pasted it in as a starting seed in my notes for this week. When I opened the otherwise blank file, those words were there. They were good words to see on a rainy morning, a morning splattered with a thousand drops of fear and worry and unease.

Part of me said, “Move those words; drag them over into another week. Hold them quietly. Don’t say the color blue out loud unless you are ready to really talk about blue.” The color blue, by which I mean whatever it is that I plan to write and talk about later, things I put into that winding domino chain, has a way of ending up everywhere. There are so many shades of blue, so many things we each want to talk about and share, so many stories and voices.1

What I see this morning is not blue. It is a hundred shades of green, greens I have no name for. These are the greens of this particular morning, this particular view, framed by this particular sky and moment.

After I write in the morning, I move to the end of the table, perpendicular to my starting position. This is the spot I sit in the rest of the day. I recently hooked up a monitor, at least 15 years old, to make it easier to see. It’s not all that big, and it’s not super clear or bright. But it’s bigger, which makes a difference. And now it is part of the setup, which means I often sit in exactly this spot at the end of the table, but angled (so I can put my feet up on the other chair). Because of this slight twist, this angling of body, when I look out over the monitor, I am looking through a break in the curtains. (They are mostly left open, but it’s a large window, so there are panels in the middle, too). When I look out, all I see through the gap between the curtains are leaves from tall trees that sit on the hillside behind the falling down fence behind the house.

From my seat, I only see an upper square, a square created by the borders of monitor, curtains, and the top of the window (chunky Christmas lights hanging down from the rod). In this window square, I see a jumble of branches, layers of leaves, shades of chartreuse and sap greens, olives and darker tones. The really light leaves are the ones that stand out so brightly today, almost as if frosted. There are just little patches of gray blue sky, so light to be almost white, that dapple the view from behind this scraggly canopy of leaves. (It is foggy on the day I am writing this. This is my favorite light.)

I don’t always stop to look at this view, but when I glanced up just now, I realized that while I enjoy the view of the distant hill and its storybook houses from the other chair, this other view, this smaller view is calming. It is quiet. It settles me. I can only see a limited bit of what is there, and that bit is simply the sensation of looking into trees. This is a thumbnail view. There is only one clear rising trunk in this view. It sits just to the left of the frame. I prefer it slightly off-center this way. It anchors this thumbnail with its presence, its scale, its quiet act of standing, holding. I can shift and change my composition, but I will never see the whole tree from here. There is slight irregular movement, wind moving trees and leaves in different places. There are birds I hear. Occasionally, the hummingbird pops into the frame.

This scrap of view doesn’t ask for anything. It is comforting. It allows me to breathe.

This scrap of view between two panels of curtains and cropped in half by my monitor in the foreground is not one I would have called beautiful. If you stand, see the full view, take in the surroundings, see the rest of the neighboring trees, this is a view that might instead be scraggly, or dying, or neglected.

But this scrap of view is beautiful and perfect and wonderful in these few minutes of morning. This scrap of view is limited. It doesn’t know what is happening to the left or the right, above, below, or behind. This scrap of view doesn’t make me choose between it and other trees, one side or the other. I can shift and change the frame, but the view is always limited. This is the beauty of using thumbnails, of thumbnail studies, of cropping in to see how a scene changes when we narrow the field, cut out the extras, focus on a smaller area.

I am grateful today that when I sat down, a thousand things in my head, things worrying and niggling and twisting and turning, I looked up and out the window. I am thankful for the rainy day, for the cool light of a foggy morning. I know it changes the ease of seeing, transforms some of these greens.

This is the view of invitation. I am grateful.

In My Own Way

I have spent a lot of time recently documenting my view, reflecting on the morning light, and then I got in my own way. I started to worry. I worry today about talking about this view. On the day I am finishing this piece, the light is different, some of the colors more intense. I want to show you and share and name these even as something within doubts the words, hesitates, and worries. Part of me knows I am not finished, knows there are a thousand shimmering details here, mostly just out of sight, waiting to be gently pulled into view, woven into this record of awareness. Part of me believes there is much to be said about these different views, about adjacent views, about limiting views and thumbnails and the magic of noticing light — and that these shimmering strands, these little glimmers are mine to write and say.

Be careful of getting in your own way. Be careful of letting the voices louder than yours silence your conviction, your belief in your voice, your view, your right to your view, your right to your window, your morning, your philosophy, your balance, your mindfulness.

“When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive – to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.” — Marcus Aurelius

The Quiet Power of Limiting

The view this morning reminded me that limiting can be powerful.

This is something I know for myself. It is not something I always knew. It is not something that is easy, day to day. But I know that limiting invites focus, quiets chaos. I have found that limiting can, ironically, open the world. I have found, in limiting, something expansive, something balanced and calm and easy. This view, this morning, forced me to breathe. No. This view is simply there. In looking, I focused long enough to slow myself down, to sit in a stillness beyond the swirl. The branches and leaves are blowing fiercely now in front of me, mesmerizing, this dance.

This view is a metaphor. This view is a reminder.

I needed that today.

Turtle Talk

A few weeks ago, I was looking for a reference photo for a dragon or a frog (I can’t remember which), and I ran across amazing charts and posters depicting different kinds of turtles. These were beautifully illustrated charts that reminded me of how much we loved books, long ago, like Dragonology.

I had never realized there were so many varieties of turtles, sea and land. There are more than 300 species of turtles. There are seven species of sea turtles. Their names read like a poem: Leatherback, Green Turtle, Hawksbill, Loggerhead, Olive Ridley, Kemp's Ridley, Flatback.

It can be dizzying, breathtakingly beautiful, but dizzying, to see the range, the similarities and differences, patterns and colors. Just as with birds, you can find field guides, lists, and even charts of turtles for specific states and countries. Plug any animal, bird, or insect in, and you can pull up similar resources. Frogs are especially eye-opening, but fish, octopus, sharks, eagles, ladybugs, dragonflies, butterflies…

Sample turtle resources:

I have been following a small tortoise named Fig at Instagram (@through.the.lleaves). Fig is a hatchling right now. Watching him eat lunch or move around is fascinating.

It’s easy to get inspired by so much variety and beauty and wonder. The threads multiply with every new search, every lead you follow, every new set of recommendations.

Draw One

When I sit at night to draw, I will draw one. One frog, or one turtle, or one cup. Knowing there are thousands of possibilities is always there, but focusing on one, for the span of minutes I will spend drawing, is comforting. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t be content to draw a different turtle every night for a certain number of days. I would. Or frogs or birds or dragonflies. I would. I could. I might. Small series and sequences, they can be satisfying, and any series creates at least a bit of scaffolding, helps limit the view, temporarily. “Tonight I know I need to draw x, y, or z.” But in our heads, there are dozens of other things that want to be drawn or written. These are choices we make day to day in our creative lives.

What will you draw tonight? Or, the question before that, what creative project will be your focus today? How many different projects can you work on before you feel scattered? (My answer is not one, although it may sound that way.) How do you allocate your time and energy so that you work on multiple projects and make the countless decisions that may come up within them and feel balanced rather than stretched and pulled?

I have my answers for all of these questions. I encourage you to think about these for yourself. It’s always good to stop and look at what you are working on. Make a list. What is the current project set? Are there things hanging on that you need to let go of? Are there things you need to shuffle around? What creative work and habit makes you most content?

Right now.

Today.

At this point.

Make sure you are doing that.

If you have to put blinders on, partially pull the curtains (or partially open them), throw up cubicle walls between you and the rest of the world, so you can chase and track and describe blue, do it.

I am reminding myself (again) today that I have put in place some limiting factors, and they work for me.

Set up systems that work for you. And remember that the contours of your days are not necessarily the same as others. Be gentle with yourself.

Approach the world with positive intent. Assume positive intent from others.

Look out your nearest window. What do you see?

Morning Stories

My “Morning Stories” (posted daily at Instagram) for this week are compiled on one page here.

Illustrate Your Week — Week 19

The new prompts for Week 19 have been posted.

Write for Life Read-Along

For those reading along, my notes on Week 5 of Write for Life are here.

An Old Episode of the Creativity Matters Podcast

“Whether the day is for writing, designing, or painting, the consistent practice of a morning routine is the doorway into it all.” —Elle Luna

Podcast throwback! Does seeing Elle Luna’s name on that quote ring a bell for you? It might be time to revisit The Crossroads of Should and Must: Find and Follow Your Passion! It’s been a few years! Jump back to Episode 331: Crossroads (2018) for more info.2 My first discovery of this book was magical. It stands out for me in a short stack of magical reads. Want to know the others? A list of special titles immediately pops into my head.