Too Much Time 2016-W26

I've been off work for the past two weeks, but don't ask me what I've been up to because the answer is: besides gardening, not much.

I don't know if a universal truth underlies this experience, but in my experience too much time inhibits progress. To wit, I have found that when I have all the time in the world to do something I often end up doing nothing. Or at least I will procrastinate until suddenly there is only just enough time to get done whatever it was needed doing.

Three loads of laundered and line-dried clothes sit in my dining room awaiting folding... but I can do that later. While I watch TV. Or tomorrow. Because it might rain and can't do much gardening when things are wet. And so on and so forth. Now it is a week later and the clothes are still very tidily awaiting the overdue fold-n-stow process. In my defense, I haven't yet worn anything I've peeled directly off the folding queue, except for some sweatpants (it got very chilly here the past two days) and besides they were already folded and on top, ready for the drawer.

In this same vein, I have been procrastinating writing this blog post for a few weeks now. To get started, I figured I would need some synonyms for "procrastinate" and there are some good ones: Delay. Loiter. Putter. Fritter. Trifle & Dabble. And my favorite: Loaf. I don't mind plenty of the latter after a good productive day. Occasionally however, I make Loafing the primary output of my day's efforts. To paraphrase an old didactic aphorism, any job worth not doing is worth not doing well.

I have been diligent about keeping after all the pent up yardwork and some re-work while I'm at it. In fact I thought I'd take some pictures and use the "art" of my garden as fodder for the post. Sadly, when I signed in I see that I have already did that last post.

Which brings me to the painting I want to show you today but which I did a few weeks back now. It continues the Banshee series and I really like a lot of things about it. Seasoned painters can often look back and identify breakthroughs in their artistry or technique and I don't want to be premature or pompous but I do feel like the last few entries in the Banshee series have been a breakthrough for me, artistically. I need to say "enough" with the garden and get back to painting. And folding laundry and whatever else has "gotten sidetracked" (another good, passive synonym for procrastinate — thanks Z).

In closing, let me note that Banshees are female figures in Celtic mythology and so all to date have been women. But I fear that gives the impression of misogyny so the next marcher in my parade of banshees will be male. In fact, the painting is ready to get started on. If only I would stop procrastinating...

Banshee X