The difference between tossing mail and doing Art Quilts is so wide, they are the complete opposites.
Yesterday I rode along on a new route, 236 boxes and 75 miles! Dirt roads most of them, and we cross over the same road many times, go down this deadend, over to that deadend, onto this section of the road, back over to the other side. I had to keep asking "so what road are we on now?" I can't even imagine me doing this successful come Saturday, my first solo ride!
There is no room for creativity, we are driven by the mail in our hand. The next pile of mail goes in a certain box, my fun will be finding the right box on the right road going the right way! These boxes mean nothing to me, faceless people, names I hook up to the numbers on the box. Perhaps they are more a number than a face. Maybe the faces will be waiting at the box for their Mail on Saturday!
There is a typical way the mail routes are designed, and this route is non-typical. We usually take only right turns, well mostly. This route is peppered with Left hand turns, so many you turn around in circle!
It is like I am made to follow a pattern in real life, from point A to B and now let's find C. Now this is only after I have put the mail in the correct slots back at the post office.
There are 236 slots in route order in the Post Office, like a pre-pattern to follow. What a hoot that too is! You have a letter in your hand, you read this unfamiliar name, on a unfamiliar road and you search the slots in front of you, racking your brain to remember where this one goes!
You do this often enough you get the pattern down pat! Then you become a mindless follower of the pattern, you can talk and sort, dream and sort, you literally will turn in the direction after awhile depending upon whose letter you have in your hand. You automatically know that this name makes you pivot to the right and your arm reaches either up or down, left or right!
Isn't that just simply amazing!
Now take doing Art Quilts. No pattern, no automatic reaching, no pivoting here or there, well maybe, but you literally have no idea where you are going!
I love the differences, and I find that my body responds much more favorably to the Art Quilts. My body seems happier doing quilts. The mail isn't bad, but I just don't feel as alive. Saturday I will be alive and tuned in and trying real hard to do it right, but after awhile, it becomes a habit.
Today I toss mail in my usual route, I know this one so well, that it is just pivoting and reaching, and then driving along listening to the radio, following the pattern, directed by the mail in my hand.
Now think about your day? How many times do you do the exact same thing? Do you take a new route, eat something new, do something new, wear something different? Hey folks we are not on a Mail Route, you are free to take a few lefts and then turn a few rights, cross over, follow a new path!
The patterns of our childhood walk into our adulthood. We get stuck going over and over the same tracks, pivoting automatically, mindlessly. Mindlessly but not lost in our imagination!
Lost in your imagination is dreaming while being awake. Mindless is just robot like moving, doing without thought.
Somedays I get to do both! I will even notice more now, how I get lost in routines, and challenge myself to step out and cross over to a new side of the road! I am so lucky to have found the love to create quilts, quilts without patterns, to have dared to try, to learn to let go and play, to just find wonderful colors and let my imagination take me on a ride!
We either ride the same route or dare to float free into a space of the unknown. Be a careless mail person and just go where you want, paying no attention to the old thoughts and beliefs of past! Are they really set in stone? Do they serve you today? Do you feel alive and electric while moving about your day?
I love how this life is so open and free! Start slow if you like, just add a new scarf, a new haircut or color, maybe just a new color nail polish, or change up your usual breakfast! The opportunities are limitless.
Today I do have a pattern to follow, but maybe I will do something different, maybe a new radio channel, or a new lunch.....We can always look different while doing mindless tasks! Make them a challenge, change them up!
Play with your patterns and soon you will have a unique pattern called you!
