I'm pleased to have completed the project, but not all that pleased with the results: this is a huge subject, but I only tackle some of the basics, and I don't illustrate all the points I make. The narration was constructed piecemeal, as I was frequently interrupted during the work and there was a lot going on around me, so it's a little slow (can you spell "soporific?") and it seems clear to me that it was added after the fact; I'm not always sure what I was thinking when I put the slides together in the first place.
Can you hear the perfectionist in me speaking? She has a way of surfacing any time I dare to make any statement that might indicate I have important information to share; I believe her job is to apologize in advance for any imperfections, in hopes no one will sneer at my work.
Sometimes I would like to shoot her, but I suspect it would make more sense for me to sit down with her, thank her for protecting me so assiduously, and ask her exactly what it is she's afraid of: after all, she is the single biggest example of that desperate need for approval that seems to take over whenever I'm feeling like I may have overstepped my bounds.
I suspect the image here this morning is my attempt to defy her: this is a photo taken in Boulder of scraps of paper in a trash can. I suspect the part of me that chose to display it here is trying to say (as protection against my perfectionist -- what complex beings we humans are! --) see? I can create art out of TRASH. So BACK OFF!
If it weren't time for me to head off to class, and if my husband weren't floating around the house, I might take time to sit down with these two protagonists and get them to work out their differences. I have a wonderful new book on family systems therapy that my friend Joanna recommended -- Self-Therapy, by Jay Earley -- that should be good at helping me deal with the squabbling children inside me.
If only I could find a bit of quiet space and time to do that!
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