This past weekend saw me parked on the couch in my living room, nursing an injured knee. I’m doing okay (as they say in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, it’s just a flesh wound), but it made me think about how even a smallish change in health and mobility can really change daily life. I thought about how grateful I was that I took a shower that morning since I couldn’t get my knee wet, and about how I did a few errands last Friday that I wouldn’t be able to do this week.
I have never been much of a procrastinator and that has served me well. It was especially helpful in covid times. When there was an opportunity to do something, I took it, because it was hard to say how long that window would remain open. It always feels good to get a task done and not have to think about it any more. Many times, it doesn’t spark joy when I’m actually doing it, but I will feel differently and better about it the next day. Like pre planning a dinner for my family on a busy night. Or stocking the pantry so I can easily throw meals together. Much of my planning clearly revolves around eating because it’s essential, especially when you’re responsible for feeding other people, but I do it with art, too. It’s the reason that I have a container full of pre-drawn eyes for collaged characters. And the same reason that I will sometimes draw on random pages in my sketchbook, so future me has inspiration and a place to start. Last week, I was inspired by a video that JetPens did on tiny binders. I was sold on getting a tiny binder and ready to online shop for it…..until I realized that I already had a tiny binder, plenty of paper to put into it, and the special hole punch to make pages that can be added and removed. So, I cut a bunch of paper down to size and put together a small, travel sized sketchbook, journal, and planner.
All that’s to say that when I was laid up this past weekend, it could have been worse. I was clean, we had plenty of potential meals, and my pocket-sized sketchbook binder was ready to go. I was able to throw together a very delicious chicken curry one night, with chicken from the freezer and coconut milk from the pantry, and I started working in my little binder, thanking my past self as I went along my way.