The DaVinci Spark

Well, I’ve done it again.  Started Herbalife and then just didn’t stick with it and in the end found that it probably isn’t the right program for me.  The shakes are ok, but they do have a bit of an odd chemically taste to them that I just don’t like.  Also they ended up just RIPPING my stomach apart, and I don’t know if that’s because I started using real dairy with them or if it is the shakes.  Honestly, if I cared that much I would make the shakes with Almond Milk or something and see if that helps…but I am having trouble caring enough to spend the time and money on it.  I totally got that stupid “diet high” that you get when you start a new diet and think about all the changes that COULD happen (but never do) and then the frustration when it doesn’t happen instantly and ends up feeling more gimmicky than anything and it inevitably falls aside and I am right back where I was before.  Which, to be honest, isn’t the worst thing in the world.  If anything I found myself splurging MORE with my meals because I had this feeling of “yeah!  I’ve been drinking stupid shakes all day now for my one meal I will eat whatever I want!!!”. 

Times like these I need to go back and revisit the reason I got active in Fat Politics and Fat Acceptance an H.A.E.S. in the first place.  Because eating and dieting like this are both damaging to my psyche and to my body in the long run.  I DON’T need to focus on weight loss at any cost, I need to focus on my mental, spiritual, and physical well being and that may or may not mean I ever get any smaller than this and that is seriously OK!  I can have a full, fulfilling, happy, wonderful, long life at size 22/24, I might just have to deal with bruised hips at the theatre sometimes (because seriously folks, those seats is TINY) and instead throw that energy into become a more creatively fulfilled person.

On that note, I really wish that I was more of a creator.  Theatre is fun, but I haven’t been on the side of creating theatre (as opposed to managing or assisting) in a long time.  I so desperately long to be one of those people who can write beautiful and moving literature, or can sketch and pull the world through the tip of their pencil and make it live on the page.  I want to be not simply a creative person, but a passionate creator.  That kind of focus and commitment to your life I feel can only make every aspect of your life more fulfilling.  I want to sit down with a blank book and a pen and just spill forth my thoughts on the world, create characters, give them life and history and make something that speaks to my soul and maybe would speak to someone else’s soul too.  I am not trying to become an established author or anything, but to be able to create something true would make me so happy.

The more I read about people who do write, it strikes me that they approach it as a job and a lifelong education of sorts.  You don’t just sit down and crank out a great novel, you write EVERY DAY.  You practice, just like any other art form.  You take things that move you and you write a few pages describing it, bringing the event or the person or the song of the bird in the otherwise barren trees of Washington Square Park to life.  You have short stories, and word sketches, and exercises, and ramblings just to get yourself used to putting words on the page and seeing how they sound together – used to making your voice emerge from the judgmental chaos in your own brain.  I have said before that I want to spend less time on the trivial and the unnecessary and focus more on being creative for myself.  Do I really need to spend a half hour surfing Facebook and reading blogs or random articles when I could have my notebook out and be writing about the things happening around me?  Take the practice and do something as simple as describe in evocative words the person sitting across from me on the subway – what are they wearing? What were they thinking when they picked out those clothes this morning?  What has they day been like so far?  What will the rest of their day be like?  What is happening in their life right now?  If this were 100 years ago what would they have been doing at this exact same time?  These are all questions meant to inspire action and ideas! 

And let’s be honest, being a writer appeals to my sense of introversion and isolation.  It’s something I can (and must) do alone, but something I can also pack in my bag and take with me into the world for inspiration and the down times between meeting with friends.  It’s genius really and something that I need to commit to and flourish within.  It all goes back to that idea of a DaVinci notebook that I love so much – not a journal, not a diary, not a sketchpad or a book of fiction, not a travelogue or a scrapbook, but something that combines all aspects of this into one notebook filled with all the richness of your mind and your experiences.  DaVinci didn’t restrict himself to being a singular man, in fact he combined all aspects of arts and sciences and was practicing and creating constantly – a true “renaissance man” in action!  There will never be another Leonardo DaVinci (even if James Franco thinks he is trying) but why not strive to that ideal?  To be always learning, always creating, always pushing yourself to experience life to the fullest and using art to deepen your involvement in the world around you.  In other words, don’t set out to write a great novel, just set out to see what happens and then use that to spark the creative fire within.