Claim the Day's Beginning
Well-documented is the need for homeworkers to have healthy and effective boundaries between the physicalities of home and work. In my own home-studio experience - one of ongoing learning even now into my fourth year here - my newest advancement is in my ‘No Tech Before 8’ rule. Time was I’d have a certain pride in getting the day’s / overnight’s admin and emailing done by 7:30; feeling I’d cracked the lumpy stuff (the cursed cult of ‘busy’) and now had the full day to get on with the lovely. The reality is I’d surrendered the right start to the day and passed up a warming-up that could and should be dedicated to me.
The first thoughts, the first feelings and energies (second of course to loved-ones waking with, around you), are so much better directed towards a nurturing of the self. Inward-facing and inwardly-enriching, avoiding the breakfast of updates, syncs and nudges - at other times so progressing and good - is a respectfulness of the self; a time to base, to ground, yes (and whilst dog-walkers will walk dogs, my own sphere of reference here is still linking this new-day-start to the act of being a creative being: drawing thoughts, sketching ideas, scribbling ambitions, new projects), and a time to fly also.
The very great John Updike spoke of how ‘in the morning light one can write breezily.’ It’s exciting to consider. A liberation. An aloneness together with the start of a day - a partnership, collaboration, of self and time. An hour, even half that, before letting the online world in, can be - and is for me - an invaluable, precious and powerful space. The day onwards then belongs to me; a day directed by a self that’s claimed its beginning.
