"Random thoughts, epiphanies,and other leaps of faith..."
That has been my working book title since 1996, but it seems to describe my current state of mind. Today, I go to Lake Orienta Elementary where 80 fifth grade students gather for a bottle cutting/ painting/ glittering event. Splash mob? In preparation I am wearing my lucky mustard yellow pants that are beginning to feature splotches of paint. Seriously, I am working myself up into a frenzy about this, excited and scared to death at the same time. I told Lake Orienta's art teacher that I am forever running to a terrifying precipice to see if I can make the leap across to the other side. I feel that way about my Festival of Trees entry as well, so I am glad that the new trend instead of 'planking' is 'tebowing.' According to the official site: (vb) to get down on a knee and start praying, even if everyone else around you is doing something completely different. I am planning a photo op (or several) of me catching this trend today. (I think I might add a new internet trend of making the sign of the cross, or maybe breathing into a paper bag?)
"The first thing you learn in skating is how to get up. You know you are going to fall, and when you fall you are just going to get up, right?" Scott Hamilton,who is recovering from a brain tumor, is talking to children skating in Central Park this morning. It reminds me of one of my favorite quotes: " I get up. I walk. I fall down. Meanwhile I keep dancing."(Daniel Hillel) One of my biggest fears, right next to heights and involuntarily making a scene (like running out of a restaurant screaming, for example), is that I will let people down. I will fret all day that I have the time of our 'splash mob' wrong or will be late getting to the school which is a block from my house. Believe it or not, I set my alarm last night so I wouldn't oversleep. I am due at the school after lunch. I rarely sleep past 8:15.
I do have ADD, but not the energetic H component. My brilliant friend Oren Mason, who wrote a book on ADD/ADHD from the perspective of a doctor who has the condition and whose practice is devoted to it, says that people with ADD fuel themselves with anxiety in order to complete tasks. We do things like wait until the last minute, develop obsessive compulsive fears, or take on more than we can handle as a coping mechanisms to kick start the energy we need to focus. I think he is brilliant.
Speaking of the Masons, they introduced me to this fabulous recipe for making artisan bread in five minutes a day. I tried it and it works! The bread come out chewy and delicious. I overcooked mine a little, thus the too dark top. (I considered photoshopping it out, then you would never know.)
This week I worked with grades K-5 at Altamonte Christian School, then Natalie's classmates (class of 2012!) spent their study hall assembling the pieces, stacking them in threes, gluing, and inserting the floral pick so my installation next week at the museum will be a seamless as possible. My car is approaching the condition it was in when we left for the ArtPrize installation. (I think Oren is right. I really am the Johnny Appleseed of glitter.)
In the past, I have assembled the trees ahead of time, including one year when we built it like a ship in a bottle and couldn't get it out the door. This year, I am putting it together on-site, adding to my anxiety. I won't know for certain how it is going to look until I get there on Monday, Novemeber 7th and start the process. The up side is that I have 3 days to finish it and if worse comes to worst, Tuesday is recycling-day nearby, leaving me 24 hours until the deadline. Better go tebow.