The Artist Date - Jazz and Jigsaw

“Let it go.

Let it roll right off your shoulder,

Don’t you know?

The hardest part is over.

Let it in.

Let your clarity define you,

In the end,

We will only just remember how it feels.”

                                                                                                ~ Rob Thomas, “Little Wonders”

                For this artist date, I chose to listen to music on Grooveshark.com and do 120 piece jigsaw puzzles online. Some of the songs I listened to were “As If the World Wasn’t Ending” and “Breathing”  by Sonata Arctica, “Lullaby” by Brahms, “Beauty” by Shaye, “Death and All His Friends” by Coldplay, and the above quoted “Little Wonders” by Rob Thomas. “Little Wonders” really resonated with me during this artist date; I ended up going back to it and listening to it several times over the course of my time spent doing puzzles.

                I chose to do puzzles instead of something a little more creative because I spent most of my last week toiling over my Philosophy final project (among other projects) and knew I wouldn’t enjoy myself if I just smacked myself into something creative instead of unwinding from logic mode. I learned a few years back that I have an ambidextrous brain, and I actually get headaches if I go from the extreme logic of something like science or philosophy to the intense creativeness of poetry or painting. I was also extremely stressed out and tense, so I decided I needed something relaxing (music) and something creative that still demanded logical thinking (puzzles). I hoped that through my artist date I could let go of the stresses of last week and look into the new week creatively.

                Now, after my date, I do feel a little more relaxed and open minded, although I’m starting to stress again because writing this out is reminding me of all the other work I still have to do. But I’m feeling creative enough for sure to launch into something more creative now. I kind of want to paint right now actually, but the practical part of my brain is telling me my open minded-ness is better applied to “Hamlet” by Shakespeare than to a giant piece of paper and some paint.

                The date definitely helped me wind down from the past week’s stress so I can look into the new week with a calmer approach. It aided me in realizing how much I needed to hear, “It’s over. It’s done. Move on.” It also helped me to relax a lot of the burdens weighing me down by calming me so I could think clearly and plan out my tasks. I think that’s why the song “Little Wonders” resonated so well with me during this time spent, because the song speaks of enjoying the moment and not letting other things hold you back from enjoying it. It also talks about how these moments make up our life, and even though we move on, they’ll still be there because we remember them. It really talks about how beautiful the word “Finished” is. Done. Wow. You’re still lingering in the amazement of “I did that, I finished it” but starting to get into “Finally, it’s over.” And I think that’s a place I needed to get out of so I could create again, and somewhat more importantly to me, enjoy “Hamlet.” The question now is, when I read it, will I want to hug Hamlet and tell him it’s all going to be okay? Or will I want to tell him to stop whining and move on? I have a feeling it will be the latter. But alas, it’s all about how you experience the moment. Okay, really Philosophy, stop coming back to me.

Amanda was here.