The Challenge of a Challenge

This summer, I participated in an Instagram photo challenge and posted 50 days of summer photos. Why? Good question. 

It began as a challenge to do a challenge. I’d seen lots of 100-day challenges for artists and writers but was afraid that if I did one, I’d fail. I know something about setting oneself up for failure and wasn’t going to go down that road. However, the idea of a shorter challenge intrigued me. If nothing else, it would be a good experiment. 

I chose a summer challenge because living at nearly 10K feet means summer is short. It’s almost sacred. And like a bear, I come out of my cave, and I go. I write and art and play. I spend much time with my family and cook huge amounts of food. I drink and revel and go to concerts. I hike with my dog. I boat and swim and garden my flowers. I increase my volunteer time. I wake early to write. I’m up late to art. I am a different creature. A 50-day summer challenge seemed easy enough to complete. 

It wasn’t. 

In the beginning, posting was fun! I culled my photos and found my favorites. I loved hearing from others. I followed new people and learned more about everything. But as time wore on, a discomfort emerged. Posting took time away from living in the present moment. I didn’t like being tied to my phone. It seemed too much in all ways, including the privilege it was to post photos every day. I began to cringe. I almost quit. But like writing a novel, the experience rounded itself out. By completing the 50 days, I had to sit with discomfort and trust in the experience. Posting didn’t drive billions of people to my Patreon account or my website. But I did learn from a community interested in similar work. My expectations and goals shifted. Finally, I let go of the idea of “challenges” altogether. 

I’ll continue at my old pace—posting here and there—sometimes for myself, sometimes for my work. I’ll keep a keen eye on my colleagues’ projects and encourage them on. Experiments help us grow. It’s not about success or failure. It’s about the process.  

Christmas Lights and the Gap

I’m not sure why my dad always chose the coldest day in December to put up the outside Christmas tree lights, but invariably, he did. First, he’d ramble up to the attic and hand me boxes of green and blue lights, and then we’d spread them in the living room to check if they worked. Instead of going to Wal-Mart and buying a new string, we’d carefully replace each defective bulb until all 8000 lit the room.

The tree outside was enormous. Dad would climb on his tallest ladder and use a rake to get them as high as he could. He swore a few times, and our feet froze, but when he’d flip the switch, and the tree blazed with blue and green lights, magic happened. For me, nothing was more beautiful. I never noticed the gaps, void of light that my dad pointed out, grumbling about his work, wanting perfection.

We don’t do outside tree lights at our house now, but I am in charge of stringing tiny, white bulbs on our inside tree. Really, it’s a thankless job. They tangle; they get stuck on branches; they burst; and they crack. But at the end of the day, the room is lit with magnificent light: until. Until I see what my dad saw—the gaping hole, a spot in the middle of the tree too tall to reach. By the time I’ve noticed, the kids have covered the branches with ornaments and tinsel, and it’s too late to fix. The gap remains.

I’m trying hard to reverse my thoughts about the holes in life.

Too often, an artist desires perfection, unable to see the beauty in the entire piece and instead, focuses on the gap. Writers and painters adjust, repair, and fine-tune their work until it’s done, but often, they continue to see a tiny hole; something that’s not quite right in their eyes. Most writers I know look at their published work and still see holes to fix. Not big ones, not ones that anyone else sees, but the tiny slices that need repairing only to the artist.

As a writer, I’m always editing (just ask my kids). But I’m working on letting go of the perfection. There may always be a gap. That’s the way life works. And if the rest of the world sees beautiful light, so should we.