Sunday and the Morning Pages

Still working at the Morning Pages from The Artist's Way thing, except the book is Walking in This World, like I said before.  Same idea, same theory, mix in some walking, stir, bake.  Guess what?  I'm not walking yet. The walking is going to take time to start and become a habit. Surprised?  Ahem.

I've got the journaling down really well.  I can't get on with my day unless I've written  three pages worth.  Writing has become a habit I'm unwilling to break.  I get all comfortable after my morning routine and everyone's gone, and write whatever comes into my head. 

Then Sunday rolls around.  Now there's a problem.  Sunday everyone's off, meaning the people in my house are home at the same time.  Ok, fine, Son #2 is in dreamland and doesn't show up until later.  That leaves the Mr.  Since both of us are early rising morning people, we're usually awake at the same time, about 6AM-ish.  Try as I might, I can't wake myself up much earlier than the Mr. so I'm unable to be alone weekdays until after he leaves for work.  On Sunday I'd like to sleep a little later, but 7AM is as late as it gets.  The Mr. is awake and looking for coffee, breakfast, TV, all action. 

When that's all done I'm ready to write.  The Mr. comes in the kitchen for more coffee and eyeballs me.  I eyeball back.  Yes?  Well, he's a nosey sneak, all in my business!  And yes, it's my business!  So the question is: how to hide the morning pages writing from the snoop.  I took a sip of my coffee and thought about it.

The answer was to get up, take my stuff, and very non-chalantly walk out of the kitchen, past the living room where the Mr. has taken up space, and go to the studio!  Brilliant, right?  Good idea until I went to the studio.  The fickle light would not go on, my desk was cluttered with painting stuff, and the table and chairs was too dark from no light in the room.  Lovely. 

I made some room at the desk for my notebook and coffee cup to write.  I was all alone, the coffee was still hot and I was surrounded by stuff I like.  Great!  The downside was that I became distracted by my painting in progress.  Instead of writing the morning pages I wanted to paint.  Rather than writing down my brain junk I was thinking where to go with the work.  Had the light worked I would've sat in a different area without the distractions.  It felt like I was doing the 15 minutes of art at my desk. 

I persevered and the pages were written.  Since I had ideas in my head about the painting while there, I went ahead and followed through on them.  So what's the problem with painting a little more shadow where I thought it should go right at that moment?  My brain answered, Nothing.