Anyone that knows me, knows there is no point in conversing with me prior to my morning cup of joe, aka sweet nectar of life. Some have even begun to equate "things Court loves" with "coffee". Some call me a coffee connoisseur. Some have even said that I "have the worst coffee problem they have ever seen".
Anyhow, I was at a friend's house recently, who has a different style of coffee pot than mine at home. I was so looking forward to that lovely cup of coffee, that I didn't realize the spout was shaped differently and was also slightly smaller than the general pouring area on my usual brewing device. I picked up the pot of coffee, to pour it at the normal rate at which I would normally fill a mug to the brim, only to have catastrophic results. The coffee spilled every where! I tried again, but the coffee slipped out of the pour spout and over the edges of the pot making a coffee puddle around my mug, instead of the intended results of filling my mug with that glorious cup of hot coffee. Obviously, I would like to blame this obvious oversight to the fact that it was all "pre-coffee" and thus should be taken off of the record of "stupid things I did, not only once, but twice". But upon further examination of the shape of this unusual and foreign coffee pot, I realized, the stroke of genius I had been needing to make this whole operation work.... ... I just needed to pour the coffee more slowly. Ever heard of the phrase "too much of a good thing"? This was my very simple problem. Too much of the good thing that I so desperately wanted and needed was being poured too quickly out of the pot. Instead of becoming an enjoyable cup of coffee for me to sip, it became a mess on the counter for me to clean. Once I realized the ergonomics of this coffee pot, I was able to slow the rate at which I was pouring, for the desired result. The coffee came out more slowly, but it was also more precise. Exactly, what I needed. Just enough of a good thing in just the right amount of time. Why have I gone on so long about this seemingly tiny incident. Because it struck me as so real. As I am on the journey for creativity in the every day; seeking to nurture myself as an artist and a creative person and seeking to also be a resource of others in this area, I realized that sometimes what happens to us is too much of a good thing. Or we try to make it all happen so fast. But just like a painting from a great master, it slowly reveals itself to us, at a rate which our fast paced culture is not able to see. We move on so quickly from thing to thing. From job to job, activity to activity, that we often transfer these same principles of accomplishment in our creative life. We want that painting to work and we want it now. We want to learn something new, but we finally take that first class and we don't learn it all in one class. It happens much more slowly and mysteriously. We must be farmers in our creative lives. Farmers plant and water and standby, showing up day after day to gently tend or sometimes assertively weed out. Then when the work pays off, they have quite a lot to show for it, hopefully an abundance. Maybe we become so frustrated with that lack of instant result that we set those paints aside and allow them to collect dust, saying to ourselves, "I tried that once, it didn't work out". Or that guitar goes from it's place of honor on the stand in our room, to in its case in the attic thinking, "I went to one lesson once, the teacher wasn't nice." Maybe we poured a little to quickly and instead of into a vessel, we just made a mess and felt ashamed or embarrassed that we even tried. So let's not be like I was the other day. So ready for that good thing, that instead of taking the time to tend to it as needed, I dumped it all over the counter. If you just take a moment, invest the thought, realize what is going on and slow down the pour; you can enjoy each and every drop.
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