ENJOY THE SILENCE
Today's blog post is very late because I was napping hardcore for 3 hours this afternoon. I've been practicing listening to my body more and more now that I'm in "recovery" from constantly working myself into bad health and today was a good practice of that. I got 9 hours of regular sleep last night, but for some reason after eating a giant brunch today my body was like "sleep, now." So, that's what I did. Which is perfect because today's post is all about listening.
One year ago around this time, I had decided not to go back into teaching and instead pursue my own art practice. I gave myself 1 year to give it a go and see if it would bring enough $$ to survive. I'm going on year 2, so far so good. One major benefit of not having gone back into teaching.... is silence. Spacious, beautiful, peaceful silence. I don't have 30+ small humans carrying on relatively normal volume conversations all at the same time which at that volume creates this vortex of sound that makes your brain short circuit. Not to mention, a lot of the younger ones don't have the ability to regulate their own volume... so they're screaming at full capacity while carrying on a conversation with the kid sitting directly next to them. It's just a regular part of being a teacher and honestly, the sound of kids enjoying life is actually really inspiring- but for six years of being an educator I had to push through it, meanwhile navigating my own inability to mentally process too much sound. I'm sure there's a name for it somewhere, but in one of my most favorite Office scenes, Nate summarizes it perfectly.
If I were to put it in my own words- it would be something like: I can't visualize my thoughts when there's too much noise. I become internally blind to my own thoughts, and my whole body becomes agitated af. Bless my poor husband, who has learned in one year of marriage that when I'm stressed and can't find something important around the house, I need everything completely quiet. "'She's so neurotic," my mom would say while dealing with one of my many childhood meltdowns during which I also needed everything totally silent so I could concentrate on whatever was agitating me at the moment (usually the inability to find something I was looking for because I had created a giant mess doing creative projects like sewing new barbie clothes or making a ton of bead lizards). What can I say, I've been a tortured artist since forever.
So, this year when it came time to be all my by my lonesome plugging away in a studio, the only things I wanted to hear was the v v satisfying sound of paint spreading on a canvas and tape pealing off of some surfaces. Let me tell you, the silence... it's glorious. It's like I'm drinking a tall glass of cold quiet via my years after years of a sound dessert. In the silence, I'm able to hear what my next project is, visualize my ideas, picture art pieces out loud as if they are physically right in front of me.
In the quiet, I can also enjoy the natural sounds of the art making process, which are some of the most satisfying tiny sounds you could hear. I posted several ASMR videos on my IG through out the months. But, since this is grand opening #cataphantglowup week, in celebration I put them all together in one 15-minute long video for everyone else who just needs some v v satisfying silence right now.
**during one of these clips, I was watching a TV show. If you can name that TV show, I'll send you a free pair of CATAPHANT's. Enjoy the Silence =), CATAPHANT
