*New on this site:  All of the posts that contain Tuesday Tasks are now located in one handy spot for you to visit whenever you feel like you could use a little creative or reflective jolt.  Look over to the right and you will find their new home!*

I wasn’t always what someone might call a happy morning person.  I’d hit snooze several times before letting my legs fall out of bed and then slowly sit up, sigh and resign to the next task ahead of me.  Standing up.  That was Monday to Friday, and before I had children.  Can’t hit snooze on children.  On the weekends, however, in that hazy moment at 6:30 am when my body felt itself rousing from slumber, I’d realize it was Saturday and my eyes would fly open.  I’d turn to my husband, deep in la-la land, wait patiently for a few minutes and then tap, tap, tap…”Are you up?”  Suddenly, I was the child and you couldn’t hit snooze on me!

What was it about Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday that made 8 am feel like the middle of the night?  I still got out of bed and got my stuff done, but I was less than thrilled.  WHY BE LESS THAN THRILLED?

Until I started writing again on a daily basis and until I recognized it as my purpose, I didn’t know what it was to feel like it was Saturday every day.  Last summer when I started this blog, I got a taste of what it would be like to have writing be up front and centre in my life.  It was decadent.  I volunteered to be a contributing writer for South Asian Woman magazine and now have regular assignments.  I started submitting my work to calls on Places for Writers.  I’m also saying yes whenever I’m asked to read my poetry at a Pandora’s Collective event (a non-profit organization for which I fundraise).  I had a reading last week, another one in April and another one in May.  Which means, more writing for me to do!

I’m like a kid who claps gleefully at the prospect of chocolate ice cream!!  When my eyes open in the morning, it doesn’t matter what day it is because I know it’s always going to start off with writing.  In fact, my weekdays give me more guaranteed time to write so I look forward to Monday mornings like I never have in my life!

One more note before I get you to do some work here.  Julia Cameron, in The Artist’s Way, speaks about enthusiasm.  She says, “Enthusiasm (from the Greek, ‘filled with God’) is an ongoing energy supply tapped into the flow of life itself.”  This is how she explains an artist’s so-called discipline at their craft.  Like when people ask me, “How do you write every day?” and wonder if I’m crazy for adding work to my life when I have two young children.  I totally don’t see it as work.  But shhhh, that’s a secret, because that’s what I tell the kids I’m doing.  “Mommy has to work now.”  As Julia Cameron says, “What other people may view as discipline is actually a play date that we make with our artist child.”

OK!  Now, YOUR turn!  Get out a piece of paper and write down “I would jump out of bed every morning if I could_______!”

Don’t think – just write!  And if you have 10 things that tumble out of you, good, write them all down.  If it’s one thing, that’s OK, too.  There is something, even one thing, out there for each of us. 

When we remove the layers of logic, practicality and insecurity we get right at the root of what we simply don’t want to hit snooze on!