I love Betty C. of La France Profonde. She’s been a friend and follower of My Inner French Girl almost since the day I launched the blog in 2007 and has seen it go through the ritual ups and downs that any personal blog inevitably must undergo. We’ve commiserated about the difficulties of blogging and maintaining one’s spirit when the writing juices just won’t flow, as well as the weird but very real ache we feel when we haven’t blogged in a while (I daresay it’s guilt, but guilt based on what, I’ve no clue).
She left a hilarious comment on my last post, in which I basically whined about working so hard and seeing my business grow so fast and so much in such a short period of time, blah blah blah. She very kindly and astutely wrote, “It would be a pity to change the sub-title of your blog to The Art of Working.”
I know she meant it both to be funny but also to be a cautious warning, but I have to admit, I thought to myself, “Well….why not?”
Now that I’m a couple of days removed from that post and am also back to being 100% healthy again, I can see that the delicate balance between the genuine frustration I often feel about the stressful hours and challenging work, and the equally genuine surprise underneath it all that, well, my work is actually paying off, didn’t come across very well in that little essay. The poor, gorgeous butterfly distracted me from the reality that is my life, and that is: it’s not as bad as it all seems, and in some ways much better than it has any right to be.
I don’t mean to sound as if I’ve no right to happiness. We women are often guilty of that, of feeling as if we’re somehow unworthy of any good thing that comes our way, or that we somehow don’t deserve whatever little snatches of joy that the universe decides to randomly dispense to us. And certainly I don’t mean to whine about it. I do understand that my life has been out of whack of late, that my not seeing my niece often enough, or the fact that I’m often at my computer until midnight trying to meet a critical deadline, or simply that I haven’t been able to run as much as I would like (which is killing me more than I care to admit!), means that I seriously need to reevaluate how I live that very life. Otherwise, I may end up waking up one day not even realizing until that moment that, hey, everyone took a different path than I, and here I am all alone in this one.
On the other hand, I have to say, kudos to me! I’ve spent countless hours and many years building up a business, the infrastructure of which even I admit I made up as I went along (and still am, in some ways!), and now I’m starting to see honest-to-goodness, pinch-me-I’m-dre
aming results. Results, as in, people actually think highly enough of my services to pay me money. Good money! Since in some ways I sort of backed into this business, it’s still hard to believe that I’m actually doing it, and of course that also means that I must still work my derriere off in order to deliver on the promise of my dreams, but I guess I don’t often enough recognize my own accomplishments. I can complain with the best of them that I work too hard and don’t have a life–both of which are true–but I really need to learn to acknowledge in the same breath that, yes, I’m doing something good, something worthy, something that really stretches my imagination and my skills. That my life may be crazy right now, but it’s only because I’ve only just begun in this new path I’ve forged in my life, and I need to trust in myself and my ability to figure it all out. Eventually.
Maybe Betty was on to something there, even though she may not have realized it at the time she wrote that comment about changing my blog subtitle to The Art of Working. Working, after all, is a part of living, and a very important one at that. Even the laziest among us needs and wants something to occupy her time now and then, otherwise our muscles would literally atrophy. I’ve probably done a wee bit too much of it of late, but it’s not the fault of work itself but rather my approach to it. Art is work, but work can and should also be art, non? Even that intrepid goddess of all things Francophile, Mireille Guiliano, felt compelled to follow up her massive bestsellers about French women and eating with a book about–wait for it–work.
What “work as art” means, I don’t know, but it’ll be interesting to view it from the perspective of an entrepreneur and writer. To a writer, work is art, but to a business owner? Something else entirely. What that is, I’ve no idea yet, but it should be quite informative to discover.
Photo by Thomas Hawk. “The Queen’s Fool,” on Flickr.com.
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{ 2 comments }
Oh my! What a tribute that my comment would inspire such a post! And you have an interesting point. I am, in fact, a huge worker and to me there is a certain art in my main job, teaching. So, as you said, you may be on to something here.
Good post, Marjorie. And I look forward to checking out Betty’s blog. I won’t reply at length here (it is 7:37AM & I’ve been up working (yep) since 5am). When artists of any kind (writers to poets to musicians to painters, etc etc) are doing what they do, they say (usually, in my experience) “I’m working.”
I can’t tell you how many times people would call me on a known deadline day & want to blab. I’d say “deadline!” (after I found out there was no emergency)…& you know what some people would say? Yes, well, but it’s not really “work.” Really? Tell that to my editor, my publisher, etc. Grrr.
A painter friend was interrupted about 3,000 times yesterday (she called to vent, I cannot vouch for the actual #) with questions about…her work. I’m hazarding a guess that it was about 10 people who interrupted her. Several of these people have used “air quotes” (I saw it with me own peepers) when referring to her painting. Until now. Because more money, more prestige is involved. Yet they are still annoyed that she had to put them off. If one of us called their office during their work hours, or sent an email asking for quick reply – wow, they’d be so very annoyed.
I told her to deep breathe & I’d burn a CD with ocean-sound thingies I recently downloaded…
I’m glad things are going so well for you!
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