Day 275 of My 30-Year Project

Day 275 of My 30-Year Project
It’s been a while since I’ve written.
Summer has a way of doing that to me. I spent some time away, including a month in Nova Scotia with my son. And when I was home, there were long mornings and afternoons sitting in my favourite swing chair with a latte, time in my studio, walks, books, making jewelry and quite a lot of thinking.
For someone who has been self-employed for most of her life, I’m finally beginning to understand that doing nothing isn’t necessarily doing nothing.
Sometimes your mind needs a little room to wander before it can show you where it wants to go next.
And mine has apparently been wandering quite a bit.
I turned 60 on December 18th last year. Somewhere along the way, I decided to think of that birthday as Day 1 of my 30-Year Project.
Today is Day 275.
You’ve probably heard of the 100-Day Project, where you commit to doing something creative every day for 100 days.
I’ve given myself slightly longer. lol
Thirty years.

I’m kidding, of course. Sort of.

There are no rules, no daily assignments and certainly no requirement to document every day. It’s simply a way I’ve decided to think about the years ahead — as something I’m still actively creating.
That’s somewhere around 11,000.
I don’t believe the years behind me were wasted. Not remotely. They contain a marriage, two children I adore, people I’ve loved, things I’ve made, businesses I’ve built, places I’ve been and thirteen years of Shades of Clay.
That’s a pretty full canvas.
But lately I’ve been thinking about the places where I might have made the canvas a little bigger. Used more of my favourite colours.
Tried something simply because it interested me. Paid more attention to what made me feel most like myself.
I can’t go back and change that painting.
And I don’t want to.
That canvas is finished.
What I have now is another one.
In my mind, it’s beautiful stretched linen. I know where to buy the paints. I can afford the good ones. I’ve already collected quite a few of my favourite colours.
And this time, I want to pay attention while I’m painting it.
I don’t mean filling every inch. I like quiet. I like mornings with nowhere to be. I like sitting outside with a coffee. I like noticing things. I don’t need my life to become one enormous bucket list of adventures.
I just don’t want to miss it.
I want to make things. Go places. Notice things. Change my mind. Follow my curiosity. Say yes when I mean yes and become a little better at saying no when I mean no.
I’m simply choosing.
And I’m becoming more deliberate about belonging to myself.
Which brings me to something else that has been quietly taking shape this summer.
The Woman in the Big Earrings Project.
It began, unsurprisingly, with earrings. But I’m realizing it isn’t really about earrings.
The earrings are the symbol.
I’m interested in women who know what they love and choose it for themselves. Women who are paying attention to their own lives. Women who have changed, started again, become more themselves, lost themselves for a while and found their way back — or perhaps are only beginning to.
I’ve started asking some of these women a question:
When did you become the Woman in the Big Earrings?
I’ll be sharing their photographs and their stories, along with more of my own, in the weeks ahead.
And perhaps somewhere along the way, another woman will see herself in one of them and begin asking a few questions of her own.
Where am I choosing myself?
Where am I not?
And what might I choose next?
So that’s where I’ve been.
Making jewelry. Sitting in my swing chair. Thinking. Beginning something new.
And apparently working on Day 275 of a project that’s going to take me another 29 years or so to finish.
I think I’m going to enjoy this one.