100 day project
taking the time, repetition as scaffolding, and keeping yourself afloat with possible impossibilities.
I’ve sat and thought about it, felt scared about it, and now I’ve made a decision about it.
I’m going to start a hundred-day project.
Am I setting myself up for disaster? Perhaps.
Because my friends, you see, the hundred days project goes something like this: you choose something (the smaller and simpler the better), it can be anything tiny, lovely, weird, or just something you’ve thought about doing for a while, something that has been bugging you to do it and you just haven’t paid it any mind — and then you commit to doing it for one hundred days.
The choices are endless really; it could be reading a poem, going for a walk, eating something green or purple (that would be tricky), taking a picture, cooking from a recipe, dancing in your living room, singing a song OUT LOUD all the way through (in front of your children), putting your phone in a drawer for three hours a day, drawing something (yourself?), painting, planting a seed — whatever floats your boat, as they say.
And I think that’s the heart of it — it’s something to keep yourself afloat when otherwise your creative self/soul self might be sinking under the weight of all that laundry that needs to get done…the laundry is always there waiting to get done, isn’t it? Or heavier still, the weight of the 24-hour news cycle right now. Oof, buddy — it’s a lot, a lot.
And yes, I know!!! That’s a lot of days. The gall right. To commit to something like that. We’ve got lives, for goodness’ sake. We’ve got children! We’ve got a plethora of cats!
I mean, what if it rains? Or we get sick? Or bored? Or we don’t sleep? Or we have to clean the entire attic because of the plethora of cats? What if we’re travelling? What if we fail? Commitment is hard.
I know!!! EEEeeeeeee! It’s terrifying. I think that’s the point… despite the what ifs that life will no doubt throw our way — we do it anyway.
And I don’t know about you, but that’s what I need right now—a doing-it-anyway type of commitment in my day. I’m feeling with the current state of — well, everything —that I need more scaffolding, more structure to hold myself up to an inspired and hopeful state of existence. This state is one I am more likely to find, maybe you do too, through giving myself seemingly unattainable tasks. Something that requires more than a good, hard nudge to get after.
But still, this idea has had me sweating all week, considering all the possible failures and difficulties of a 100-day project. In an attempt to calm down, I picked up my old copy of Corita Kent’s book Learning By Heart. Inside, right off the bat, she dives into all these simple exercises to encourage people to find ways to look closely at the world. A big part of the work she assigns involves insane amounts of repetition. She argues that there is a kind of looking and seeing that is only possible after you’ve done something over and over again, when you haven’t shied away, but you’ve sat down and made space for whatever comes up….hmmmmm, perhaps for a hundred days?
After skimming through her exercises, I remembered a quote by Georgia O’Keeffe that I had seen printed on the wall at her museum in Santa Fe, and loved so much —
Nobody sees a flower - really - it is so small it takes time - we haven't time - and to see takes time, like to have a friend takes time.
I like to think of Georgia kneeling down and looking really really closely at a flower, her eyeballs deep inside, her hands cupping it to her face so the petals covered her cheeks — every day kneeling at the feet of the flowers and bones and ever-present but ever-changing New Mexico sky.
I think there’s something about this 100-day project that feels like it’s in this same spirit of showing up, taking a long look, and really seeing — simply by taking the time…every day, over and over.
And so I am going to write an essayette every day for the next hundred days, starting this Monday, June 16th (I have changed this date three times now — isn’t that funny? I’ve moved it out, brought it back, wondered if I need more time to be ready). I’m stealing a bit from Ross Gay. Ross committed to writing essayettes (short, concise essays usually a few paragraphs) every day for a whole year! He focused on delight and then turned it into the truly wonderful The Book of Delights, which I highly, highly recommend reading.
If all this seems a little exciting (another word for terrifying), if it piqued your interest, and you’re thinking hmmmm, maybe I want to do this…I invite you to join me! I’d love to hear what you come up with and encourage each other along.
If not, I get it, even now I’m feeling a tickle in my throat and a hot-headedness that seems to forecast, I am right on schedule to get sick and regret this whole thing by Monday. But here we go in spite of everything — let’s do it anyway.
Oh yeah, baby! I am STOKED for this project. Love love love.
oooooo this is so exciting. The possibilities. Thank you for the challenge... maybe accepted. I mean, yes, goshdarnit, yes. Now to think of a thing. And now I am going to go look at a flower (while my children talk at me). Get them to look too? Such good lessons.