flexibility

The Twist by Thomas Hart Benton (1964)

Life can become inflexible. Job situations have us doing things in a routine perhaps, or maybe with the time of the year and the economy shrinking, we may be doing more with less than we ever imagined. Our lives become tightly bordered with things we must do and often too things we cannot do. After surveying the borders we long for a little wiggle room in our lives. Room to think. Time to do something a bit more innovative. And then there’s our personal wiggle room. Our life away from the job or the routine.

Where is that studio we need? Is it in our head? Is it a place? Or maybe it’s just a quiet corner we carve out at home. A table and chair that’s ours. A book and a pen. Seems we all crave a bit of space and the time to enjoy it too. It’s nice when it can become more than just a refuge. It’s very cool when it, that studio or place wherever it may be, becomes a place we go to experience the wiggle. If we want wiggle room, we have to be able to wiggle when the room presents itself, when the opportunity faces us and says, “OK. You’re here now. No one’s bothering you, or telling you where to be. So, wiggle”.