Usually on Wednesdays, I’m scrambling all day long to get my art history assignment done. It is always due by Wednesday at 5 pm, and I never have enough time to work on it earlier in the week (or I’m just a procrastinator). Either way, it typically means that my Wednesdays are relatively stressful and rushed. Today however, we don’t have an assignment due! We turned our last one in last week and so we are done with assignments for the semester! (We just have a week and a half left of school)
Therefore, today has been much more relaxing than most Wednesdays, even though I still had other work to do. Tomorrow, my 8 smaller paintings that we’ve been working on lately are due. I had two that I needed to finish today (there is that procrastinating again) so I spent the morning/afternoon at the park painting.
It is funny what all you see and hear while sitting in the park for several hours. I brought my iPod with me, but I totally forgot that I had it, and I’m glad I didn’t turn it on. It was much more interesting to hear what all was going on around me. Wind blowing, leaves shaking, twigs falling out of the trees, birds, ducks, squirrels, people walking, biking, taking on the phone. Since I was there during the daytime, when most people are at work and most kids were at school, it made for an interesting combination of people. College students from Tulane and Loyola, older people, parents with their young children, moms with strollers, people walking dogs, people running/walking/biking, a girl that sung along with her iPod like she was on stage with a pop star, a teacher with her first grade class (whom she lectured for 10 minutes on not jumping off the bridge while they crossed it), another teacher yelling at her kids not to walk on the bike path, a guy from in a cowboy hat talking on the phone about Cowboys for Christ, and the list goes on and on.
It was a perfect day outside, I got my painting done (and I’m very pleased with how it turned out!), and it was nice to just sit and listen for a while. It seems like all too often I forget all about the world around me and get too caught up in my own little world.
