Exploring Spaces | Catherine Viel

By Catherine Viel, December 27, 2022

(Golden Age of Gaia)

December 26, 2022

I don’t like this kind of waiting:…
Nothing changes. This room needs flowers.
~Robert Long, Interior Decoration



I have much too narrow a definition of creativity. Intellectually, I recognize the axiom that any activity, thought process, or daydream can be creative. Still, my subliminally accepted definition insists that only artistic activities are legitimately creative.

Luckily, the more sensible and supportive aspects of self recognize that the feeling I experience around an activity flags it as artistic / creative.

It’s gradually dawned on me over the last two days that my unexpected fascination with and delight in Christmas decorating—of all things—showcases this awareness. Decorating a space is a creative activity.

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There is a paradoxical mindless mindfulness about scanning the blank slate of a tabletop or wall, and mentally, then literally, populating it with knickknacks and artwork. The perfect vase or crystal pyramid, Carnaval mask or original watercolor, shyly awaits its time in the sun.

It’s tempting to dismiss my fascination with decorating projects as a time-waster. House cleaning or balancing the checkbook would surely be more productive. Besides, everything looks fine the way it is, with the same set vignettes on every surface, and books arranged by author on the sober wooden shelves.

I’m slightly envious of people who utilize their space as an ever-changing, lived-in cyclorama. But, although I was constantly redecorating my bedroom as a child and teen, nowadays I admire others’ decorating genius and exclude myself from those ranks.

Creative activity is meat and potatoes for my soul. It isn’t optional nutrition, yet I struggle with allotting a miserly bit of attention and time to feed my very essence.

Why is it so easy to make myself “wrong“ for doing things that nurture and support myself?

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I’ll leave the philosophizing for another day. Right now, I deliberately loosen the death grip on my everyday self and allow these knickknacks and gewgaws, these maps of my soul, to beckon me into exploring my inner and outer space.