The 11 a.m. crisis is real and I've stopped fighting it
Okay so I keep this schedule where I'm at the desk by 8, coffee going, big plans, looking so professional. And then without fail somewhere around 11 I hit this wall where everything I've done since breakfast looks like garbage and I'm convinced I should have stayed a Barista forever. Like genuinely considering applying to the café down the street. I've started just planning the crisis into the day. 8-11 is real work, 11-11:30 is me staring at the wall telling myself my last job had a 401k and then I make a second coffee and somehow that fixes my whole brain and I'm fine.
Today's wall was the window painting, which is funny because I've done that same window maybe 30 times now. The light this morning was doing something beautiful with the frost on the glass and I completely butchered it. Not even a salvageable butchered, just wrong. And I sat there for a solid ten minutes thinking maybe I've actually never been good at this and everyone's just being nice. Then the second coffee happened and now I'm repainting it with a tiny bit of gamboge in the mix and it's fixing itself.
I'm not even sure what the point is. Just that I think the 11am wall is part of the job now. Like my brain does a hard reset and I come back with slightly better hands. Does this happen to anyone else or am I just dramatic??
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The 11 a.m. wall is real and I think planning it in is smarter than fighting it. I had a decade where the wall won so often I almost stopped painting entirely. The difference now is I know it's not about whether the morning's work is garbage, it's just the moment where the studio gets quiet enough that all your doubt gets a turn to speak.
When I hit it I go look at something good. Not my own stuff. Caravaggio, a Vermeer reproduction, some old master drawing. Reminds me what the standard actually is and that nobody hits it before lunch. Then I eat something and come back.
The second coffee thing though. That part I do not understand. One is already enough for my nerves, I have no idea how you people function on two. But if it fixes your brain, don't question it.