Too Many Rabbits

Hannah Harvester, “Early April,” 2018, oilstick on paper, 18x24”

“You can’t chase two rabbits.” 

The proverb is attributed to various sources, most commonly the Chinese. I know it’s true, not because I chase two rabbits, but because I chase, like, ten, and I’ve started to lose my mind. In school, all the way through my bachelor’s degree at a liberal arts college, it was okay and even praiseworthy to have many pursuits, because they were all ultimately rolled into one: success in school. As long as art, theater, activism, reading fiction, reading nonfiction, language learning, dance, art history, and playing musical instruments were done for academic credit or in the service of being a “well-rounded person, ” it was great.

School’s over, degree’s in hand, and suddenly everything that’s not work is a hobby. Shit! For fifteen years I’ve been trying to cull my interests, combine my interests, monetize my interests, anything to fit them into my days. You can see it in my visual art alone: I paint in oils, pastels, I practice block printing, I draw, I make abstracts, landscapes, portraits. Non-artists tend to admire this breadth of subject and media, but people closer to the art world admonish me to focus. You can’t chase two rabbits. You won’t stand out, achieve mastery, find your niche, your market, your profitability, if you’re not developing a cohesive body of work.

I really do try, and I’ve focused on soft pastel landscapes over the past two years, and it’s true: I now have a cohesive body of work I can show. I stray into printmaking or oils now and then, but as long as I maintain a regular pastel practice I don’t scold myself for that. 

Now the real problem is the rest of my life. I make art; I try to promote and sell it; I teach art (and try to promote and sell my teaching). I nanny for income and take that seriously (you’d think I were a parent if you saw the parenting books on my shelf). I sing in two choruses; attend multiple dance classes; I cook and ferment and garden; and I force myself to only practice three languages on Duolingo. I have a 60+ day meditation streak on. My reading list is long and I listen to audiobooks to scratch the itch. I try to be a good aunt and a good friend. Most recently, I’ve been more and more pulled into environmental activism and find myself making plans to run ecogrief groups and explore ways I can make a real contribution to restoring our damaged earth. 

 
I’ve started leaving important things at home when I go out: my phone, my wallet. This has caused me to realize what I need to do: I need to slow down. I need to give even more time to each step, each task, each pursuit. I need to allow two hours to get ready to leave the house for work, not one. I need to pause between each activity. I need to walk slowly to the studio, slowly to the car, slowly through the grocery store. If I don’t, I’ll lose my wallet, or my mind.

So I need to change the proverb. Sure, maybe I can release a thing or two from my to-do list, but the reason I do the things I do is that without them I feel like I’m not living. Dancing and singing make me happy. Language learning relaxes a certain scattered part of my brain. Reading keeps me connected to the world outside myself. And so on.

Maybe I just need to realize: you don’t actually have to chase rabbits. It’s totally true that you can’t chase two of them (implied: simultaneously). But you can…dip into many pots. Sip from many glasses. Nibble from many plates. If the object is nourishment, enjoyment, rather than capture, maybe it can be done. How about this: You can snuggle many rabbits.