A pasta metaphor for creative inspiration

I've been thinking about all the times my brain felt like a pot of boiling spaghetti - steaming, mouth-watering but also burning hot like 50SPF-3rd-degree-burn. It's led me to launch into dozens of projects that ended up half-baked in the long run (seriously, I had a t-shirt "brand" back in the day. PM me for some sick merch yo. But please don't actually). And maybe this is because I've been unsure how to strain the pasta and digest all that food for thought. It tends to boil over or simmer down.

However, thanks to friends who practice art for a living, I boiled down a method that I'll humbly call "expansive focus" - and that I've recently applied to my writing.

The focus was first afforded by my spending a week in the mountains with my parents and a week in the hills with my partner. Never had I measured the luxury of catered calm. In the past, I might have gotten cabin fever and binged on entertainment to distract a seemingly trapped brain. But this time, expansion was allowed by actually following the recipe for making pasta: I journaled every morning and kneaded the dough, let it roll out into expansive writing when I felt the steam swell and I gave into to my guilty pleasure of sauce-making otherwise known as editing. I ate while I cooked and I cooked like I dance - with more space, less mind chatter and a physical, *felt* sense of trust in the process.

I don't know if I'll ever get a Michelin star but all I can say is that so far, the fettuccine tastes al dente my friends.

Plans for this year are to host a banquet of rimes and verses in the form of a book (did I say that out loud? Oops.) Any and all advice is welcome!

I'm entering the new decade like I'm 10 years-old: life is a playground and I can't wait for my boobs to grow.