the artist's life continues

the trouble with being interrupted yesterday is that is seems like I was complaining. I'm not.

what i want to say is more complicated than to moan and groan that i have to much to do. it's more about the perception of time, the perception of control and the effect on creativity of not being reflective about what's running through my brain.
Artists are often trying to fit their work in between their day job or the other demands in their life. In my case i could spend all my time pursuing the other demands in my life. I love my people and i love to help them and i usually get immediate gratification whether it's cleaning the kitchen, organizing the bills, taking my mom to the doctor, attending my bother's annual review with his caregivers, solving my son's computer problem (which i actually didn't solve yesterday), or making a cup of tea for my sick teenager.
So I start down the road of doing my domestic tasks, taking care of my family and soon all the other things that aren't getting done start tapping me on the shoulder. The pile of dishes in the sink, the laundry to fold the floor that needs sweeping and the garden that hasn't been weeded all winter (here in the bay area it is the during the winter that weeds really get a foothold). At that point i often fail to be reflective and i am pulled like a magnet to the daily distractions from my art.
But it is not true that I am made of iron filings and the dishes or magnetized. In fact i can decide. As an intelligent person i can even cast these from my mind and go to work. It does not matter weather other people value my art, nor does it matter that i may question the value of my art. I can save that for the nights i can't sleep. My mind (and every one's mind who's able to read this) is strong enough to ignore that reality and focus on another reality.
It may be true that there are dishes in the sink, but it's equally true that there is a light in the garden that is inspiring if i stop to look. it's equally true that it's been raining like crazy so my the creek favorite canyon is bubbling and gurgling and in need of a publicity shot. So to be creative i could turn my mind to those things and go out on a shoot. It's equally true that my computer is full of images that are begging to be processed and released from their digital prison, printed transfer shown to to others and even sold. So to develop my creativity i could go switch on the computer and stick my nose in the monitor and be lost for hours because i don't have to think about anything i don't want to think about.
I know that i can choose what to think about. I've known that for years. it's one of the gifts of my traumatized childhood. i learned that if i didn't think about it i did not have to pay any attention to the beating i was receiving from my psychotic sister, i did not have to pay attention to the welts on my legs when i sat down to do long division in school,.i did not have to think about what mood my mom would be in when i got home or whether her kid-beating, animal-torturing, verbally-abusive boyfriend would be there.
In fact i didn't have to think about it when he set me to so meaningless task of scrubbing something that was already clean so that he could repeatedly tell me that i was an idiot didn't is see that it was not clean enough? Instead i could live the life of my daydreams, live somewhere else where no one could reach me, where no one else had any say over what happened. So i know how powerful our brains are.
so the open question is why do i allow myself to think about things as magnets or detours? why do i allow both realities to press upon me at the same time so that i am frozen mentally and unable to do any of it?
am i recreating suffering? do i want to suffer as an excuse for not moving forward in anything? suspended neither a success or failure.
i'm convinced that a current state of suffering in inconsistent with creativity, or at least the productive sort. obviously the struggles of my youth helped me develop my imagination. Roman Polanski comes to mind. I recently watched his Oliver and the commentary after included thoughts about how his horrific childhood gave him insight into the traumatic experience of Oliver and therefor he could better tell us that story. besides the fact that there is no therefor, that it's not a conclusion that because he suffered he can tell us about suffering, besides that it really hit me that suffering in the past is something we can draw on but it's really not useful at the moment of expressing ourselves because it tends to narrow your world, cut off possibilities and so creativity and communication are reduced.