Sometimes I'm the guy doing tricks. Often I think I might be the dog. Mostly this site is for me - a place to put it all. But it would be lovely if you enjoy it too.
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
thoughts on creativity
I wrote this little number last year, in the midst of a personal renaissance that followed five intensive years of baby-minding. I had just watched a talk by Elizabeth Gilbert regarding the nature of creativity, and it struck a chord in me that I hadn't heard in a long time. I felt compelled to work out some of my thoughts in writing. I don't think I ever polished this mini-essay, but I still think it's worth keeping. Since I worked out these thoughts last year, I managed to finish one painting and am working on two more. I have sketched more, written more, and felt more comfortable in my own skin than ever before. It was a powerful time of growth for me, and it's still evolving.
I must admit that against my will I have come to find this woman unbelievably insightful, honest, sane, and helpful. She’s the one who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, which I received out of the blue from a friend last year. Of course, at the time, I read 10 pages and completely dismissed the author and her book because it’s a NYT bestseller, which obviously means it’s a shallow, touchy-feely piece of crap that only masses of soft-minded, soft-bodied, Oprah-loving women would find meaningful. But goddammit I picked the book up again a couple weeks ago and it’s really fantastic.
That’s all I’ll say about the book. I just wanted to set the scene. You know, to explain how I ended up googling this woman. So I googled her and found this excellent talk she gave recently in California, and it made me see orange (a good thing), and breathe a sigh of relief (a rare thing), and feel like I have a new friend (just hearing the thoughts of someone whose take on life is so similar to my own). (And by the way, if/when you watch the video of her talk—it helps to know that when she says “god” she doesn’t mean “God.” She means the Poetry rather than the Prose.)
She’s talking about the nature of creative people and how difficult it can be to manage your self, your creative drive, criticism (from others and from yourself), fear of failure, and the confusion that comes with the same force simultaneously keeping you alive and threatening to destroy you. What is this thing? Where does it come from? How do you live with it without going crazy?
Coincidentally, I’ve been pondering these same questions more than usual lately. I’ve been excited and encouraged recently to feel my perception of my self shift from I am creative. I can’t stop. It makes me feel crazy. But what have I done? Is anything I produce any good? What does that say about me? Why should I bother if it isn’t any good? Why bother if what I create doesn’t live up to what I feel I can do? Can I make a living as an artist? Do I really deserve to be called an artist?
Coincidentally, I’ve been pondering these same questions more than usual lately. I’ve been excited and encouraged recently to feel my perception of my self shift from I am creative. I can’t stop. It makes me feel crazy. But what have I done? Is anything I produce any good? What does that say about me? Why should I bother if it isn’t any good? Why bother if what I create doesn’t live up to what I feel I can do? Can I make a living as an artist? Do I really deserve to be called an artist?
to
I am human, and to be human can be many things. It’s as if “god” (for lack of a better term)—the engineer, the painter, the sculptor, the philosopher, the mathematician, the chemist, the biologist, the physicist, the clown, the poet, the creator, the lover, the destroyer—split into billions of pieces and became living beings. My particular shard of humanity happens to be heavy on the creative ingredients in their many forms.
So now, rather than focusing on Me, My Identity, and whether I feel I meet the Artistic Person Criteria as I understand it, I suddenly find I am reveling in the thought that I am not unique. Millions of people are heavy on the creative ingredients and we all share the same battle and bewilderment with the creative drive. The natural impulse is to fight to establish one’s identity, if only to oneself, as an artist whose work and voice and soul is different from anyone else’s—to prove yourself to your self as much as to others. I, Me, Mine. I am an artist. Look at Me. This work is Mine.
But now, suddenly, I don’t feel I have to prove anything. I am not competing. I am what I am and I can’t help that, in both good ways and bad. To my usual self, who strives (mostly privately) to prove that she deserves the title Artist or Creator, I want to say, with the compassion of a mother, “Shhh, it’s ok. Be still.” Just do what you do because that is who you are—you couldn’t help creating, even if you tried. The act is all. The process—the creating itself—is all. What you strive for is already there in your fabric. Just sit down and do it—practice your craft, in every sense of these words. That is your job, that is your voice, that is who you are and what you do. It doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with your work, because you will. But that struggle is the point—it’s what makes you alive. Just don’t let the struggle take control and have the last word.
So this is what I’d been thinking about over the weekend, and when I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk. Her (and Tom Waits’s and the Greeks’) notion that the creative drive is like a collaborator—something you can ask to go away and come back when you’re ready—made me smile. It was like warm milk when you can’t sleep. All my life I’ve been fearfully running from this creative drive when I feel it coming—it makes me crazy and sick and upset. Yet it lives with me and I can’t get rid of it—like the “genius” in the walls she refers to. Tom Waits’s idea that you can take over the reins and negotiate the relationship never occurred to me before. I’d always assumed it was a ghost that haunted me at will unless I hid from it. Who would have thought you could ask it to wait a minute? I’m just so damn glad to know these people are out there and that their shard of humanity has so many of the same ingredients as mine. I don’t care if they’re more prolific or successful than me—that’s all gravy. All I care about is that for the first time I’m finding comfort and inspiration in that notion that I’m one of a million, rather than one in a million.
I am human, and to be human can be many things. It’s as if “god” (for lack of a better term)—the engineer, the painter, the sculptor, the philosopher, the mathematician, the chemist, the biologist, the physicist, the clown, the poet, the creator, the lover, the destroyer—split into billions of pieces and became living beings. My particular shard of humanity happens to be heavy on the creative ingredients in their many forms.
So now, rather than focusing on Me, My Identity, and whether I feel I meet the Artistic Person Criteria as I understand it, I suddenly find I am reveling in the thought that I am not unique. Millions of people are heavy on the creative ingredients and we all share the same battle and bewilderment with the creative drive. The natural impulse is to fight to establish one’s identity, if only to oneself, as an artist whose work and voice and soul is different from anyone else’s—to prove yourself to your self as much as to others. I, Me, Mine. I am an artist. Look at Me. This work is Mine.
But now, suddenly, I don’t feel I have to prove anything. I am not competing. I am what I am and I can’t help that, in both good ways and bad. To my usual self, who strives (mostly privately) to prove that she deserves the title Artist or Creator, I want to say, with the compassion of a mother, “Shhh, it’s ok. Be still.” Just do what you do because that is who you are—you couldn’t help creating, even if you tried. The act is all. The process—the creating itself—is all. What you strive for is already there in your fabric. Just sit down and do it—practice your craft, in every sense of these words. That is your job, that is your voice, that is who you are and what you do. It doesn’t mean you won’t struggle with your work, because you will. But that struggle is the point—it’s what makes you alive. Just don’t let the struggle take control and have the last word.
So this is what I’d been thinking about over the weekend, and when I listened to Elizabeth Gilbert’s talk. Her (and Tom Waits’s and the Greeks’) notion that the creative drive is like a collaborator—something you can ask to go away and come back when you’re ready—made me smile. It was like warm milk when you can’t sleep. All my life I’ve been fearfully running from this creative drive when I feel it coming—it makes me crazy and sick and upset. Yet it lives with me and I can’t get rid of it—like the “genius” in the walls she refers to. Tom Waits’s idea that you can take over the reins and negotiate the relationship never occurred to me before. I’d always assumed it was a ghost that haunted me at will unless I hid from it. Who would have thought you could ask it to wait a minute? I’m just so damn glad to know these people are out there and that their shard of humanity has so many of the same ingredients as mine. I don’t care if they’re more prolific or successful than me—that’s all gravy. All I care about is that for the first time I’m finding comfort and inspiration in that notion that I’m one of a million, rather than one in a million.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
minor confessions
I sneak Scooby Doo fruit snacks from my own pantry every night. I stare, practically paralyzed, at my child after he has fallen asleep. I smell his hair, listen to his breathing, and feel his tiny shoulder with my hand. I am afraid of almost everything. I rip up my cuticles when I'm preoccupied or nervous. I don't want to join the PTA. I sing 80s rock ballads really loud in my car because I know all the words. I love watching Family Feud and Murder She Wrote. I think I'm recovering from a case of Athlete's Foot, but I have no idea how I got it. I sometimes wish I could be a big, black jazz singer in a red sequined dress instead of a skinny white girl with anxiety issues. I have no idea what I'm doing. I always cry when I'm angry; it makes my face puffy and purple, but my eyes turn an amazing shade of electric blue. I am alternately fearful of and content with my own hypocrisy. I have been terrified of vomiting since I was six. I feel like I'm always a step behind. I've been systematically sneaking Liam's Easter candy. I love bologna (the meat product, not the city). Someday I would like to travel to India, but I'm scared of what my phobia would do to me while I was there. The second toe on my left foot is longer than that on my right and I have an extra set of ribs. When I was born I was pigeon-toed and had to wear leg braces as a toddler to straighten out my feet. I like my freckles now. I have nightmares that my hair is long again and wake up in a panic. Sometimes I get sick of hearing my own voice.
Monday, May 3, 2010
by the bootstraps
Ugh. I'm trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps to face this goddamn housework. It's Monday morning. I decided to take the day off from work to try and get the house and food situation under control--the chaos and mess is more than I can stand. But I'm having tremendous difficulty getting un-slumped this morning. I had crazy stressful dreams last night, including one about giving birth in Linda Eaton's old Subaru to a baby that looked just like Liam. In my dream I relived those exhausting final moments of pushing the baby out, only there was no doctor or nurse there to guide me through it, just Linda, who kept telling me not to push. When the baby was born he appeared to be at least 8 months old, of course, and he had red hair and blue eyes, and I hugged him and hugged him. Another dream addressed my anxiety about having run out of canned peaches. Yet another explored the possible causes and consequences of a suspicious clunking noise that's been coming from under the car this week. Christ. I'm finding, however, that these little blog entries are a real help in maintaining my mental, emotional, and creative equilibrium, especially if it's leaning a bit off-kilter. It's like opening a valve and letting some of the brain-soup trickle out, relieving the pressure and, of course, allowing room for the inevitable, interminable creation of more. So I'm hoping that if I spill some soup here, I'll feel a little more at peace and ready to get down to business with this boring housework. (Ah, if only!)
I think some of my frustration comes from constantly having to be patient--placing so much of what puts color into my life on hold. Creative pursuits, people I love, experiences I crave. It's like being thirsty and sitting outside with a cup waiting for the rain. I can't control when the rain comes and it usually doesn't last long when it does. If I'm lucky the storm fills the cup up enough to last until the next time it rains, but I never know when that will be. The waiting and the utter lack of control is hard. I suppose that's a luxury grievance. But if I never examined the source of my discomfort, I think I'd do myself and those around me an injustice. It's a matter of making sure you can recognize the difference between an immediate, heartbreaking problem (ie I have no food or my child is sick) and a longstanding imbalance or disappointment (I wish I lived in Fantasy Ireland). I suppose it's the "quiet desperation" that bastard Thoreau wrote about (I've never been able to forgive him for going to his mother's for dinner regularly during his time at Walden Pond. Get a job, cook your own dinner, and then tell me your thoughts on life). Ah, I'm starting to feel better already.
Luckily it's a rainy day, which suits my mood. If it were sunny it'd feel like a prom dress at a wake. Ok. I think I can suck it up and pick up the goddamn house now. It's so nice to have a place where I can be as self-indulgent as I want to be and not worry about whether anyone's sick of listening to me. It's like being a kid again. Let's see, where should I begin? The sea of kindergarten worksheets covering the dining room table? The overflowing basket of ironing? The unmade beds? The patched but not painted holes in the walls? The bags of misc for Goodwill? The dishes?
I think some of my frustration comes from constantly having to be patient--placing so much of what puts color into my life on hold. Creative pursuits, people I love, experiences I crave. It's like being thirsty and sitting outside with a cup waiting for the rain. I can't control when the rain comes and it usually doesn't last long when it does. If I'm lucky the storm fills the cup up enough to last until the next time it rains, but I never know when that will be. The waiting and the utter lack of control is hard. I suppose that's a luxury grievance. But if I never examined the source of my discomfort, I think I'd do myself and those around me an injustice. It's a matter of making sure you can recognize the difference between an immediate, heartbreaking problem (ie I have no food or my child is sick) and a longstanding imbalance or disappointment (I wish I lived in Fantasy Ireland). I suppose it's the "quiet desperation" that bastard Thoreau wrote about (I've never been able to forgive him for going to his mother's for dinner regularly during his time at Walden Pond. Get a job, cook your own dinner, and then tell me your thoughts on life). Ah, I'm starting to feel better already.
Luckily it's a rainy day, which suits my mood. If it were sunny it'd feel like a prom dress at a wake. Ok. I think I can suck it up and pick up the goddamn house now. It's so nice to have a place where I can be as self-indulgent as I want to be and not worry about whether anyone's sick of listening to me. It's like being a kid again. Let's see, where should I begin? The sea of kindergarten worksheets covering the dining room table? The overflowing basket of ironing? The unmade beds? The patched but not painted holes in the walls? The bags of misc for Goodwill? The dishes?
Saturday, May 1, 2010
time for bed
Today wasn't too bad, to dip into my midwestern lingo. The thing I'm most satisfied with is planting my tomato seedlings in bright orange Home Depot buckets with holes drilled in the bottom. Nine in all: three cherry, three slicers, and three Brandywine pinks. I also transplanted the basil and parsley seedlings, and planted forget-me-nots in a shady corner. Hopefully the forget-me-nots will mix friendly-like with the volunteer violets that have sprung up there and create a nice perennial spread of dark green with blue and purple flowers. There's already a nice carpet of moss in that space so I'm hoping it will look all woodsy and pretty, and, most importantly, be gorgeous with very little maintenance.
I had to go to a memorial today and so dropped Liam off with the Wieman family at the Hockessin baseball fields near the library. I'm always glad when he spends time with them because their family has three children and it gives him a taste of a more free-wheeling, kid-centered sort of lifestyle. To find the Wiemans, however, we had to tromp through the labyrinth of tee ball and baseball fields filled with suburban youth and their parents. There was just so much yelling. I can deal with cheering most of the time, but the ceaseless barking of commands, gym coach-style, unnerved me completely, just as it always has. "Jeff! Jeff!! Bring in the balls. Go! Go! Go! C'mon. Bring 'em in. Hustle!" I couldn't wait to get out of there. I hate hustling and people who hustle and people who think it's important to hustle. I even hate the word hustle itself. It reminds me of my loathsome gym teacher for seven long middle and high school years. I can still picture him yelling "Hustle!" with sprays of spit flying from his big old disgusting mouth as I tried to figure out how to connect my pale, gangly, teenage appendages with some form of ball. Now that I've officially graduated from multiple levels of formal education I feel I shouldn't have to listen to people who say "hustle" anymore. I've answered all the questions on all the tests, I've completed the courses--even math, I've turned in all my homework, and I have finally been set free from the firm institutional grasp of early life. I don't want to hear "hustle" anymore, especially on a Saturday morning.
The only place I intend on hustling right now is to my bed, and I'm going to do it at my own pace. It's after 11pm, I made a sincere, if weak, effort at ironing this evening, and I have to make a real effort at housework and cooking in the morning if I'm to have any chance at a good week. I've even washed my face already and put on my pajamas. My memory foam mattress pad, NYT crossword puzzle book, and little bedside lamp are waiting, and everyone else is sound asleep. My favorite part of the day.
I had to go to a memorial today and so dropped Liam off with the Wieman family at the Hockessin baseball fields near the library. I'm always glad when he spends time with them because their family has three children and it gives him a taste of a more free-wheeling, kid-centered sort of lifestyle. To find the Wiemans, however, we had to tromp through the labyrinth of tee ball and baseball fields filled with suburban youth and their parents. There was just so much yelling. I can deal with cheering most of the time, but the ceaseless barking of commands, gym coach-style, unnerved me completely, just as it always has. "Jeff! Jeff!! Bring in the balls. Go! Go! Go! C'mon. Bring 'em in. Hustle!" I couldn't wait to get out of there. I hate hustling and people who hustle and people who think it's important to hustle. I even hate the word hustle itself. It reminds me of my loathsome gym teacher for seven long middle and high school years. I can still picture him yelling "Hustle!" with sprays of spit flying from his big old disgusting mouth as I tried to figure out how to connect my pale, gangly, teenage appendages with some form of ball. Now that I've officially graduated from multiple levels of formal education I feel I shouldn't have to listen to people who say "hustle" anymore. I've answered all the questions on all the tests, I've completed the courses--even math, I've turned in all my homework, and I have finally been set free from the firm institutional grasp of early life. I don't want to hear "hustle" anymore, especially on a Saturday morning.
The only place I intend on hustling right now is to my bed, and I'm going to do it at my own pace. It's after 11pm, I made a sincere, if weak, effort at ironing this evening, and I have to make a real effort at housework and cooking in the morning if I'm to have any chance at a good week. I've even washed my face already and put on my pajamas. My memory foam mattress pad, NYT crossword puzzle book, and little bedside lamp are waiting, and everyone else is sound asleep. My favorite part of the day.
Friday, April 30, 2010
a week of losses
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I feel I haven't been handling all of this very well. It has rattled me more than I expected. I think the suicide got me thinking of the fragility of souls. I've always loved how, many years ago, people used to refer to individuals as "souls," as in "this town was inhabited by 246 souls." As I travel through my days, I sometimes try to imagine the people I pass as souls--souls driving their cars, buying their groceries, and bringing brand-new souls into the world. It strips away all the incidentals. So when I heard that a soul in my very own quiet neighborhood--on a sunny hillside, in a tree with new spring leaves--had been in such a state of despair so as to end his own existence, I felt tremendous grief in my own soul. I don't know his situation, his personality, or his lovable or detestable traits. But if I think of this person simply as a soul I can't help but wish my own soul could have metaphysically been with him and held him and kept him safe through that dark night on the sunny hill, until some sort of help arrived. I suppose that's what some people imagine God to be--the eternal mother-figure of unconditional love. Is it bad that I secretly wish I could be God? I know real people and real problems and my own very real inadequate human-ness make this wish impossible, but I secretly wish I could mother the world. Probably because, since I myself am just a soul, I know how badly I could use those imagined, eternally reliable warm arms around me sometimes.
All that said, I am fortunate that most of my weeks include more gains than losses. I heard a line in a movie once that caught my attention, "We have reached the part of our lives where life stops giving and starts taking away." I am thankful that I am not yet there, and that this week is the anomaly rather than the norm. But it has been sad and difficult nonetheless, and I feel weight and emptiness together in my heart.
But of course there have been occasional moments of pure joy and delight in the ridiculousness of life this week too. One day when I was leaving work, a garden tram was dropping off a load of visitors at the main doors. As I approached the doors, swimming upstream against the disembarking tram passengers, my eyes were drawn to a great swath of undulating pale yellow fabric. It was the babydoll dress of a tremendously obese woman with oddly thin, purplish bare legs. Yards and yards of lemony knit cotton sprinkled with tiny white polka dots, waving like the American flag as she heaved her weight from foot to foot. I'd never seen anything quite like it and was mesmerized like a kid at the circus until, with great force of will, I recovered my manners and mentally noted that I hoped she had a nice visit and could stay standing without incident for the whole 45 minute tour. Immediately behind the tremendous lemon dress was a dwarf in jeans. And immediately behind him was a hunched octogenarian woman with thin scarlet-dyed hair, sideshow makeup, and a shiny violet smock. It made my day.
Can my desire to be a person driven by compassion really survive my love and appreciation for a carnival?