Can I keep the clouds and rain and grey suspended here, over Michigan, please? Just a few more days? I am at Nosh, mocha half-empty, Bon Iver sweeping in my ears, mind moving in to focus on the words, "You're love will be, safe with me,"...and moving out again, to the parking lot, the book open beneath my elbows.
I am reading The Artist's Way. Slowing down this time to really take this in. To take these words on as if an identity, a new, more active, fresh, name. I just read this line that really reached into the swirling chaos of myself for a moment. It reads, "In movie terms, we slowly pull focus, lifting up and away from being embedded in our lives until we attain an overview."
Last night I opened the two art journals I've made over the past couple of years. I read the sloppy ink spotted scrawles of, "Today is sun strung--light linking everything. Today is my sister laughing just inside and the thought of building a fire for lunch. It is free. I feel that--YES. Free slipping around in tank tops, through paint. There is some pain--some soft dark lingering. But for now, this: the paint, sun, Bonnie Prince Billy, some hope, is enough."
I read over other pages, examined the pictures I glued in, the spray paint spattering, the lists of places to go, of things to see: whales, cacti, a real snow topped mountain.
I felt like I was looking at myself, from far away. And I was smiling. I was proud of this person. I did not consider her job situation or her level of discipline, or whether she can maintain a clean and organized closet. I did not consider how she might be terribly absent minded and worn out and even awful at taking care of valuable things. I simply liked her, because she was this fresh, wide, lit-up, person.
It was nice. It was very good for me, because I've felt incredibly inadequate lately. It's been impossible for me to finish cover letters or resumes. It's been so hard for me to actually doooooo these things, because I'm terrified. I've accidentally gone to work at the wrong fruit stands. I've forgotten I had to work at all. I feel like I'm losing it. Like I'm just falling out. But, last night, as I struggled to sleep, feeling like I'll never get anything right, like I'm on a downward spiral and I have no idea if I can regain footing, or if I have the will, I picked up these journals, and I found myself in them.
Today I sent out my resume and cover letter at last to one organization. And I started reading this book again. And I wrote a draft of a poem, and I'll be going into work in an hour. And I am proud of myself.
I hope you have the chance, a slice of time to pull back from the present, and look at it all, and love it in a silly, deep way. May you find that you are alight, and that all of these terrifying, risky things are gifts. Right now, they are gifts. And here you are, their wrapping crinkling in the palm of your hand.
Friday, August 28, 2009
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Heroism
The view right now out these windows is almost pixilated. Rain is on it's way--is so close to bursting right out of the air. I am dreaming up things. I am making plans to accomplish these things. I want to buy a web design book. I want to expand my areas of knowledge. I want to write some very influential people in my life (and out of it--one, I hardly know, but I feel like writing her anyway).
I'm reading this book (which you should definitely pick up whether you are artistic or not at all) called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. This book is recovering me from a lot of destructive, negative thinking and is taking me into the mindset that I am allowed to create, and that my creativity (my art, my life, my personality) brings about good. This book is empowering me to find the roots of some of my more depressing feelings and beliefs and put those un-worked-through experiences to bed so I can wake up and move on.
These new notions are also causing me to really appreciate spirituality even more. I like the idea of the "New Country," Henri Nouwen writes about in his masterpiece, The Inner Voice of Love. He describes the place we need to get to in our lives: a place of peace, of acceptance and love for ourselves and others, a deep appreciation of the good all around us, and a striving to bring light to spaces that are suffering terribly from deep darkness. Most of all, I suppose the "New Country" is really a place of trust. It becomes a reality for those who learn to trust that there is good somewhere inside of them, that perhaps there is a good God who is active and trustworthy.
I think the most difficult thing for me to do is trust. I just can't. I have friends who have massaged my shoulders before and could tell you about the massive knots that make themselves in my muscles, in my soft, tensing fabric. I am not always active in my life--pursuing things that would boost my financial situation or bring me peace of mind. Instead, I am always worrying. I don't believe in anything. I apply for positions half-heartedly because I don't believe any good will come of it anyway. I am terrified. And I am exhausted from what being terrified most of the time (even subconsciously--hence the bazillions of knots in my back I am typically unaware of until someone touches my shoulders) does to me. And I need time alone. But I feel guilty wanting that because I still don't have a full-time job, and I still haven't paid back all my debts, and I am not the best friend in the world and feel like I should be laying down my life for the people who are always there for me. But this is the trap. This is the scary place you get to where all of your muscles can't even knot up anymore because they've gotten so tense their material is unable to bind up, but exists more like concrete plates mashing up and down and side to side. I need to rest. I need to believe in Something. I need to believe in Something that I can trust--and deep down--deep deep--I know that this is possible. I need to believe in myself--that I am equipped with incredible power. I need to trust myself.
So, I write this not only for myself--because I haven't vented in a while. I also write this because I know a lot of people are feeling the same way. We are exhausted. In this economy it really feels like there is no hope. In this world...in this screwed up self...it often feels like there's no hope. I've been visiting sites of people I find incredibly inspiring this afternoon and they have taught me this: that I have company. That I am allowed to be a HUMAN. That it is heroic to believe in yourself--to say in one of those great movie-theatre resounding voices that you are GOOD, that your dreams are VALID, and that you have POWER. It is time for action, but action out of a spirit that says something good is on it's way, somewhere waiting for me to tap into it. Something is out there, and I can find it.
Good luck to all of you.
I'm reading this book (which you should definitely pick up whether you are artistic or not at all) called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron. This book is recovering me from a lot of destructive, negative thinking and is taking me into the mindset that I am allowed to create, and that my creativity (my art, my life, my personality) brings about good. This book is empowering me to find the roots of some of my more depressing feelings and beliefs and put those un-worked-through experiences to bed so I can wake up and move on.
These new notions are also causing me to really appreciate spirituality even more. I like the idea of the "New Country," Henri Nouwen writes about in his masterpiece, The Inner Voice of Love. He describes the place we need to get to in our lives: a place of peace, of acceptance and love for ourselves and others, a deep appreciation of the good all around us, and a striving to bring light to spaces that are suffering terribly from deep darkness. Most of all, I suppose the "New Country" is really a place of trust. It becomes a reality for those who learn to trust that there is good somewhere inside of them, that perhaps there is a good God who is active and trustworthy.
I think the most difficult thing for me to do is trust. I just can't. I have friends who have massaged my shoulders before and could tell you about the massive knots that make themselves in my muscles, in my soft, tensing fabric. I am not always active in my life--pursuing things that would boost my financial situation or bring me peace of mind. Instead, I am always worrying. I don't believe in anything. I apply for positions half-heartedly because I don't believe any good will come of it anyway. I am terrified. And I am exhausted from what being terrified most of the time (even subconsciously--hence the bazillions of knots in my back I am typically unaware of until someone touches my shoulders) does to me. And I need time alone. But I feel guilty wanting that because I still don't have a full-time job, and I still haven't paid back all my debts, and I am not the best friend in the world and feel like I should be laying down my life for the people who are always there for me. But this is the trap. This is the scary place you get to where all of your muscles can't even knot up anymore because they've gotten so tense their material is unable to bind up, but exists more like concrete plates mashing up and down and side to side. I need to rest. I need to believe in Something. I need to believe in Something that I can trust--and deep down--deep deep--I know that this is possible. I need to believe in myself--that I am equipped with incredible power. I need to trust myself.
So, I write this not only for myself--because I haven't vented in a while. I also write this because I know a lot of people are feeling the same way. We are exhausted. In this economy it really feels like there is no hope. In this world...in this screwed up self...it often feels like there's no hope. I've been visiting sites of people I find incredibly inspiring this afternoon and they have taught me this: that I have company. That I am allowed to be a HUMAN. That it is heroic to believe in yourself--to say in one of those great movie-theatre resounding voices that you are GOOD, that your dreams are VALID, and that you have POWER. It is time for action, but action out of a spirit that says something good is on it's way, somewhere waiting for me to tap into it. Something is out there, and I can find it.
Good luck to all of you.
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