It’s nearly 8:00 PM and the day has slipped away in naps, visitors, bouts of “unwell”, negotiations with assistants, etc. It is easy to see that it will be no easy accomplishment to fulfill on my commitment to write 2 pages (more than 1 anyway!) a day. Even now I could go back to sleep, invoice, clean up, reorganize, do WPIT – but not write!
The day’s accomplishments have been many. Both on the call this morning and with Shirley this afternoon I supported people to be clear and powerful (my gift?) and took steps to building the Community Sunday 5 game of 76 Wisdom Graduate guests. I took the next step in getting a medical referral to pain management support. I obtained a missing and necessary hose connection so I can wear a leg bag properly. I learned about different ways people empty their non-functional bladders. I learned where I might find more holistic support with my medical complexities. I got the tire fixed on the car.
As usual, the list of what I didn’t yet do is just about as long.
The question underneath is: “What has this to do with me as an artist?” My Cycle 2 life is jumping back in, and I am welcoming the familiar, and perhaps a certain level of stress and physical nonfunctionality with it! (Headache, delayed bowel movement)
The bubbles of fire are restrained today, the veneer of annoyance in place, sustaining a familiar body/space.
At the same time some compromise to my new Cycle 3 reality – a kind of reluctant nod to a new self expression - is there as well. I am sitting in a bathrobe, the bedroom messy, hair uncombed, teeth unbrushed, yesterday’s underwear on still. Certain e-mails were deleted: I rescued a fallen collage: asked for and got new flowers, let the phone go unanswered more than once.
I have five unsold paintings from the past few months – late July? I don’t particularly like three of them, but my experience is that what I like has little to do with what appeals to others or sells.
Most were done in a rush, particularly the last – “Feverish” – done in about 25 minutes while I was aching with a bladder that wouldn’t empty down my catheter. It strikes me that to be the artist that can be true to the fire bubbles in me I need to give my expression more time. This is not up to me alone, but up to me as I guide and request of the people around me. I need more trackers. Perhaps I need a more insistent schedule that gives me open space by driving out the “to do’s”. Perhaps I need to believe that my body will indeed heal and dance with this new creation – that it doesn’t need constant inspection, management, supervision.
The thought occurs that there are precedents. I have clearly stood up to others, and to Judith, and “recreated” myself in both Cycle 1 and 2. It cannot be that different to have others, and Judith, come to see myself – no longer as the advocate – as artist.
Practical actions suggest themselves. Once again I have been turned down as a writer by the Ontario Arts Council. But there are other grants, retreats, sponsors. I can take the Cycle 2 marketing skills of which I have many and open a bigger space for Cycle 3 Judith.
How about a show? Not because I want to sell but because I want to paint. Let the paintings go where they will. It is enough to make them!
Poetry? I love words. How often have I fallen back on Lamentation as an authentic knock on walls without doors only to find an unlocked window where the light – the transforming light – was creeping in unannounced.
I can. I simply want to not outstep myself at this time and waste an opportunity to create again a miraculous life.
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