I’ve kept clear of writing lately opting instead to dip my brush into tiny puddles of primaries and pastels. It’s not that I haven’t felt the urge to write, but rather I’ve grown tired of my own words. For me writing is a reflective vocation where my words spell out the contents of my heart. If my heart is heavy, my words are heavy, and quite frankly I’ve been in such a state of introspection lately that my writing has become an extension of this self absorbed circuitry.
This negative energy has been trying to drain me of my strength and pallor for some time now, so when my friend, Julia suggested that I splash my life with color; I jumped right in. Actually she made me take up painting as a homework assignment for her Getting Naked Class, that I attend. The class has been huge help in pointing the way to the things that really matter. So thank you Julia for giving me an artistic nudge.
This morning I’m writing because I miss it and I’m hoping to discover some tiny treasures, perhaps a clue as to how to navigate beyond the limited default settings of my mind to a place of freedom and intelligence, a place where the past is tucked in and understood and doesn’t rule the day. A place where the future needn’t mirror the past but holds infinite possibilities and endless surprises. I want to be rid of all the senseless gloom and doom and skip off into the land of perpetual tra la las.
By making the writer paint I’ve stepped off of my predictable path. My artwork is childlike and two-dimensional, bespeaking naivety and a clear lack of formal training, yet it is honest and untainted by the measuring madness of the ego or the shortsightedness of ambition. Painting, when I’m not certain how to paint, has taught me that control is an illusion, as are security, perfection, and time, and that I need only be myself—my rag-tag, bedraggled, silly, somewhat gullible, grumpy, and overly-deep self in order to be happy. I am enough.
Surrendering to this truth is like stripping naked in a fabulous boutique. The silks linens and cottons call to me from the racks, but I must remain naked until I’m certain that I’m not using the clothing as a form of disguise or surrogate security. I must surrender to my nakedness as surely as the evening must surrender to dawn, spring to summer, autumn to the callous cold of winter, and finally life itself must surrender, like a startled zebra seized by the committed jaw of a lioness, to the relentless grip of death.
I am convinced that until I can consistently determine the difference between the conditioned voices of yesterday and the compassionate and intuitive words of today…right now, I will continue to get trapped within the webby inertia of identity-dementia, and waste my days looking backwards for the road ahead.
