The Artist's Way
Five years ago, when I moved away from Chicago -- so that I could quit my job and 'find my path as a writer' - I was attempting to MAKE MY LIFE LOOK THE WAY I WANT. Which is what I have been waking up and trying to do every day since I can remember. I see something that looks real pretty and shiny and good to me, and then I try to get real close to it, enough so I can touch it and feel it, and then hopefully, *become* it.
My first stop after Chicago was Kentucky. In an attic-like apartment at the top of a home, where raccoons slept outside with their babies on a tree, and where the heat continually threatened me, and where I tried to catch my footing, not working, for three months. My friend handed me a book upon my arrival. The Artist's Way. I remember the way I felt when I held it in my hands. Who would dare to label themselves something so lofty? Who was she asking me to try to be? I started reading it. Making notes. Highlighting pages. Seeing patterns. Realizing she was only suggesting that I might recognize who I already was.
When I left Kentucky, I accidentally moved to Iowa, and then I accidentally fell in love, and then I accidentally had a baby. What I didn't do -- from that point on -- was work a nine-to-five job again. I haven't worked a nine-to-five in five years -- and if I play my cards right -- I never will again.
I have been extremely committed in the past five years to living a life that makes me feel alive. To the artist's way. A way that keeps my eyeballs wide and my mouth suspended open, gasping at the beauty around me. I take walks in the mid-morning and I stay up late into the night, the time I have always felt oddly, most alert.
I lost the book. I lost the Artist's Way. Simply put, I moved too many times, and lived in too many other-people's-spaces, and there wasn't room for all my stuff and all my bound volumes of words to breathe.
A few months ago, I was visiting a cat, for my weekend job. Its name was Kissa and it didn't like people much and I thought for sure I would be the one to convince Kissa she did like people, but alas, I was not. I sat, upstairs, in the room she was in, across from her, staring at her. Every now and then I'd say something real sweet, in a real sweet voice. She didn't care. So I started looking at the bookshelf of Kissa's owner, and glancing around the room, and just when I thought this person and I could not be any more different than each other -- I saw it. The Artist's Way. Right there, on top of a cluttered dresser that contained military metals, and old letters, there it was. Shining. The book that helped usher me into a new awareness and a dedication to myself. I gasped. Then I went home and mourned the loss of my copy.
A month or so later, I was going through things, and with the quietest boom, my eyes fell upon it. My copy. There. In my living room. A couple of -- I shit you not -- HOURS later -- a friend messaged me. "Have you ever heard of The Artist's Way?"
BOOM.
I'm reading it again, and working on it, and connecting to the words and the premise and the dedication. I have been REALLY SAD LATELY -- and I have been letting my sadness spew all over my house and my carpet and I haven't been taking my sadness and turning it into something more productive. More honest. I haven't been creating, like the artist I am. I think I stopped believing I was powerful enough to do anything with my pain.
**
I met a fellow artist a while back, here in Madison. I was searching for writing events, and I found something called Make Time -- a monthly day-long event in which anyone is invited to come, share space, and make time -- for their art, their project, their passion. She was warm and generous and lovely and we befriended each other and have inspired each other. She has been reading my Advice Column to Myself and has been so kind in telling me how much she likes it and connects to it -- for which I am supersupersuper grateful -- and recently, she asked me if she could, ahem, interview me. My first thought was 'Don't you have to be a celebrity to be interviewed?' but - ahem - YOU DO NOT. You can just be anyone whom someone else validates enough to want to ask them questions. The very act of her interviewing me did something profound. Something I didn't see coming. Suddenly, I was the Velveteen Rabbit and she was the little boy. She made me feel real. Like a real artist.
I'm including the interview below. It is via her Tinyletter. As I stated, she is lovely and generous and made me feel real, and I am forever grateful.
https://tinyletter.com/vanessajean/letters/a-fierce-practice-all-the-nuance-in-the-why
(The first portion of her post is a prompt to invite people to participate in their own letter to themselves - the interview is at the bottom of the page.)
As always - thank you for caring.