Recondite

When she says I should bring anything I’m interested in selling I’m not sure what exactly that means.  My portfolio is in the backseat, loaded with the inventory of artwork I start building several years ago on the advisement of my friend Sara who so wisely suggests that when the stars align I’ll want to be ready.  She couldn’t have been more right.

As I pour over the collection of work this university is building I decide “artists’ books” is a broad category, representative of any way an artisan chooses to present her words to the world.  There is a spool wound with ribbon, the story unfurling as the reader unwinds.  Boxes lined in prose unfolding to reveal treasures inside, exquisite bindings of all shapes and sizes housing handmade papers, watercolors and words so much bigger than me.

She wants to buy anything I can bear to part with.  In this statement I glean her understanding of the soul of every artist, aching to share our passion with the world, yet reluctant to strand our humanity in such a harsh and unforgiving place. We contain our creativity within the boundaries of ourselves, conflicted in the knowledge that the very rawness fueling our enormous talent also marks us targets for judgment and criticism we fear we may not be strong enough to endure.   And so we’re tempted to shroud our work in a protective cloak of ambiguity, a deliberate attempt to ensure only those vital few who can see the world through our eyes, respect our truth, are able to interpret the message we’re so desperate to release.

On this day I sell a collection of postcards created in a time and place when I wasn’t quite ready yet to completely put my work out there.  She wants to establish an on-going relationship; she encourages me to finish the sketchbook in progress; she’ll purchase it from me when I’m done. My work will be catalogued, recommended reading, perhaps, by professors looking to inspire and educate on the endless possibilities of artistic expression. I vow to put more of me in this next piece.

There’s a part of me that believes wholeheartedly an artist’s work truly resonates when she’s able to distill it to the exact level of abstruseness which allows every observer to see herself in the words and images.  And so maybe it’s not only the artist who needs to be brave enough to reveal herself in her work, but the viewer brave enough to interpret and face her own truth in that of another.

Profusion

Shirt over my head, shorts cinched at my waist, shoe laces double-knotted, I’m out the door at dawn inhaling the intoxicating scent of blooming lilacs on a warm, damp morning.  It’s been months since I’ve pounded the pavement with any sort of regularity; I need to ease in.  I’m only going two miles, I tell myself, enough to get my soul-feeding fix, but not so much to risk irritating a capricious knee.

There was a time in my life when a two-mile run would have been unacceptable.  I would need to tell myself that this gig is only temporary, determined to work back up to 4-5 mile stints as part of a measured plan.  It’s different this time, though.  My world is expanding again, and as I’m running this morning I’m thinking about balance and making room for all I want to invest in with this one wild and precious life.

Those of us in first-world countries, we live in a bubble of abundance:  Plenty of food on our tables, money in the bank.  So much so that we’ve become a little too comfortable with waste.  If we don’t get around to consuming the produce in the crisper, we’re generally not too bothered to toss it in the garbage.  When it comes to money, there is talk about phasing out the penny. Seems we’re all too rich to be bothered by the hassle of copper.  And so I consider time in a similar context questioning whether we’re cavalier about this commodity as well.  Does it make sense to apply some judiciousness in this realm, even when the time we’re spending liberally is going toward what we enjoy? 

  

When we think of tasks that drain our time, we seem to always look to chores we must do.  Of course it makes sense to want to cut down the time we spend on the mundane. But what I’m noticing is we can pour ourselves into activities we enjoy, consuming an enormous amount of time which we simply overlook when we’re attempting to assess opportunities for balance.  Can there ever be such thing as too much of a good thing?

I will argue yes.  Those of us who have found ourselves in the throes of challenging life-altering situations may be familiar with the protective mechanism called overindulgence.  We choose one activity where we feel most successful, valued and affirmed, and because we garner all of our worth here, we expend disproportionate energy in an attempt to leach every bit of mojo we can from this one source. We can couch our justification for this obsession around excuses like we’re spending all this time at work to earn a big bonus or secure a promotion.  Or, of course running 24/7 to train for a marathon is warranted because being fit is healthy.  But I wonder what happens when we really look hard at the gaps we’re attempting to fill with this single-minded focus? 

When I was all about logging miles I was also all about dealing with pain, filling the void of loneliness.  It’s entirely possible there are times we need to retreat into our obsessions in order to survive.  Our behaviors become rote, though, and we can wake up one morning wondering what happened to all of our precious time.  But maybe this is how we know we are healing, when we finally question our unilateral investment and yearn for more diversity.

And so as I bound happily toward the ever-growing opportunities in my life, I’m looking at where I may be overindulging and asking myself what exactly I need to be fulfilled.  I don’t need 5 mile runs or 90 minutes of yoga 5 days a week or business on the weekends.  I’m finding I can meet my needs and get time back. To me it’s all about the freedom to invest in the new and wonderful people and projects finding their way onto my path, any time, all the time.

Whelm

I leave the details of the trip in the hands of another, so when he pulls a vanishing act and I find myself with an airline ticket and time off I decide I need to get a plan together.  Where exactly am I going?    I call a colleague who calls Marco Island home, telling him exactly what I want:  A nice hotel on the beach with access to restaurants and shopping within walking distance.  I don’t want to mess with a car, just a driver to get me to and from the airport.  About two minutes later in my in-box sit links to two resorts and two car services meeting my exact specifications.  Done.

 

I walk away a little mesmerized, quite honestly; completely satisfied, excited about my trip, and delirious over how wonderful my friend is, how he makes everything easy for me.  He feels special in my eyes in the way he cares for me.  But wait a minute; I think I’ve somehow played a role in this success story, yet I’ve neglected to acknowledge me.

 

It’s not rocket science, this idea that giving good direction, asking for what we want increases greatly the likelihood we’ll get what we want, but why is it that so many of us have a hard time with it? 

As women, our role is to take care of everyone else.  We routinely put ourselves last, staving off inanition, cobbling together from the table scraps of others only what we need to sustain ourselves. With our bellies always hovering around empty, it’s no wonder we aren’t living full lives.

 

For those of us raising kids and holding down demanding jobs we’ve become conditioned to apologize for not having the free reign men do to prioritize their careers over their family lives.  We’re either concealing the need for flexibility for fear of losing our jobs if our employers know what it really takes to juggle all this, or for those of us with the luxury of flexibility we’re just so grateful we don’t dare rock the boat by asking for anything else like, say, equal pay.

For some of us there is a little bit of the “be careful what you wish for” element.  If we’re so bold as to ask specifically and directly for what we need, like a salary increase or a promotion, what happens if we can’t deliver?  Have we now created more pressure to continually over-perform in the role in a perpetual state of proving we’re truly worthy of what we’ve requested? 

  

For me I know it’s been about feeling like a burden.  I like to be easy and adaptable, not too much trouble for anyone, because I think it guarantees I’ll be loveable.  If I’m too hard, if I’m too rigid, if I’m flawed, if I have wants and needs that require a little work, well, no one’s going to support those.  Maybe it’s been a little about self-worth, too?

Lately I’m opening my eyes, noticing something special in the individuals surrounding me. The important people in my life want to get it right.  They wait patiently for me when I’m running late; they listen closely for my unspoken knell, asking how they can help; they value my contributions, and upon hearing exhaustion or frustration in my voice they ask what needs to happen to keep me motivated, to keep us on the right path.  They want to know what makes me happy so they can deliver it; but I need to enable them by defining what exactly that is.

He says he wants to fill his cupboards with food that won’t just sustain me, but will nourish me.  If I tell him only that I like yogurt, I do him a disservice.  The chances of opening the refrigerator door to discover nirvana are one in a million. And somehow, even though it’s unfair, the disappointment of finding anything less will color my feelings for him.  But if I tell him unequivocally that I like the Greek variety, specifically Chobani, in the exotic flavors like pomegranate or pear he gets to exactly meet my need, and becomes nothing short of amazing in my eyes.

We need to speak up, not just so we can go about fulfilling our own needs, but so the individuals in our lives who value what we have to offer can be extraordinary in the part they play in supporting our happiness. I’ve heard it best described very powerfully as this:  “Unstated expectations are premeditated disappointments.”  Seems like this is an easy one to head off at the pass. Are you brave enough to ask for what you want?