Another self

Since last week everyday has been a pretty incredible experience of self-discovery and I wonder if at this point in time that is going to be a regular experience. Life is very good right now and I think I've entered a point where I anticipate it will stay good. I'm trying to learn to be patient. I find I have an inclination to rush towards what I want. I'm also learning to graciously accept what can be at the moment in the face of what I would like. I'm going to get a copy of my keys for Jeff when I get off work. I wanted to do that yesterday but the surprise storm altered my plans. I was so tired last night and he made dinner for me. He is so kind, always offering to do things for me or buy my things when we go out. Gentle Jeff. I was so full of affection for him this morning. I just wanted to kiss every part of his face; my precious little pet. He's been calling me "my girl" a lot, usually accompanied by a tight hug. Something set it off, something we watched? But I can't remember what. It's endearing and affirmative.

When I joined Jeff at the studio yesterday morning it reminded me of my experiences there, things I don't otherwise think about. It highlighted for me, in sharp contrast, the way we used to interact, just how things have changed. I remembered all those pregnant feelings, the little transitions in perception and behavior, our awkwardness at times. I remember at this moment how close he used to stand to me towards the end and how flustered I would feel.

So many new experiences, quiet adventures. Charting waters I've never been in before but that are well known to most people through out time. It's not an undiscovered land, but one that brings a joy of discovery in that first experience. I've accidentally stumbled on a paradise in a guise I never anticipated and I am savoring all of it. I understand we often have visions for ourselves, for the life we long to experience and find ourselves living something very different. I have longed for a life more like Fawna's but felt a kind of bitterness at my own inability to realize it; in fact I have longed for many lives I have not realized. Perhaps it is similar to my own struggle with myself as an artist; I have admired the talent of so many others and wished to paint or draw or think more like them and when a little quiet voice affirms my own style, my own voice, I have given it a small part of my ear but found myself so distracted by the noise of that painful longing that it is overshadowed and never given quite the space it deserves in me.

If life is a series of road blocks that slowly come down, than surely that is one of them and I look forward to the day when that wall falls and the art in me is suddenly free! I watch, year after year, day after day, in consternation as these walls block the flow of energy in me and dry up my drive to create. I am full of pictures! Full of ideas I long to bring to life and yet when the time is there and I have enough to begin I feel that great inertia fighting with me and so often it wins. There are all these confused voices in me, each with some important story to tell, something they deeply need to express and all I hear is chatter that I can't decifer and I feel their entreating pain.

And I quickly turn away from any path I can not walk exactly as I am even if the tool required is a simple one, easily acquired and used; so strong is the force in me against following any intermediate stages. It's almost an inner repulsion.

I'm afraid. Afraid to try, to not know what I'm doing. To make bad art, what then? Is there art after bad art? It's like a death in my psyche. I'm afraid not to be good enough, not to matter, not to be marketable. That's the killing one lately, I feel completely unmarketable. Yes, my art reflects my voice quite sincerely, but the market doesn't want real. It consumes trends, what is hip, or cool, cynical, witty, confident, dark. I am soft and quiet, pretty and open, accessible. And I feel stuck, paralyzed. I can not move.