I will weave a web to find some peace in Just to tear it down by morning This thin silver pulls From somewhere aching So I leave it out For light to catch on Every Trembling Thread A small shining thing I know I cannot keep But again I weave Again I weave
I haven’t painted in a week and a half.
And I feel like a fraud.
A failure.
Like I’m letting my dreams slip away.
A funny thing, this deep insecurity with my own progress. Only made more interesting by an insatiable need for clarity.
In these moments, I become blind to all of the growth I have found in the past 12 months, or even 4 weeks. I ignore all of the art I have created in the year. I ignore that I moved into MY FIRST art studio, that I participated in an art walk, an open studio night, and am planning my own show.
No. None of that matters.
Because I haven’t painted in a week and a half.
It’s so easy to hide ourselves from the light of all we have accomplished when we are so committed to only seeing a future we are nowhere near. To watching, desperately, as the goal keeps getting further and further away from us, without admitting that we are the ones moving the summit. That we, ourselves, are the ones that keep reaching higher without witnessing how far we’ve climbed.
At what point do I look down my own mountain and ask myself, is there even a summit? Is this high enough?
Maybe that’s why I continue to write - to act as a catalog of proof that I am making some kind of headway, towards some thing. But, as I read through past writings, I start to question what I’m actually seeking in that vein of progress. What does progress even look like for me?
Some days, I think I won’t be satisfied until I open a storefront. Some days, not until I’ve traveled the world. Almost no days have been spent wondering if I will find satisfaction in being a parent. But a good portion of my days have been given to dreaming of having two properties in which I will spend my time. In different countries of course.
Are these menu items of my potentials in life that I need to reach completion in order to feel full? Or can the sensations of what I am seeking be enough?
I am yet again standing at the end of the dock, watching all of the ships leaving with all of the lives I cannot live.
And again I am left with the words ringing through my spine: You can be anything, but not everything.
I have come to the comically apparent conclusion that I do not allow rest into my life.
When I told someone at my studio my typical schedule, assuming that all artists had similar schedules, they turned and asked me if I was okay.
No, I don’t know if I am.
I recently went to Japan, and when I shared my itinerary with my tour guide on the first day they said “Ooof. You sure you can do all of that?”
Even my “vacation,” a word that makes my shoulders tense, is a competition to seemingly be the one doing the most within the confines of the 24 hour limit, sleep be damned.
I studied Japanese for at least two hours a day for a month and a half leading up to the trip. Fell down so many rabbit holes on Reddit pages to make sure I wasn’t stepping into tourist traps. Even made a travel guide so I could feel like I always had something next to go to.
And underneath all of that preparation was that same trembling voice; if I stop, even for a moment, then the trip meant nothing. I mean nothing.
Safe to say, you will almost never find me lying on a beach when I’m traveling.
And safer to say, I will keep coming back to this realization again and again, weaving my web tighter and tighter, standing back and deciding it still isn’t enough.
Because even when I was using all of this time to plan and fill my days, I did not stop creating.
Right before the trip I did a live painting event and a market. I was supposed to do another live painting night right before the trip, but I chose to cancel and allow myself some semblance of rest.
During the trip, I explored street photography, trying to capture as much as I could on my walks, and at the end of each day, usually getting to bed around 11, I would draw the day I had.
I did have to catch up on a few days when I got back, but this was the first time I truly used my sketchbook on a trip.
I have only been back from Japan for a month and have already done an open studio night, another painting, and am in the midst of planning the art show that will be happening next month.
Not to mention, I work full time, just got a promotion, and am starting a rebranding project. Oh and I still haven’t moved into a new place since my apartment flooded.
She is, whether she wants to admit it or not, busy.
It feels as though I am making up for all the times I rotted on the couch as a child. As if I was building my energy all those years for this time of my life.
Truthfully, I enjoy filling my day. I enjoy being out of the space, going from that thing to the next, until I get back at 10:30, ready to sleep (or try to).
I have three paintings going at any given time, multiple newsletters in my drafts (23), and a slew of books I am currently reading or listening to.
Sometimes I think I haven’t always been like this. I used to lounge on the couch for hours growing up. I used to feel as though I was the physical embodiment of the word “lazy.” And yet, the older I get and the fuller my life feels, I realize the echo of my over-productivity has always been there.
Our minds like to remember the past softer than it truly was. I still had the energy, I was just channeling it into things that weren’t as nourishing, or requiring as much driving, as the things I focus on now. Looking back, it’s easy to spin my time on the couch as laziness, yet when you list all that I used to do, I see that time as needed rest. An early, clumsy form of what I still refuse to offer myself.
I became the database for shows. I would learn all of the lore. I would research the director, writers, actors’ history. No show was safe. I would read, incessantly, sometimes finishing 3 books in a week, and trying to find the hidden meanings in the pages. If I wasn’t learning, something, I would be playing volleyball or softball year-round, trying indoor track, dance, cheer.
If I do not fill up my external space, with movement, community, and creation, then I inevitably fill up my mind.
And again I weave.
And again, I find similar tongues reaching for similar sounds.
I like to believe that that is the curse, and gift, of pursuing art.
I will never feel complete. And that is precisely why I continue creating.
I continue creating, because there is a constant burning in my chest to build some kind of bridge. Some kind of connection point with my own being and the world outside of me.
Completion, accomplishment, it all means nothing to a person who is committed to filling her day until she is fully satisfied, and unfortunately, still going to bed hungry.
Maybe this is simply the terms of loving art. To live a life of beautiful, aching almosts. To keep weaving the bridge between who I am and the world outside of me, knowing I will never quite arrive, but also knowing I’m closer every time I try.
Through Japan, I found myself oscillating between needing to fill my hours, and craving time to shut off. Even though I didn’t finish the drawings during my trip, I did make sure to finish them when I got back. In the past, I would have freaked out, thinking I would never complete the project, thinking about how lazy I am.
And yet I did. And after a week and a half of not painting and shaming myself for my own inadequacies of my artistic studies, I know that I will find my way back. Rested or not.
How silly of me to continue to lose trust in myself.
I don’t know if the medicine lies in doing nothing. In fact, I really truly doubt that it is for me. I think I would self combust if I forced myself into rest fully.
But, maybe I can find some peace within the fullness. I can find moments of stillness, moments of gratitude, in the breath of a schedule brimming with all of the lives I wish to feed.
I used to be afraid of spiders. In many ways, I still am. Yet, I find, what we fear tends to bring us the deepest medicine.
The spider destroys her web each night, not because it was a failure, but because that is simply what her life requires. A full, tireless life.
And again she weaves.