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Missing Denial

Dear Ones, Have you noticed how sometimes life is funny? Sometimes it is not.  And sometimes it is hard to tell the difference.  When I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, I just do both. There has been a lot of both as Winter gives way to Spring. Spring tends transition for me. The North Texas winds always stir up something that is best not stepped in.

So, I was remembering when Jubilee was little.  When she was little  EVERYTHING was family.

“Oh, a family of trees.”“Look a family of clouds.” “Yummy, a family of broccoli!” “Awe, cute, a family of rocks.” You name it, if there was more than one, it translated into family.  This ability to transmogrify just about anything was likely the result of being the adored youngest of six siblings.  24/7 there was someone waiting in line to hold Jubilee and we did not set her down for six weeks after her arrival. Thus, she saw the world as family.

Humans love to personify everything.  We give animals, particularly those closest to us: dogs and cats, personalities.  While they DO have personalities, sometimes the motives we assign to their actions and expressions push reason

Does that cat truly hate me or is that just resting cat face?

Inanimate objects garner personhood.  MY PHONE HATES ME!  My car has it out for me.  Heck, there are those in our government who deem corporations people, too!

Denial has been a HUGE part of my life.And you know what?I miss denial.I am not certain if I miss denial as a person or a place.Either way, I miss her.
OH! A person.

Lately, I have been considering, reconsidering, and restructuring my relationship with denial.  Denial was a safe place to visit, but I planted stakes and built a home.
Ah HA!! A place.

Thinking I was doing myself and those I loved a favor, I camped out (place) with her (person) for far too long.The trouble with living in or with denial is that denial is not a real place nor is she a real friend.

Denial is a protective mechanism, but a false defense.  Eventually, the edges fray and it all begins to unravel.  (Wow, a thing!I wonder how many metaphors I can incorporate into this sordid tale?)

A recent Friday resulted in a complete unraveling of my delusion.  No more pretending.  It was interesting because I had already begun gathering my things from Camp Denial.  The first draft of the break-up missive had been composed.I was steeling myself for a new reality when the phone rang.  I usually cannot find my phone.T  his particular Friday it was in dang my pocket.

While I am no longer living in denial, every now and again I remember something and I run back to collect it.  The soundtrack of this breakup is Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” which begins, “Hello darkness, my old friend…”Paul Simon said, “…we have people unable to touch other people, unable to love other people. This is a song about the inability to communicate.”

“Alexa, play The Sound of Silence by Simon and Garfunkel.”  “Alexa, play it again.”  “Alexa…”It reminds me that things are not hunky dory and that the reality of NOT hunky dory is still better than the delusion of denial.

Denial, person, place, or thing, is an inability to communicate clearly with one’s self.  While I miss the pretense of safety and well-being of denial, denial crippled me, estranging me from myself and from people who love me and from people who might love me.

Processing what I miss, I am discovering that what I miss was only a vapor.  I am enjoying discovering me.  I don’t know how this me interacts with the world.  I am nervous about how the after break up me, in a new location, will paint.Like so many artists, there is discovery in the process of painting.

Spring has sprung here in North Texas.  The windows are open.  The birds are singing.  I just saw the largest coyote I have ever seen (my heart claims it was a wolf, but google searches say there are no longer wolves in North Texas).  The family, my family, and a dear friend are meeting for a birthday picnic at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.  Maybe I don’t miss denial after all.  HAPPY SPRING, ALL Y’ALL!  Much love, Gwen

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2048 Distractions

Hello, Dear One,
I hope that you have enjoyed the reprieve from gray skies and welcome rains.
(At least the rains were welcome in my neck of the woods.)

I have been SO busy! Two thousand and forty-eight distractions eating away at my time and vitality.

Two thousand and forty-eight.  A rather specific number.  Did you catch the reference?  If you did I am quite sorry because if you did it is also quite possible that you also have 2048 distractions sucking the brains out of your head.

For those of you who have yet to succumb to the addiction- DON’T!  There is a computer “game” called 2048 Tiles.  A small box in the top right-hand corner of the screen tracks your high score.  The high score sits, in the upper right-hand corner, TAUNTING me!

It is insidious.  Was my high score a fluke?  Luck?  Skill?
If it was skill then – surely – I can do it AGAIN.Go ahead, PROVE that it was more than luck.  “Do BETTER and THEN you can quit.”   Each time I fail to achieve or best my “high score” my ego punches me in the gut and snarls, “IDIOT! Can you NOT do BETTER?”  Sometimes there is only the internal, “Grrrrrrrrrrowl.”

It.

Mocks.

Me.

The “game” is not inherently evil, but it is akin to the Amazon Book Addiction Wraith which perpetually asks, “If you like THIS book, surely you will love THAT book.” (Okay, so the exact wording may be a little off, but if you have ever hit that button to look at that next book, well, my sympathies.)

What does this have to do with art?

Everything.

Forrest, my eldest son, was paid $150 for a t-shirt design: I have not yet begun to procrastinate.

Tree.
Apple.

Truthfully, while Forrest can indeed procrastinate with the best procrastinators, he is, more often than not, laser focused.

Apple.
Tree.

I, too, am capable of both.  World class procrastination and laser focus.  When I had six small children at home there was no time for procrastination.  Twenty hours a week painting and the rest of the time was mommying, homeschool, horses, the occasional friend, and the sacred nap.

Thinking is harder than doing.  With so many precious ones underfoot, all I could do was DO.  There was no time for second-guessing.

Now with only a single middle school daughter at home and there is time to think.  There is time for second-guessing.  Oh, and second-guessing is brutal.  Brutal and paralyzing.

Rather than deal with self-doubt and second-guessing, I self-medicate.  Enter 2048 Tiles.  There are myriad of self-medicating procrastinations available to us all.  The only question is, “Which poison?”

Preparing for Centering Abstraction on the heels of the holidays kept me focused.
Preparing for the DTS show in Dallas kept me focused.

Then I sat down to catch my breath.  Catching one’s breath is a good thing.
Picking up the computer mouse is not a bad thing.
Playing a couple games on the computer is not a bad thing.
Playing more than a couple games…
a.
bad.
thing.

So I stalled out for a few days.  Spun in the breeze like a wind-sock on the end of a pole.  At the end of the pole, spinning in one of our infamous North Texas thunderstorms, I saw the heart of my particular form of procrastination.  Fear.  Fear of “what if?”

What if my parents are right?
I will never amount to anything.  No one will love me.  I will never be good enough.
What if my sister is right?
I am a talentless c#%+.

THIS TIME I was armed.  This time I had answers to the question, “What if….?”
The answer is, “It was never about me.”

This past week I pushed through some procrastinations.  I reworked my artist statement for two different venues.  I applied for a scholarship and asked for a job.  I have not heard about the job – yet- but I did get a magazine cover and the check is in the mail!  There were successes that I pooh-poohed because I “could have…”

I caught myself and I took time to sit back and see that, while I flitting away too much time on the computer, I had actually spent six to eight hours a day painting and writing and following through with responsibilities and possibilities.  I also made it to bed before 1 a.m.   FOUR TIMES this past week- just call me Susie Sunshine!

The last Sunday of the Gallery 414 show included a closing reception and an artist panel discussion about artist journeys and creating the Centering Abstraction exhibition.  The panel discussion took a turn and our fearless leaders, John Hartley and Barbara Koerble, laid down some serious wisdom.  It was the insight that I sincerely needed to hear.   Insight made tangible because I was standing in a gallery space with my work hanging with the other three artists.  So, what if my degrees are in computers and statistics.  I have put in the time and I have studied with master artists.  I am qualified.  I felt something shift.

This week self-doubt wiggled in but armed with a new understanding of where I am in my art journey I wiggled free.  I have plans for next week, but I am holding them loosely.

Art is so weird  Artists are so weird.  What is art?  What makes a person an artist?

Like the proverbial Facebook status: It is complicated.

I will not attempt to answer either question EXCEPT that one knows it when one sees it.  If the art tugs at your heartstrings, it is art.  If it calls to you might need to take it home.  Art in an investment in your soul.

May your heart find joy this week.
Joy in art.
Joy in nature.
Joy in the smile of a stranger.
Joy.

Peace out, Gwen

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Embracing Scars and Imperfect Pears

David, Peter and Jubilee are outside digging a place, a grave, for King under the fig tree.  We spied three ripening figs.  David and the kids are going to be at a two day meet this weekend. In  a feminist fail and told them I did not want to dig a grave while they were away. King is still with us but he had another stroke or seizure in the wee hours of the morning.

His days are short and he is JUST a dog, but sometimes JUST DOGS bring a tenderness to the heart that allows unfinished mourning to flow.

We passed the fourth anniversary of the death of my niece in May. This weekend a cousin is finishing packing up her son’s home after his untimely death. Another friend just finished the trial over the wrongful death of her son. It is coming up on the anniversary of one of the death of one of my dearest friends 16 years ago.  Another friend lost both her parents, who were also my friends, in less than a year.   Summer stirs hearts and katydids drone on and on their song of sorrows.

Yes, King is JUST a dog, but he has also been a good friend and a faithful listener. We have cried several times today. We cried for his impending death. We cried for my sister. We cried for my cousin. We cried for friends and their losses. We cried for our own losses.

Life is hard. So are the pears. But life is also sweet. The pears, just barely. Life is beautiful when we release the illusion of perfection and embrace our scars.