Dreaming Paris

Since I can't find a job that suits me, I'm attempting to develop one that does. This requires that I be serious about being an artist. After all, one can't sell art if one doesn't have art to sell. I'm still an adjunct teacher of College Success courses, which is an enjoyable job, and fulfills my need for change. I have new students every 4 months, and an opportunity to change up things that didn't work or find new material. Unfortunately, it only pays a few of the bills.

I'm in the midst of an existential crisis. That's what Dr. Phil calls it, and his description fits me perfectly. I'm not a big follower of Dr. Phil, but he does, at times, hit the nail on the head. I thought my problem was that I didn't want to be married any more, but it goes deeper than that and is rooted in what feels like a loss of myself. For two thirds of my marriage I was wrapped up in religion and "doing the right thing" regardless of whether or not it fit who I really am. All I wanted was to be a nice person who didn't hurt others, but I also wanted to be in touch with God in a way that meant I'd have a roadmap for my life. I hate being in the wrong. That right there is the source of all my trouble because life is nothing but trial and error, it's practice that never brings about expert status. As soon as you think you have something mastered you get thrown something new that blows your whole worldview.

I have taken up studying Buddhist philosophy. I can't be a Buddhist because I can't get into any of the doctrines/dogma/rituals. My life as a Christian has set me against practicing any kind of religious have-tos. I am convinced that each person's spiritual journey is as unique as the individual, so I'm discovering/uncovering those things that work for me as I continue to understand myself better. I do believe that there is more than the physical aspects of things we can see. I realize that perception can be distorted and our minds/bodies are amazing chemical experiments, but that doesn't mean we don't gain insight when we see beyond what's really here through those distortions and chemical "imbalances" or when we follow what we call our intuition, that knowing from deep within.

My deep within knowing has been plastered over with years and years of shoulds and have-tos. Years of worrying about being wrong instead of just living out what it means to express me, right or wrong. I've made attempts to break out. Well, that's what this last decade's been about, actually, and it's why I've even questioned my marriage.

Anyway, that was a long way to say that it has also affected my art. I know that within me is the ability to produce impressions that express just what I want to express about a subject, but instead I've been caught up in trying to "get it right". And when it's clear that I can't get it right, I get frustrated, I struggle, and though the painting itself, the mixing and laying of color is the most wonderful thing in the world for me, when I am completely at peace and feel that I am exactly where I'm supposed to be, doing what I was born to do, I get upset with the end result. I can't let go of the need for control, to know where I'm going, to GET IT RIGHT.

I'm working on this piece right now:

When I started it, I was copying the picture as closely as I could, but I placed a few things just enough off to throw things out of whack, so I finally began to loosen up a little and just improvise. The problem is, it's part improvised, part right, and the right part looks stupid. For example, even though the street sign is placed where it should be in relation to the building behind it according to the source picture, somehow the pole that holds it rests smack in the center of the sidewalk at the corner, which is so wrong. Yet I didn't see how wrong it was until I scanned it. It's funny how you can miss the obvious.

Also, why was I so determined to include that concrete pole that splits the canvas practically from top to bottom? I should have improvised that right out of the painting. What did I do instead? Because the sidewalk is off a bit I couldn't show as much of the street lamp that should be showing, so I painted it peeking out from either side of the concrete pole. How stupid is that? Get rid of the pole and show the whole street lamp, woman! Well, I will do that. I'm going to fix these things that I can now see, but the painting still does not express what I really want it to express. It's simply a copy of an image instead of an expression of what I felt that day when I was down there walking about on my own, enjoying the day and taking pictures.

I'm too uptight in the painting of my pictures, more concerned with the details than with the composition and how it feels. Literally not seeing (or expressing) the forest for the trees. I'm so concerned that I get each tree right, I completely screw up the painting itself. And that's what I've been like with my life as well. So afraid to make a wrong move that I end up not moving at all or basing decisions on what seems to be the best, the right, thing instead of on what's right for me.

There was more I wanted to say, especially about how being more mindful has helped me to put things in a better perspective, but I'll stop for now and save that for another day. I have a painting to finish and a new one to start. I have some ideas that I want to experiment with. The operative word being experiment. I've been too concerned with having a completed work of art when I finish a painting that I haven't allowed myself to play/experiment/practice/fail and develop my own style of expression. I've been a copyist, not a creator. And it has been killing me, both in my art and in my life. I'm not here to copy others. I have my own life to live and my own way of expressing it. If I could just figure out what that is, maybe I could get on with enjoying what's left of it.

Well, I'm enjoying what I can while I go about figuring it out. After all, it's not like there will ever be an end to the process, will there?

Read Full Post »

Thank you for offering me the position of TLC Coordinator, but after continued consideration, I have concluded that this position isn't one that will meet my needs. I have been offered another class where I've been working, and the increase I would have in pay per month at XX College simply doesn't make up for the commute and longer hours. I have decided to keep looking until I find exactly what suits me. I sincerely apologize for delaying your own plans, but hope that you will find a better fit. I enjoyed meeting you, and I know I would have enjoyed working at XX College.

-------------

I'm applying all over the place, and there is one position that has come open that would suit me quite well. It fulfills my need for organization and structure (yes, artists can require this, too), keeps me in education, has enough duties to keep me interested and to allow me to use some of my creative skills, pays exactly what I was looking for, and is in a place that I would love to go to every day because it houses the arts for my college and is located in the part of town that I want to begin painting. So whatever you do, be it crossing fingers, praying, thinking good thoughts, I can use all of that right now, though I'm practicing letting outcomes go and just doing what my hand finds to do in the moment so as not to be a freaking basket case over financial matters! So I could use that crossing fingers, praying, etc. for that, too. ;-)

Read Full Post »

I'll lose some sales and my boss won't be happy,
but I can't stop listening to the sound
of two soft voices
blended in perfection
from the reels of this record that I've found.

Every day there's a boy in the mirror asking me...
What are you doing here?
Finding all my previous motives
growing increasingly unclear.

I've traveled far and I've burned all the bridges
I believed as soon as I hit land
all the other options held before me,
would wither in the light of my plan.

So I'll lose some sales and my boss won't be happy,
but there's only one thing on my mind
searching boxes underneath the counter,
on a chance that on a tape I'd find...
a song for someone who needs somewhere to long for.

Homesick.
Because I no longer know where home is.

-Kings of Convenience

Read Full Post »

I'm not going to get into the specifics of why I'm here. Suffice it to say that I'm at a turning point in my life, and what I do now will determine my future.

Ooooh. How dramatic. One could say that any decision at any moment can determine one's future. Even unintended decisions. Look at what happened to me simply because I didn't notice that the street I was on changed from a 2-way to a 1-way. Suddenly I'm confronting thoughts about mortality that I'd never had before, and it makes a difference in how I respond to things these days. The way I thought about life the day before the accident has shifted since the accident, and I'm taking a good hard look at what I truly value in my life. While I had an original reason for coming to Seattle to visit my brother, and that reason still weighs on me, my view has shifted and given me new things to think about.

I may not take that new job. It throws me back into a position I left, a path I turned away from. I applied for it because I was discouraged, because I thought "there's a job I could surely get," and I think I needed to have it proven that yes, I have value that others can see and I'm worth the offer of a job, and if, after my weeks here in Seattle I can find a way to make this job fit into my desires for my life, I'll take it. Nothing's been signed yet, and that in itself makes me think that there's a reason for that. There are many pluses on its behalf, though many negatives as well, not least of which is it doesn't pay nearly what I thought it did (and don't ask me why I thought it did. My mind's been mush for the last few months.) I'm still on the roster for teaching in the fall, and I love teaching. I'm also waiting to hear about a full-time teaching position I applied for, the one that I don't think I got because I know office politics, but one never can tell. If I can find another part-time job, one that fits well with my job as an adjunct, keeps me going in the direction that I really want to go with my career, and allows me to get medical insurance, that's what I want to do. I'm not a 9 to 5 person. I like having flexibility and change in my schedule and the freedom to do things for myself throughout the day.

Anyway, I'm thinking of being here as a retreat. It's one that I have to organize and schedule for myself, which requires discipline, but that in itself is something that I need to develop. I'm good at discipline while on a job, but not as good when it comes to personal things. And when I say discipline, I don't mean that I intend to whip myself into shape by force, which can't be done given my personality, but that I work seriously to nurture good habits within myself.

Remember my post on loving myself? That's what this is about. Finding what's really true for me and going with it. For years now I have cultivated certain behaviors and gained knowledge in areas that I've wanted to change within myself. And now I have a period of peace and a driving need, a motivation to see it through. These are the things that truly matter to me: 1. becoming healthy through a better diet and exercising in a way that fits who I am and how I live. 2. developing my artistic ability. 3. nurturing my spirit given my changed beliefs (but just so you know, I have abandoned any atheistic leanings I was having. I do still believe there is *something* and I'll call it God, but I don't believe it's a Christian god. It's an everyone's kind of god.)

I believe that if I can bring about a balance in those 3 things, the rest of my life will fall into place, and maybe my restlessness won't drive me mad any more. So while here at my brother's I will be doing those things that will help me to develop each of those areas. Such things include:

1. Therapy with a counselor who works holistically and within my spiritual beliefs

2. Developing better eating habits and daily exercise of some form (and since my brother has the same goals when it comes to health, hopefully we'll help each other)

3. Doing yoga and meditation

4. Painting (I had to pay a second bag fee just to bring my art supplies)

I brought some French books, too, to get down to some serious language study, but that's a lesser priority in the scheme of things.

Why have come to this point? Because my life simply wasn't working as it was, and I couldn't take another step until I confronted this.

Read Full Post »

The title of my post is a book I just finished by Pema Chödrön. She's a Buddhist nun, and of course it's full of being nothing gives you everything kind of talk that has me being mindful of what I'm thinking from one moment to the next, though I have no idea what to do with any of it, not that it's even necessary to DO anything with it when you're a Buddhist, just be in the moment and observe what's true for you. Yeah.

Some of you know the bigger picture of what's going on with me, some of you only know the recent slice, but regardless, right here, right now, in this moment, my neck and head hurts and all I want to do is cry and nothing else matters but that I DON'T THINK AT ALL for just a little while. Because that's all I've been doing for weeks since before the crash, and ten times more so since. I'm living in some kind of slow-motion existential nightmare with cherry blossoms blooming all around me. Last night I lay in bed and thought loving thoughts toward my husband and the others in my life that I love, hoping that they may in some small way pave the road ahead of us with just a little less pain because no matter what happens, we're in for a bumpy trip. We're already on it, and just like my body is literally battered at the moment from the shaking I took and my neck is stiff and aching, so are our emotions.

My husband and I rode his motorcycle to the theater today. A matinee we decided to treat ourselves to. The theater is only a 3 minute drive down the road, but as I was on the motorcycle I was thinking what nuts we were to be riding such a deathtrap just for a bit of entertainment. We could go down in the blink of an eye, and be all battered and scraped and in pain, maybe die, and for what? And yet, I did it, and didn't care. Well, I cared enough to think about it. We watched How to Train Your Dragon. A lovely movie with the predictable youngster doesn't fit in but is vindicated and accepted kind of story, and yet it triggers all my thoughts of not feeling like I fit in, doing the unexpected, disappointing those I love, etc., etc. A silly kids movie and I'm personalizing every little moment of it, even the brushes with death because no matter how I try to accept and live with it, I could have died 6 days ago and I have to work through that in my head in whatever way works for me, sometimes by joking, sometimes by crying, sometimes just living the next moment, but it's always there now, and I have to settle what that means for me somehow.

When I came out of the movie I felt lightheaded again. Sensory overload, I think. When we got outside I asked my husband if we could sit down on one of the benches for a little bit. The sun felt nice and warm, but I was all shaky inside and didn't feel I could sit on the back of the motorcycle yet. And then I just started crying for no discernible reason. I couldn't stop it. I haven't really cried much since the accident happened. A couple of times because my daughter cried first, and a few momentary tears here and there, but I couldn't stop this. It didn't last long, but I still feel it almost 2 hours later.

My life is very strange right now. Very, very strange.

I got a letter stating the 3 workers in the ambulance who hit me were injured in some way and the city insurance is subrogating against my insurance. Okay. They told me at the time no one else was injured, but I imagine they got a bit of a shaking, too. A friend said the ambulance didn't look damaged, but the police report gives it about $4000 worth. Sigh. One wrong turn. One moment of missing the road signs. It's all so weird. I want to go out there and look at where it happened. I haven't been able to yet. I want to see where it says the road is one way. I want to know why I didn't notice it. Where was my head?

Caught up in my thoughts, as it is so often, probably. Oblivious to the world around me. I haven't been oblivious this week, though. Mindful. Slow-moving. Watching. Waiting.

No answers.

Read Full Post »