Funny how that works, eh?
Actually, it’s got a lot to do with the people in my life. Yesterday I had a conversation with my coach, who reminded me that art is supposed to be fun, like play, not a screaming deathmatch one has with oneself.
Last night, after a brain-wrenching day of struggling with my copywriting again, my husband and I had dinner at a restaurant, then we drove out to the Lyth Arts Centre to see a wonderful show. Before we got there, Craig pulled the car over at the side of the road. To one the right were the grassy dunes before the beach; on the left was a field. He asked me to roll down the window and listen.
I did, and I heard countless little birds singing in different patterns. I breathed, I relaxed. There was no place to go, nothing to do. This was it. I was able to forgive myself for how the day went and allow myself to just be where I was, not trying to fix anything.
Ahh.
At the theatre, we sat with our coffees waiting to go in, seeing the late-day sun streaming in through the trees, through the door of the Art Centre’s porch (porches are so great in the summer, which I suppose it’s becoming). Craig just smiled at me as we talked about this and that. From morning till evening, he did his best to make me happy — not in a fakey “I’m not comfortable with you if you’re not being pleasing” way, but out of a genuine interest in seeing me feel better.
I’d had a dream in the morning that we were still living in different places and that it proved too much, so he broke things off with me. I was (somehow) on the streets of London, thinking, “I’m single, but I’m hardly free. This is awful.” Then I woke up in reality and he was there, and we’re married. I am a very lucky person.
My familiar pattern is just being completely independent all the time (in that illusory way that any of us is really independent in this world), but this was my first experience of really understanding that, as he said in the car, “I’m here for the long-haul.” I’m not just me anymore; someone else is looking out for me, too. Again: how lucky I am!
Today, just a short while ago, I had a talk with my editor. We’ve been working together for years and she’s become one of my best friends. Somehow, we’re also able to make a complete distinction when it comes to work and be completely frank and forthright about it. So I figured I’d trust in our relationship and tell her that I was feeling stuck, unhappy, and, well, bored. Part of it was also that there’s a new idea we’re rolling out at work, only it didn’t feel right to me. As a result, my work was out of integrity, and I don’t do well with that because my work happens in my brain and I have to have something personally at stake in it in order to do it well.
Over the course of our conversation, she opened up this new idea for me in a way that I didn’t just comprehend, but was also really excited about. I see the changes it’s producing in her life, and she convinced me of the genuine opportunity to invent whatever I wanted for my work, which would undoubtedly spill over into all my other activities. Suddenly things flipped around from being uncomfortably not-right to being a whole new realm of possibilities.
I could also see that this discomfort was not a bad thing, a sign that everything was going to hell, but an indicator that I’ve simply outgrown the level I’m at and it’s time to create new things. And as my editor pointed out, I have a lot of people around me who would make sure that works out for me.
How lucky, indeed.
When I was in London, I visited with Andra Simons, a poet and really dear person who I’d only met once before but instantly considered a good friend. I also got to hang out with Robert and John, who I knew through Craig, but really enjoyed hanging out with as my own friends this time. Then my friend Margaux visited us in Wick, and a while back my pal Patrick was up here…
I feel like I don’t document the relationships in my life well on these pages. That’s partly because I don’t feel like it’s my business to talk about other people online, and to people on this blog who wouldn’t know them, who cares, right? But people really do matter to me.
People are amazing.
I’ve heard it said that other people are the only reason anything in our life is rewarding. I’m definitely an introvert, I like my own company, and I have a lot of activities that I can do all on my own… Yet I’m still inclined to believe this may be true.
Plus, I can do stuff, but it really only matters when there are other people to get it. Maybe that’s the difference between “hobby” and “art”.