peanuts

remember Charlie Brown & Lucy? how every time she'd hold the football for him, she promised not to move it? and every time, just as he was about to kick it, she'd yank it away, and BAM! down he'd go on his back with a *sigh*. well, i think i have Charlie Brown syndrome. not a fear of failure, but as the wonderful thing gets closer, i wait for it to get yanked away. after a while, do you dare hope? or am i so programmed to expect disappointment, that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy? that i have become comfortable in disappointment...like, "whew! there it is finally - now i can relax...it's happened." am i stunting my own growth? or have paths become closed to me because there was another path to take? i can see a thread woven through my life ...how this wouldn't have happened if that hadn't come 1st. the heartbreaks, the disapointments, the wrong this or that, actually turned out to be the breeze that pushed me toward the point that i'm at now. and while not great externally, it ain't so bad internally. this point i'm at. i saw a sign in front of a church yesterday as i zipped past at too many miles per hour. "It's never too late to be who you were meant to be." Yow. good thing traffic was light! as i am discovering who i was meant to be, i've also become keenly aware of the "too late" portion....too old, too comfortable, too scared, too fill-in-the-blank with any/all excuses. which brings me back to charlie brown and the football. why do i continue to run towards that damn ball? yes, it's a great point for "if at first you don't succeed...." but there comes a point where you have to scratch your head and say, "maybe a different way." maybe that different way is to say "why not?? WHY wouldn't this work?" or hit the showers and join a new game. and stop blaming Lucy for the fact that you keep running for that same damn ball. in the past 2 years, i've had some amazing insight foisted upon me. it all started when my great-good-friend Georgia (yes, the famous poet is MY friend!) began demanding of me that i call myself an artist because i WAS one. it was ridiculously uncomfortable at first. i remember telling my creative writing teacher at OCC that i hoped to be a writer someday. he replied that i was one, then. you are what you feel you are, he said. at what point would it become "legitimate?" good point. so i guess the second time i was hit with the same undeniable logic, it was easier to swallow, right? nope. artists are different than me. they are cool. self-assured. they have their own art-language. they drink latte and hang out with other cool people - all wearing very slim black pants and berets. they talk about looking at "spaces" and interpretive this-n-that. they listened to more jazz than i could bear, even having dated 3 jazz musicians in my life. (2 more than was essentially necessary). i was none of these things. and still am not and never will be- i am a nervous wreck most times. a definate square peg. at times, needy to the point of egotistical. i do own black pants, however, not in a size considered "slim." and more inclined to listen to Stevie Nicks or Indigo Girls than Coltrane. so i spent last year feeling equal parts enlivened by my new persona, and feeling like a fraud. so i did what i usually do: retreated to the comfort of my fabric, fiber, wood and metal, beads and paints. and - you guessed it- made art. hmmmm, you may say - but didn't you just say...fraud. oh yes, my friend. at some point during some early morning junking at the flea market, it occured to me ....HEY! if i make art...i AM an artist! hunh. this may have been a much easier concept for most of you to grasp early on, had it been you instead of me, but again...the football - good things just don't happen. so while i was busy expecting the worst, some slow & subtle lessons were being learned - unbeknownst to me. a certain shifting, a slow dawning, a growth. i was becoming the person i was meant to be. i began to realize that it was possible to speak common-man english and still be an artist. i also realized that the art-speak was 1 of 2 things, depending on the speaking person and also the place spoken in. it was either an attempt at elitism. or an attempt to define the un-definable. (sorry GP). when someone asks what your art piece represents, it's kind of like "if i could speak it, i wouldn't have to create it." it isn't so much a representation of a concept....it's more like the representation of what that concept evokes in me. how does it make you feel when you look at it or touch it? then THAT'S what it represents. so in attempt to define what cannot be spoken, a whole vocabulary was invented. words and phrases like "textural representation" or what have you. yes, i agree...most of the time it's just being hoity-toidy. and i avoid that at all costs. who needs more of that? i also discovered that most of these cool people were not so self-assured....that many had the same issues i had - "am i good enough?" "oh God what if they find out I don't have a fine arts degree?" the important stuff. so anyway, as i ramble toward some point or another (because if you know me, you know i am unable to tell a short story), i realized that i was developing opinions...i wasn't just taking in the whole "art world" as it were (and the artists i knew) and saying, WOW - i must not be an artist because i don't paint. or my work is so much different, mine must be lesser. nope. i started realizing that my expressions of my muse was as legitimate as anyone else's. my technique or medium may be different, but that doesn't make it lesser, or less valid. so as i slowly came to this reckoning, i began to see that i didn't have to kick the football. and that not everyone who holds a brush, or welding torch is a better person than me. yes, there are things within my personality that i am not proud to feel or think. but, they have a place. but those things should not overshadow the sum of the whole. (yes, i'm still reading Einstein). i really feel like this year will bring a culmination of good and bad things from my life together to blossom into a new and wonderful thing. a big thing. i'm not sure what, but i have a tilt-a-whirl kind of buzzing excitement on the outskirts of my brain that hasn't made itself clear yet. my personal big bang theory. so until that time comes, i'll keep plugging away making art. real art. from the stirrings in my soul. i have to. because i'm an artist.