untitled is right

Yesterday I set out to get some answers to why I have not been paid for three months at UWI. I caught the head of department at the right moment to ask about the matter and what I was told was a labyrinth of words without any substance. Then the co-ordinator made a comment to me that sent me down the rabbit hole like Alice in Wonderland. I left the school feeling really dispondent. But then when I finally got into the relative comfort of a maxi-taxi, I was better for it. As I write now, I am fuelling all that I have heard into one question for myself and that question is, how am I planning to use this perceived adversity to my advantage? I can sit and mope about all that has happened, or I can see it as an opportunity. I choose to do the latter. I have been here many times with the school, but this time feels like the worst one ever. As I mentioned, I sat with myself and took the lay of the land in. I have had a busy year, that is for certain. The first half started strong and very promising. This part of the year is more challenging. I would like the whole year to be strong and I would like the year to be years and years and decades instead of a chirip, chirip kind of situation...or as the other saying goes, drip, drip, drip of a situation. In order to do so, I found myself thinking that I would be so satisfied if I could do all that I presently do, but with money guaranteed into it. WIth money coming in that I can plan around...invest, save, plan, then I would feel the greatest sense of satisfaction. My plan now is to make that happen.

Say whaaaaat

The exhaustion is still very much with me. Having completed the symposium and exhibition has been an elation an excitement for sure. DaDa+Projects pulled off a gigantic project that was audacious in scope and so good! So very good! What an experience. I really need to write with greater detail about the experience. This year there has been so much momentum.I have literally gone this way...exhibition preporation and making - book designing - symposium and exhibition reseraching, drawing concepts and gathering information and implementing - second and third exhibition making - teaching three courses including one I have never taught before. It has been a constant rhythm of work and churning out ideas and writing. I did not include writing. Yesterday I must add with all of this, I listen to a show on You-Tube called Kinetic Symphony, where the narrator states what will make him happy in his life. You can get the most profound information from the most unexpected places. This happened. He made me want to ask myself the same question. What does a happy life for me look like? I am quick to recall past joys to answer future joy. But I shall do my best to answer without trying to control the answer to control what I want to say to be right about it. Knowing that I can plan my life comfortably. I have a lot. I have loving family, I have the Art career. I need a place to make my work now. A large space and I need a small team. Joy will be having the wherewithall to know that all that I do do now is cpmpensated for with the money to do more. I am letting my concerns color my joy. I should be writing without the word BUT. The but is very real and hampering me at the moment because for the last few months I have been working unsalaried, despite all of my efforts, money has been non existant. I have been fighting and drowning and scratching and clawing my way to makining it through every five days and then to the weekends. I have exploited all of my resources to be able to go forward and it has been scary, bewildering...because I have given everything to all the work that I do. Yet, the reciprocation of paying me has been deflating!I don't know what to think? I am just exhausted! When I have received one of my payments, it came three weeks late with no explanation. Then I did a freelance job and the person just hasn't paid me. They are a friend of the family, know me forever, and they just stole from me! I told them the cost, I reminded them about the payment and they just didn't pay me. Then in my other job, I was lobbied, hard, to come in and rescue them from losing a course. I was lobbied! Then, I only got the contract for all of that teaching three weeks ago! After nine weeks of teaching! Then, on Friday, I finally think I can breath out about my salary only to see that I didn;t get paid AGAIN! no reason for it! No excuses given, no apology for it! I have been here too many times. I am just exhausted! I am fed up of thinking that it is me. I am the problem. There is something that I am just not doing? When I am doing at least four things to try to find a way to make consistant money from one so that while I wait for the other to pan out, I can keep floating. I am not the only person this is happening to. I write so that I can tell myself this. I know I am not alone despite the way it makes me feel. I am just bewildered about how to go forward right now. I don;t know my next steps. So I just have to sit and accept that I don't know. I just don't.

Whistful thoughs

This morning I got up and a fellow artist couple crossed my mind. I spent some time admiring what I believe to be their love story, moments when I have not glimpsed them at their best and overall, the work that they have collectively accomplshed.In going down a memory lane of my imagination, everything felt so light and sweet as I considered life and all that has happened in my own experiences. When I throw my mind back to being eighteen, I could never have projected here. I of course had all of the usual expectations...college was at the forefront. I hoped to be successful at both Art and Design. I considered a boyfriend, possibly marriage. I didn't consider children. I assumed that I would have a lot of the things that my parents had. I saw travel and I thought by now that I would be visiting Japan at least once and or living there. I am very happy to report that I still feel a sense of wonder about where I am heading next and that is the best feeling of all.

discovery

My sister called deeply frustrated with her daughter. She was feeling so dispondent that she said some rash things that I had to scold her about. We got interrupted in our call by our mom who wanted to speak with me, and I began telling her about my conversation with my sister. Of course our mom wanted to instantly call her and add to what I had said, but I insisted that she act as though we had not spoken. I told her that I did not want my sister to think that we had discussed her in a way that she miht not have been ready to speak with our mom about. I thought about that afterwards, and one of the things that became clear to me is the perceptions we hold in our minds. Because what is happening with my sister is not happening to me, I can see it differently. Mom sees it in her way as well of course. So this is already four fdifferent ways of seeing. They are all just observtions of the thing itself. I mulled it over and found thatto look at the issue as a facetted thing is to see its complexities certainly, but it also provides a sense of accepting its many sides. In so doing, if you are patient, you can eventually see that you are just observing your side. There might be something else on the other side of the problem. The point is, clarity can come if you can only let go of the outcome you thing your going to get.