reading

Listening to the incremental yet huge steps my friend is making in her situation, we chatted about that friend of mine whom I had to walk away from after more than a decade of good friendship. Talking about it again, I found myself being more open to discussing what I perceived I may have done to cause her upset. However, I also saw that simple communication and desire to work on the relationship was in order if either of us really wanted it to be fixed. My friend is a supplier of fixes and suggestions of ways to say things better (after the fact) and it is sweet. I know I definately sound condescending with that statement, and I do have much to write about that as well...but the whole conversation My friend has to find some control somewhere and it manifests as it does, and she has always been like that anyway. It is so funny, you work and work on yourself, but really, you are only coming into the acknowledgement of yourself. You go miles and miles to arrive at the same place to actually see yourself. All of the self help (and I have always done it too, ever since I was conscious of needing to at around sixteen or seventeen) you should work on yourself. But i now find that all of that is ultimately for your own sense of self. It doesn't guarantee any better relationships. My friend talks about ways to frame questions. But I did that with that friend. You learn to manouvre the eggshells. Is that really a friendship? You have to express yourself and you have to be vulnerable and sometimes you also have to walk away and acknowledge that it no longer serves either of you. You have to be ok with the mess and ok with chaos and life. You just have to be ok.

A friend of mine is being faced with the challenge of her life. She has been married for thirty-two years and her stable, brilliant, handsome husband has gone off the deep end over the last seven years by stepping out on her to a life of drugs and sex addiction. She told me that after such a long time of him disappearing for days and gaslighting her and scaring her with their finances being all askew, she told him that perhaps he should decide if he wants to be single. Listening to what she is going through over this long time has been gut wrenching to hear, knowing both of them. What can you say and do to support them in whatever way I can? I do so anyway. Of course I speak way more to her than to him. He is on the surface in complete denial and shows no signs that I can imagine that he has this other life. These people were beautiful to observe and they still can appear that way. Yet, my friend has spent seven long years with three not saying anything to anyone and dealing with it on her own. Now she has gone to the opposite end of the situation where she has signed up for every self improvement class, couples retreat and psychological support she can find. I hear her slowly but surely coming out of the dungeon that is an emotional, psychic trauma. Amidst all of that, the silver lining is that we have promised each other that we shall do some sort of road trip together. We plan to research seperately places and experiences we want to have and hen we shall meet up and plot the whole thing together and just do it. I am looking forward to that.

all you know is that you know nothing

This weekend I had the start of what I am hoping shall be a series of personal talks on the state of one of my professions, with people who want to do something new.Unlike the past, I am not looking for partnership and to start anything with anyone. Instead this is about my existing sites that I write on and about other things that may work out in the future. We live is such interesting times as the Chinese curse goes. Metaverse, Bitcoin, NFT's...Delta, Omicron, mask, unmask, booster...The Queen has Covid! What a world. When nothing is certain, anything is possible has never meant more. There is an opportunity for more equity. There is a sense of clarity amidst all of the uncertainty.There is something about having experienced all of the excess and intensity of constant gratification. The pendulum is always swinging from left to right and up and down, and it is so funny, every generation feels some sort of control about it. When the rules suddenly change it is a funny feeling. You get no prompt. Getting older doesn't help. or the fact that curve balls also are placed where you least expect it. It is a miracle that anything gets done at all. Somehow, somewhere the answer is always confidence. You have to put everything behind believing in yourself.

time

Being on a steady diet of optimism has always felt challenging. The mind slips back effortlessly into doubt. However, when you use a muscle over and over again, it becomes stronger and more resiliant. One must just keep the faith and the constancy. Today I was doing what I love at about a quarter to twelve. I thought about the freedom to do what I am doing. I am not beholden to the 'work' clock of my other profession at this time. My time now is more flexible and although much longer, it is also done on my own terms, and it prickled my skin for a nanosecond. I marvelled at it. It is not to say that I am doing anything new. I am just actually calling out and noticing anew things that I took for granted and that is remarkable in its simplicity to me.

much more

When I visited my friend a few days ago, one of the things that I mentioned was the fact that I have always read about the lives of creative people I have admired. I never really gave any thought to the fact that people in the future may read about my life. I know that my daughter shall definitely be doing it, as I have diaries of my life from the age of eleven to the present. That realisation made me think more about the reality of living inside the creation that is me. If you are not careful you will miss your life, you will miss the wonder and the heartbreak and the value that it brings.But moreso, settling into my friends creative space really impacted me because I feel the energy of her space. I do not view my space in the same way. I think it is because it is not set up. However,I want to focus my thoughts on how I view the rest of my life. Of course there is some flexibility. But I do believe that it is essential for me now to have more structure in the space in which I find myself working. This means inventorying my cache of materials which to me is daunting. I always say that I need to hire two students to sort out all the things that I have. I have been alright with just starting the projects that I have to do. But right now it has already begun because I have stuff stacked up in a few corners. So as I am writing this, I think that here I go again, I am writing about something that I am presently in the middle of and not acknowledging it as what it is. OMG! This means that I have an image in my head of " what I want" and I don't think that I am "in" what I want. Perhaps I think what I want has a particular look and if I don't feel that I am in that look, then I don't have the look. This is silly. I am now seeing it.

visit day

I decided to visit a friend today and it was a really wonderful experience. She cooked for me, and for the first time I truly enjoyed a complete vegan meal. We have discussed before collecting her recipes, but now I am going to insist that she and I work on that. She also mentioned a project that she wants us to do, and I love the idea. I cannot commit to it right now, but it shall definitely be on my list of things that must happen. We have so many things in common, but the things that we do not, we are discovering that we can learn from the others experience. She was telling me that her sister and herself nearly came to a physical fight. There mom has dementia and she has been taking the bulk of the care of her, so now that she has secured a residency for two months her sister is extremely angry about it. So I was telling her that perhaps her sister is used to feeling some element of control in her life and to see a major parent ill and unable to see her get better is very hard.I know because I just dealt with my own experience. Speaking with her and going over a number of issues that we shared, I heard myself saying certain things aloud that I believe in, but also I saw where I am now in regard to some of the things that I have gone through. She mentioned her latest relationship and how she had to end it, and got me to say that in my understanding men do not seek out women they do not consider, no matter how fleeting. However, women will compromise, will consider whether they are attractive enough, or just enough.It is not fair at all, but some perceptions do seem to be weighted toward male or female relationships.But ultimately,it was easy to see where there are opinions based on expectations and societal views, cultural views, family etc, and how you can shift your perspective where it meeds to be ie: what is genuinely best for you. Thus, the statement about her sister and about the necessity to do the work she has to do despite the circumstances she is facing. Her studio is in walking distance of her home, so she is not neglecting her parent in any way, she is simply asking her sister for her part of the responsibility to be shared for a few more weeks. Truthfully I would like my friend to be able to extend her work as she is doing such wonderful stuff and she is coming into her stride. Not having the opportunity to speak on certain topics and then listening to myself, I was taking my own emotional temperature. I could also see how far I have come with many things and the things that I still have to work on, like my grief over deaths that have happened, specifically my dad.Mentioning that I felt was huge to say aloud.It was just good to be candid and that was a breath of fresh air.

The year has met me working on commissions and a solo show. I could not ask for anything more. I am loving what is going on. Having this happen has automatically given me the structure I have been wanting. It is not that I have not had it, it is just that without clear results for things, I have been working on everything I want to make, yet feeling untethered because they have not provided income. So when things began to shift last year, it was such a relief for me.