sure there is the tug to go here or there, to do what i "should." i love the hermitage and my microforest. if i could just figure out how to navigate sanely and joyfully the periods of unpeopled days, to actively put my hand to the tasks, to deal with the administrative blah of making and writing, i imagine staying. i get glimmers of what ifs. what if i stayed here and wrote? what if i stayed here and made? what if i found just enough social tethering so that i don't fret. there really is nothing wrong with a fret or two, but detethered fretting impedes my making, my writing, my bit of tethering that needs to be anchored. some people stress and it activates them. me, stress and other unsightly emotions, i shut down, mope, have difficultly focusing my mind or lifting a limb. being artist, being writer, does not meet the "should" of the patterns in which i was raised (fiscal responsibility and normalcy). fret. i am not doing it the way i am "suppose to", the normal of normalcy. if i manage to be even more frugal [fret], and make the social connections needed in spite of be geolocated in the woods, i want to stay here in this microforest. ha. i want to keep my damn microforest and hermitage. it is so drop dead gorgeous and peaceful. i want to write. ha, which means, write for god's sake kathy. write, type, thumb out, whatever, but get to it. i want to make, so make. i do. it also means i have to jump through the business hoops of proposals, submissions and such. i do but it isn't pushed.
i don't push the business side. i meander. i need to push it, not because i think i should, but because i need to for me. oh crap. i need to push it because i think i am "suppose to." i am "suppose to" if i take this path. if i want this path, it requires pushing. why? less meandering. fraq, meandering is my nature, it is how i get to the work. it allows for hybridization of thinking, of domains in which i dabble. dang the "shoulds" i embrace!
making, the resulting object, causes pause, but writing seems much more purposeful, meaningful--a method that will push out into my future, into others' futures. at a more macro level beyond me and my narrowed we, is one more impactful, objects or words? binary solution sought because it is lazy, but it isn't an either or, ones or zeros. both objects and writing play out in all that i do and culturally witness. objects, space, light, texture, color, line, atmosphere, are incredibly important. we identify with them, need them. really. i identify with them. what little semi-affluent girl hasn't put on a pair of her mom's heels [object] to exclaim, "look i am mommy." objects and spaces, i use. i use them to construct a reflection of myself. yes, yes, i do. i use them to comfort myself, my mind and moods, or surely i [we] would not pay four bucks for a cup of joe at starbucks [well i don't but only because i don't like coffee]. we wrap our identies around ourself to hold the construct of me and we together.
object and space are clearly very important. does this even connect to my making? yes and no. oh binary ease, go away. identity, comfort, and such don't seem quite the direct compulsion in my making. the objects and space are more reflective of inner culled experiences. well, plus the shear act of making is so dang seductive and compulsive. so there is the reflective object, a tad of identity, and most importantly the need to make the objects and manipulate space. but words, words, how impactful they are [dangle]. my conscious mind constructs itself with words not image or object. the words may stand in for image/object but the structure of the thinking part of me is built on words. without the organizing structure of language in my mind, would object even exist? consciousness? identity? my identity is totally wrapped up in the words that chisel and shape me having bombarded me from without. no matter the resistance, i harvest and harness these external words, i work my self construct even further from the inside. words, building story, reflections, arguments, set my course, my identity, shape my believings, my mishaps and my doubts. scratched out, thumbed out, typed out, internalized, words are the building blocks, required, wanted--quenching and teasing, organizing and leading. i need words in the same fashion i need other. so below making, perhaps even below the need of other, are the words that assemble narrative, story, memory, adaption of my lived and living experience...i need other, i need the scratching out of words words on the page to hold together coherent constructs, i need reflective making, i need a tad of income (dang the need for root canals and tires), and i need green with the sound of wind rustling the trees' canopies.
in my shoulds I have tugged myself into a loop. it is the very thing writing does for the writer. it has brought me back on myself realizing the hermitage is a retreat, needed, gifted, but not a space to hunker down in forever, not a possession [well i did buy it and may be overly attached]...my brain and living needs more other, more writing, more making, lest I get lost in a belly button excavation.
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