“My life as an artist has been
spent trying to hide myself-so that I might reveal myself.”
Oh I stopped myself again, so thoroughly and completely and
–why? Was it simply not knowing who I was anymore, or even who I wanted to be?
Yes, I suppose that was it. Or perhaps it was the simple burden of teaching,
and writing and existing while in this process of transformation? Or the
pretense of trying to be and look successful and like somebody oh so special?
When underlying it is the old cold feeling of being a nothing and a nobody and
a loser? I wonder, does everyone have this at their core? Or is it just me and
my kind? …my creative kindred.
I wrote that quote at the top of the page in my journal and
realized that that, of course, once
again, is where I’m at. I don’t know how other people live their lives or make
their art or whatever their work may be. We are surely all shape-shifters and
mask- wearers, on some level, but those of us who make our lives in the
creative arenas require a special relationship to both the value and danger of
being such. I realize that the role of teaching artist begs these questions in
much the same way. I say “the role” because everything is a role. Under the
heart of me, the burning questing feeling reeling depth of me is just pure joy
pure pain pure blank wonder. But the daily living does not support that-oh be
sure of it. One must find who one is while walking down the street, (I have
tried it the other way and trust me when I say; it is not a good idea.)
Teaching is another role, as is singing, as being in a band was. Being an actor
is a sorely missed role encompassing many roles and so it MADE SO MUCH SENSE.
Being a wife, a mother, a sister, a friend, a lover, a daughter, yes, we know,
we are all “roling” along. When does it work, when not? Is that then the
question? When does it connect to that inner raw something that is us, when
does it become something through which the real authentic me, you, whoever, can
be expressed? That is the question.
How do we make these heavy light/ decisions, these wonderful
/terrible differentiations? That is the stuff of our lives isn’t it? I have to
keep going back to this because I get lost in the role (sometimes) and it
changes, and I lose why the hell I was doing it in the first place (sometimes).
Or the role disappears through some vagary of fate or through my own doing as
has happened this past year and I am just plain lost. And I realized that
faking it is just too too exhausting and ‘tis better to let this too too solid
mask melt away and to let what is, be revealed- if just for a moment.
