Am I Pained Enough to be an Artist?

Two things have kept me from pursuing my writing and art for two decades.

First, I never thought I had enough angst to be a real artist.  It's true.  Most of my artist friends are in a constant state of upheaval.  They have relationship issues, self-esteem issues, family conflicts and they always dress so that there is no question that they are artsy in some me way.  I don't think I'm troubled enough.  When I met the Charge Scenic Artist I was to train under in our theatre department years ago, he looked at me, paused and then said "you're going to be my normal one."  I didn't get it at first, but I did soon after.  I look like a normal American girl.  Nothing fancy.  Nothing that's going to make anyone take notice.  The times I've done more, it felt awkward.  It wasn't me.

Second, I never thought I had anything to say.  Scenic artists are really reproduction artists.  We take someone else's design and turn it in to a much bigger version.  Yes, we add our own techniques and style, but mainly we are reproducing someone else's vision.  And I'm pretty good at it.  But, It is not MY  voice.  And even when I felt like I did have something to say, as an artist or a writer, I didn't think it was just so fascinating that I needed to throw it out there onto the World Wide Web.  I figured people would wonder why I ever thought it was worth making public.

I know there is so much more to being a writer or an artist than the way you look, or whether or not someone else will find what you do interesting,  I suppose to make money at it, someone has to find it interesting.  But artists create art.  Writers write.  Irregardless of who may or may not want to see it.  Even if nobody ever sees anything you do. To think differently would be like asking the color red to look a little more blue because you like blue better.  Red is just red.  If it were more blue, then it wouldn't be red.  Writers write.  It's who we are.  It's who I am.  And, I finally think I have my own voice.

Story Ideas From My Exciting Stay-At-Home Mom Morning

My day so far:

1:30 a.m. Awakened by Seth crying.  Waited a couple of minutes and he was back out.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.  Went back to sleep.

5:45 a.m. Awakened by Seth crying.  Fed him a bottle.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.  

6:15 a.m. Walked down to an open house I worked on Saturday near my house to drop off stuff that should have been dropped off last night.  Called my mom on the way and chatted about the kids, Texas weather, cicadas and whatnot.

7:00 a.m.  Seth woke up, checked on him and then going down the hallway in the morning sunlight, I could now see the giant maggot parade stretching from our front door to the back door where we take out the trash.  Have no idea how long the festivities had been going on.  Seth stubbed his toe.

7:02 a.m. Swept up participants in the maggot parade, and cleaned trail of blood off the floor from Seths stubbed toe.

7:15 a.m. Put a bandaid on toe and disinfected parade route.

7:20 a.m. Stood up during disinfecting process and whacked my head on the corner of the cabinet door I had left open when I got toe bandaid out.

7:21 a.m.  Immediately crouched back down, rubbing head and beginning to cry (this was th capper to a stressful weekend....)

7:30 a.m. Regained consciousness and composure enough to fold laundry and put in a load of towels.

8:00 a.m.  Stopped crying,  Made hot cocoa for my and my son, got dressed to run errands, made to-do-list for errands.  Took Tylenol for throbbing head from cabinet doors

8:35 a.m.  Drove to bank.  Checked Twitter, email and Facebook. (John is off work so I had the luxury of going by myself and having a quiet moment by alone)

8:45 a.m. On the way to the bank I heard a call-in contest to win Tom Petty concert tickets.  Dialed the wrong number.  Couldn't remember the right one.  Blew my chances.

8:50 a.m.  Tom Petty's "Free Falling" comes on to rub in the fact that I didn't get tickets,  put the top down on the car and sang along. Loudly. Because I know every word.

9:00 a.m.  Bank.  Fairly uneventful.

9:20 a.m. Michaels.  Had fun picking out butterfly stuff for a girl's birthday D was going to today.

10:05 a.m.  Stopped picking out butterfly stuff, finally, and hit the grocery store for milk and bread.

10:20 a.m.  Stopped by the house to pick up D and Seth for the party.  D was too busy watching Curious George to be distracted by a birthday party.  I put the hammer down, because parties are important.

10:30 a.m. Went to the party with butterfly gifts.  Had lots of fun--scavenger hunt, swings, sifting through sand  for treasures, painting, opening homemade geodes with treasures inside, popping balloons with treasures inside....you get the picture.

11:30 a.m.  Ate Mexican Food and donuts at the party.

Noon  Left the party to drop D off at Ninja Camp.  That's right....Ninja Camp.  We are cool like that.

12:05 p.m. Seth fell asleep in the car on the way home from dropping off at Ninja Camp.  Perfect.

12:15 p.m. Reheat my cocoa from this morning,  Lay down for a little bit because of throbbing cabinet door knot on my head.  

12:30 p.m. Really need sleep, but wrote this entry instead. Checked Twitter, email and Facebook.

And the day is not even half over yet.  There has to be a least a few story ideas in they're somewhere....Tha Maggot Parade....hmmm...D would love it.

The Art of Brevity

Pacific Beach locals don't need a caption.

In my art work and graphic design, I pride myself on my ability to capture some thought or emotion through a clean, simple image.  It comes natural to me.  It is how I think.  The watercolor to the right is a good example.  Locals love it.  They know where it is and that, even though it's a street sign, it represents a particular beach spot.  They know I frequent that spot.  They know it's a simple representation of a place, a love for that place, and it means I'm a local, too.  I get brevity in my art.

But, when I write, I want to explain everything.  I want to make sure everyone understands exactly what I mean.  And, unfortunately, that can mean I am not giving the reader enough credit to draw his or her own conclusions.

I was reminded of this and of the need for brevity this week as I have been polishing two short works, with the help of my friend of 25+ years, Christa, who is a wonderful writer with far more experience than I have (http://www.christalestelasserre.com).  She responded to my two projects with great advice about brevity and getting to the heart of the story, and it allowed me to see what I needed to do to make some key changes.   Perhaps even complete overhauls.

One of my projects is a 500 word short story submission, and the other is a twelve line children's poem I intend to illustrate into a book.  It's close to midnight, and I am finally pretty happy with my work.  But, it has taken more hours over the last several days than 500 words should.  In a story that short, each word, each phrase has to be carefully thought out and placed for maximum impact.  Each image, like a biblical parable, must be relied on to teach more about the story than the few words used to describe it.  The beauty of simple imagery is that it can hold different meaning for different people, and all interpretations can be correct.  As I begin to edit the larger manuscript from which this short story was taken, I am now asking myself how many of those words I need to keep.  How many are absolutely necessary?  I fear I have a lot more editing in store than I originally imagined.  That said, I am looking forward to paring down to the heart of the story.  It is my story--my memoir, and I don't want it muddled with distracting thoughts that serve as smoke and mirrors to lure the reader away from what he or she should be analyzing.  It is a tactic I have often used in my own life so others don't see what is really there.  And that goes against the whole purpose of this memoir.  It is not to conceal.  It is to capture the essence of these memories so I can lay them to rest and move on.  And I don't want to string that out any longer than is absolutely necessary.

"Like the fear that grabs ahold ya, let it go"

I went surfing tonight.  Well, surfing is probably a strong word,  I did a lot of floating on my board, as the waves were just about non-existent, and I am definitely a beginner and am not one that can just catch any little wave that rolls by.  But, it wasn't just the size of the waves that was keeping me from surfing more than I did.  I don't know how many times I said out loud the phrase "oh, that would have been a good one" as I missed the few waves that were the right size. I missed them for different reasons.  A few times I was just daydreaming, but mostly I would just wait until it was too late. I would decide as it was passing me by that I should have realized that was a good one.  As I sat there rising and falling with the swells, it occurred to me that it was very symbolic of my life.

Like many of you, I have some form of a bucket list.  And, I feel I have been fairly realistic in the things I want to accomplish.  There are a few long shots that will require a lot of luck, but mostly things that are doable with some extra work.  One of them is the memoir I am finally writing. This memoir has been in the making for about ten years.  I have been thinking about it for a very long time but every time I sit to write, I chicken out.  So many reasons, but if I could pick out the main one, it is fear.  Fear of failure or fear of success, or fear of how others will react, or all three. Either way, I have let opportunities pass me by time after time thinking I would just catch the next one. But, opportunities aren't like airplanes landing every five minutes.  I have been careless.  And it's time for that to stop.

One of my favorite songs is by The Zac Brown Band and is entitled "Let it Go".  It captures why I'm writing this memoir.  There is a part that says:

"But you only get once chance at life to leave your mark upon it

And when a pony he comes riding by you better set your sweet ass on it"

I'm a Texas girl and straight-forward thinking is the way I like it.   Leave the sugar-coating for someone more fragile, becauseI don't have time for it.  Especially now.  I've wasted too much time as it is.

"Like a sweet sunset in Georgia, Let it go. Like the fear that grabs ahold ya, Let it go."

I would write more, but it have to get back to editing my memoir.  But, check out the song.  They are killer musicians.

A Worthless Restraining Order and Taking Back Your Life

Excerpt from my book in progress, from a story about my step-father: 

"I wanted him out of our lives and I didn’t care what that meant.  I knew that I didn’t want any of us to be victims any more.   So, when I drove my sister home from a church meeting one night and saw him driving slowly by the house, something snapped and I whipped a u-turn in front of the house and took off after him.  Us in my little white Mustang and him in his beat up little pickup truck.  We flew down these country roads in the dark in some crazy pursuit.  The question was, what was I pursuing?  Was it him or was it something else?  I wondered what I would do if I caught him.  What would I say?  What would I do if got my hands on him?  But, I didn’t care.  I felt this great sense of elation!  I smiled—might have even laughed.  The hunter had become the hunted and I wanted him to feel fear.  I knew these old back roads pretty well, and I knew we were headed for gravel.  He went up this hill and to the left and sped down the white rock road with no signs of slowing.  I knew we were a few hundred yards from a tee in the road, and with the darkness and the gravel dust, I decided to slow down, hoping I would still be able to catch him.  We pulled up to the tee and I stopped.  I couldn't tell which direction he had gone, and I knew I hadn’t been that far behind him.  And then I saw him.  He had obviously not known about the tee in the road and had plowed straight through a fence out into the field.  I looked and saw his car about a hundred yards ahead with the driver’s door open and smoke coming up from the engine.  It took a minute to spot him.  He had run about a hundred yards past the car and was crouched beside a tree watching me.  It was a really powerful moment for me.  Here was this man that I had grown to fear and despise.  This coward of a man who, for some reason I don’t understand, preyed on those less powerful than him.  There he was crouched down like a cornered animal.  I remember thinking how pathetic he looked.  How weak and gutless and powerless and pathetic he was.  I actually felt sorry for him.  My heart was softened.  Not in a way that I would ever let him back in my life, but in a way that would allow me to let go.  My sister and I just sat there for a few moments, watching the lights glare back off of his glasses, like a possum's eyes at night.  She said something about how that was just sad.  I agreed.  I flashed my brights at him and honked my horn a couple of times, and then turned around and drove away.  It wasn’t worth it.  He wasn't worth it.  What was I going to do anyway?  What did I expect would make him different?  He at least knew that I would pursue and that I wasn’t going to sit idly by without fighting back, and that was enough for me at that moment, even if nothing else changed."

Missing Small Town Texas

Working on my book tonight and missing my little Texas hometown.  Missing train tracks running through the neighbor's yard and june bugs and populations signs with only three digits.  Missing longhorn cattle and loud bugs and fried everything.  I'm missing big green trees, hay bales in freshly cut fields and the sound of old guys sitting at the convenience store/diner booth playing dominoes and chatting about the local high school football game on Friday night.  "How's the team looking this year?"  I miss hearing those accents and phrases like "Well, I'm going to head on over to the Walmarts in a while...." or the inevitable daily chats about the weather.

One of my favorite song lyrics is from one of my favorite Southern boys, Don Williams.

"I can still hear the soft Southern winds in the live oak trees.
And those Williams boys, they still mean a lot to me--Hank and Tennessee
I guess we're all going to be what we're going to be
But what'll you do with good ole' boys like me"

I can just hear his smooth, mellow voice as I type those words.  Love this song so much.  It's about getting out and moving on, but also how you never do leave completely.  The places of your childhood--the smells and sounds and the feel of the air--they never leave.  And even if you don't want to necessarily move back, there's something about it that you can't shake from your soul.  And even if things happened that weren't good, that made those times less than happy on occasion, there is a flaxen thread that connects you always.  There is a longing to return, but not to the way it was.  The longing, I find, is to return to the childhood you wished it would have been.

Why I Have to be a Good Mom.

Trying to get a picture with the
new "light hat".  D insisted on
pushing the camera button
and picking the filter. Took a few
tries, but we had fun and what else 
matters??  Nothing else matters.

I’ve written many times about the scrutiny applied to adoptive parents, and I’ve expressed how, even though I know it’s necessary, it is hard to take sometimes.  It’s so invasive, and every area of your life is investigated to make sure you are good enough.  John and I used to joke that we don’t look good on paper.  Divorces.  Abuse in our families.  John was arrested twice, both of which were dismissed within 24 hours, but one of those was for domestic violence.  An argument with a girlfriend led to a revengeful call to the police, which led to an arrest.  And a subsequent breakup…. And the list goes on.  It doesn’t look good when you’re trying to prove you’d be amazing parents!  But, interestingly enough, these are the things that have pushed us both to have the desire to be amazing parents.  I won’t speak for John, except to say that his growing up with an incredibly abusive father and then living with a single mom on welfare in Oklahoma certainly has had its lasting repercussions.  I will mainly speak to my experience, and how it has pushed me to try to be the best mom.

I experienced the divorce of my parents and the breakup of our family when I was eleven.  A couple of years later, my mother remarried a man who turned out to be a psychopath.  Most people associate that word with a dangerous killer, but it’s really a personality type and is much more common than just in headline criminals.  My stepfather is/was one.  He still is, but he’s not my stepfather anymore.  I won’t go into all the details—that’s a story for another time.  Suffice it to say, he had an impact on me—on all of us.  He was destructive and manipulative.  He could be charming and he could be scary.  I know now that he was a coward, but in the moment, you don’t always know that, and you don’t know if this will be the time he will snap and do something much more drastic than you thought he was capable of.  I felt very out of control, and I think there are lasting effects from that still with me today.  He could be so cruel, and then the next morning would be joking around.  And, when you are young, that is just so confusing.  I have continued to have dreams over the years of being attacked and never being able to defend myself.  I freeze.  I can’t scream.  I can’t fight back.  It’s awful.  I was never attacked physically by him, but I think that feeling of being out of control has stayed with me.  We had confrontations—screaming, yelling, struggling over things, I did get shoved to the ground once but that wasn’t as bad as having gasoline thrown on me.  And he was a smoker, so I knew there was a lighter in his pocket.

Anyway, I will stop there.  My point in sharing this is that I have never wanted my children to feel the fear or neglect or insecurities that I felt.  Every day I work so hard to make sure that My son knows how much I love him.  I hug him and tell him how sweet and handsome and smart and strong he is.  I look him in the eyes and tell him these things all day every day.  I try to not seem frustrated to be parenting him, because I want him to know that I love being his mom.  I never want him to feel that he is a burden.  When he is grown, I know he won’t remember a lot of his childhood, but I want him to remember how much I loved him and how much I loved being with him.  That is my goal.  It is what I work for every day.  It means more to me than most will know, without knowing the whole story.  If I can do this one thing, then I will have been a good mom.

( I originally wrote this on my adoption blog, but since a significant part of my memoir deals with my ex-step-father, I decided to include this here.  He affected me in ways I've only begun to understand these last few years of writing the stories of my life.  I have taken a lot of his power away by writing about him, but his influence can't be ignored.  For more on our crazy adoption journey, check out weareadopted.blogspot.com)

Sorting Out My Story....

Do you remember that scene in the movie “Searching for Bobby Fischer” in which he is staring at the chess board trying to decide his next move, and he remembers his coach saying something about how he needs to see the ending and how he will get there before he makes his next move?  That’s how I feel about this book.  I keep writing down these bits and pieces of my story because I feel so compelled to write them.  But I can’t figure out why it needs to be written down.  I feel like I’m staring at a chess board and all the pieces are there, although perhaps scattered a little across the board and not perfectly lined up.  It isn’t random, because I put them there.  I just can’t figure out why I put them there and where they are supposed to wind up so that there is some kind of successful end result.  Sometimes I feel like the king and the goal is to protect myself and make sure I win.  But mostly I feel like little Bobby Fischer staring down at my life knowing that just a handful of correct moves will bring victory.  If only I could figure it out.  I love that scene in the movie.  I love the camera as it’s focused on his face trying to make sense of the pieces.  I love as it shifts from the pieces being in focus to his face as it clicks in his mind, and you see hope and adrenaline as he realizes how to win.  He lifts his head, his mind clear with the answer, solidifies his plan, and finishes the game.  Victory.  I’m hoping that moment of clarity will come.  And more importantly, I’m hoping when it does come, I will have the courage to finish.

I'm a Writer Because it's Cheap and Easy

I turned forty-one this year, forty-two is fast approaching and it’s been bothering me.  Actually, I’ve been annoyed since turning forty, and probably the frustration started creeping in slowly along about thirty-eight.  It’s not what you might think, though.  I’m not thrilled with the aging process, but a few grey hairs and some creases on my face are the least of my concerns.  I heard someone say once that everyone wants to live forever, but nobody wants to get old, and of course, those two things don’t live in harmony.  I do want to live a long life, and I don’t mind the physical changes as much as you might think.  It’s the lack of progress that really sticks in my craw.

I made one goal this year for the new year.  I wanted to be a finisher.  All my life I’ve dabbled here and there and started new project after new project.  I come up with all these fun, cool ideas and I get so excited to start, but somewhere not too far into it, I fizzle.  I realize how much work it will really take, and I lose the spark, or the drive, or the confidence, or all three.  I get overwhelmed at what it might take to accomplish that goal, and I throw in the towel.  Or maybe I don’t throw it in—maybe what I really do is fold it up and set it aside because I’ve convinced myself that I will be returning to finish that project some day.  Yeah, right.  I think that’s part of my frustration, too—I’m not honest with myself.  I don’t finish things and I’m not even honest with myself about why.  I think I’m lazy, too.  I look at what it will take to finish what I’ve started (because I do dream big) and I sigh and tell myself that nobody is going to pay attention to me or like what I’ve created, and so instead of pushing forward, I get lazy and move on to something I think is easier.  I don’t finish things, I’m not honest with myself and I’m lazy.  Yeah, that about sums it up.

It’s part of the reason I wanted to write.  I thought, hey it’s cheap, it’s easy and I can do it in my spare time with nothing but my computer and my creativity, because of all the flaws I do recognize about myself, I also think I am funny and creative and a decent writer.  I can make people laugh.  I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I have a way of wording things that is engaging.  So why not write?

I’ll tell you why.  Because it’s not easy.

I am an artist, although I don’t think I am an artist in the true sense of the word.  I’m not the kind of artist that is overly pained and gathering inspiration for a new modern sculpture from a bag of snow peas or a pile of trash that looks like Jesus.  I don’t sketch every day.  I haven’t really even had a real art class.  I have a theatre degree and have worked as a scenic artist and designer here and there, but nothing major.  Don’t bother Googling me, as you will not find much.  I’m small potatoes.  But I love art and I am very visual and hands on, and am happiest when I’m creating something new.
But back to the writing.  I have wanted to write for a very long time, but never thought I had anything to say.  The same is true of my art.  I love to create things, but more practical things.  Functional art.  I like functional things that are made in a cool way.  I’ve wanted to create art for a very long time, too, but again, I never felt I had something to say in my art.  I feel like being an artist means you are expressing something, and I just couldn’t do that.  I never thought I had enough story to share, or certainly not enough meaning behind that story to make it interesting to anyone besides me.  For some reason, turning forty changed that.

I’ve been caught up in reflection these last few years.  I’ve become even more nostalgic than I was, and I’m a pretty sentimental person, so that’s saying a lot.  I’ve been sorting through my frustrations with my lack of progress, and trying to understand why it is that I don’t finish things.  Why don’t I have the confidence and the determination to just push forward.  I read an old Chinese proverb recently that said “I dreamed a thousand new paths…I woke and walked my old one.”  It sunk deep in my soul, and I decided that it was time.

I do have something to say, but honestly, as I begin this book, I don’t know what that message is.  All I know is that it is bubbling to the surface in the form of thousands of memories that haunt my mind.  They are relentless.  They are loud and they wake me in the middle of the night with pushy, unrelenting pokes and jabs and, occasionally, a more gentle shake so they can remind me of something I’ve never forgotten.  I don’t know what they each mean to my story, but I do recognize that if they are this determined to be heard, then they must be trying to tell me something.  So, I decided to write them down as they came to me, and when I had more time, I would gather up all the pieces to this great puzzle and put them together to see the final picture.  I’m curious as to what it will be.  I hope it’s something  beautiful.

(I wrote this two years ago, and have made a lot of progress on what I call "the book".  I'm in the piecing it together phase, and filling in the gaps, since I just wrote down these memories as they happened, not in any order and not connected...yet.)

Jack in the Box

Memories are a little like a jack-in-the-box.  It’s colorful and full of something familiar yet unexpected.  So, you wind it up out of curiosity and let the music play, and suddenly something pops up, and it either makes you laugh and say “oh yeah, I remember that!”, or it scares you to death, so you shove it back in and close the lid.  But that curiosity is just too much, so you start winding again, and sometimes you wind a little more slowly hoping to be able to anticipate the surprise.  But, it only makes the music weirder and the anxiety greater, and the surprise either that much more funny or that much more horrendous.  So you shove it back in, slam the lid, and sometimes let it sit on a shelf for months or years, but eventually, it will draw you back in.

The only thing is that I’ve always related a little more to the Land of Misfits from the Rudolph movie and I think mine is actually a Charlie-in-the-box instead.  It looks the same as a jack-in-the-box, it winds up the same way, the music is the same, but when those experiences pop out, they’re just a little off.

I was reviewing some things I had written privately some time ago about some of these events that happened when I was younger, and I started to realize that this is going to be tougher than I thought.  How do you write openly and honestly about events that shaped your life in one way or another without hurting others that were involved in some degree?  Even without mentioning names and being more general with circumstances, it’s hard to know what will be appropriate to share, especially since many close to you will recognize to whom you are referring.  As I look through the things I want to share, I think perhaps I need to have a conversation or two before I get too deep into some of these more painful memories.  And I need to make a decision myself if I’m ready for everyone to know these things or if I need to shove that little Charlie back into his box and shelve him a little longer.  I don’t think I can, though.  Those things were designed to pop out, and at least if you’re the one turning the crank, you have the opportunity to stand by to make sure that the people who might initially be a little afraid get an explanation and a back story to help them understand that it’s just a little metal box with a crank attached to a spring covered in fabric and a painted wooden head—nothing to be afraid of.  Of course, you have to believe that yourself first.

I've been writing these thoughts and memories down for years, and as I get ready to finally piece them all together into some semblance of a book, I hope I can do it justice.  I hope I can capture how these things have shaped me.  I hope it means something.  And I hope I can move forward, because life can be so beautiful.