I am an artist. This is central to my being, even though there was a long period of time when I didn't consider myself an artist, when my parents told me art was the enemy of success, the short path to homelessness, a waste of time. They didn't say these things to be cruel or unkind; it was just the reality of the world we lived in.
And so, as a mere 8th grader, I quit art like it was a drug, not realizing that it is, in fact, a drug — the best kind of drug. But I'll get to that later, maybe. Instead, I wrote. I lived every day with the goal of one day becoming a writer. Sure, I toyed briefly with the ideas of med school and law school, but in my bones, I knew: I was a writer. It was almost the only thing I'd ever known myself to be good at. It was in me and it was outside of me, pulling my strings like a puppet master. Writing was as good a way as any for me to make myself understood, share myself with the world, connect with those around me and contribute in some meaningful way to the worldwide dialogue of events, ideas, people and stories. And there was a lot about writing that I'd always loved. I'd always been a reader, someone who lived outside reality not because reality is bad but because it's limited, someone who wanted to be in others' heads to see what they would create as much I wanted to be in my own head to see what I could create.
Writing, in many ways, was my first true love. I wrote for years. I wrote in high school and in college, mostly as a news reporter, a journalist asking questions and taking notes and making information interesting and understandable. I wrote some poetry, mostly for fun, and I wrote for myself. Eventually, I even got got paid to write, which I thought was the highest privilege. My dreams had come true, and for that, I was proud.
But dreams are like everything else in the world: They never stay the same. I have a wandering soul and a wondering heart, and typing words into sentences into paragraphs as a pencil for someone else's thoughts just didn't keep the heart beating and the mind racing the way I wanted. For years, I fought this truth. I did what I thought was smart and sound and "right": I kept on going, battling writer's block as though my success, my future, my home, my dreams, my life, depended on it, until staring at my computer screen day after day after day became my death bed.
At home, I would try to dabble in other things, other interests. I learned to sew and I learned to silk screen. I tried acrylics and oils and watercolors. I built sculptures from clay and paper mache and wood and wire. I learned dark room photography and Photoshop. But I could never focus on one thing. I could never make up my mind. I could never find my style. I could never find my voice. I couldn't accurately translate what I saw in my head to something others could see. I had no confidence in my skills and no belief in my path.
There was always this voice in my head. It talked so much, like, SHUT UP already! But I listened to it because it spoke to me. It sounded like me and it sounded like my mother and it sounded like my best friend and it sounded like my lover. This sucks, it said. There are so many people who are better, it said. You'll never be able to compete with that, it said. Or with that or that or that. That's not original. Nobody will understand that. Everybody will think that's dumb. Or corny. Or disproportionate. Unrealistic. Or boring.
So there was this voice in my head, but there was also this pull in my soul. I had to do it. I had to create. I had to get lost in these dream worlds I wanted to make. I had to travel: physically, mentally, emotionally. I had to explore not only what was, but what wasn't, what could be and what could only be in my head. I had to do these things in the same way I had to eat, to sleep, to drink water, to breathe. It wasn't just desire, but survival. Creativity or depression. Build or destroy. Make or whither away and die.
For a while, I thought I could make a plan. That there would come a right time. That I could save money, take classes, learn on the side, go about this addiction logically, rationally, responsibly. And I tried. I tried to save, I tried to wait, I tried to set myself up in a way that wouldn't make my parents worry about my livelihood and well-being. But life kept happening. Relationships came and went and every heartbreak was faucet leaking darkness to be fixed. My home flooded after a historic storm. My boyfriend drank too much. My lifestyle cost too much.
I started hiking. I started spending more time outdoors. I started setting aside the time to move through the world more slowly, even if it meant having to race through everything else. I started to really examine what was in front of me and around me. I started to really listen to other people's stories. I started to think about the story of every living thing, of how it came to be, of how it exists, of how it contributes to existence.
I started taking road trips, mostly to national parks. Adventures into the unknown, outside of the routine, into the dream. I became more present in the moment, aware of the passing time, aware of the height of it, the width of it, the colors of it, the shape of it as I cruised down the rural mountain roads in my rental car. I explored my limits, hiking up mountains till I reached the clouds and staring at the stars until the darkness became light.
And what I came to understand was that I'd never see everything there ever was; I just had to try and see the most I could. I'd never be the best artist; I just had to try to be myself as an artist. There would never be a perfect time; there was just this time.