Here. Now.
Studio wall April 2021
About ten years ago, I made a conscious decision to shake things up in my life. Or maybe more accurately said, to shake things down. My life had already been quite shaken up. I don’t remember having a particular vision or goal of where I wanted to be. I did know that my studio practice was slipping and I needed to bring it back front and center. My art making is essential. It’s my career. It’s who I am. So, I did what I had to do.
At the time I don’t think I realised how bold my steps were. I think I was just feeling there was nothing left to lose. I was certainly wrong about that! That’s a whole other story. Maybe it was my mid life crisis. I don’t know. I do know that I stepped into an adventure that led down a really circuitous and at many times painful path. Now. Ten years later. I am very grateful for having taken those first steps. It brought me to where I am now. Not at all what I had imagined.
Honestly, nothing in my life is any more settled than it was a decade ago. Loss has become an acceptable constant. I am learning to live with less security that tomorrow will be like today. The important things have become how often I am in awe of the symphony of birdsong. Or how miraculous it is that the forsythia blooms again. There is nowhere I am going. There is nothing to attain. Life is not about what I expect it to be. It just is. A fine balance of doing and not doing.
Being a visual artist, I get to look back on the last decade in pictures. I can see how examining the complex intricate relationships in nature has helped me sort through my own very challenging thoughts. So even though my graduate degree didn’t place me in a job and moving out of state put me in an even more precarious place financially, I am glad to be where I am. Making this work today. Thankful for the time.
I know life here, in Cape May is temporary. My mom will die. There will be difficult decisions to be made. And my life will once again change. I am not building here. I am squatting. I am making use of the space. For now.