I am growing by leaps and bounds. I am sure that my heightened awareness of what seems to be the inevitable impending collapse of this country I live in and perhaps of life as I have known it to be until now is to thank. These days have been greatly informed and inspired by Dimitri Orlov's Reinventing Collapse.
The larger part of today was marked by anxiety. Tears came from nowhere during my voice lesson with Andrea. It is the first time I really cried during a lesson - cried right through two rounds of "If I Should Lose You," but never stopped singing. See what I mean? I'm growing. And for the most part I have been calmer than ever before. It's easy, now that the world outside seems to be catching up to my own state of economic affairs and the myth of god-given upward mobility is dissolving - all I have to do is make just enough so I can keep plugging away at my art, without any pressure of success in the form of recognition or finances.
Finances are truly a bitch, and I am constantly dreaming up new ways to build the business up a little more. Today, post-tears and mid-anxiety, I updated my mailing list, sent an email to my regular students, designed a new flier, photocopied it onto brightly colored paper and cut it into shape. I filled the flier up with the beautiful quotes my students sent me. The excess print is unlike me, with my preference for clean designs, but I found the change exciting and relished the sense of rebellion it gave me: in place of fancy ads and glossy post cards I'm putting out crowded half-pieces of neon colored paper full of the gems of support and good energy my students have bestowed on me.
So I am not without recognition. In fact the recent wave of recognition from my colleagues has lifted me right out of the torrential waters of artistic dead ends and perched me on a little branch just above the roaring flood. Lorenzo is in a different place, perhaps not quite as open to the exhilaration of admiration from our fellow artists and not nearly as used to having his efforts ignored or outright denied. Ah, for once to see that I have benefited from being denied inclusion and awe! Because today I could give a rat's ass if so and so finds me worthy and worthwhile so long as I can keep doing my thing and occasionally feast on the enthusiasm of those colleagues about whose existence I am myself enthusiastic.
Since there doesn't seem to be anywhere big to go anyways, I might as well be clear and honest about where I am right now and not waste my time on trolls who wish to exercise their powerlessness on me. Let them frolic elsewhere, where the myth of "getting somewhere better bigger soon" still thrives and they can sell the shit they poop on you as your only hope for warmth during the long wait for the Gate to open. No, I have turned in my dreams of the land beyond the locked Gate for the infinitely more interesting and challenging task of dealing with the territory at hand. By very virtue of this choice I am having great success, surprising myself to no end at my ability to adjust, juggle and even shape the various struggles I encounter into pleasure and release.
Not all the releases are wonderful. There was a smelly one just today. A fight with my mother, a battle of the vocal cords and a cathartic climax sought out by an outdated program in our psychic systems. I could have just said, sorry I didn't call sooner, Mom. Instead I felt the need to tell the truth, which is that I'd really rather not hear her complaints and criticisms about my behavior, especially on the topic of being close and communicative. Unless of course her intention was to really communicate, but since she is caught up with her finances, the ones I'm not supposed to know or talk about, that was not actually an option. Anyways, that's one truth. Another is that we are both stressed out, swimming in the tension of the world around us, and practicing a stroke we know all too well: blame it all on HER behavior.
There is more, more! But it is already late, late. Max patches, group presentations, garden politics: I'm taking them on and knocking them out with my brazen insistence on doing it my way. Rob Brezsny inspired tonight's garden breakthrough with this advice "You will receive encouragement from the cosmos whenever you seek out and express facts that disprove prevailing biases and mistaken beliefs."
