discovering my world

“She Loves To Have A Glass Of Wine At The End Of A Long Day…”

Well of course she is not me, and yet she is. When I start to draw her there is a theme, a moment from my life, something about my life that I want to capture, in spirit. I have heard it said in many ways in many places that writing is the act of discovery, so is making art. I am discovering so much about myself and my life by drawing her.

A bottle of wine, a pug, books and flowers, a colorful house, that is my life if a little different than you see it here. I don’t have a glass of wine every night but I love having it. Someone told me that my house looks like “An Easter Egg Basket” because every room is a different bright color. After the fire when the house was being rebuilt and I had to choose the colors for them to paint the rooms the builder asked in what can only be described as disbelief with a shade of horror, “You’re not serious about these colors?” to which I replied, “Oh yes I am.” After it was all done he said to me, “I couldn’t believe this is what you wanted but I love it!” And people do. It is a happy looking house. It is me.

What else will she reveal? I absolutely have no clue, but each day as I sit here drawing I am surprised and delighted by what comes up. I get finished drawing before I begin to paint and I look at her and smile. I have unearthed another little piece of my life, or a facsimile thereof, as I said the spirit of the thing, and I am learning something about myself every single day.

Who is she? Who am I? What kind of world have I created? What kind of world, what kind of future, do I want to create for myself? I think I am writing and painting my way there. E. M. Forster wrote, “How do I know what I think until I see what I say?” And so it is. I wrote, last week, that I thought my next year’s 365 day project would be “A Year Of Compassionate Acts.” It may be that but it may shift a little. When you take the time to write and paint your life you are valuing it, you are showing that you care about it, you are showing empathy and compassion for the life that you have lived, the mistakes that you have made, the choices that you have made, and where you are in your life today. And you carefully, and gently, move forward one step at a time, one moment, one day at a time, into the life you want to create for yourself, the best and brightest and happiest life, filled with self-love and love toward the world around you, the people, places, animals, flowers, and everything in your life. You are, as if writing and painting the world you want to inhabit. One day you will step right into the picture, or so I have come to believe.

In a way this is new to me but in another way, a more important way, not. I started writing when I was 9 years old in a serious way, hidden from the world, trying to escape a life that frightened me, trying to believe, I now see, in the stories I was writing, that there could be another life for me. Or trying to create a world that I could inhabit in my daydreams, in my imagination. I have always, I realize, lived more in an imaginary world than the real one. What if I can draw and paint the world that I want and then realize my dreams? Is that possible? I think it is.

Perhaps I am an artist. Perhaps, more accurately, I am an Explorer, an Adventurer, a Pilgrim, a Magician out to find and create exactly the world I want. I begin to believe that this is possible. And putting no pressure on myself, and not worrying about outcomes, or mistakes, or wobbly lines and figures, I will draw and paint what I can each day or so, allow what wants to come to come, and allow it to teach me what I need to learn. This is one of the most exciting things I have ever done.

And so there she is, with her glass of wine, her pug, her books and flowers, in her colorful room. Today, through an act of creation, I am sharing with you another little piece of who I am. Not exactly me, but me. And I swear to God I have no idea where that hair came from and it makes me laugh every time. We are not the same person, and yet, somehow we are.

The journey continues…