She said she'd recently been asked to identify the theme of her life. The enduring, recurrent, "hot" topic or topics of her life. Of course, I was immediately drawn to examine my own life through the same lens. What are my life themes? What do I write and sing (and pray and cry) about over and over again? recognition and visibility; identity; family; art and being an "artist"; faith, spirituality, belief; the human condition, the human heart and psychology.
Does the new performance have something to do with any of these themes? Which? How do I start?
I am attempting to lure myself away from the brink of despair (where I have been perched for two or three days), into a sustained, exploratory, play-time as first steps of creating something for Fringe Festival. I am trying to make Writing more appealing than staring or eating or playing computer Solitaire -- all of which have claimed the lion's share of my attention lately...out t/here at the previously mentioned brink. I am scared. I consider engaging in some therapeutic blogging.
OK. Here goes...
Step 1: Open Bookmarks menu and click on "Sojourner in the 21st Century".Step 2: Click on "New Post" link.
Step 3: Stare at blank page and let mind roam...
Step 4: Open new tab and Google Image search on "Easter". Harvest the first image that piques my interest: two little boys toting a load of kindling on a crude wheelbarrow.
What this image has to do with Easter eludes me; but I look at it and begin to cry. I can see myself in both children and my heart is touched. Why am I crying?
Pain-body is, mysteriously, triggered by the kindling and the wheelbarrow and the barefoot boys; it draws a connection between these and my raggedy socks.
There is a prevailing Consciousness that views ragged socks and barefoot children in barren landscapes as signs of destitution, hopelessness, and a terrifying vulnerability. This Consciousness pervades the World. I see myself in the World and of the World. I see myself through the World's lens. I am a mess.
An hour later
Feeling free...
"I see myself in the World and of the World." Writing those words unlocked the shackle. Situated me somewhere outside. Situated me in Awareness of the World and my thoughts about the World - rather than smack dab surrounded and overwhelmed by the thoughts about the World.
Writing those words broke my identification with that on-the-brink-of-disaster entity. Freedom and energy surged and I went downstairs for focused practice on Fugue #4 from Book II of WTC.
Writing those words released me, and opened a gateway to a different perspective
where kindling is used to start fires
and toes poke through wool, feet shed shoes for direct contact with air and sunlight and moisture and grass
and vulnerable = capable of being impacted, inspired, touched
and Easter is about resurrection, return from the brink
and this ability to see, to re-frame and re-imagine what I see, to see in new ways
is part of what defines me as an artist
and this is gonna be a great show.
