Done = Art

I am hiding. Hiding from ideas. Hiding from writing. You might see me posting daily paintings and that might look like I'm doing something and not being afraid. But I am still just as afraid as I was yesterday. But when I decide to do something, I do it. If I say that I'm going to post a painting a day, I'll post a painting a day, even if I hate the painting. I should probably have a blog month too, where I have to post every day even if it's terrible.

Everything feels terrible. That's not even the slightest bit true. I actually love life so much right now. It is cold and rainy. Positivity weather for me. I love it! I have a new job. It's an adjustment to my life but I love that too. Everything is pretty fantastic so why did I say it feels terrible?

Because no matter how much I am loving life I still think that my writing and painting is no good. Which is just ridiculous. Because guess what, I am painting and I wasn't before. That is good. I am writing. I wasn't before. That is good. My paintings today are not Monet or van Gogh. But they are mine and they are better than they were a year ago. And they are better than nothing.

The paintings are mine and I take great joy and pride in my paintings. Let me tell you something, I love paint! I love the way it feels when I get it on my hands. I love watching something fluid go smoothly on and how it layers and dries.

But I hide from all of these joys because I am not yet da Vinci. It is scary to share mediocre work and pretend that it is good. But I have to remember that it is not pretending. Of course it's not master work. But it is work. And I love it. I care a lot that other people like it too, but I am trying to not value my paintings on the amount of likes they get. I am allowed to love a painting that got 3 likes even if another got 53. I am allowed to love my work and that is not vanity.

People talk about artists gifts. They call certain artists "gifted."

But I have another secret for you, it is true that some things come more naturally to some than to others, but sometimes to call what someone does "a gift" negates the hours of work they put in to get to that level. The artists true gift is the gift of perseverance. Not giving up even when they feel blocked and uninspired.

And that is the gift that I am struggling with. I may not be a gifted writer or a gifted painter, but the Lord gave me perseverance and dedication. I can be pretty bad at motivating myself, but if I set myself a task I will do it. Which is why I often set myself small tasks, because they are attainable. I can't set myself a task that I might not be able to achieve, not because I'm a perfectionist but because I have to believe it is doable. Setting a goal of a painting a day is achievable because I can put a splat of paint on a canvas and call it done. Done = Art.

But if I set myself the goal of becoming something, or achieving some level of skill then I don't know that I can do that and I will stop before I begin. Art is attainable. Writing is attainable. It doesn't have to be good; it has to be done.

"I will take care of the quantity; He will take care of the quality." - Julia Cameron

The Last Attempt

The machines whirred as the couple argued across the lifeless form of their disappointing son.

"He doesn't need an older sister to look up to. He needs a younger sister he can look down on."

"Charming! But you've had your say and it's my turn to design his childhood!" She held up a syringe filled with thick orange liquid. "I want to inject him with these memories and try a different tact this time!"

"Suit yourself! But I warn you that he will not be ready if you give him a mollycoddling older sister!"

"Ready for what?" she spat. "I don't want him ready for any of that, I want to give him something to be proud of! Something that he can choose."

"That's ridiculous! Just watch the last round of his life and see for yourself!" he said pushing past her to turn on the simulation.

"I was there. I saw it for myself first hand!" she said reaching up to stop him from pushing the button.

He slapped her hand away.  "Then you know it was a disaster!" he said, continuing with the sequencing.

"Yes, which is why I want to try this! I don't think it will be a disaster to give him an older sister."

He gave her one cold look before turning back to the machines and answering. "Just remember that we have to live it too, and I don't want another child, even if she is older. We'll have to deal with her too!" He finished the sequence and hit the button and they were plunged into the full living memories of the last attempt.

My Life Is Based On A True Story

Well, that would be how things happened. I've been kinda keeping an eye on my blog and noticing that I'm nearing my 100th post. But of course, somehow I managed to un-publish one. I don't even know how one does that! So apparently I'm not very blog savvy.

I had great plans that my 100th blog post would be something clever and epic, but it wasn't. It wasn't at all. It might have been one of the most bland things I wrote!

This post however represents the start of my next 100 blog posts!

I started a blog in July. It's been somewhat steady. This year the posts have been slower in coming because I also started a daily hand written journal and so a lot of my stuff just gets written there and I don't come on my blog as often as I used to. Maybe I will write up some of my handwritten ramblings some day.

I recently was looking at some magnets with twippy sayings on them and one jumped out at me: "My life is based on a true story."

Well, as if that isn't the most obvious thing in the world! But then, think about it! Life is for real. And depending on how you wanna think about it, you are writing your own story. Or maybe you prefer to think that the Lord is writing your story. He is of course, but maybe it's kind of a choose your own adventure? We are in freedom to take any path He offers us, or to stray completely from any path at all. We can turn to page 34 or 426, depending on what we choose, or we can forge out own path, burn the book, write a different ending.

But I'm pretty sure that no matter what we choose the Lord foresaw it. So He is writing our story. Or at least righting it. No matter what we choose He will do His best to turn our choices toward use and Him.

Maybe I'm rambling. I know that I am, but I'm just too excited to slow down and organize my thoughts.

I started a blog in July. I've written over 100 posts and I am grateful for the encouragement and feedback that I have received. I really do hope that my blog is inspirational to others and is useful to someone other than me, but I also know that it is useful to me whether others get it or not.

I love to write. I've been writing for as long as I can remember. I REALLY wish that I could find the story of Toodles and Cindle that I wrote when I was like 4 or something.

I have been writing.

When I was 12 I wrote some never-ending, excessively long story about some royal families and all the people falling in love. It was over 300 pages, typed, single-spaced. It was called "The Story" and it got too big to fit on one floppy disk so I had to split the file so that I could back it up. I have so many partial stories sitting in files on my computer waiting for something to happen.

Seriously the only story I ever finished (other than Toodles and Cindles when I was around 5) was a sorta Frog Prince parody called "The Invisible Prince".

I thought it was cute and okay but had some serious problems. This summer one of my friends read it aloud to me and another friend and that moment changed the way I view my writing. It was one of the scariest things to sit there, crimson-faced while my story was being read out loud! I still cringe a little thinking about it. But they were laughing and enjoying something I had written, and I had a little epiphany that maybe my writing was okay. Maybe people would actually enjoy reading stuff I write!

So, through these friends I developed the courage to at least start a blog. It took me a few more months to start sharing posts on facebook and actually letting people read it! But it has been a great outlet for me.

I love a lot of things, but I didn't realize that I could actually be good at any of them. Painting took me completely my surprise! I'm no da Vinci... yet. But I found that I could never become a good writer or a great painter without trying. Practice is necessary, frustrating, and fun.

I enjoy painting, even when the end result looks like a 2 year old painted it. I enjoy writing, even if I misuse "it's".

I enjoy it, so I do it, and I progress.

My life is based on a true story. It's the story that I make it to be. I get to choose my own adventure. And by golly, I'm gonna choose it!

A dream that brought understanding

I had the craziest dream last night. Actually, it probably wasn't that crazy, but it felt super intense when I was dreaming it.

I was wandering around New York with friends. I've never been to New York City, but have always wanted to go. Apparently not enough to make it happen, but that's beside the point. I was in NY with a big group of people. It got to be night and I was determined to go to Time Square because I wanted to see if it really was as bright as day.

But we never got there. We started wandering, and I got lost in a parking garage in the city at night. I have had other nightmares about just such things. Nighttime can be a bit worrisome. Cities scare me a little, but parking garages are downright creepy! So this is a recurring theme in my nightmares.

I got separated from the group and was going up or down some stairs and ran into a black man who started pulling a gun from inside his coat. I started running and crying. And I ran past several other black people, all pulling guns. I was so terrified that when I got out on the street I wasn't looking where I was going and ran straight into someone.

"Hey, there," he said. I looked up at his dark skin and wondered if I was safe. Now that I was out in the street and not in a dark garage I felt a little safer. There were at least more people around.

"Welcome to Harlem, little lady." The man said, and I decided I trusted him. I wrapped my arms around him, buried my head in his shoulder, and sobbed.

The men who had been chasing me had disappeared.

I started talking to the man. I don't remember what we talked about.

Then the crowd of friends I had been with showed up again. They were all heading toward center city for something. I grabbed one of their hands and was like "Don't leave without me!" and I wouldn't let her go. But I wanted to say goodbye to the gentleman who had made me feel safe when I had been lost.

"Shouldn't go wandering around Harlem alone, white girl," he said to me. And I don't know if I said it or just felt it, but I was thinking about how outnumbered and unsafe I felt: one white girl alone.

And I looked into his eyes and asked him: "Is this how you feel in your day to day life? Unsafe?" His soft brown eyes were kind as he looked at me and answered, "Yes."

My eyes filled with tears as I hugged him and then let my friend pull me away.



Sometimes I analyze my dreams. I think dreams hold meaning, but I think that you get out of them what you choose to get.

So my thoughts as I woke up this morning were something like this:

I don't think of myself as racist. I'm not color blind, as some people claim we ought to be and others claim is just as offensive. But all growing up I noticed skin color, yes, but I don't remember feeling any different about people because of it. Only as an adult, living in a world that is highly sensitive and apt to take offense to literally everything, I over analyze my thinking.

Sure, as a white person I guess I am somewhat racist. So this dream was interesting to me because it felt like I was actually empathizing with this man. Now that I'm fully awake and aware of the criticism I will invariably get if anyone reads this I can picture the responses: "You don't understand at all!" "How dare you think that you understand!" "There's no such thing as reverse racism!"

But in that moment in my dream it felt significant to feel like I understood.