Finding
Your Way
“Sometimes
when you lose your way, you find yourself.”
Mandy
Hale
I have
been going through a weird phase—weirder than normal. I seem to be wallowing in
ambiguity, in lost-my-way-ness. I keep cranking out art—some of it pretty good,
and some of it mediocre at best—but I have not yet done what must be done to
market my goods. Why? Good question. One I can’t answer, but I think it has to
do with 1) laziness; or 2) lack of a certain skillset, or 3) fear of failure. Or,
4) there is something else I’m supposed to do. How about all four?
For me,
this is an uncomfortable place to be. I scissor myself between what I am
compelled to do and what needs to be done to maintain my physiological life.
One can become as lost in fabric, paint, glue, dye—and threads, oh so many
threads—as they can in a delusional state, dissociated from all reality. One dives
deeply into the creative process and then surfaces hours or days later to a
sink full of dirty dishes and an unmade bed. You know what I mean, right?
And
then, I begin to question myself. Why am I doing this? Why can’t I be like
other nice, retired ladies, and just go on river cruises and drink great wine? I
could do so many things, go so many places, if only I were, well, normal—or as
my friend, Rebecca says, “neurologically typical.” What’s wrong with me??? So
off I go, looking for answers from people who’ve been there—been lost, that is—before
me. I throw the I Ching, I consult the Runes. Invariably, they come up with
almost identical answers. Movement. Transit. Transition. Rats!
Here is
one of the quotes I came across in my search for answers: “For a dreamer is
one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees
the dawn before the rest of the world.” (Oscar Wilde). So true—for those of
us who follow our dreams, who listen to the whisperings of the innermost world,
cannot navigate the sun-bleached, Twitter-trending, all-things-painted-white,
cut-down-all-the-trees world of daylight. We seek the softness of moonlight and
the beating heart of the earth.
So,
what to do? Here’s what Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche said: “You have your
way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, the only way, it
does not exist.” We must find peace in the confusion of being out of step,
out of era, and some would say, out of our minds. Eckhart Tolle gave this piece
of wisdom: “You find peace not by rearranging the circumstances of your
life, but by realizing who you are at the deepest level.” I would add, “and
then living accordingly.” It comes back to—be yourself. You be you, and trust that
you are doing what you are supposed to do and are who you are supposed to be. As
Julian of Norwich said, “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all
manner of things shall be well.”
In
the Spirit,
Jane
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