out with the new

The winds of need are changing. Normally I'd go looking for new; but, no.

I'm looking for roots, this time. Deep and holy, muddied with history, tangled with soul. This new leaf has got to be attached to a tree of old, or I am just not interested in pursuing it. Here's the thing: I already know what I'm good at. And I know, very well, what I'm bad at. Yet my working hours, by force or happenstance, are filled with the things that bring me no joy, show me no promise, land me in my areas of lack. I'm sitting at a desk I'd rather not be at, doing work I would rather not do, because I need the paycheck, because my boss hasn't gotten rid of me yet (though that lack would justify a dismissal). I haven't bothered to build another desk anywhere else. I don't want to leave, no, I just want to know what I'm good at, so my errors don't derail me.

This morning, in a moment of mistake-riddled distress, I Googled "365 days to change your life."  My thought process, since you asked, was as follows: my gift to myself next Christmas shall be an active role in creative work, and every day this year I will do one thing toward that goal. I can't deny this artist's heart any longer. I got brush pens and sketchbooks from my love yesterday, and I miss them already, want more already. That pottery class I took in the spring has been haunting my shadowed conscience, daily. I have doodles and rough ideas taking over my brain, and my hands are aching to make. There's oxygen in them thar hills, and I'm ready to go find it.

Where is writing on that list? It's still in there, between breaths. I talk a big talk about my love affair with pen-to-paper. But I have recognized that my desire to write has a lot to do with the act of creation itself: that moment of inspiration wherein there was blank space, now there is something beautiful. Who knows if I will be able to make anything beautiful, but the point is, I need to try. The ink is drying up. Even though, I hope, I'm not finished yet.



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