Artist's Process Part Fourteen

I can think independently, I can move from my personal visual language.

I don’t need to contrive to take chances or reside in convention,

Or create new formulations combining accepted elements,

I don’t need to lose representation,

or search for meaning in blind colours and shapes,

I don’t need to base it on politics, or wedge artwork into social issues.

I can retain anonymity, I am not standing at a kiosk waiting for acceptance,

I am gainfully self employed.

I am defiant now, acting proud in response to insecurity.

I am not retaining or inventing my group identity.

It is something real, I feel good first, I am not asking what.

My movements are my intention

This is from where I paint.

This is what I look at to bolster my day

When my false identity cannot prop me up,

And I can be burst, my entire made up confidence,

with one pin prick, loss of social ground,

rejection, acknowledgement of weakness, fear,

desire of another, realizing there is nothing immediate to buy,

no special food, and demanding work so I cannot just

have continual drinks with friends, and

what if more friends move, change lifestyle

having more babies than society and individual energy to cope with.

Am I alone or lonely?

I am alone, whole, until next opportunity, weekend or gathering of friends.

But do I arrive there already tipsy to hide what I have not felt until I meet?

Or was I okay being alone with myself,

Doing something from there.

I painted there.

If I had not, I would be lonely and have nothing to show for it.

So I offer painting as affirmation.

It happened, this is what I did, this is who I am.

Remember this. Accept your daily duties,

This is how I am learning to live my daily tasks cheerfully.

Because they are necessary,

They are not my way to get everything,

But I will fight tooth and nail that I keep the time for me,

That I need, to return and do something authentic of me.

Keep the raise. Time off please.

Promotion?

Keep it unless it allows me to express my intelligence

And preserve my personal time to be.

Otherwise, nothing will make up for it.

This I have learned.

Yay, whew. That took a long time for me,

A lot of pain, struggling with some part of me wondering about these things,

Other parts blaming circumstances,

Planning solutions, the nonstop grind,

More credentials, more skills, competing,

More needed, never enough time.

What am I doing here, saving the planet.

I changed everything around that initial hum.

But very gradually.

At that point, taking care of needs

And coping day by day with returning,

What little I can manage,

with excuses and regrets, many real,  flooding out

of the box that was so compressed and held till then.

And no other options except that weird little experience.

Option B would be to dull my senses with prescription medications.

Nice, linear. Not too low, not too up, giddy at times,

Hyper focused. Wouldn’t employers just love that for every human being.

I give the podium over to Mr. Defiance.

In the end, the only constant is my fluctuation,

It is new. It is too new for however long it took my consciousness

Or identity, or amount of intense activity in purely this one life,

To just ‘be the conscious energetic silence’.

The vulnerability, the ironic increase in sensitivity,

Besides mind, my physical body feels this.

In connection, this is interpreted as adventure, exploration.

In disconnection or in between, s various levels of insecurity, and fear.

Then out of desperation to solve those feelings,

Personalizing random events and taking them to heart,

Or seeing everything as success or failure rather than just relaxed convo.

I can’t live in disconnection, but I accept it is a gradual progress.

Some affirmative experience is enough to continue.

I am remembering to stop frowning.

I can’t lie to myself. No reason is needed when I am already smiling.

So I remember and stop. I jump to the bridge rather than plaster one on.

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When I have stood on the shore too long,

Taking care of needs, interactions.

I did so to the best of my ability to do so while remaining centred.

What friction I created out of resistance,

Or wanting in trust, is tested and refined very slowly gradually.

I must return gently, continually to let it go so I may remain in flow.

What is held grows, expands.

So first I hold to what little light felt initially.

I remember in memory there is resolution.

Not to fight fear arising from how I stand at that instant.

I consider crossing, rather than remain remembering,

I protect this time as an ego would one’s identity.

This is how I help me.

I also know as an identity I have to do from.

This is a true anchor about who I am.

I must be and do this way, because I cannot fool myself

About being so and so based on successes, failures, or other’s responses.

Why? Because, I need to feel. To be a real when I walk.

Besides agreement about the outcome of my analysis of actions and outcomes.

Besides necessary, even skillful wearing of masks.

Just only bearable to myself,

And out of love and caring, until I can bring me back to others I care about.

For my personal necessary benefit, I also agree mentally

that I have no reason not to feel wonderful. I am innocent,

just a person living, laughing, crying, giving,

and coping with any emotional upheaval to prevent hurt and

prevent entanglement.

All done. Great. But If I feel bland, I am responsible.

I remember I was pure joy in other instances,

What did even a drink do. Is it a spell, or did it simply loosen me,

Unstructured me a little so my light, trust enough

to make jokes and laugh could be,

and just why are the many things left behind also the heaviest burden.

Even those people are doing something different, the history has changed,

And what is this pain, or tension. If it serves me or someone,

Then yes have it. It is just me sitting there, not even of consequence to

Any past person, memory.

This tells me there is energy, creative energy needing to be expressed.

There is a gray portion at the top of this non moving bottle of circulation.

The fear I feel is when I touch the gray.

And that I must go back right now, before the adventure vacation,

Or purchases, and pre-buy deep dives, related to furnishing various hobbies.

I can’t live in remembered certainty.

But there is also what I may create with this energy,

When returning to a vibe where I can enjoy, and I can sit feeling buoyant,

I can feel fulfilled, and return to tasks with a feeling of living.

I have fought hard to retain physical time and space for this

I give a gentle smile. No, I am not in any mood or ready to play.

I’m going to fuck this process, and I am going to move,

I am going to imagine dying. Oh, wait, I am going to, it will be right now,

A moment like right now. And then my story is really going to end.

My smile now is humility, it is my obituary

to whatever state of a person, circulation,

whatever is me when I did a drop. I stop still on this mat.

Okay, am I done with this or that. Work with conflicts.

Steps resolved for now, but emotional state not in sync.

I know my limit. I am also hijacking the emotions of this body,

This ideas cannot give me these things forever, oh but they will.

So I will, I know my role in this. I stop. I move.

Watching these thoughts, raising my arms up, and like roots

Also within, to accept help with things beyond my ability.

But I must return to receptivity.

Now is the time for routines. A workout, 10 of this, 15 of that.

Something familiar, very very familiar, gentle.

Then as the first bead of sweat, the me physical alive. I give, I will 200, 300.

I am more than that pitiful state! Mind. And back to this me.

My goodness, I love sweating, forward stretching, feeling body,

Not ‘my’ body. Me, doing, body. Who? Only this!

Or I go back to that, where I had dozens of crystal definitions of me,

And not this feeling.

Pump that circulation around, and that magic carried on this flow,

that amness. I am doing this right now with words,

and before my plunge, poetry feels hopeless, reading and sharing,

it needs me so that it can wash over me and intend its good for another.

I raise the volume.

I move holding either a very kind efficient lie,

or a true awareness that I am the stream.

And something happens. Better than nothing.

I will not go back into that living room life right now. I need me, now.