I've Been Artist-Dating Myself For A While

But it's been a low grade toxic relationship

This may be my first post in March, but I'm on an anti-productivity trip. It's got a lot of academic backing behind it now that I'm halfway through Jenny O'Dell's Saving Time: Discovering A Life Beyond Productivity Culture. Apparently though, my rebellion has only been pointed toward my own creative work since I've been busy doing stuff (aka: work) for other people. A job is work you do for a person or entity so you can eat, not pay $840 a month for migraine medicine, and sleep at night knowing that if the cancer comes back you slightly lesson the chances of bankrupting your family (if you're "lucky" and the job includes health insurance). There might be a few other definitions out there, but I've got over thirty years of work experience so I'm qualified to define it as much as the next indentured dickbag.

I'm not reading Saving Time because I feel trapped in hustle/productivity culture. I'm legit GenX*. My dream job is barista/hemp necklace weaver. There's a movie called "Slacker" that speaks for us all. I'm just glad to see an intellectual dismantling of something I considered general doucherey and very poor use of the internet. Seriously, who decided we should use the internet to be more productive at the same hourly rate and standard 40 hour work week? I wasn't in on that vote. Well, I know who decided that and his name is The Man. Unlike other men though you can't take this one down by talking about periods and panty liners. Anyway, Maybe Odell will praise my generation for perfecting the art of sitting around BS-ing and measuring great life achievement by record collections and indie film knowledge. Like I said, I am only halfway through the book. I'll report back. If I feel like it.

In the spirit of looking to other people to tell me how to live, I've been working through the definitive creative-self-help book from the early 90s, The Artist's Way (TAW), with a group put together by Ali Griffin Vingiano of the Little Things Substack. I'd gone through the book and exercises years ago and thought why not. It can often be quite the awakening to revisit a text from your past. Like when I rewatched Full Metal Jacket as a grown ass woman and wondered how stoner teen me missed the entire devastating point of the whole thing.

It feels like there are still a few things that feel dated in the updated and revised edition of TAW. Maybe it's not that. Maybe it's that I have and have always had an aversion to things written in a tone assuming the reader is a hectic person who never says no, feels guilty for doing things for themselves, and is afraid to do something by themselves. So uh... maybe I shouldn't read stuff that is considered self help? Well something led me back to this beast of a book. I'm in the process of figuring that out. But I don't think I need Julia Cameron to tell me to buy a special notebook or treat myself to raspberries.

You see, one of the "treat yourself" parts of the Artists Way is a weekly Artist Date. According to Cameron (or JC as I like to call her), “The Artist Date is a once-weekly, festive, solo expedition to explore something that interests you. The Artist Date need not be overtly “artistic” — think mischief more than mastery.”

I know for some, going to a museum or film alone could be a new adventure. I've been taking solo expeditions to find something that interests me since I could sneak out of my parents house as a young whippersnapper. As an older whippersnapper I like to have company on adventures, but have rarely delayed one because I was afraid to roll solo. I’ll stop at nearly any roadside attraction, odd museum, or historic marker. When I’m on a walk I’ll even stop and smell anything that I’m not allergic to. See? I’m arty. I’m open. So revisiting the rules (or agreements or assignments or whatever) of TAW, I saw the weekly artist date and thought, "Uh yeah, I'm already on the couple-a-week plan thank youverymuch."

Nature art is some of my favorite stuff to see on an artist date or any time ever. This fort/sculpture is by Patrick Dougherty (with the help of over 150 volunteers).

Halfway through the book now, I realize it’s possible that I have been love bombing myself with all that adventure, but bailing when it counted. Turns out you can date yourself all you want but that doesn’t mean you’re being a good partner. It took me a while to get it but I think I'm finally understanding what JC and other people mean when they talk about examining and possibly changing your relationship to your creativity. What can I say? Sometimes I’m slow to catch on. Sometimes I need to put it all in an obvious analogy. Like in a bad poem or a Sunday sermon.

Let's go with it. I've been in a relationship with my creativity for a really long time. So long that any self-respecting person would have bailed because it has been so lopsided. I always promised I'd let her pick what we were going to do next, but there has always been some excuse. I always said I'd pay more attention once I did this or that thing, finished this course of study, or got that job. I am ashamed to admit I exploited my very best friend. Let her work and work and work all for other people just so I could pay my bills. Holy shit. Do you know what that makes me?

Some relationships thrived in the pandemic, some broke up. Creativity and I? Ours tanked. Aside from the stresses of regular pandemic clusterhumpery, we were both in states of anticipatory grief and then holyfuckingshit grief. Instead of communicating, we made the mistake of wanting each other to be like we used to be. If you start a relationship based on mischief, what happens when it’s time to get real?

Writers block.

I'd never experienced writer's block or blocks of any kind. My work wasn’t often on major marquees but I always had something to say, write, do, make. That is until I was shut off from the world with lots of time to attend zoom funerals and overwater my houseplants. Thanks to time, space, and JC, I can see writer’s block more in the context of a soul fire block. I was smearing soulscreen** over new and real feelings instead of letting them burn which probably would have eventually led to a great base tan.

Why I am writing about all of this like it’s in the past and there’s no hope for anything but regret? I doubt most people go through really hard times with creative grace, let alone real time creative output. But, like I said, I’m in the process. Of everything. Trauma (and my questionable grammar skills) makes one slip tenses all the time. You ever notice that? Check your morning pages or your diary or journal. Sometimes it’s “I blah blah blah” and sometimes its “You blah blah blah.” Sometimes it’s present perfect tense and sometimes it’s past whateveritiscalled. Could just be a side effect of remembering while freewriting and/or could be the fluctuating need to distance and observe certain things. Or a way to protect oneself, myself, yourself from presenting vulnerable information.

Speaking of vulnerable. It pains me to write "my creativity". It embarrasses me? I'm cheesed out by it? Uncertain? I do not have the same reaction when I write "my foot" even though that is a part of me too. Of course I've never been told that my foot won't take me anywhere or I should only use it for a hobby. Not exactly a big bag to unpack there.

It's unclear if I am getting what JC wants me to get from TAW, but I suppose all this slightly structured thinking about stuff I should just be doing is bringing up a few insights. It's definitely revealing that I'm a defensive receptive resistant adventurous sarcastic brave scaredy cat cuckoo bird that can't shake a compulsion to write, document, and make things.

David Lynch said somewhere that people ask him if he gets his film ideas while he is meditating. He has a Transcendental Meditation practice (those are usually 20 mins if you aren't familiar) that he does twice a day and said that he's gotten one scene idea while meditating. All. That. Time. But he says that's the point. You don't meditate to get ideas, you meditate to be cool to your mind that can help you come up with ideas later. Ideas that your smooth cool spacious mind will help you bring to life. Perhaps, perchance this is the same as JC's morning pages.

In this daily writing part of TAW I'm discovering that my mode switch was broken during these past years of PandemoIsoGrief. You know the switch you have to make when you need to go from thinking to doing? I like to think of it as a big metal lever that you have to put your full body weight on to move up or down. That mode change is easier for some people to make and next to impossible for others. I declare that the pandemic caused some real damage to these personal fuse boxes. Sure, like many other ADHD-ers (anyone know the actual tribe name for us?), it was already my modus operandi to get a grand idea (more like a gaggle of grand ideas at once) and then tell myself I would bring it to life later. Some times I would. Many, many times I wouldn't. But throw in the time morph of lockdowns and vicious uncertainty in waiting for my mom to die, it actually did make sense to believe that later would be a better time for some things.

Now, coming out of the dark it feels like my switch has been rusted over like a contraption in the backyard of one of those places you see on American Picker. Full of thinkin and busy with mindless mischief. Stuck up in my head. Waiting for someone to transfer the power from the overthinking grid to the get-up-in-your-creative-life grid. But the lever is stuck. The question now is will TAW be my oil can?

I'll be sure to let y'all know. With more frequency. I'm so grateful for all you new subscribers and it hasn't shown with all my GenXSlackering as of late. I haven't actually been slacking but working, ruminating, drawing, kid-watching, and trying out Botox for my migraines. Oh look there. I have no problem saying "my migraines" even though they are totally not mine and I wish Beelzebub would swing by and take them back. It's an experience that probably deserves a whole post. That, the next part of my series on a giant bill I need to invoice for emotional labor at work during the pandemic, and more on adjusting to life in small town USA is coming your way. Mwah!

****The Asterisks****

*By legit GenX I mean that my skeptical, anti-establishment, Riot Grrrl, slacker values have for the most part remained unchanged by time, experience, education, and the cost of living. Much like the aging hippy still wearing tie-dye and telling people to tune in and drop out.

**Soulscreen, for those of you not hip to amateur analogizing and metaphorizng: is like sun screen but a blocker/screen for your soul fire.