WATERMARK

The difficulty with projects like this is that you are expected to do something. Besides read the book, I mean.

Homework.

For
this, we are assigned morning pages, daily; an artist date, weekly; and
tasks that vary each week. This week, we are to identify our core negative beliefs (blurts) and counter them with creative affirmations.
OK, I ask myself — when do I get too old for this? How many times, in
how many different ways, must I do this? Yes, I was one of those
old-fashioned therapists that actually believed in what I was doing,
and indulged in it myself. Twenty years ago (or so) this included
examining exactly these issues.

I don’t mind looking at them
again, but I do not want to experience them again. When I began writing
and drawing, every attempt was emotional hell. I went to a weekend
dream workshop. The leader, David LaChapelle,
asked us to draw our dream, and this request elicited my own personal
nightmare. At the end of the workshop, he drew me aside, and told me: it’s not normal to experience that much pain around creativity. It’s not inevitable. You can change it.

And
I did, with the help of David, and other dreamers and writers and
artists, and therapists. I identified that vile, hateful voice that
denigrated every creative effort, and transformed it from a powerful
monster into a spiteful little kitten (now named Blurtz.) She may still be able to wound, with those tiny teeth and claws, but she can be managed.

I
do realize, though, that I’ve not drawn in years. During that creative
explosion, that sparked my poems, I drew nearly every day. It was like
a meditation, and seemed to use a completely different part of my brain
— of me — than my writing or my work. It is that practice that I would like to reignite.

Today
my body reminds me that, while others on this path may struggle with
time — family and friend and work commitments — my challenge is
simply: energy. I forgot that I can’t just order some up. It is not as
though I have a long list of activities I usually do, that I can prune
down to make room for this. When I do too much, I pay. Today, even
light-footed Henry cannot come to my lap without setting off sharp
pains. My body is a pinball machine.

I had planned an artist date for today, but pinballs
and rain and exhaustion postpone it. Perhaps tomorrow. I did the
morning pages. I am choosing from the task list what I will do this
weekend.

I do not regret doing this. I am determined to do
this. It feels right — as long as I can still manage, at a minimum, my
weekly snapshot poem and Friday cat blogging. Odd priorities, eh?