communing with a future self
a prayer for the writer in me
I want to turn my whole self to art and see what happens....my life can finally support it and it often feels like I am balking at the joyous part. I’m sorry it has taken me so long…… I want to grow something here. I feel this insistence, this total belief, and it sustains me, yes. But I often feel as if I’m making a mockery of your conviction. Letting you down…I mean allowing your vision to die. I do not want this to ever die. I do feel many days like I am wasting a great charge….and then I’ll remember how to honor you and I can go on. What I want is to make a vessel from the space between us so I can clearly see what it holds. Please do not hold up a mirror. I miss feeling brave. This person won’t leave unless I do. I am afraid to reveal myself in a way people won’t recognize….that I will have to answer for it again and again and again. Even so, sometimes I am a slick stone, a slab of labradorite illuminating in the sun. Everything can slide right off, nothing sticks to me. (My pools shimmer) I know you are totally shameless……….. I want to see you because I think this is knowing, but maybe feeling you is knowing you and coming to know the shape of you…and I feel you when I look at lilies. When I let their exaltedness change me...the way they cry and turn themselves inside out to the sun. I feel you every time I write something, anything, that falls out of me. When I wear hoop earrings. When I let myself dance, fall in, which is different than trying. It is the absence of trying. It’s turning your body into a channel. I feel you when I see sculptures everywhere. In tree branches against sky. When I know I will spend my whole life loving and there is no such thing as total loss. I felt you last month, when someone asked me if I’d ever want to lecture and I said yes without hesitation. When I’m leaving a museum and I walk the streets until it’s dark, letting my thoughts float in the still air. I feel you when I ask for spirals and find them, in wrought iron and seashells. I feel you in this tree. How many times must I grow around the notch in my core before this ring smooths out? The next detour, I’m taking the scenic route. I will write down everything I feel and see. I promise. I promise you, for me.
