Anxiety Redux

It's the most wonderful time of the year here, a time when all roads lead to February 16th. My anxiety has worsened appreciably over the last week or so, as has my undercurrent of self-doubt and loathing. On these days, there isn't much to do but keep putting words on paper and paint on canvas and my body on the mat and hope for the best.

I am cheered remarkably in these times by writers and artists who have an absolutely horrible time working for any number of reasons but do it anyway. Chuck Close be damned, sometimes it is hard to just show up and do the work. Don DeLillo has brought me appreciable comfort of late with his acknowledgement of how easy it is to do nothing:

"A writer takes earnest measures to secure his solitude and then finds endless ways to squander it. Looking out the window, reading random entries in the dictionary."

And like Madeline L'Engle, I am trying to get even more comfortable with failure:

"Human beings are the only creatures who are allowed to fail. If an ant fails, it’s dead. But we’re allowed to learn from our mistakes and from our failures. And that’s how I learn, by falling flat on my face and picking myself up and starting all over again. If I’m not free to fail, I will never start another book, I’ll never start a new thing."

But on nights like tonight when I am shaking with anxiety under the covers, two pills and a belt of bourbon in to managing this stifling and maddening attack, it is hard to feel anything but sorry for myself, burdened with taste but not talent, desperately lonely at times like this when all I want is someone to take care of me.

Then I get the text that school is two hours late tomorrow due to cold, and it feels like a reprieve. I get up from the bed and I let the dogs out. The air is frigid and instantly numbs my cheeks, and the city is utterly silent, remarkable in that it is days after snowfall and people are usually out and about, even after dark. The distant hum of JFX is utterly silent. For just a moment I feel anxiety's grip loosen just a bit. Just a bit.

I paint. I pretend for a moment that what I have in my head will be what makes it on to the canvas, but I paint with the knowing that I can erase whatever is there with a violent swath of white when I wake in the morning and see the beautiful mess I made.

I sit down to practice the fullness of my doubts and desire, my fantasies and flaws. Each day I follow them as far as I can bear it, for now. ~Glenn Kurtz~

My flaws will win these next four weeks at least, but I will still practice. I am lucky, I am grateful. Even wracked with anxiety that leaves me breathless and unable to function I realize the gift I have been given.

Still.

The moon is full and the air is cold. There is time enough for worry and doubt.

Should You Bother With A Backup Plan?

This week Sicily and I managed to get ourselves out of the house after dark THREE TIMES. This is huge. Even though darkness comes obscenely early these days, once The Child is home and dinner is done, all I want to do is curl up on the couch and go to sleep.

However, I bought a Living Social deal for a restaurant in Fell's Point back in August, and it was about to expire, plus The Child had a painting in an art exhibit at UMBC, so we went to dinner before the show and then to UMBC.

The Child's piece of art (photographed poorly by me, see above) was based on the work of Tom Scott, and the curator of the Tom Scott exhibit spoke to the assembled group to talk a little about Scott and to give some life advice. Namely, that artists shouldn't plan on making a living from their art and that they need to have a Plan B, and "probably a Plan C."

As he spoke, I got more irritated.

He talked about how it's not possible to live simply these days, but it was easier to live simply back in the 50s and 60s, so artists didn't need as much money to survive. He said that art can be a profitable hobby, and parents should support their kids and let them go to art school if they want to but to make sure that they are prepared to do something else and leave art to the weekends and evenings.

I will concede: very few artists of any stripe will achieve international fame and exorbitant monetary success. An artist who subsists off the proceeds from his or her art (and here I mean painting, writing, music, etc) will generally not live in a mansion and drive a fancy car.

And to this I ask: so what?

So what if you don't have a mansion? So what if your car isn't fancy?

This obsession with gadgetry and new everything and what things look like on the outside (brand-name clothing, etc) are cyanide to anyone with artistic inclinations. The message being delivered by the curator and people of his ilk is this: you have to choose between eating and art. Which is patently untrue.

One of my favorite quotes that I will butcher here and not attribute to anyone because I cannot remember who wrote it (but it's not plagiarism if you make sure to say you didn't write it, yes?): Don't be so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.

If you are an artist, ART. Paint. Write. Make music. Sing your song. Having a Plan B, or god help you, a Plan C, makes it too easy to fall back on that plan. If you are hungry and you are working on it you will succeed. How you measure success is up to you. If you measure it by the size of your house, then perhaps art isn't the right place for you. Maybe you like the IDEA of being an artist, the trappings, more than the act of art.

But if you measure it in terms of granting yourself the freedom to find your voice and express it, or by dedicating yourself to getting better at your art and doing it every day, then toss out the Plan B, and just ART.

This panic over money and the Plan B cushion is why I didn't become a writer when that's what I wanted to be from a very young age. I drank the middle-class Kool-Aid that said I had to have a career and go to college, so I did, and I became a teacher, which I loved, but in the back of my mind was this idea of writing. I am 100% sure that the reason my school got off the ground at all is because a donor backed out at the last minute and I had no money to work with. I had to make it successful because for a time, that was all the money we had coming in. So I put in the work and ended up with a fully accredited, non-profit private school that I built myself from nothing. Had I fallen back on the cushion that a donor would have provided, I am not sure that I would have worked as hard. If I am being honest (which I always try to be).

When Dane died I decided that life is too uncertain to put off doing what I wanted to do. As much as I loved the school, and even though it was beginning to turn a profit in the sense that I could actually give myself a paycheck, it was time to put that work into something for me. Teaching and education is my heart, but writing is my soul. Or vice versa, depending on the day.

There is definitely a certain level of anxiety surrounding the money I am bringing in (or not). But if I am being honest, which I always try to be, there has always been a certain level of anxiety surrounding money for me. So much so that I can remember coming up with a mantra in my mid-twenties self-help period that clearly reflected this anxiety: I have everything I need.

So if I am going to be anxious about money, why not be anxious while doing something I love? Why not finally throw myself into learning more about who I am as a writer? Why not prioritize time over money?

Thankfully, The Child was just as irritated as I was by the curator's speech. She felt like he was saying that art was good, but be okay with spreading yourself thin with a day job. Some would argue that I am handicapping her by encouraging her to throw herself into what she does with no thought of the practical, but to that I will simply say this: she built a house and has given two TEDTalks. She can certainly be as unmotivated as any adolescent, but when she is determined, she is persistent. Persistence is a better Plan B than any day job, and she is working hard to cultivate that (with some "motivational help" from me, I'll warrant).

Final thought is this: if you are prepared to throw yourself into learning and doing and creating, if you are determined and persistent, if you have focused on what's important to you and not followed the sheeple who preach material goods and the almighty dollar, if you have a path that you believe in an are willing to do what it takes to make it work, then a backup plan is unnecessary. Go out and ART.

What do you think? Should you have a backup plan?

Edited to add: I should also say that, after reading this blog again, some might interpret this post as being judgmental of those who take day jobs. This couldn't be farther from the truth; I was one of those people, too. We do what we have to do based on where we are and what we think we can do. There is no shame in providing for yourself and your family. I just hated to hear this guy telling a group of enthusiastic students that they can't be artists as a job. He was killing the dream before they could even dream it. The point is to think differently about what really matters in this life and act on that.

Donate To Good Causes Day

So today is Donate to Good Causes Day.

I TOTALLY just made that up.

But for me, that's today.

I don't have a ton of cash lying around, and, in fact, now more than ever we need to save our pennies. But I have found that for me, whenever I am feeling low or broke or especially trod upon, giving until it almost hurts - time, money, or love - is the way out of those feelings.

Even if I am not feeling any of those things at a particular time, here's a secret: giving feels good. And I like to feel good.

So here's today's recipients:

John Muir Goes to IslandWood: My wonderful friend Julie Trout teaches art at this school, and every year their 4th and 5th grade goes to IslandWood for three days of experiential education. This school is low-income, and many students cannot afford to go, the same students who desperately need to go and see life outside of the small bubble of poverty they are in. I believe strongly in experiential education and equal opportunity, so some dollars went to this on Donate To Good Causes Day.

Nerdy Baby: The Human Infant Project Kickstarter: Another friend, Tiffany Ard, has managed to bring together art and science to create  possibly the best baby products ever. This Kickstarter is working to fund a larger printing of her baby book, The Human Infant Project, a book that I would buy tons of if I had an infant or knew anyone who had an infant.  Dollars went to this, too

So here's the kicker: crowdfunding only works if a crowd gets involved. Many people still believe that it is one or two folks giving tons of cash, but it's not. It's tons of folks giving little cash. You don't need to give a lot, and it doesn't take a lot of time to do. If these two projects aren't up your alley, then find one that is and give them five bucks.

Spread some love today...

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Pulling The Trigger, Or My Year Of Grieving Dangerously

A gun metaphor seems appropriate for Charm City, even though the murder total is down from last year.

This morning while I was avoiding doing any sort of work, I came across the opportunity to train to be a volunteer docent at the American Visionary Art Museum (AVAM). AVAM is my newest most favorite museum. It is filled with untrained artists, lots of local color, and the quirkiest, best, most non-museum-y gift shop ever. You would think I would jump at that opportunity, as I am sure it comes with free stuff, like memberships, etc, and I am all about trading.

But I am having a hard time pulling the trigger.

There are other things I haven't done that I could have, a few opportunities here and there that I have passed on by doing nothing.

It's hard not to beat myself up about this a little, but I recognize that is ridiculous.

The second year of grief, which is over halfway finished, has been marked by constant motion. CONSTANT. From finishing the tiny house to showing it at the White House to moving it to Delaware to packing the townhouse to moving the bulk of our stuff to storage in Baltimore to cleaning and fixing the townhouse to rent to finally moving to Baltimore (take that, grammar check). CONSTANT MOTION.

Now we find ourselves in a purgatory of moving, staying with friends and looking for a house, settling into routines that will be upended and re-established when we finally move into our own space. When I am alone, I have been melting into a well-loved reclining rocking chair by the window, working periodically but mostly watching the world outside the windows and listening to the dogs snore (and bark wildly whenever someone walks by).

It's not relaxing, necessarily, so much as it is just stopping. Not moving. No motion.

So when it's time to move again, the laws of physics kick in. Inertia. It's hard to get the object in motion.

Even for things I know I will enjoy, it is hard to get up out of the chair to make them happen.

I think this is part of my Year of Grieving Dangerously. Now that we have made a huge move and instituted changes, the real work begins. I am writing, which is immensely satisfying, and I am in a state and a city I love, which I have waited for years to come home to, but the interior work that requires simultaneous action and reflection is still in progress. I think the key is to do it whether or not I want to. To make plans and go into the world.

Very complex. Very difficult. Feels impossible.

It is every part of the first two and nothing of the last, but still. It's that part of nothing to look forward to and every possibility in front of me at the same time. It's the part of grief that isn't wailing and weeping and woe-is-me-ing but is just as potent and powerful and capable of sitting you on your ass. In a well-loved reclining rocking chair by a window. Waiting for snow.

Trying to pull the trigger.

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