I was there at the station when the colors aligned
And in that lonesome place I felt peace in my mind
I’m on a golden wave babe, sunset hue,
I’m sick of seeing red and feeling blue
What colour are you?
Are you the melody that I sing to
Does that mean when the song ends
You’re just gonna be a ghost that I cling to…
Are you? What’s really true?
Are you? Is that really you?
I called my friend this morning
She was feeling down
She said she’s had enough of love
She’s tired of this town
I asked her what she wanted
What could make you smile
She cried “I’d love to live another life
If only for a while”
I’m taking a glass blowing class and, wow, am I bad at it.
While sitting at the torch making beads, I have been sneaking peaks at the glass blowing in the hot shop thinking “if I don’t take advantage of this opportunity to try, I am always going to regret it”. I finally mustered my nerve and signed up for a class.
It’s been five weeks and, no surprises, I am loving it. A dance with the fire of creation itself.
But … it’s really hard. And, intense. And, nerve-wracking. And, frustrating.
The teachers are awesome and encouraging. It’s a hard skill to learn. They keep telling us how it takes years to get good. Being me, I want to be good at it now. Like, right now.
I was reminded by my sister of this great quote by Ira Glass (ha, ha) about the taste gap in creating art.
Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish somebody had told this to me — is that all of us who do creative work … we get into it because we have good taste. But it’s like there’s a gap, that for the first couple years that you’re making stuff, what you’re making isn’t so good, OK? It’s not that great. It’s really not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has ambition to be good, but it’s not quite that good. But your taste — the thing that got you into the game — your taste is still killer, and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you’re making is kind of a disappointment to you, you know what I mean?
A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste and they could tell what they were making wasn’t as good as they wanted it to be — they knew it fell short, it didn’t have the special thing that we wanted it to have.
And the thing I would say to you is everybody goes through that. And for you to go through it, if you’re going through it right now, if you’re just getting out of that phase — you gotta know it’s totally normal.
And the most important possible thing you can do is do a lot of work — do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week, or every month, you know you’re going to finish one story. Because it’s only by actually going through a volume of work that you are actually going to catch up and close that gap. And the work you’re making will be as good as your ambitions. It takes a while, it’s gonna take you a while — it’s normal to take a while. And you just have to fight your way through that, okay?
And so I am fighting my way through it. My pieces are wonky. And wobbly. And uneven. And not what I hope they will look like. Certainly not what the demo piece looks like!
But I still love them. In all their wonkyness and beautiful colours. They are trying to be good.
And that’s good enough.
Week One – Paperweight #1
Week Two – Paperweight #2
Week Three – tumbler turned into a vase (aka globlet)
Week Four – wobbly bowl
Week Five – it’s a plate! (kinda)
But now, not even the masons know
What drug will keep night from coming.
Catch a, catch a, catch a, catch a falling star ….
The last 5 days have felt like dancing on the edge of a pothole.
There is a really great poem called Autobiography in Five Chapters in which life is described in 5 beautifully short chapters of the process of learning to make changes. From falling into a pothole, learning to get out, learning to avoid the pothole and then, finally, learning to take a different route.
I love this poem because so often depression feels like falling into a pothole for me. Last week, the pothole opened in front of me and I have been dancing on the edge of it ever since. I keep trying to figure out what causes the pothole to appear. I know that depression and loneliness are doing their own little dance around the edge, intertwined in their downward spiral that often takes me with it.
I try to pull them apart, to separate their co-dependence. To convince my heart that the depression will pass no matter how much it hurts right now and that loneliness is not proof that I am unworthy of being loved.
And then I try and do my own dance of healing. Staying away from numbing comforts that sideline me in my own life (hello internet!), reaching out for support, writing about it, getting out for a walk, eating well. Trying to be gentle on myself and reminding myself that I am not a failure as I do each of these things imperfectly.
Trying to take the word “just” and “should” out of my vocabulary. Cracked.com had a great article recently on the 5 most useless pieces of advice ever given. Number 5 was adding the word “just” to your advice. You know, “you just need to snap out of it” or “you just need to eat less and get more exercise”. If it was that simple, trust me, I would have done it by now!
I know that this will pass. And, that like a dance, it is complicated and dynamic and changing. It is a chance to understand myself better. A chance to figure out how to adjust my sails in the wind.
As I dance around the edge of the pothole, I know that this time I didn’t fall into its depths. And, if I do, I know I can get out.
Maybe someday, I will know how to walk down a different street.
A Fish and a Bicycle 