The house is quiet, not a creature stiring but me. Sweet Ronnie asleep and hopefully dreaming the dreams of a boy. I am at the computer (good at stating the obvious, no?) with my headphones on listening to Etta James.....sing it lady......and was just suddenly struck with where the monkey wrench is. Speaking only for me, but I think it has also overtaken Ronnie, the real me has gotten lost in being a responsible adult. Okay, now before you fall off the chair don't think that I am saying you shouldn't take care of the bills and all that kinda stuff. What I am talking about is an internal thing.
Do you remember what you felt like when you were younger? The freedom of a whole unexpected world out there waiting for you and all you had to do was take that first step. Remember how you would stay up all night or get up at 0 dark 30 just so that you could lie in the grass next to your beloved. Everything was new and so were you...it was a state of grace.
Now do you find yourself fretting over the smallest things. Becoming an adult has made me take myself way too seriously.....gotta do the bills, gotta clean the house, gotta get ready for a trip, gotta get into exhibitions, gotta make evocative, meaningful art. I know that these are important things but I guess it is my attitude toward them that has changed. I fear I have forgottten how to be free.....to follow my heart and instead let all those mundane but necessary things dictate what I do next.
Okay I admit it is the middle of the night and that probably doesn't work well with blogging.....but you're there to talk to...sorry. Maybe it is the new year but there are going to be some serious changes going on at Gabrielle. Who cares that it is 4:16 am in Watauga....what if I just got in the car with lots 'o cds and started driving until I got ready to u-turn to home?
What about now going into the studio and doing something I have never done before? Why can't I go wake up Ronnie, fix breakfast and have a great conversation with Etta in the background?
Enough rambling, if you have made this far you have real fortitude or absolutely nothing else to do....either one works for me. Closing remarks....remember what it felt like to be free...be responsible for your actions as they have consequences but don't lose you the girl/boy in the weight of responsibility. Remember when you were thrilled to have a hundred dollars left for the month....you made it through and it was good.
And to quote Etta," You smiled and then the spell was cast and here we are in heaven because you are mine at last." You still belong to you....and don't let it be one of those things forgotten.
Things are getting more and more eccentric at Casa de la Swain. Changing styles in my textile work, falling in love again with painting and photography...and then there is the ever illusive quest for continuing creativity through working with Eric Maisel. Still on the road teaching, posting now at the Ragged Cloth Cafe and taking the pledge to keep handmaiden up to date.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
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9 comments:
Thank you so much darling. I needed to read that and to listen to At last, too.
See you next week. Don't freak in the meantime.
girl, girl, girl! (shaking my head in complete and soulful recognition of what you said)
I am going to the studio to play with youthful abandon, but first I have to clean up from the last project!! I guess there has to be a happy, healthy medium. Good thoughts.
Yes, all you say is true, but with age comes a different kind of freedom. I feel much freer of the opinions of others than I did when I was young. Free to make a mistake and laugh at it, rather than feel humiliated. Free to wear loose comfy clothes and not worry about how my butt looks in my jeans. Free to---well, you get the idea. Maybe the arc of life is from one kind of freedom to another. It's that in-between period that's the killer!
You just echoed the conversation I had this morning. I want to ..., but first I have to ... Now the want to is fun, creative, and fills my spirit, but can I let go of the have to first? Put the critic back in its box and see where the freedom takes me. Thank you wise Gabrielle, you made my morning.
I understand what you mean. I watched Proof tonight on TV for the 20th time and there is a line at the end when she (Gwyneth Paltrow) is talking to herself and she asks herself how many days has she lost and how does get back to where she was. I have felt like that many times in my marriage. Lost who I was and dying inside because I couldn't figure out how to be me and be married. Now I am single and am slowly getting back to being myself. But how many days have I lost? Too many to count. How many days do I have left? Plenty and am looking forward to rediscovering myself.
ah... words of wisdom from gabrielle.. all is right with the world ..=)
Ah.. THIS is along the lines of what I'm working on. But leave it to you to put it so succinctly. What I miss about your blogging, gal.
But while you're thinking about it, pick up a copy of Linda Ellerbee's Take Big Bites. It's all about living in the moment freely.
Gabrielle -- it doesn't take fortitude to read through your blogs. We voraciously eat up the truth you are speaking.
Is it something in the air? Maybe the full moon suspended up there, pulling the same thoughts out of all of us: where did that feeling of freedom go? I wrote something similar in my blog around the same time you did.
Our busy brains spin and create so much worry -- I'm finding that if I act on just one of those things rather than let it spin in my head, I feel so much weight lifted.
I love that you are blogging late at night so that we can read the fruits of your efforts. This act alone carries the same energy as what compelled that younger person to get up at an early hour to lie in the grass. Thank you for remembering who you are and encouraging us to do the same.
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