enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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Thinking of witty

I won't write much today. Anna has me worried about witty. She's such a tough lady but clearly she is going through a terrible, terrible time. I wish I could do something to help.

I like to think that we can control things, but really I don't believe that. I believe, ultimately, that I have no control over anything. I'd like to think that some force of the universe will do my bidding. So if I do have any power over any of the forces of the universe, I'd like the uinverse to heal witty and let her continue doing her amazing art.

As for me, no worries. Yesterday I was very peaceful and did things around the house. I had a genuine epiphany that felt a bit like a paradigm shift. I was reading a journal I filled when I was about thirty. I had notes in there from the peak of my running career, from the trips I took to Europe at that time, and then from the Ph.D. It marked the complete decline in my spirits vis a vis the Ph.D. experience.

What was interesting though were the notes I made randomly during those latter years. There were passages from books that I had liked, e.g. from works by J@ne Jacobs on nature and the economy. There were poems (Pr-frock in full and sonnets by Shakesp3are and Elizab3th Barrett Browning). More importantly, there were notes from a coffee shop I used to go to to sit and read horrible economics literature in, whilst I was really (and didn't realize it) trying to avoid writing my thesis. It was clear from everything that I wrote there that I hated everything about economics. Nothing ever changes, does it? But what is important from this writing is the other stuff. I describe people sitting in the coffee shop and what I guessed their feelings to have been. I write about the comings and goings on the street and my general impressions of things. I even knew before I flipped one page of the journal that there would be on that page a quick sketch that I did of Edu@rd Vuill@rd's face as a poster for an exhibition of his work at the MMBA on a bus window passed by. I remember doing that sketch because I had only as much time as that bus was stopped at the light outside.

But that's exactly the point. The point is that I sat at my desk yesterday thinking about all of the times that I sat around thinking that I was doing nothing with my life and that one day I would figure it out and find my calling, but that actually I was living it all the time. I went through my sketchbooks yesterday and there are tons of beautiful drawings in there (and some not-so-beautiful) drawings in there that I have done over the years. I guess what I want to say is that THIS IS ALL THERE IS.

I know that people say that all of the time, but to actually feel it is quite something else. There was a huge release in that. All of the pressure is gone. And somehow it gets easier as a result to believe that in a couple of years I WILL take that art program in Florence, and I will probably have someone nice in my life, and I will have a more fulfilling career doing something in which I can work to full abilities without being kicked down by other people's laziness or prejudice. Or not. But something beautiful will be in its place.

But there it is. I did my laundry, tried a few new recipes, sang through yesterday. This is all there is.

So I'm going to quote Alice Munr0, who was in my little book:

"...it's just the same plastic chairs and plastic plants and ordinary day outside with people getting groceries and what you've had is all there is, and going to the library, just a thing like that, coming back up the hill on the bus with books and a bag of grapes seems now worth wanting, O God doesn't it. You'd break your heart wanting back there."

Thinking of you, witty.

10:36 a.m. - 2010-06-06

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