Free Writing
audio: https://soundcloud.com/tia-188659352/tiakeo_findyourvoice_17
The problem really was that she didn't know which instincts to trust. She'd more than proved her ability to decide, commit, and continue to show-up no matter what. Over the last two years she had found a way to make one piece of art every single day. She hadn't skipped, or stocked-up on pieces for later days. Instead, she'd gotten-up early or stayed up late in order to paint before the clock struck midnight. She'd packed-up supplies for road-trips, for camping in tents, for hotel rooms in New York, for family holidays, friend's houses, cafes, airports, and even other countries. She'd painted on days she forgot to take her vitamins.
She made room for this thing in ways she didn't make room for other things, in ways she hadn't succeeded with any other activity. This would never push her to her limit or burn-out her body. It was a nurturing process, a healing one, and she honestly couldn't imagine her life without it. It kept her open as an artist and fueled her other creative work. It kept her balanced when stress threatened to push her over the edge again. When she sat down to the page, she could show-up with all of the achievement signals firing, with an agenda that didn't belong there - and the process would neutralize it all. She didn't control the outcome, she simply controlled the fact that she would show-up. And, she showed-up.
Everyday for 827 consecutive days, she'd painted alone and around people. While the grill was smoking during summer bbq, she chatted with friends and worked on her piece.. While her husband lounged in the hammock and her kids biked around the campground, she filled that day's page. It wasn't lost on her that this too could look extreme, like other things she had overdone. She could see it through others' eyes, through the lens that it detracted from the flow of family life, affected her productivity in more serious things. But she had seen her brothers doing what they wanted, affecting the family flow her whole life. Did the group lose something by waiting for them to finish their bike ride? They had accommodated the men like men are used to being accommodated. How was this any different?
"You don't have to keep going, you know. You can stop if you want to." said her mother. That was true. She could stop, but she chose to continue until she understood more clearly why it was so damn necessary. On one hand, it was easy. Really. It was an easy practice to maintain because it brought so much joy and clarity to her view of the world. She could see the lessons playing out in colors and shapes and the process itself. Everything made sense in the context of her daily practice. It felt like the healthiest thing she'd ever started doing for herself. She was training her art-muscles like athletes train their physical-muscles. Going for a run, following a work-out regimen, eating a restricted diet were all widely accepted activities. Pushing her body too far in that realm had consequences that still affected her - beyond the body-image love-hate spiral she experienced every night before bed - she couldn't physically exert herself like she used to before her head started to pound. Her body told her what was too much now and this painting practice wasn't it.
That was the first signal she had read loud and clear from her body. Painting felt good and she couldn't ignore it. But, she also admitted considering the time involved and all the other things she could do with that time! It was a waste to spend time painting when she could be doing something that could make money.
"Bingo. There it is!"
That’s the instinct that didn't belong here anymore. It was part of a program that had been embedded in her. Productivity at all costs, a thin body is a healthy body, winning is everything … and pretending that you don't care about winning is simply being humble. But she knew as surely as the blood flowed through her veins that Pretending you don't care about __________ (fill in the blank) is not the same as not caring. Not caring about winning or achieving or what others thought required more than pretend. It was the perpetual double-narrative that was most harmful for her - the two-faces of society, of her country, or even of her relationship to junk food. The double-standard, the dueling stories became too hard to navigate. It made her feel like a little girl again, seeing the truth of the world for the first time, knowing the meaning of being on the fringe, thinking differently than the masses, and through it all she found a way to be hopeful.
Her painting practice provided that hope for her now. It was a commitment to herself, instead of the endless chasing of a false ideal. It wasn't extreme like the other things that had broken her. She wouldn't stop painting because it was the first real tangible hope she'd created for herself. New hope that was rooted in the core of her being and reached beyond the edges of her existence. It wasn't a burden, or a chore, or a thing for others - even if the sharing of it on her platform seemed that way at times. This practice, the process, was for HER and she was finally able to use it as an example for how to better approach other healthy things in her life. She was ready to forge ahead hoping one instinct would multiply into many.
