March
Friday, 3.15.24
Updates to website.
Second project meeting with Carolyn.
The cherry trees on our street are already starting to fade.
But the daffodils are already in bloom.
This is my birthday month, my favorite time of year. Suddenly things seem more possible than they were last week, when it was 30 degrees colder (global warming). The sun is out, and I am conceiving of daily and weekly practices and rituals in new ways. What if I work less during the day, more at night? I don’t have the energy for sculpture work after Nova goes to bed, but I could get 1-2 hours a day in, easy, if it was in the late morning. Looking forward to the next couple of months.
I started thinking about the words “born,” “borne,” and “bear” - what are their different meanings, to each other?
Born - as in “to give birth to”
Borne - as in “to bear”
Bear - as in “give birth to” - “carry” - “hold” - “contain” - “sustain” - “suffer” - “support” - “accept” - “give”
That is a LOT for one little word to carry.
On Behalf of the Rest of March…
This month my workplan suggested focusing on the inner parts of my dwelling: weaving canopies, and sewing cushions.
I didn’t do much of either.
Instead, I watched the cherry trees on my street closely as they continued blooming, shed seas of petals, and were replaced by deep purple leaves. Then the next tree bloomed bright white, and faded; then the tree next to that bloomed in perfect pink blossoms. The Japanese olive tree with its small, spiky leaves blossomed slowly into tufts of tiny, white, trumpet shaped blossoms. The moss on the walkway outside is turning greenish-brown, from the bright mossy green of a wet winter. The grass out back is growing in again, long and kelly green, over the dried stalks of the last yield. It is time to mow, and start fresh.
I am reflecting on the seasons, how we float along in the identity of one or the other, and then the sharper yet prolonged transition here from winter into spring as we passed the equinox. How time flows in cycles and so does creativity (inspiration) and creation (production). The yellow daffodils have sprung, and already started to wither and die.
The month of March passed for me in a whirlwind of anxiety, business, stress, productivity, and daily living. One of my siblings suffered a mental health episode and has been in and out of hospitals; I long to be with them, but my family obligations, my work, my community and personal commitments, and my project have kept me from making the trip. My work – my day job – endured several weeks of planned intense activity, followed by the tragic loss of a family member of the board. This, on the heels of the unexpectedly early arrival of the newest family member.
For months – years, if I’m being honest – I have been grappling with the tension of wanting to move on from my current position, with an organization I have been with for almost a full ten years now. I have been unsure of how to navigate the next steps of my career, as I feel pulled in two directions: organizational management (project/operations/process design) and artmaking/community-building/teaching. Thanks to a current MFA class focused on just this subject, as well as some well-timed professional coaching, I have gained a lot of clarity in this area lately, and have figured out how to move forward with integrating these sides of myself into a unified whole. I gained the confidence I needed to present that whole self to the people that are closest to me, including my coworkers.
While this was a big step in moving forward, I recognize that I am still in the journeying phase between two stations; a “Barzakh” of sorts. My friend and sometimes spiritual healer, an expansive spirit who practices Sufism and Islam, taught me this word when I asked if there was a concept in her spiritual tradition for this transitional phase. When I looked it up, it comes specifically from the period between death and the hereafter. A fitting description, then, for the time between what has already passed (death – of winter, the new blooms of spring, the old life, old identities) and what is yet to come.
As March turns into April, and the weather is (sometimes) clearer and drier, I reflect on whether there is a difference between procrastination; resistance to finality, to making a move, to choosing one path and therefore rejecting all others; and simply waiting for the right time? The cyclical nature of life, and creativity. Sometimes we cannot move forward until the time is right. That doesn’t mean that we are stagnant. So much has been churning, yearning, and unfolding for me during this time. What I am left with is the hidden unconscious; the pleasure in waiting; decay; resistance; deprivation; decay; even suffering – and everything I need to grieve before I can move into wholeness and complete what I have begun.