At the End of My Suffering, There Was a Door
The highlighted moments that lead us back to ourselves
Hello dear friends,
Getting this post to the point of ready to publish, after a months long dry spell on writing anything that feels even remotely substantive, is celebration worthy to me. Yet another piece of evidence for me, of the light at the end of the tunnel, or the door at the end of my suffering, as this post and the artwork below are both titled.
And now onto today’s post . . .
With love and gratitude to you all,
Crystal
Last week, I found myself down, yet another rabbit hole of remembrance. Of things I thought I would be doing right about now, goals I set out to accomplish, and plans best laid, that never came to fruition.
Not long ago plans, mind you. But 2024 goals, written almost exactly a year ago now. And not privately written goals, but posted to this very blog and talked about in public forums type goals.
Coming across those old published posts, the setting of my intentions and best laid plans, sent me into a bit of a shame spiral for, once again, feeling like I’d somehow failed at life, because I’d failed to make even an ounce of progress toward the thing I thought I wanted to be doing by now—mentoring other artists in a coaching role.
Instead, I’ve spent the year in what I’ve dubbed my ongoing, long slow unraveling. Letting go of the things that no longer serve me, but of which, I still thought I could internally bargain my way into finding a way to make it all fit—all the things, in all the ways, that supported me through the pandemic. If I could just make a nip here, and a tuck there, maybe, somewhere in the recesses of my subconscious I believed, I could find my way to that life I’d written about—the one in which I didn’t need to escape in order to avoid burnout.
Since arriving in KCMO this summer (that’s Kansas City, MO—look at me writing those initials like a native), as a guest artist in residence, residing in Studio Jolley, I’ve been examining what I want & what I need, in order to find that life. The one I began to proclaim just over a year ago—the one in which I didn’t need to escape in order to avoid burnout.
(Just as an aside, and perhaps as a word of warning, our words, once spoken, have power. Do not, I repeat DO NOT, begin talking about something so brazen as this, unless you are prepared to see everything about your current life dismantled, before you can even begin to think of just what it is that other life should be.
You’ll go through an achingly hard year, more if you’re as stubborn tenacious as me, watching each thing you currently do as a means of support become unsustainable, before it disintegrates in your hands. Hint—it was never sustainable, which is why you were seeking to find a different way to live in the first place.
And because your short-term memory is shit part of your woefully underdeveloped executive branch of functioning . . . okay I can’t keep writing this as if it is a warning to you rather than a recap of what happened to me . . .)
Short-term memory might have been helpful in reminding me that I was actually seeking a new & better way. Instead, I spent an unreasonable & painful amount of time trying to bargain with myself over how I could actually not change anything about my life, while somehow not continuing to burn out on it.
But here in this place, the afore mentioned Studio Jolley in KCMO, after a summer of said self-bargaining, I’ve been able to look back and see those highlighted moments reconnecting.
All those words I wrote and talked about last year. How it was a crushing workload for even the healthiest of type A personalities. How I was miserable in the role of website administrator, video content creator, marketing, videographer and editor. How I felt myself slipping further and further away from the life I was in the midst of pursuing prior to 2020.
How I had even managed to forget just what it was that made me want to be an artist to begin with. Here in this place, I feel those old synapsis reconnecting. Like a constellation of moments in time, reminding me of who I am, before any ideas of how to earn my living.
Recently, I changed my profile blurb on Instagram, removing the word “mentor” in that brief online description. Choosing instead, to simply identify myself as “Artist + Writer”. It’s such a small thing, but it was a huge remembering/revelation for me.
How I was in the midst of achieving the dreams I had before the start of the pandemic. How all of those things stemmed from my love of creating art; the fellowship award, the dream exhibition, the published book, the idea for the new one, the in person teaching of wildly popular workshops at physical locations, all came about first and foremost, because I made art.
From the outside, not a whole lot has changed in my appearance—except maybe the bangs I got in honor of my 59th birthday, but I am, essentially, the same person. Internally though, the changes have been seismic. After a year of feeling like everything I do was slipping through my hands, a year of burnout, a year of trying to hang on, before finally letting it all go, I am beginning to understand.
Who I am is not a separate entity from what I do as an artist. Just as I write to better understand myself, I make art to better see myself. That you might better understand yourself when you read what I’ve written, or better see yourself, when you view what I’ve created, are a result of first allowing myself to be vulnerable and express what is happening in me.
Teaching and mentoring will always have a place in my life, but as a result of the art making first, not in place of it. I teach because there is always a teachers dialogue running through my mind when I’m in the studio. And I mentor, because I so need to hear the words of the internal encourager that shows up whenever I speak to you.
And I am recognizing more and more that I am just a slice of the main story. What you write and create and teach and speak matters too.
It is a cycle. A circle of life and of connection. We, a community, in unspoken collaboration, are connected through shared stories of our fragility and resiliency.
And in that cosmic timing, nod from the Universe, God, and all things Sacred and Holy, kind of way (not to understate it), just as I finish writing these words a friend messages me a poem she knew would resonate, and I can’t help seeing it once again; the highlighted moments pointing the way in it all. Goosebumps forming on my skin as I read the words she sent:
Patchwork Heart
byvulnerability doesn’t mean telling
others what happened to us from
across a cafe table or from behind a
microphone
and then going home from the
experience feeling just as alone as
you did before
vulnerability means allowing your
human heart blanket to get sewn to
other heart blankets
it’s about connection
we don’t share for status
we do it for synergy
we don’t confess for clout
we do it to build community
we tell our tale
to invite others
to tell theirs
it’s the sacred cycle
of storytelling
we gather in a circle of trust and
say “here is my journey”
then we listen to
the other journeys
that are shared
we take space
then we give space
we pour
then we absorb
we speak
then we listen
we are storytellers
then we are witnesses
vulnerability isn’t just about
grave digging in our past
to expose our skeletons
it’s about sewing quilts
here is my patch
here is your patch
here is their patch
here is us
here is our story
Your three pieces are beautiful! Even though you removed the word mentor - You still are one!!! And I thank you for this!!!!
We do it to build community. Thank you, Crystal, and by the way, you feel like a mentor to me. You did an awesome job; you built a community! Thank you so much!