Fear Has It's Place

But does it belong in the studio?

I’m adding my author notes and the thought process behind this chapter here at the beginning of the post rather than after, as this excerpt includes a preview that is available to everyone to read, with the balance of the text reserved for members of the paid tier of subscribers.

As I continue to write I am ever aware of the need for time to do more research to expand on some of the points I’ve touched on here. For example, the story I open with touches on the way adrenaline floods the system in an emergency situation. I still want to circle back to this excerpt and go further into the way PTSD and Complex PTSD plays a role in our critic messaging.

It is my intent to continue to draft this book and get the gist of it down as a first effort before I do the deep dive into fact checking and research and expand on these things. which is a delightful rabbit hole diversion to me that I look forward to.

I’m also ever aware of how difficult it is to switch back and forth from my art and teaching practice to my writing practice. I am slowly learning to give myself grace and address my own inner critic with gentleness when it comes to the inability to adhere to a specific schedule. Yet having proclaimed a schedule here on the blog is very much helping me to continue to write. Without this self inflicted accountability, I’d likely continue to excuse putting off the writing in favor of the activities that cover my immediate financial need.

This happens to be the very subject I write about, how well we convince ourselves that other activities take priority over our dreams of achieving anything as artists and humans. I live it and I write about it simultaneously. Writing is how I make sense of the world.

And so I will continue to express my gratitude to you, dear reader, for your support, whether financial or not. You being here in any capacity to read what I share gives me the added incentive I need to push past whatever limitations I experience. A heartfelt thank you to each of you.

With gratitude,
Crystal marie

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Gatekeeper 10'“ x 10” Collage Mixed Media by Crystal Marie

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Never am I more aware of the idea of the human species operating as a sort of living multicellular organism, than when I’m driving long distances on the Interstate. Each car zipping along two, three, four lane highways all heading in the same direction, as if cells flowing along the same vein. My mind begins to spin around thoughts of bacteria cells communicating with each other in an effort to dominate and survive, and how we each have some sort of purpose that contributes to the whole, how cells can be damaged, and how they can heal the entire body if enough of them band together.

And so it was a few weeks back, I found myself ruminating on these very things during a short road trip to visit family, when I saw what looked to be a large gray cloud forming on the road about a football fields length in front of me; not a great distance with traffic moving at a brisk 70mph clip.

Within a split second, it registered that what I was looking at was not some weird unidentifiable opaque cloud sitting on the road, but rather, a vehicle rolling over and over and over in the same direction I was heading, as if it were a figure skater performing an upright spin while laying on its side. So fast was the momentum of that vehicle, and my own shock, that it wasn’t possible to count how many times it flipped before finally skidding into the grassy ditch.

My body went into autopilot, flipping on my hazard lights to warn traffic behind me and stomping on my brake, as the 3-4 cars in front of mine all pulled over and people began frantically running to the crash site. My mind also kicked into autopilot as I watched the scene unfolding in front of me, having registered that it was a mid-size dark SUV, my adrenaline-soaked nervous system was flooded by the fear that it could be my daughter and son-in-law with all of my grandbabies strapped inside.

Time slowed at this point, as one of those surreal slow-motion reels in a movie experiences. I recall each detail through a fog, with certain points clearly crystalized in my memory and others already beginning to fade. Like, did the vehicle really land on its side or was it upright when it came to rest? I’m not 100% clear on that anymore, but that moment when I recognized the emblem on its grill and realized with relief that it was not my daughter’s car will stay with me forever.

In the days since, I keep having flashbacks, watching that SUV roll over and over and over again and again, hearing the crunch under my own car tires as I had no choice but to inch my way over chunks of plastic, twisted metal, and glass, seeing personal belongings strewn among the wreckage—a trucker style hat looking pristine and oddly out of place on the road in the midst of it.

My family is okay. I am okay. But for whoever was in that vehicle that day, and whoever their family may be, life changed in an instant. The trauma of bearing witness to this accident is nothing compared to what they now have to face.

It is sobering moments like these, that remind me of the true purpose of fear. The autopilot way that my body instinctively knew what to do, fueled by a rush of adrenaline. That healthy and accurate response is a life saver when it comes as a result of a true emergency, but far too often fear presents itself in our lives in a less beneficial way.

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”
~Franklin D. Roosevelt