The Shift: A Rebuilding Year

Do you know your why? Or is it a why? why? why???

In the Depth of Winter by Crystal Marie

In years past I’ve had really profound experiences choosing my word for the year. When that happens, I can confidently identify my what, as in, What is my word this year? But I don’t know if I’ve ever ruminated on the why behind the word quite as much as I have this year.

My word is Restructure¹; the meaning of it a bit obvious. The reason I chose it very much born out of a place of need to restructure much of what I do, looking for a more sustainable way to support myself as an artist. When I write this simple sentence, I recognize how little of what has compelled that need most of my readers are privy to.

I’ve written about how overwhelming it’s been to do all the things related to running a teaching platform for my prerecorded classes a few times. It didn’t start out that way. I had big dreams for what it could be and how it would become more than a platform for just my own classes. It was to be a resource for artists, a community, a collaborative effort.

But it was created during the peak of the pandemic while also trying to keep up with all of the other things I needed to do, to continue to support myself. Not to mention all of the things I was in the midst of tending to in my personal life. The impossibility of managing it all to get it to the point I’d initially envisioned didn’t hit me until I was full on in the thick of it.²

Do you know your why? (or is it a why? why? why???)

I’ve been tripping over the writing of this post for the better part of the past month. It has come in fits and spurts. Each time I set aside day for it, something else comes up. Or maybe I wind up letting myself get sidetracked by other things; a distracted avoidant approach to something I couldn’t quite name.

I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps it’s that it simply has been an overly busy month. Or maybe it’s the pressure I inadvertently put on myself to answer all the questions that pop into my head as I contemplate the writing, as if someone else out there is demanding an explanation.

I don’t know! I don’t know! I don’t have all the answers! And so I freeze. The inner-critic bringing a halt to the momentum I was building.

Towards the end of January I wrote this in my weekly marketing email:

“With the first month of the year winding down, I can’t say that I’m sorry to see January go. Between the holidays, cold & flu season, and the extreme weather, each day, it seemed, some new interruption threw me further away from my normal routine.

But at some point this past week it hit me, the routine I was pushing so hard to get back to wasn’t even the one I’d chosen. It had come about through a long series of these life interruptions.

There are times when life seems to propel us forward and then there are times when we find ourselves wondering how we even got here. One small incremental shift at a time, everything changed.”

Reading those words as I wrote them triggered more than I could identify in the moment. But one night, unwinding my way through season 5 of This is Us on Netflix, I saw it being acted out by Beth on the screen.

Beth³, having grown up with a dream of dancing, had a realistic shot at being inducted into a professional ballet academy but was forced to take a different path out of high school. Decades later, she finally had the opportunity to open her own dance studio, where she was able to mentor young dancers and reconnect with her own passion. She felt a strong sense of purpose in it, but not even six months later, the pandemic hit.

She, like so many artists, pivoted to teaching her students online, believing it to be a temporary measure. And then little by little enrollment dwindled as time wore on until she had to close her studio doors.

Beth’s words of loss melded with my own. Her sobs reached through the airwaves and entered my own body, racked with sobs of sudden recognition. Like a cavity you didn’t know was there until you bite down on something and it nearly sends you through the roof from the pain.

It was more than just the necessary pivot to the online teaching. It was the temporary pausing of a decades long dream I’d only just begun to see coming to fruition before the pandemic hit, and watching that pause wear on and on until I could no longer remember what it was I’d been on the verge of in the first place.

Managing to stay in this one home over the past five years has been nothing short of a miracle. The details, too lengthy to recount now, are sprinkled all over the internet in blog posts, and podcasts, and status updates on social media. But suffice it to say, five years has been the longest I’ve been able to sink my roots into one home as an adult, knowing I was safe within it’s walls.

Financially it was a stretch when I moved in. It came about through the help of friends and my art community after a serious health crisis and subsequent final separation from an abusive marriage.⁴

I was able to justify it for the complications with my health in previous homes and as part of a broader plan—the dream, which included moving my working studio to a new location where I could open a collaborative co-working studio environment. One where I could continue to create my own work and teach, host other artist events, and allow for a membership platform for local artists to work and connect as a community.

Whether I taught in my own studio or locations around the US, my classes consistently sold out. My own body of work was solid, with representation in galleries and a steady stream of sales. A backer was planning to partner in purchasing a building to rent to me. It was only a matter of finding one that checked all the boxes.

That dream had been a long time in the making. Undergoing many iterations over the years before getting to the stage of becoming a tangible reality; as had the dream of being in this one place. This one home. This one safe harbor from it all, until I could repair my credit and save enough to buy my own place—a space where I could live and work and sink my roots a little deeper, spread my branches, and just be me.

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"They say they built the train tracks over the alps between Vienna and Venice before there was a train that could make the trip. But they built it anyway. They knew one day the train would come. Any arbitrary turn along the way, and I would be elsewhere. I would be different. What are four walls, anyway? They are what they contain. The house protects the dreamer. Unthinkably good things can happen, even late in the game. It is such a surprise."
~Frances, Under the Tuscan Sun

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I went through nearly every stage of grieving, landing squarely in a deep pit of depression. I let the knowing of what I need to do next, and the struggle to get my bearing in the midst of it, convince me that this was it; my window of opportunity had been nailed shut, and all I’d hoped for my life and career as an artist was not meant to be.

It’s tempting to just gloss over this and jump to the optimistic hope filled conclusion. But the reality is I’m in the thick of it, swinging between the bargaining and acceptance stage.

I can no longer afford to stay here. The rent has gone up substantially over the past 5 years and it’s increasingly more difficult to make even the bare minimum ends meet without spending every waking moment in work mode. Continuing to hold on here is preventing me from gaining the margin I need to take care of myself.

At the same time, there is also the knowing, in that deep down place inside, that this was never supposed to be my stopping place. I’ve been hearing the next step calling my name since this time last year, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go. I continued to cling to the hope that the way would be made clear before I gave my landlord notice.⁵

The Shift: A rebuilding year

At just the time I needed it, as these things tend to go, I listened to episode 279 of the We Can Do Hard Things podcast⁶ in which Amanda explains the concept of a Rebuilding Year.

For those who are as clueless about sports as I am, the term is used when a winning team suddenly hits a slump. They don’t consider this a sign that the team is washed up, even when that slump lasts several years, they call it a rebuilding year or a rebuilding season. Sometimes it involves new players, or a different coach, not starting from scratch, but building on the foundation of what was already established. Grace is given during the interim season to allow for the necessary adjusting to a different rhythm between teammates.

Every so often we get to rewrite the script as artists. Following a shift in a body of work, or a deep dive into a new technique, after focussing on a special series for an exhibit of some kind, we find it necessary to edit our artist statement—to explain our new why. Folding into it the previous seasons successes, building on our foundation of experience.

That unacknowledged grief that bubbled to the surface and took me by surprise was the clearing I needed to gain a bit of perspective.

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You’ve worked too hard to let a season of darkness convince you that there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. ~Michell C. Clark

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I have worked too hard and come too far in my life to let this season convince me to give up now. This is not the end of my story. This is my rebuilding year.

This shift feels like a deeper dive into understanding who I am in the here and now, underneath all of those past layers. A reminder to give myself the grace during the interim season to allow for the necessary adjusting to a different rhythm as I step towards something still not quite tangible.

That vision planted on my heart for the artist community in a physical space is nearly two decades old now. It has expanded as I have, was buried under many layers, been excavated and evolved. Aging, as I have, but remains ongoing and steady over time.

It is at once known to me but still unknown.

Maybe aging is simply a reversing of the birthing process. Another layer peeling away. Another shed skin. Another evolution of metamorphosis.

We are born, pick up layers of knowledge and experiences in life, make discoveries about the world around us, our place in it, and what it means to become a human. And then we spend the second half of our years releasing what we no longer need. Unbecoming all the things that have weighed us down in our former years.

Without that old baggage, we are once again on a voyage of discovery, but this time, it is a shift back to the center. We determine which layers to keep and which to release. Where to leave them behind, and when to heed the deeper call to step out of the safety of our cocoon.

Invincible Summer by Crystal Marie

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” ~Albert Camus

1. Making the Unofficial Official

2. How Do We Create a Life From Which We Don't Need to Escape?

3. https://www.instagram.com/susankelechiwatson/

4. https://otherpeoplesflowers.blogspot.com/2019/06/its-not-about-day-its-about-pattern.html

5. That calling deep inside knowing is pulling me out of the suburbs to the city, Chicago, to be closer to the art community and opportunities there, and to my family, my grandkids. Letting go requires me to give my landlord a 60 day notice without knowing if I’ll find an affordable place in time. Most rentals listed range from immediate occupancy or move in dates of only a month out. The housing market has also impacted the rental market, so rents have skyrocketed across the board and decisions have to be made quickly when those listings do pop up. And then there’s the little matter of raising enough money to cover the expenses of another move.

6.