The Underlying Undertow of Existence
or Do I really need to chop off my hair to restore my voice again?
I had a dream that I chopped my hair off in the back. I couldn’t see it but I knew it was shorter than I intended it to be. I had no way to see the front to even it out, so I spent most of the dream thinking I looked ridiculous. But when I finally found a mirror, I was surprised to see that the sides in the front were only a little uneven and the overall look wasn’t bad. It was a short scraggly bob that just needed cleaned up a bit.
It stuck with me this morning, so I looked up the dream symbolism online. Pretty universally, cutting off your own hair is interpreted to mean you’re going through a heavy transition season and owning your own power in the midst of it.
Reading that was like a jolt of awareness, of recognition that this decision to move and to restructure my life and career as an artist was the equivalent to a woman chopping off her hair to reclaim her power. To restore a sense of worth that radiates from the inside.
We’ve all witnessed that scene in a movie haven’t we? Where the mousy woman, used to just letting things happen to her, suddenly grabs a pair of scissors and chops her long hair off and emerges in the next scene with a new sense of freedom, power, control over her own destiny.
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
~Oscar Wilde
In all the activity of tending to the task list with some pretty good things happening for my career as an artist, I’ve been carrying an impending sense of dread for the coming move. The hoped for target budget for my rent and expenses means I will be “cutting a lot more hair” than I hoped to.
There’s no way to trim the budget without letting go of things I’ve grown accustomed to. I’ll lose some of the conveniences that I currently take for granted. I won’t have a garage for my car, or possibly any designated place to park for that matter. In unit laundry? A dishwasher? Will there be central AC or a bunch of ugly window units? I know I won’t be able to have it all.
There’s no way to trim the budget without losing square footage, which has me considering things like how to set up a living room that doubles as a studio and will I still be able to host my family for holidays and celebrations?
The only way to move and keep everything I currently have is to also keep paying the same rent I’m currently struggling to maintain.
The only way to keep from upsetting any of my current customer base is to keep pushing myself to do all the same things I currently do.
As I’ve begun implementing changes I need to make, a few have vocalized in email and private messages that they will not continue to purchase my classes if I do not continue to provide a lifetime of access to the recordings, or somehow accommodate them with the same level of free content that I was able to produce for my group on Facebook when the pandemic began. Thankfully only a few, but they came when I was feeling especially vulnerable.
Does it come as a surprise or does it just not matter, the toll that it’s taken on my health and my life to keep pushing myself to do these things? As if this online life that started when the pandemic began was a destination and not a detour we all needed to make?
Facebook’s changes in the algorithm have made it virtually impossible to maintain the same level of member involvement and enthusiasm without doubling down on my efforts. The ability to produce a workshop takes double, triple, quadruple effort in marketing and time to bring in a fraction of sales for online classes that was the norm when it all began. The cost of the host package to my website for adding an ever increasing number of courses with infinite access, increases exponentially.
Does it come as a surprise that I’m only one human, with no spouse or partner, business or otherwise, trying to finance and do all these things on my own, adding ball after ball to the juggling act?
I feel my defenses rising, along with my desire to over-explain and seek approval and wait for a green light from the universe and everyone else in it.
I’ve had this growing sense that wherever I land next is gonna look pretty awful, in the same way I thought my hair would in that dream.
This Restructuring of my life I’ve chosen to make began to feel more like a Reducing of my life. But then yesterday something happened to change my perspective.
Or maybe it was a culmination of things, but an interaction with a long time collector came just when I needed the reminder that my work, and life, has value. That this change, as hard or uncertain as it may be, is something I’ve chosen to allow me the stability I need to move out of survival mode.
For human and creative beings, life is ever evolving. The need to adjust and adapt accordingly, as old as mankind. But the fear of said change? Well that seems pretty engrained in the system. Feeling like we have no control can be scary.
Each year we celebrate the passing of time marked by the calendar on January 1st. We sing Happy Birthday, and gather to acknowledge anniversaries, significant achievements, and rites of passage. And yet we continue to fear what we see in the mirror, pouring millions of dollars into anti-aging serums and fast fashion to look young and stay relevant.
We harbor these ideals of what life is supposed to be, who we are supposed to be. We have categories to explain ourselves to other people and categories to put other people into so we can attempt to make sense of it all—to somehow maintain a sense of control, in the midst of what we know is the impossibility of controlling.
For the past four years, I have had the immense pleasure of managing to stay connected, and even widening said connection, to my art clients and workshop participants. I’ve worked alongside artists I only once was able to admire from afar.
When the pandemic began, you welcomed me into your homes via the screen of your computer and I’ve poured my heart and soul into each project, each class, each interview, each post I’ve written, and each product I’ve produced.
There have been powerful, tender, exquisite moments between us. I’ve watched you grow more confident in your own abilities as artists and humans too.
I did not take any of it for granted and had come to a better understanding of my own identity in the process.
Now that the world is opening back up, I'm longing for that personal connection to the participants in my workshops, whether online or in person; I’m also longing to make art and submit my work to shows and exhibits again. And I’m trying to return to a better balance between the admin demands of what I do and the creative practices that allow me to thrive.
This week I returned to my love of collage with a vengeance. The adrenaline pumping excitement I feel when I am sitting at the worktable piecing together elements and seeing new compositions appear reignited something in me I thought was lost.
The abstract landscapes appearing in my current series of work, filled with rusted, stained, painted papers in sandy vibrant desert hues and sky blues, are reminding me that I am a sojourner at heart. I’d removed that word from my profile when I added "Mentor” to what I do. I’m not sure why I thought I had to choose between the two.
“Human beings love the idea and the ideal of the eternal and the unchanging, but seem to meet that eternal only in the never ending invitation to see and experience the underlying unstoppable and changing nature of existence.”
~David Whyte
Life is ever changing, etching patterns of the past onto our hearts, in the lines of our faces, and the growth of our hair. Rust and aging have both gotten a bad rap. Neither can be controlled, both have destructive potential, yet neither are something to be feared. Each will leave an indelible mark on whatever or whomever it touches.
I’d forgotten myself in the midst of survival mode. I was beginning to lose track of my own voice, my own self, my own sense of worth, the indelible mark I’ve left in the places I’ve been. But I don’t need to chop off my hair to find it again.
This is not an ending. It is a returning, to the goals and pace of life that I was beginning to develop prior to the pandemic, while folding into those goals, things I never imagined I’d be able to achieve over the past four years.
This is not an ending. This is a returning of my own dang voice.
I’m grateful for it all. Sojourn on.
With love and gratitude,
Crystal Marie
The Moving Sale is Now Closed. Thank you to all who purchased my work and supplies.
Stay tuned for the reopening of my shop with new treasures and artwork.
Beautiful words, Crystal. Inspiring to my heart, as usual!
Good for you Chrystal! I too am leaving behind what doesn’t bring joy and returning to what does.