Pretty Real Behind the Veil

I’m sure that it was noticed that I had to stay offline for a while. Why was not because of lack of motivation, desire, or enthusiasm. In fact in early 2010 I started losing ability to regulate vision, along with other sensory stuff, and I was lemonade especially around using computers are looking it anything with backlighting , and now I spend much of my time virtually in the dark. Recently I’ve been able to start doing some things online that I like this, using speech to type, and trying to grab some energy to continue to do artwork even in the dark, or at least extremely low light. Having “old people eyes”, that has a very finite tolerance period, as well, However I have explored frequently doing my drawings completely in the dark. When I’m at the doctors office sometimes I sketch while blindfolded from the harsh lights, using only my fingers of my op. cit. hand to the gates space and location on index cards. I’m always amazed at the drawings themselves that they are as coherent as they are. At those times I just draw what my mind is looking a.

I have lost some vision, some control over my vision, now intermittently have brief periods of total blindness and it has begun to affect other functional things like speech, so I’ve definitely had to make some difficult choices to preserve the function I have, and continue to do things that I love and be able to do them in the future. Blind services is working with me now, and I’m discovering more ways to express myself and connect, even from my bubble!!

I was one of his children, who was always afraid of the dark. It took a long, long time for that to change. And then this. There are no monsters that are chasing me now, or hiding in my closet or under my bed anymore, but I did want to make it a permanent part of my life, either. However at this point in my life, there’s been so much change over a half century, that I’ve almost become habituated to adjusting or adapting. like some sort of accelerated evolution. Each kind of change has inherently it’s own darknesses, and fear-evoking potential.

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While I can only speak for myself, I found that rather than fighting it, whether it involves tearing down, breaking down, unraveling, deconstructing, reconstituting, recycling, repurposing, rebuilding, cyborging in ways that I would never have found them until I was there, embracing the darkness when it comes, facing things for which there are no handy or convenient answers or solutions despite sometimes great fear, for me, by letting myself sit with it and not turn away, i e been able, quite to my surprise at times, that I was led to find, in those dark places, not monsters, but rather very important missing pieces of myself that really mattered, and needed to be processed and integrated. The darkness that I feared WAS me, too, and what I was avoiding were lost facets of myself that needed air and space. 🙂

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Being able to get so pulled into something that time and the world dissolve away, for example, was something that I always felt guilty about, because I had no sense of time space or physical needs. Now I’ve discovered that is a part of a larger gift, too. IIssas trying to tell me something important about what I need, my abilities that i have (vs disabilities or flaws), and is a beacon to things that I am passionate about, and really want to do, that I truly connect with, not merely things that I imagined I’m supposed to do or want to do.

External goals and structuring, for me, inhibit creative expression, so I just go with flow, and trust the process. What comes out is what needs to come out; my art is always trying to tell me something, as does everything that I do. Understanding the message may take more time to cook, but I think that’s how it needs to be for me. Whatever I am creating, external agendas and rigidly self-imposed ones, as well, inhibit me, and when I stop trying to control or don’t let others do that, my creative flow goes, and somehow always seems to work, however imperfect they may seem to the outside world, whether essays, posts, songs, singing, poems, or visual art, the best things come for me, when I let go to size the pool and I let go of the steering wheel and stop trying to drive the bus. Just trying to see what happens when I let go, always produces something interesting..

For me, it’s not about shutting out the controllers and critics who also have space in my head, or steeling myself to face that darkness when that child part of me is screaming, “run away!!” Giving space and focus to all of it when it comes, when it’s time, all feelings are liberating when they are given a place at my table. In my experience, if you’re lucky enough to have the ability to get lost in the process, I say fabulous!! Its a great gift!!! Give it room to grow!!

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