I’m sitting outside. We’ve had two weeks of cold and rain and today it’s sunny and beautiful. The birds are chirping. It almost feels like spring. Yesterday was nice too, but I drove to Austin for a meditation course which was indoors. During lunch I spent time outside just standing in the sun. That’s all I wanted to do was feel the sun on me.
Thanksgiving has come and gone. I am still doing all the things I’ve been doing to get into the holiday spirit - listening to Christmas carols, lighting candles in the mornings when it’s cold and dark - and I think it’s been working. I had the quietest Thanksgiving I’ve probably ever had and it may go down as one of my favorites. There were four of us. We ate and played Mexican Train and talked. That’s my idea of perfect. Also, it rained almost the whole day. I guess rain is the next best thing to cold. I just feel like the holidays should be spent huddled indoors around the hearth, which is what happened.
I started a new painting today. It’s part of my Thomas Jefferson high school series. It’s a painting of a turret that leads to an entrance to the cafeteria. It has a lot of details on it but so far I just blocked in the main colors. I think I’ll end up doing four, full-sized paintings and then some smaller versions, like 8x10 or 11x14. I guess small and full-size are relative to the artist. My full sizes are 16x20 and 18x24.
Thursday I’m meeting a client at a coffee shop up the street where I’d like to hang the paintings when I’m done. It was the client’s suggestion, so I’m thinking it’s some serendipity. I’ve never been there but I’ve seen photos of artist’s work hanging on the walls.
I’m currently reading The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. I tried reading it before but only got a third of the way through before I took it back to the library. This time around it’s giving me a lot to think about. Actually, it’s kind of blowing me away.
I’m at the beginning where he’s talking about resistance. One thing I’ve learned about myself over the years is that I’m afraid. Afraid of just about everything. I’m afraid of failure, afraid of success. I’m afraid of being known, and I’m afraid of being a nobody.
Somehow I made it to college without maturing much past the age of ten. Maybe not even that. I’ve spent a lot of years wanting to be great, to be lucky, to have it miraculously work out. I wanted life to fill me up because I was empty. I wanted the powers-that-be to make it easy for me so I didn’t have to work at anything.
I’m glad now that none of things happened. The truth is that I wanted to feel like a mature adult. I wanted to discover my autonomy, or what Steven Pressfield refers to as ‘self-sovereignty’. I wanted to feel grown. I feel a lot more grown than I did thirty years ago, but to be honest, I still want to feel grown.
I think I’m able to read the book now because I’m able to hear what he’s saying. I have come to the point in my life where I realize that one just has to work. Just paint. Or write. Or edit. Or whatever it is you do. Just work. Let go of outcomes. If you’re a writer, the publishing will happen. If you’re a painter, the sales will happen. If you’re a filmmaker, the audience will appear. Don’t worry about those things. Just keep working. Keep making it. Creating it.