beginners club

it gets to be what it is

Hello Hello. I’m sitting here with my tea gone cold, our very large cat snuggled up on my hip but with a don’t touch me vibe, and the fear that my children will wake up at any moment. This fear is how I start every day. I love them deeply and wholeheartedly but they wake up very early my friends and so I have to wake up even earlier (usually 4-4:30am but sometimes 3:30am if I have some big stuff to unravel) to steal the hours where I can sit and ponder the question that’s led me here. The question “what’s true?” And so I am often blurry eyed but awake in the dark hours of the morning reading something, writing something, drawing something, or sometimes speaking something about this question out loud on my podcast.

It’s the question that saved me really. It’s what I’d been missing. I didn’t know you could feel truth in your body. That it settles in like a deep breath over you and eases you forward even when you’re afraid. That you could be afraid and relaxed at the same time! I had been trying to make smart decisions not honest ones. And I was miserable. I wasn’t sleeping. And when I did sleep my fists were balled up like I was ready to fight and my teeth clenched so hard my dentist kept offering me deep discounts on a night guard so he could rest easy that at least he’d done his part to save my mouth. I was angry and anxious, and my favorite part of the day was when 8pm came around and I probably wouldn’t get anymore work texts or emails so I could finally breathe…even though then I’d have insomnia and anxiety through the night. At least it was dark and quiet. I was hiding. But from the outside it didn’t make much sense. I had security. I had nothing to complain about on paper to the adulting committee. All the boxes were checked. I was at a loss and the days were misery on repeat. I was growing hopeless.

Then of course, as it quite often happens, I was saved by a book. The Way of Integrity by Martha Beck. Simply put (but don’t take my simple version go read it for yourself) she went on what she called an integrity cleanse, where in every moment she started to ask herself what was true. She vowed to try to only be honest and really search for what was true in all the corners of her life. It hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like someone gave me glasses and I could finally read the freeway signs. Ohhhhh shit. My life was full of lies; the job, the house, living in the state of California where there is no winter (I love winter), how I spent my time (not writing or making art ever), how I was parenting (I wanted to homeschool), and even some of the people I spent time with.

I had been avoiding what was true because I was scared. And I hadn’t been asking myself (for a long time) what I really wanted because I didn’t believe I could get it. My pants were on fire. So I burned it down. I quit the corporate job. We sold the house. Pulled the kids out of all the schools and we went traveling for a while in our Winnebago Brave named Wendy (she guides Peter home). And we decided to feel this what’s true thing out slowly, ever so slowly. It’s been a ride and epiphanies never come when you demand (kicking and begging) that they do…but I’ve appreciated every hard and beautiful moment of it. There’s no going back that’s for sure. We’re all in over here.

And so as they say; this is, at its heart, a come with me space not a look at me space. This is one human embracing what’s true for her in all its very awkward imperfection and then of course writing about it. I will happily be sharing my imperfect baby artist adventures here, in the hopes that they will inspire you to do the same; to show up and start something even if you don’t know how. At the very least I will provide you with a reason to have a chuckle at my attempts to draw, paint, and poem. This is the beginners club. It gets to be what it is. We begin to begin. One little brave truth at a time.

I’m so glad you’re here. And who are you? Feel free to say hello. Lots of love.