Following the Path

Painting has been a path for me. To peace and joy. To discovering the endless, timeless dimension of love that is who I am. Who we all are. It is a long and winding path. Full of obstacles and confusion. But a path that has led me to where I am. A viewpoint on the road. The vista is breathtaking and life changing. And I know the road continues from here with many more vistas, and obstacles to come. And I am so grateful for this journey.

There are many many paths, many combinations of paths. They all lead to the exact same place. Your route is individual to you. Only you. And you have already found it. You are on it. Right now. Look around at your circumstances, look within to your heart. This IS your path. You are right where you should be! On your path. Wherever you are, you are on your path, on your journey.

Life is not a destination. It is a journey that never ends.

Painting, Art, has been one of my turns. One of the roads on my journey. And I'm so grateful I took that turn.

When I finally let myself explore art and creativity, it was for all the wrong reasons. I was single, divorced (3 times), mother of 3 teenagers, full time Bookkeeper and so very miserable. One of my favorite sayings was "I hate my job more than life itself". I was desperate to find safety and comfort and opportunity for my family, and work that was meaningful and not painful for me. I was deeply fearful that I hadn't, and wasn't, going to make that happen.

I didn't see any way that I could provide that security on my own. I needed a man who would provide that for me. Even though that had failed me many times. I just kept doing the same thing, hoping for a different outcome. I just needed to find a better man. One who could support me and my kids, provide safety, kindness, wisdom. I didn't believe in "True Love" any more. That had failed me. Not because he had stopped loving me, but because I had stopped loving him. That absolute conviction I had in the love I felt. The world changing, all consuming love I felt. It. Went. Away. So I wasn't looking for that. I needed to attract the right man, the right life partner. And to do that I needed to bring something more to the plate. Even though, looking at myself from this distance, I can see all I had to offer. I was loyal, loving, accepting, smart, empathetic, hard working, reasonable, practical, I was still relatively young and very passionate, in good physical shape, and pretty darn cute. I couldn't see any of that. And obviously, whatever I was wasn't enough. The proof was in my misery. This urge, this drive came from deep in my subconscious. I didn't think these thoughts clearly then. I was just driven to do whatever I needed to make my vision come to pass.

I was driven to wake up and be at the gym by 5:15 every morning, 6 days a week, to spend 1.5 hours working out, shower, hair, makeup, clothes and to work by 8:00 am. Working hard to secure my job and rise in the ranks, come home to making dinner, coercing kids into homework, chores, cleaning, shopping. Going out to have a social life, dating. Be everything to everybody. Be better.

And I was miserable. Drinking to numb myself to the terror and sadness that were inside. I felt like I was treading water in a bottomless pool filled with monsters circling just below my feet. Knowing that it was only a matter of time before I would wear out and slowly sink and be torn apart. I was just hoping my kids would be grown and self sufficient by then.

So. I decided my resume, as a human being, was lacking something. There must be something I wasn't doing that was keeping me from the life of comfort, safety, love and inner peace I was looking for.

I had tried religion, multiple times. Committing 100%. And that felt right for a time. Until it didn't.

I wanted to add Artist to my qualifications. People had called me creative because I was crafty, but I knew that wasn't real creativity. It wasn't Art.

Art was something I had always admired and envied in others, but was somehow denied me. Another of my favorite sayings was that I was an artist without an art. I felt I had all the negative traits associated with artists - moody, passionate, flighty, full of demons, alcoholic, prone to depression and despair, solitary, weird - but none of the benefits of love, respect and beauty. When I did career and personality testing, the tops choices for me were always Artist or Minister or Psychologist. So obviously, there was something wrong with the way I was doing life.

My first impulse was writing. I always loved to write, and read. In fact for most of my life writing was what I felt I was meant to do. And what scared me the most. I could get lost in my writing. In creating a world. In exploring the depths of my mind and heart. I would completely lose myself and the "real" world. I was afraid I would go so deep I wouldn't come back. Writing tears out pieces of myself and smears the blood and gore on the page. I was afraid it would consume me. That I would disclose my fraud to all the world and they would laugh and turn away.  Or burn me at the stake.

It had always felt like the thing that would prove my worth. To be a writer. To see my books on a shelf. To have people read my ideas and have that change their world, awaken them to a whole new way of being. To have them sit in rapt attention listening to me. Believing my words, Loving me. It was as if I could see that future. Feel it, live it. But it was a dream. And I would wake up and realize it wasn't real. That would take such a commitment of energy and time and heart. I wouldn't have what it takes. It would send me further into obsession, depression, illness, exhaustion. And What. If. I. Failed. That would be it. The dream gone. The reality of my worthlessness exposed for the world and me to see. Sham. Fraud. Talentless. Regular. Normal. Average. Nothing to write home about.

The risk was too high with writing. Besides, there are a bazillion writers in the world. Penniless, hopeless, miserable alcoholics holed up alone in some tiny, ugly apartment. Beating their brains day after day and getting nowhere. Right?

So I turned where I always turn when I'm trying to find answers in my life. To a book. And I found "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron. It gave me a process. A way to unlock my creativity. And through that process I distilled my choices down to Painting or Writing.

I hadn't done any painting, ever, in my life. Took no art classes in school. My electives were all academic to give me a better chance to go to college. But I had always been fascinated by artists. By color and beauty. And that came out in my explorations about creativity.

She had us write everyday, whatever came to mind. That led to a practice of almost automatic writing. Just writing down a question, and then letting the words pour from my pen without thought. And I was seeing insightful, wise answers that I felt came from somewhere else. Through me, not from me.

And I asked myself what I should commit to. What path should I take to add this "Creative" attribute to my Worthy Human Being resume? And then my hand drew a paintbrush. Just right there on my lined notebook paper. Clear as day. A paintbrush.

So I decided to pursue painting. That was 17 years ago, and I had no idea what I was getting into.

I'm going to continue this exploration of Art and why I do it in the coming days. Because I want to distill what it is I am trying to accomplish by teaching painting. Why it is so very important to me, even more important than the painting itself. It has changed me. Broken me. Opened me. brought me to a place of inner peace and self love that I never thought was possible for me. I want to share that with whoever else looks up at an intersection to read the street signs and sees that they are on the corner of Art street and Main Street. And they decide to make that turn.