There it is - that quicksand Huxley describes.  Fear.  Despair.  And so instead I breathe through it,  cast away the fear and go forward. Optimism is a superpower.  And it weighs nearly nothing.

I've been pondering the muse.  That outrageous, ill-tempered, demanding and elusive being I love so much.  On the surface, it seems to be a dysfunctional relationship.  She appears to hold all the power and to have very precise requirements for her to remain with me.  She seems to be unpredictable and moody, unreliable and fickle.  And yet... what she requires are the very things my spirit thrives on - adequate rest, a slower pace, showing up every day to practice and create.  She wants regular infusions of adventure and new experiences, deep connections and exquisite, luxurious laziness.  She wants to surround me with good people and excellent food and the feeling of rain on my upturned face. 

And so, as I return to the studio after a brief (but much needed) time of family, connection and adventure, I see the muse nodding at me with bright eyes.  She hands me the brush and says "let's begin."

Simply put, making art is chancy - it doesn't mix well with predictability.  ART & FEAR

​But this repeated experience of being tickled into submission by the muse has been, frankly, transformative.  I really don't mind going with the flow  anymore - in art or in life.  I  mean, I'd rather things went down one particular path or another of course, but I have learned to stop and expand my thoughts to include good things that just might happen even if I trip and fall down a perilous path and land with bloodied knees.

​Uncertainty is the essential, inevitable and all-pervasive companion to your desire to make art.  And tolerance for uncertainty is the pre-requisite to succeeding.  ART & FEAR

Based on my level of tolerance, I have now clearly found my inevitable and essential companion.  He isn't exactly what I expected, and with a name like "Uncertainty", no wonder he was still single.  :)

I mean, really, how many of you have a narrator somewhere in there who whispers little untruths?  Like "you are not worthy of (insert your word here)" or, for artists "you are an imposter."  Some days I have to stop and ask myself "hey, who is telling this story, anyway?"  And then I decide  I want a new narrator.  Which I can have.  I wonder if Morgan Freeman is available?

If you can stand one more quote (hang in there, dear reader!), this one speaks to me of my own inner rebellion of the last couple of years along with maybe something more universal that we're all experiencing during tumultuous times:

I know, for me, it has taken half a century to cross some ocean in myself.  And finally, what I feel is what I say and what I say is what I mean.  What I mean is that others, so used to my gargantuan efforts to be good, don't understand my efforts to be real.  They find me coming up short.  But I'm simply burning old masks.

I promise not to burn my covid masks (of which I am curating quite a collection).  Just the odd metaphorical mask which stands between the real me and the world.