Somewhere Between Nirvana and a Nervous Breakdown

Yep. As I suspected it's been months since my first and only entry. At this point in my life I'll just have to accept this won't be a regular thing. Which leads me to this entry.

Since I began teaching (8 months ago), life has been overflowing. I wake up in the morning and find myself instantly "going" until I fall in bed at night. I am continually reminding myself that I have chosen this pace and that everything I'm doing is all good stuff. Still, I feel like maybe it's too much of a good thing...

I've realized that I'm often going to work (teaching) to relax. I have an amazing job at an alternative high school where my job description is to make art with the kids. The art room has become the ultimate studio for creating work that is spontaneous and inspired. Unlike my own studio where I often feel like I have an agenda, the art room at school is all about being in the moment.

Lesson plans don't work there and I never know who is going to decide to be in class on a given day. It's a lot like parenting. Having a plan is good, but be ready to throw it out the window. I can't imagine a better recipe for art making.

Last Friday was a particularly frenetic teaching day for some reason. The weather has been warming up and I think we all have Spring Fever so there was a lot of energy in the room. I have to throw in here that my family and I are also in the process of trying to find a new place to live. So in the midst of fielding a phone call from a prospective apartment complex (between classes), learning from my principal that I would have two new students (Zack and Zack) sitting in on my class, and answering a plethora of questions from my existing students, I found myself starting to giggle. Almost uncontrollably...but not quite.

In that moment, I couldn't think beyond what was happening right then. Amazingly, it felt exhilarating. It also felt absurd, hence the laughter. What went through my mind was that on the one hand I felt like I was on the verge on attaining enlightenment. On the other, I could have been on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and I wasn't clear on which side I was going to land.

So maybe, they're closer than I think?

Blind Sided

It's strange to be starting this blog. I've anticipated it for awhile now, but the first entry has seemed overly weighty and consequently I've avoided it. I think I've solved the dilemma by choosing not to publish it, which may be beside the point. But my plan is to begin writing and then see if I can be consistent enough to actually consider this a blog without embarrassing myself by advertising to the world that I am now a writer and please read my thoughts which are sure to rock your world...only to lose steam after a week and drop this thing entirely.

It's just that this has been a really bizarre holiday season for me this year, characterized by what I would call blind-siding episodes that feel like hit and runs. And they seemed to come at times when I was the most elated and joyous with the world around me, resulting in what felt like a roller coaster ride that lasted way too long.

The first shock was the phone call only days before Christmas revealing that Mary Bilochi, my gallery owner, had died suddenly. She was only 49 and left behind a 12 year old son. Denial was my first reaction. What has helped me face the reality of the situation are the numerous phone calls I have been making to the other artists she represented, because for some reason I have taken this responsibility on myself.

Consequently I have been swinging between moments with my own son, where I find myself deeply inhaling the smell of his hair, consciously giving thanks that he is in my life, to yet another retelling of the tragic story of Mary to another shocked artist on the other end of the phone.

Why I chose to be in this position, I'm still trying to figure out. Maybe it's my feeble attempt to hang onto part of Mary, because maybe I feel like I didn't do enough to save her when she was alive. What I am finding is that through these phone conversations I am connecting to other artists like myself, people whose work Mary admired but who never knew each other. By creating this network, I feel less alone in my loss.

I have a tendency in my own life to try and do too much, to overachieve, and like a two year old, to do it by myself. It sometimes takes tragic events for me to realize we are not alone in our struggles and that it's only through sharing our vulnerability and failures as well as our successes that we can live a happy life.