Getting Lost in the Process of Getting Lost

April 27, 2022

I have this pattern, see.

I have this way of navigating each new catastrophe that rears its head and makes a name for itself in the annals of my timeline. Call it a coping mechanism, call it retreating into some other shade of existence, call it whatever. But one that appears has brought about a massive, and often positive, change in my trajectory.

This current moment in my timeline is no different. There are the normal complications that come with being a being, but I know those will all end up getting worked out eventually. That's just how it tends to go, no matter how much we try to fight it all the way back uphill. I learned a while ago to not waste the effort in futile or empty gestures.

But there are also a large, LARGE number of really great things (truly phenomenal things!) happening at the moment, much of which has emerged as new output from the last catastrophe. The painting being the most earthshaking of them. In my last post in mid-February, I said that I'd completed 66 paintings. Nearly two and a half months later, that number is just under 100 pieces and there is absolutely zero sign of slowing down. I have been implementing different techniques and finding that I really enjoy using the larger canvas sizes.

And this is part of the pattern, this left-side/right-side brain function that goes into hyperactivity. It's rarely ever both at once; the excess spills out of me in very analytical ways or very creative ways. There is a clear abundance of one over the other filling my veins at any given time and we have vacillated back toward the creative side of things. Just...not quite in the way I'd expected.

My last year in San Francisco was...rough. I was deeply unhappy, and I was pretty seriously injured from my job with the majority of my right arm and shoulder being super jacked up with a number of -itises and chronic tearing of labrums. Though it prevented me from doing the hard manual labor I'd been used to for all the years prior, I was able to spend five days a week at home, writing my ass off and finishing my second book. Massive, massive bout of creativity pouring forth then. I wrote at least nine of those stories in my last six months on the west coast.

I was also creating a ton of new DJ mixes, which hadn't been a thing for me in nearly six years. I made fifteen new mixes, all of differing genres, in the final eight months that I was there. More than I'd put out previously in the same kind of timeframe.

I have this pattern, see.

I scheduled a tattoo appointment with an old friend I used to DJ with way back when. He'd gone from commercial painting to skin painting, using henna as his medium. And fuck...he was so good at it. So when he began tattooing, I knew I wanted some of his art on my body. I gave him a batch of conceptual visual ideas for him to ruminate on and, when I came in to the shop to have the work done...it was the first time I'd seen any of it. And it was stunning. And perfect; a blend of the organic and the inorganic intertwined.

Memento mori, Latin for 'remember that you [have to] die,’ is a reminder of the inevitability of death. Commonly symbolized by objects like skulls, coffins, wilting flowers, and hourglasses.

The last time I'd had ink done, I had just finished my first year of grad school. The inkwell and the feather on my left arm were a reminder to myself to never stop writing. Ironic, then, that I would mostly stop a few short years later out of grief.

Before grad school, there was a five-year stint of undergrad where I tried to make up for the stupidity of my youth and finally finish my degrees. That trajectory began out of a breakup that I handled poorly (again, the stupidity of youth). I became hyper-focused on learning and reading and writing papers and burying myself in my work and then five years passed like five weeks.

I have this pattern, see.

And right now it's the creative side winning the war against the analytical. At least in terms of volume and in terms of quality. And this is okay for the moment, but it is untenable. A balance needs to be restruck because I am most definitely off my game. But I know it will all end up getting worked out eventually. That's just how it tends to go, no matter how much we try to fight it all the way back uphill. I learned a while ago to not waste the effort in futile or empty gestures.

Here are a few new pieces from the garage studio: