An artist's prayer

Dear Creator, allow me to make art with integrity, using my own voice. It’s the only one I really know anyway.

Give me patience that my art will find its audience, however big or small. One enthusiastic fan is worth a large, indifferent crowd.

Help me let go of my creations without expecting return. I’ll produce the quantity – you can be in charge of the quality and distribution.

Remind me to encourage other artists – young, brilliant artists. In this way, my art multiplies without me doing much work.

Allow me to be generous. Supporting and giving praise to other artists does not diminish my gift in the least.

Keep me from making comparisons. They foster jealousy and superiority – both places I do not want to live.

When I wonder if it’s worth it, help me remember, you too are a creator and want to see my gift flourish and heal others.

Let me know that shame has no place in my art. Give me the courage be outrageous, exuberant and tell the truth in the face of fear.

Assist my taking chances and risks. I know you hold the net.

Give me the courage to keep working in the face of discouragement, indifference and failure. They are to be expected when I take chances and try something new.

Surround me with trusted, encouraging voices. Let me be that for them.

When I am tempted to think too much of myself, I get nervous. Let me remember that sharing my art is a gift. In the end, it is about the receiver, not me.

Help me do the work today – it’ll pave the road for my success tomorrow.

Oh, and don’t let me forget the fun. Sometimes I get so grimly focused on end results, that I forget to play with this gift you gave me. Thanks!

Note: Thanks to Julia Cameron for the concept of quantity and quality from "The Artist's Way."

In the woods; then and now

I am five. I am in the woods in front of my house on the south side of Grand Island, NY. It’s winter and the forest is hushed with a muffle of snow. The trees are black and bare, like spiders against the pewter sky.

I am captivated by the silence and intimacy. It’s like a church, but spooky. I am intoxicated with freedom and independence. This is what is good about a large family. I can sometimes get lost.

Crunch, crunch, go the sticks and dried leaves under foot. I hit a smooth hard surface, brush away the snow with my vinyl boot and discover a mirror of ice. Underneath it are rotten leaves and black water, a glass paperweight.

I can skate! I run, and zoom on the smooth surface – my own private ice rink. In the middle of the pond, I hear a cracking and the ice groans and buckles under my feet. I try to run, but the ice traps my feet. The brackish sulphur-smelling water pours into my boots. It is only a foot deep, so I am safe, but shaken.

I slosh out of the pond and go home to stuff newspaper in my boots, fairly sure I will not receive a scolding; the first of many adventures.

I am fifty. I have left the comfort of a good job. The possibilities loom large. The silence of my home office is rarely broken. My time is my own. I am both exhilarated and terrified.

I make phone calls to prospective clients and meet with rejection. Press kits go out unnoticed. Calls to bars and restaurant owners result in tepid recollection.

I trudge on, practicing, creating, calling, writing and planning. I am shaken, but believe I am meant to be here and will find my path. 

Never let the odds keep you from pursuing what you know in your heart you were meant to do.
– Satchel Paige

I’ve-given-up-on-life pants

Aaron had no business wearing those pants, but with a 2 year-old and a newborn at home, we all understood. But, they were god-awful. No back or front, these khaki disasters had been hung wet on a hanger so the wrinkles were till death do they part.

They reminded me of the pants I sewed in 6^th grade home economics: no pockets or discernable back and front and an elastic waist. God-awful, rumply, saggy loser pants. The hens at work promptly named them “Aaron’s I’ve-given-up-on-life pants.”

That is now the term I use to describe anything that a person has just given up on. “I’ve-given-up-on-life body.” “I’ve-given-up-on-life boyfriend.” “I’ve-given-up-on-life job.” It’s when you’re shooting low and you don’t even pretend to care.

In my mid-twenties, after having two children, I gave up on being female. It was too hard to figure out fashion, fitness, and how to be sexy. It was all I could do to pull on my men’s Levis, large sweatshirt and brown oxford flats.

And my hair. I kept getting it cut shorter and shorter, hoping it would just get sucked into my skull like the retractable hair doll, Crissy, so I wouldn’t even have to deal with it.

Fast forward. I became a singer, the two kids left home and I got a divorce. Somewhere along that path I discovered my femininity and jeeze-o-pete, and I will never go back to Birkenstock’s. I won’t even appear in public without heels, lipstick and a low-cut top. It feels good to care.

What have you given up on? Your job? Relationships? Your weight or appearance? It gets harder to get up after life kicks our ass. It’s really tempting to pretend we don’t care and that life has no more blessings for us. And it’s dead wrong. Just ask my Mom.

Bunny is eighty years old and just had a visit to her sports medicine orthopedist. Her hip pain is beginning to affect her performance in Zumba class. She wants to get it fixed so she can start a water aerobics class on Thursdays. Not giving up on life just yet.