Wednesday, July 25, 2007

Flickering Light.

5 pm is magic hour here. You know what magic hour is....that time of day where the sunlight becomes yellow and reflects off everything so beautifully. Every building, every pebble, every piece of skin.

I hop into a bubble bath, body temperature, curtains wide open, under the flickering sunlight. Everything is beautiful. The branches and greenery outside. The birds in the trees, the patches of blue sky, the flickering of it all.

Sadly I feel a little...like a waste of space. I have lots to do that I haven't done yet and there is no one to blame but myself. I sit in luxurious beauty and it seems to highlight my flaws. I feel like a burden.

I know the feeling will pass, as it does, but it's exhausting all the same.

I hear people out in the street, in the distance, yammering their yammer. Men building things. People on the way to the post office. People going about their lives. I remember working a 9-5. I remember the team I worked for, the things I did. Toward the end my job was just ridiculous but before that, *before* that...I remember working like other people work. I remember a steady paycheck. I remember the security that only comes from clocking in and clocking out. How *easy* it is to be that person. And how much more...respect...you get for being that person. No matter what the position, if you clock in and out you get more respect than working on your own terms. Unless, of course, you're a self made millionaire.

I don't know why I'm so behind in my work and why I'm stressing out. I can pin it on the move but the move is now over. I can pin it on going away this weekend and not having time to start anything, but there was time. There was time this morning, in this morning that I dawdled away.

Urge.

And so I get to lay in a beautiful bubble bath in a beautiful world and feel like a waste of space.

Again, I know I can get over this. I know I can work harder. I know that I will.
It's just....
It's just....

Sometimes it's easier to clean toilets and bring home the dollars than to stay home and figure your hours. And I doubt anybody who isn't in this position will ever *get* that. I don't think they'll ever get the extra burden of not only relying on yourself but beating yourself up. The extra burden of being your own responsibility. Where your uniform is completely your own skin and nothing else.

That's it.
My uniform is my own skin.
And even when my skin is crawling, I must not take it off.

And even now, writing, I feel a spoiled brat.
I guess because so many people tell me how lucky I am. And I *am* lucky, very. I'm so blessed to be in the position where I can stay at home and work on my art.
It's just...
It's just that *also* they don't know how lucky *they are* too.
And if I ever tried to explain it...

It just wouldn't fly.

I don't even know where I'm going with this.

I don't even know if I should post this.

It's just...
the flickering light was beautiful today.
That was all I meant to write.

I bungled that as well.

5 comments:

cathy said...

BEING IS DOING.
soaking up the atmosphere of that dawn light and recognising the beauty in it is part of who you are as an artist. it is valuable work experience.your work brings beauty into other people's lives and nothing could be more worthwhile, anyone can be a worker bee. BE A QUEEN SARAH. hugs.

Unknown said...

Creativity is 60% self doubt, 30% tedium and 10% absolute ecstasy. The latter won't happen without the first 2.
love
FOM

Feijoa said...

I know what that's like. No one thinks you're legit cause you do stuff at midnight on Tuesday instead of 9am Monday morning. Course, they all secretly want to be you, without realising how hard it is. That's why they SUCK hahahahahhaahheeeee...

K said...

I don't know what it's like from you, except for what you write...but I know for myself I feel like my job never really 'ends'----and so there is no true rest. I LOVE being a mommy and I also work that 9-5 job on Mon and Thursdays too---and I don' tknow what I am trying to say except that---I wish there was no time...then it just wouldn't damned matter when I got things done..they'd just get done and I wouldn't feel so worn out and exhausted all the time---and I could stop crying----i just keep crying because I don't know how to fix it....
hugs..
Budderfligurl

Kay said...

Nicola once placed a quote on the fridge for me... I can't even remember where it was from but I wish I had it with me now.
Somehow without coming from that self doubt there is no meaning, no striving, no brilliance. In that gap, balanced between lives, until you are through it there is hesitation, no creativity, some angst ... perhaps at that point we must really stop thinking, switch off the mind, and feel the essence of our Being...