small things
Last night I caught up with B. The last few weeks have been difficult for both of us, but we talked about working on something new together and that was energizing. Working with a partner feels like it offers more possibilities, feels more open-ended and generative right now. I want to develop some new ideas, start thinking in new directions. I have been circling the same things for a long time, it seems. I want to go deeper into something new, or develop a new angle or perspective on the themes that recur.
Dreams have been vivid and wild these days. Last night, I was involved in some sort of crime. I witnessed a murder (or was I an accessory?) and then I had to travel with this man for a while, show up at some events and act like nothing had happened. We were in a city. Some art festival or conference. I wheeled a shopping cart through the streets. I joined a yoga class on a stage while artists and performers milled about around me. It seemed, horrifyingly, like we were going to get away with it.
Later, in the dream, I was driving on the highway, but kept drifting to the shoulder. I could feel myself drifting, my head heavy, fighting sleep.
In a graduate poetry workshop a few years back, I had a student I liked very much, who said he "thought in books." He could only conceive of these large, sprawling, and ambitious projects. I remember feeling recognition, with my own three projects hanging over me in a kind of suspended animation. I think of him now, and remember how it was difficult for him to finish a small thing. To set a small creative goal and complete it. I recognize this, too.
I see it in the oversized textile projects I have in various stages of disarray around the room I call my studio. I see it in the boxes and boxes of notes and binders with early unfinished drafts. I see it in the elaborate, time-consuming menus I plan for dinner parties. I see it even in our old, too-large house. All always dazzling and rich with possibility, and all always beyond reach. I know this is not uncommon, but I wonder what purpose it serves. Fear of failure seems obvious, and likely part of it, but I wonder what else. A constant deferring of a certain kind of work. Resistance? Perhaps it's also about letting something go.
