Embracing the Unknown

Embracimg my shadow in the darkness 1988 by Deborah Ann Lucas

When I read today’s newsletter, “Making with Darkness: The Unknown,” from Jeannine Ouelette’s “A Hundred Day Creative Practice–Day Fifty-ight,” I think of a blank page on my computer, a fresh canvas on an easel, or a new sheet of handmade deckled-edged watercolor paper taped on my desk in my art room. It all seems too precious to taint with any kind of creative mark without first deeply considering what it is I want to say and how to best communicate it.

It’s scary…and yet, I dive into a project with the smallest inspiration. Starting has never been my problem. It’s the follow through that I struggle with. And finishing. I have too many unfinished projects.

I have managed some success in the past, like when I published my memoir, Dance While the Fire Burns, last year with a glorious release party attended by all my friends who I hadn’t seen much of in a long time. I was revved up and ready to go on a book tour. But, two more surgeries disrupted my flow, and now we are moving because descending stairs has proven dangerous. I’ve endured six years of surgeries, pain, immobility, and rehab since my first leg infection.

My rehab assigned routine is another daily practice I usually don’t finish. I’ll do a couple of exercises and then I’m interrupted by a call, or a question from my husband, or a text from a friend…and then I don’t come back to it. But I keep trying to walk using my walker.

I had remained steadfast to my writing routine, especially when I was working on my books. But now I’m stuck.

Isolated for too long, I’m fighting to reach out and reconnect. My writing community doesn’t set expectations for me. Instead, they inspire me to get back to work. I hope I can respond to their good wishes and prayers by spending time in my studio and at my computer creating.

To help me resume writing every day, I signed up for Jeannine Ouellette’s 100 Days of Making and Writing. I must confess, although her newsletters have inspired me to write, I haven’t introduced myself to her community. I haven’t figured out the ins and outs of the workshop offerings. I have been reluctant to stand up and say, “Look at me. I’m struggling too.” I pray, when I do, I will feel from this pit of darkness their open arms welcoming me.

Another unknown aspect is my daily schedule. Other than two zooms, one I attend, the other I host, on Wednesday mornings, I have cleared my schedule. But that doesn’t mean all the rest of my calendar is mine to fill. We are trying to sell our home and often get instructions from our realtor like how we can improve the staging for an upcoming open house. We must cull and pack and yet always be ready for a showing with only two hours’ notice to pick up and make pretty.

Like today, I know I should be packing up my art supplies in my studio, my fabrics in my quilting room, and my life’s resource material in boxes and piles in my office. Photos need to be sorted and scanned before packing. Journals need to be labeled and tabbed to be ready for when I return to researching my next memoir. But instead, I am writing this and exploring old sketchbooks for a drawing to add to my post.

I live in the unknown when I create. As I attempt to reimagine my life after we move into Rockford, I ponder my identity, one separate and apart this reality, detached from my home of thirty years. Living on these twenty acres has been the only stability in my life after fifty moves (learn more about this in my memoir). Grounded in this place of peace and beauty, I created my brand, my writing, and my art–all connected to this sanctuary in the middle of someone else’s cornfields. It has been a place of rebirth and renewal. When we move out of Leaf River, will I still be Leaf River Writer? Will I still call my blog Down the Long Lane? Will my art page still be Trot Town Studios? Or will I bury my past by literally burying my 365 high-relief ceramic tiles that I spent two years carving and firing? They comprised my women’s empowerment space for my MFA. They have no place to go either.

In the noise of the city, will I be able to find enough peace long enough to create? I have a noisy head, and it takes breathwork and meditation while walking in nature to clear it. Instead of finding beauty and peace out the window and off my front porch, I’ll have to drive to a forest preserve to find it. Who will I be then…after we move?

A line near the end of Jeannine’s post, “To create a new thing from a genuine mystery that’s been resisting resolution” reminds me of three of my earlier Substack posts: “An Unlikely Writer,” “Perseverance,” and “Negative Space.” I might rewrite the latter to reflect the negative emotional space I am living in as I figure out–on a much deeper level than I ever have before–how to write from the darkness, in the darkness, and about the darkness. Being inspired to create surprises even me.