Day 120/Day 28: I'm Probably The Last To Know

Yesterday, surrounded by the quiet, darkening mountains, tucked into a tiny, warmly lit corner of the house, I realized I have no life whatsoever. In my urgency and panic to create a life filled with art, I have created a life filled, actually, with nothing in particular. Sure, I write a lot. But I do little else and soon, dear readers, even you will tire of reading about me washing the dishes and picking gnats out of Boyfriend's hair.

It was a size large wake-up call to sit down with my New Year's Resolutions and realize that I've missed the very point of being an artist: play. Creativity is doodling and wandering and pretending and imagining. Which I'll admit to doing on the page but certainly not off of it. Off the page, I'm just a sweatpant-clad chimp padding around my vinyl-sided cage between my feeding dish and the corner where I pee.

This suburban crucible may have been necessary for the intense creation of this book, I realize, but it's left me feeling a little shrunken and bland. And I found it interesting that in thinking about my NYRs, the only things I was clear on were my writing goals. As far as work is concerned, I've got a tractor beam on what I want. But the rest of my life is a bit grey.

So my NYR is simply to get a life, or create one. A life that involves interacting with other humans on a regular basis. One that makes it necessary to get dressed and put on eyeliner if not every day then most days of the week. A life filled with laughter, adventure and play. I want pleasant surprises and I have a feeling I have to leave the house in order to experience them.

Beyond that, I have come to another realization: I'm done with this city. It's a fine place and I've been here for the better part of twenty years, but I'm just not challenged or excited by it any more. When I think about leaving the house, there's nowhere I feel like going. When I think about getting a column or reading at an open mic, I don't want it to be here. I want a bigger pond, a grand adventure. A new environment to discover and create myself. What this means and where this means, I don't know.

Much of my NYR-writing process was discovering that I need to let go. I have been clamping down on the pieces of my life, trying to keep everything under control and only allowing one thing to change at a time. Well, I've ended up with something manageable but boring as hell. I have to let go into uncertainty and allow the things that want to change...to change. I have to test my assumptions about the way people and relationships will react.

I opened up The Artist's Way last night for the first time in months. Here is what I read: "The creative process is a process of surrender, not control."

Normally, NYRs give me that feeling of control. I have my list and I go about checking things off. But this year I have no list. I have a blindfold and a pin. I know the donkey's there, I just know it. But for now, I'm shuffling, hands stretched out and reaching, trying not to peek.