A Dream & Something Missing

It’s Sunday evening. I’m sitting outside my apartment, writing in the company of others who live here. I’ve tried not to admit to this, but I’ve grown attached to this little corner between one side of DC and the other. It’s a community of the eccentric and the outliers, and I fit in too well. 

I wonder if other self-declared writers always feel like not wanting to write the way I do. It’s something I have to force myself to every week. I swear it feels as if I am working for someone else every time I sit down to work through a film or a piece of writing. Most of the time, I feel exhausted before I’ve even begun. And I just can’t understand how a self-chosen dream lies on such a delicate and shifting ability to convince one’s self to do the work.

But why? Is it the fear that makes it feel like an unwanted assignment, or is it that for most of my life writing has only come to me as an assignment, and I haven’t yet learned how to sever that phase from the other filled with liberty and timelessness?

And does it matter? Whether it comes naturally or through force? So long as a piece of writing is written or a painting is painted or a film is filmed, does it matter?

It does, because the difference between what comes naturally and what comes through force is what separates raw, unguarded art from self-conscious, restrained art. I noticed too, that because I’ve been academically trained to be a writer that writing comes harder and more forcefully than art and film, which I’ve discovered and pursued mostly on my own. I have no damaging history to sever it from. It’s all so new to me and just as frighting at times as writing is to me, but I’ve nothing to compare it to, no past glory or achievements, no history of praise and high expectations, no one to disappoint. On the contrary, with art and film, there’s mostly surprise, both for me and for the ones who’ve always known me as a writer. 

And I continue to surprise myself as I fight through every harbored fear, every abusive morning where one half of me sits by the bedside, beside the other half waiting with a long list of why I’m utterly useless and why the day isn’t worth rising for.  Today, for instance, I woke up an hour and a half late and I decided right then that I was good for nothing and it was a stupid idea I was trying to wake up early for anyways. But somehow, I got myself up, decided instead that I was going to go through with my plan, and I drove the van out to DC, arrived at 10 am, set up my bookshop by 10:30, and ended up having a beautiful day sitting by the parted side doors, staring like a kid for 5 hours at an image I’ve held in my mind for months, and which, only through some sort of divine help, I’ve managed to put together.

I realized too, that that’s the way it’s been with all my ideas. Eventually, eventually, I act on them, no matter how long it takes. I always have. Selling my art on the street, working for an artist, building a camper van, traveling the world, working in a refugee camp, recording a podcast with interesting strangers, making large paintings, having my own gallery show, publishing my poetry, leaving my marriage, living on my own, working at a hostel on a small island, studying poetry in Scotland, dropping out and studying filmmaking instead, becoming a filmmaker, acting on artistic visions I’ve ignored or declared impossible in the past, getting back into skating and biking after I’ve convinced myself I was too old, getting back on a horse after I also convinced myself it was too late…. 

Those are only the instances I can remember. I am certain there’s so many others. But maybe, after all, I am a lot braver and stronger than I had thought, and if I’ve defeated every preconceived notion and fought through almost every harbored fear, maybe there’s more I can do, maybe I can go further than the modest lot I’ve assigned for myself (I feel as if I already have). But if I, who could never have imagined putting together a film on my own, have done exactly that, why do I still find it so hard to believe that I could fulfill larger dreams of mine? 

I treat accomplishments in my life as if they happened by accident and not through an incredibly stubborn and strong will and hundreds of failed trials. I’ve seen the way a rooted belief in one’s mind shapes itself into reality, but could it also happen to me without the belief? What if I can never convince myself that my work is deserving but still find myself arriving where I’d dreamed of only through a child-like insistence. And I am, after all, just like child who cannot take a “no” even when I’ve no right to ask for a second cookie.

And perhaps, after all these months of planning yet another escape, I may stay here after all. Something about a talk I had with my uncle yesterday changed things for me, and despite my pride and the embarrassment of staying exactly where I’ve sworn to leave, he’s right to say that in leaving I lose all that I’ve built since coming here. Every time I move, I have to begin from scratch, which never bothered me before, in fact, that was exactly what I would want to happen, but for the first time in my life, there is something worthy that can be lost in my leaving and perhaps, I am losing more by remaining permanently in a state of movement and always telling myself, “But I’m leaving soon anyways.” In leaving and in wanting to leave, I lose.

There’s a voice in me that’s good with timing, at least when it comes to leaving or staying. I’ve only begun listening to it this past year, but it’s been right every time. I’ve tried to silence it. I cannot. It’s telling me to stay, for now.