So said someone once, I do not remember who, or when, but I remembered it this morning as I was describing my recent reality to a friend. It changed, this reality of mine, and I do believe it changed once I begun to draw the portraits and write the stories.
Before that memorable day, before that walk on the beach on Christmas morning during which I explained to my husband exactly what I was going to do, my life was spent chiefly on reading. I would sit on the porch and read, sit on the couch and read, sit on my lovesit and read. I did some work, now and then, though slowly and reluctantly. Sometime I cooked and sometime I ate. But for the most part I lost myself in my books. There was nothing particularly interesting in my life, after all, nothing that could compete with the fascinating stories of the lives lived by others.
Oh, I thought of all those things I’d like to do, yes, I did think of them. I had plans, ideas and concepts, but they would go blurry and hazy in time. The longer I thought of them, considered them without taking action, the more insubstantial they seemed. Until they were gone, and all that was left was … nothing.
Of course, I did not seem lazy to myself. I did do this, and do that, and it would fill my day, and the days seemed busy enough as they were. Then the project came, then I begun to draw, then I begun to write. I enrolled into a drawing class to stretch my fingers and put them back into practice, I enrolled in a writing class to give my writing some momentum. I soon found out that it takes quite some time to draw a portrait. There is time spent on thinking, conceptualizing, finding the face to draw this week. Then there is time spent on drawing, time for creating a story, time for writing it, time for describing the process, time for sharing.
I found myself needing a lot of time in my week, suddenly. Time for my project, time for the classes, time for the thoughts that come as I experience myself in this new reality and time to describe and share them. Then there needs to be time to work, and time to prepare our move to France. Time for research, time for phone calls, time for meetings, time for shopping, planning, organizing.
I need a lot of time, much more time that I needed when I sat on the couch, reading. I need a lot of time and I have it. I realized today that there is plenty of time to accomplish everything that I need to accomplish, and the more I do the more time there is in which to do it.
The more I do, the more I create, the more I imagine and conceptualize, the more I stretch, the more I grow, the more I open. The more I create the more I can deal with, the more creation I can hold space for, the more change I can be present with.
“What a crazy idea this was”, I thought once “starting this project right before we are about to move to Europe. With all the work I need to do, I just added so much more”. I thought this, but it didn’t feel right. In fact it feels that what I do now is supporting myself. Supporting myself in being present here, being open here, in my life, as myself – as a writer, as a picture-maker, as a story-teller.
What I can open to, what I see, is useless to me unless it is what I am being. I am not a writer when I don’t write, I am not a painter when I don’t paint. But now I do, I do those things and I am those things, and I am myself much more fully, much more completely. And this Pausha, this full and complete Pausha, can move anywhere in the world. This Pausha is fearless and free to do anything she wants.
The Pausha who sat on the couch, reading about the lives of others, had no time, no energy and no strength for anything else. This Pausha can do anything she wants. Because she is doing anything she wants.
It was shaving my head that supported me when I first moved from Poland to America. It is my drawings and my stories, that are supporting me now.
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